good, good, good
Prompt: day 17 - “you were never good enough”
Pairing: QZ!Joel x inexperienced!reader
WC: 5,117
Warnings/tags: dirty talk, PinV smut, oral (reader receiving) reader is insecure due to inexperience, praise, strangers to lovers(?), pet names
A/N: this one turned into a beast but I’m so happy with it. Literally wrote it throughout the work day so it’s barely edited oops @angsty-april
All things considered, you’d handled your first breakup incredibly well.
At 29, you should’ve already experienced all this. You should have known what you wanted in a man, you should’ve been well versed in dating and breakups and bad sex. But you aren’t. You haven’t dated, haven’t explored many options. Not that there were many avenues in the QZ. You don’t know what you like, if prefer being on top or bent over, but the one thing you do know you’ve experienced is bad sex.
You didn’t really blame your boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. He wasn’t well versed in the act either, and you both had been eachothers first when you fell into his bed three years ago.
He had tried…you think.
As you stuff your cunt full with your fingers, you realize you’re just as bad at trying as he was.
It’s hopeless and your fingers ache from all the different speeds and angles you had tried and with an irritated groan, you shove of your blankets from around your waist and ready yourself for the day.
You’re still aching, or you think you are, still swollen in your underwear, and you have to hold back frustrated groans as you walk back and forth, carrying the disease-ridden corpses to the large fire in the middle of the square.
When you break for lunch, you’re sweaty, pent and beyond irritated. Picking at your lunch tray, you press your chin into your palm, trying to ignore the way the brush of your denim sends jolts down your spine.
“All day.”
You pause, the unfamiliar voice catching you off guard and you look up, squinting in the summer sunlight at the figure that stands across the wooden table.
Joel is easily recognizable. You can’t say you know him but you know of him, a prominent worker and figure in the QZ. He’s broad, the fabric of his shirt spreading over his shoulders tight, the line of his mouth pressed even tighter.
“Huh?” You say after a moment when he doesn’t reply, just stares at you. Joel’s frown deepens.
“You got dumped,” he states, and you can see his fingers flex within his pockets. “What, nearly three weeks ago?”
“A-a month,” you whisper, bewildered as to why he’s talking to you and how he even knows that. “Why?”
“A month.” Joel hums, and sits down across from you. Beneath the wood, his knee brushes yours and you jolt, fingers tightening around your fork, and he pauses before templing his hands infront of his face.
“What?” You snap after several long seconds of silence, and Joel blinks, slow and contemplative.
“I have a good nose,” he says, dropping his hands. “Always have. And I’ve been smelling you all day.”
Your cheeks heat, and you subtly dip your nose to your arm. Joel laughs, the sound gravely and odd coming from a man like him. “I don’t mean like that.”
“What?” You say again and you feel stupid. Joel leans forward, a hand braced on the table as his eyes move up and down your frame.
“That stickiness between your thighs,” he murmurs, his voice now low so only you hear. “Been smellin’ it all day, darling. Guess you haven’t been properly fucked in a month.”
His words send you realing, your heart lodging into your throat and any type of response is lost to you. You stare at him, and he stares back, his jaw working as he drinks you in.
A smile spreads across his skin.
“Or maybe you haven’t been properly fucked, ever.”
You can feel the embarrassment crawl up your neck and you release your fork, folding your arms and shifting. You have to school your features not to display the buzz that jolts between your legs.
From his tan skin and seasoned eyes, you know Joel could, in his words, ‘properly fuck’. You aren’t sure why but you know this is a fact, you know his woman rarely leaves the bed unsatisfied and you’re suddenly too warm, too swollen under his gaze.
He raises an eyebrow. “Guess I’m right.”
“Could you do better?”
You aren’t sure where the boldness came from. You just know that you need to know the answer.
Joel doesn’t respond right away, but there’s a shimmer in his eyes as he rises to the bait. “Would you like to find out?”
You don’t give yourself a chance to think about your answer, about the consequences it could invoke. You nod, a singular movement of your head. He tilts his head, a small grin pulling at the corner of his mouth and your skin is practically buzzing.
“Mine or yours?” You ask, if not just to make the silence not so thick.
His grin grows wider, a lazy expression that has your blood heating. “Yours. I’ll be there around eight.”
Joel stands up just as easy as he sat down, and when he tosses you a wink, your thighs clench.
-
True to his word, Joel is in your bedroom, his head tilted and hands in his pocket as he stares at you at 8:03.
You’re dressed in cotton shorts and a buttoned up flannel, and despite the night air, you’re sweating. He stares at you like you’re already bare, already naked for him, and you shift uncontrollably under his gaze.
“Honey,” Joel says and it’s the softest he’s ever spoken. “You don’t have to do this.”
You shake your head. “No I- want to. I just- um. Don’t know a lot.”
Joel exhales through his nose, slow and measured, like he’s fighting the urge to roll his eyes—but not at you. At himself. “Yeah, I figured,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. Then his voice drops lower, rough but careful. “We don't have to do shit you don't want.”
His hands stay in his pockets as he takes a step closer. He moves like it’s nothing, like this isn’t making your heart thud so loud you're sure he can hear it.
“Tell me what you know.” he says instead of touching you right away. His voice is gravel under boots, quiet but impossible to ignore.
You swallow hard against the dryness in your throat before answering: “...Not much.” It's honest if nothing else.
Joel hums again like this isn’t news either before nodding toward the bed behind him with a jerk of his chin, sit down. When your legs carry you there on autopilot, wooden steps until fabric meets bare thighs, Joel drags one knee onto the mattress beside yours and pauses just long enough for nerves or anticipation, you can't tell which, to coil tight in your gut.
“First rule.” His fingers catch under your jaw without warning,not hard enough to hurt but firm enough that flinching doesn’t free it from him either when warmth floods up beneath skin where callouses scrape against softness there instead; thumb pressing gently along pulse point beneath ear while dark eyes hold yours prisoner just as easily. “Don't lie about what feels good.”
The words settle heavy between breaths drawn too quick already because Christ alive even this simple touch burns hotter than anything else has ever had.
Exhaling through his nose, Joel raises his hand to your face, fingers brushing your lower jaw before settling onto your neck. He’s warm, the callouses on his hand rough on your skin as he angles your face to the side, eyes tracking up the column of your throat.
“Breathe.” he commands, and he dips his face, his nose brushing your neck. You shiver, your spine ramrod straight.
“I am.” Your voice is a squeak of a whisper, and you think you can feel him smile against your skin.
Joel hums, amused, like he knows you’re lying. His breath is warm against your neck as his thumb presses a little harder into your pulse point, making your breath hitch again.
“No, you ain’t.” He murmurs the words right against your skin before pulling back just enough to catch your eye again. His gaze is dark, unreadable except for the faintest glint of something that makes heat pool low in your stomach. “You’re holdin’ it all in like someone’s gonna hear.” His other hand comes up and drags a single fingertip down the side of your throat until it rests over the hollow at its base. “Breathe,” he repeats softly before adding with just enough roughness to make you tremble: “Or I'll make ya.”
And God help you if that doesn't send another jolt straight through you. You exhale fully, breathing out your mouth and he runs his thumb along your jaw in quiet praise.
“Aint gonna rush,” he mutters, and his teeth graze your skin. “Unless that’s what you like.”
“I don’t know what I like,” you whisper, and you feel the shame of inexperience coloring your cheeks. “Not really.”
Joel pauses at that, pulling back just enough to study your face. His fingers stay where they are—anchoring, rough in a way that shouldn’t be soothing but somehow is.
“Then we figure it out,” he says simply, like it’s that easy. Like he hasn’t just taken the weight of your uncertainty and shouldered it without blinking. His thumb brushes over your bottom lip, testing, before his voice drops lower: “You tell me to stop anytime.”
The way he says it isn't a request or even really an order; more like a fact carved into stone between you both.
He waits until you nod before sliding his hand from your jaw to the back of your neck instead, firm but not unkind as he guides you forward into a first real kiss shared between basically strangers.
Joel tastes like coffee, his lips a little chapped but softer than you would’ve thought. He cradles your face, almost tenderly, and you open your jaw, licking at his tongue as he licks at yours and you feel the heat pooling in your belly, the need rising like a palpable thing on your skin. When he pulls back, his eyes are glassy and he stares at you. You blink back, uncertainty like an electric charge over you.
“I- sorry,” you whisper. “Was that bad?”
The edges of his lips kick up as he lets out a huff of a laugh, not unkindly. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, staring at you for a long moment, something in his eyes you can't quite decipher—then he shakes his head, a smile still playing at the corner of his mouth. “You ain't got no idea just how pretty you look like this, do you?”
He runs his hand through your hair before cupping the side of your face again. “Don't go apologizing for nothing just yet.”
His hands move to your shoulders and he pushes you down until you’re on your back, skirting over your hips and squeezing. You watch him quietly, chewing at your lip as his thumb brushes the skin of your lower stomach.
Your breath hitches, and his eyes flick to yours.
He’s really handsome. Like you just realized that fact.
Joel’s palm slides under the fabric of your flannel, cupping your ribs just below your breast and you exhale with a shaky breath. He removes his hand, fingers dipping to the buttons of your shirt.
Joel works the buttons open with a kind of easy efficiency that you can only get with practice, and it hits you that this is something he probably *is* practiced in—that your inexperience isn't going to make him shy away. His eyes roam over you hungrily, like he's studying every inch of skin he reveals. He's silent, too. Silent and focused. His fingers work with single-minded precision, until your shirt hangs open and he slides his palms up your belly, warm and firm. His hands are rough and big—callouses scraping softly against your skin as he spreads them flat against your ribs.
He lets out a low whistle at your naked chest, and you hope you aren’t blushing.
“Knew you’d be pretty.” he murmurs, and you are barely able to digest his words before his head dips and he takes a nipple into his mouth.
His lips are soft as the suckle, releasing with a light pop before his tongue licks slow strips on the skin. You gasp, hands gripping the sheets by your sides and his eyes track the movement. He pauses before shaking his head.
“Nuh uh,” he hums, and grabs your hands, moving them to his hair. “Hold here.”
“Oh.” You whisper, because words are hard to gather when he kisses and licks your skin like that.
You grip his hair without being told twice, fingers tangling in the strands. Joel hums against your skin, his hands moving lower as he trails kisses down to your belly button. He circles it with his tongue, his fingers playing lightly across the soft expanse of skin at the edge of your shorts, before his gaze flicks to yours again: “Lift your hips.”
His voice is a little rougher this time, his dark eyes darkening even further as you do exactly as you're told.
Joel removes your shorts and panties in one clean tug, and you’re naked beneath him while he’s still fully dressed. “This doesn’t seem fair.”
He glances down at himself, a smile on his lips as he sits up and tugs off his shirt. You sit up, and are nearly on autopilot as you run a hand down his bare chest.
He’s tanned and scarred but beautiful.
Warm to the touch, there’s a healed cut from his shoulder to the top of his peck, and you run your fingers over it lightly. You’re so enthralled with touching him that you forget you’re bare, forget that he’s watching you and that he’s only the second person in your life to see you naked.
Joel's eyes follow your touch, an almost indulgent gleam in them as he watches you trace the map of his skin, tracing every mark and scar without judgement, only curiosity. He doesn't say anything, doesn't tease you like a man with his ego might, he just lets you look. Lets you touch.
But when your fingers brush the waistband of his jeans, his hand catches your wrist, stopping you. The gesture is gentle but firm, and he tilts his head to meet your gaze, his voice even but lower than before: “Not yet.”
“Oh,” you breath, feeling exposed under his gaze. “Okay.”
You lay back down, your eyes never leaving his and Joel releases a slow breath. One hand on either of your knees, he slowly separates your legs, exposing your center to the night air.
You flush red hot, arms instinctively coming up to hide some part of yourself, and his mouth quirks.
“Don't,” he says simply, and it's hard to argue with that gravelly voice of his when it dips into an order you find yourself wanting to follow. His hands tighten on your knees, just enough to keep your legs where they are. His eyes are fixed on you, watching every nuance in your expression. “Don't cover yourself.”
You let your head fall back, staring at the ceiling above as your chest rises and falls too quickly. Your heart is beating so fast you're sure he can see it through your skin.
His left hand skates down your inner thigh, pausing before his eyes flick to yours and you break.
“Joel?”
“Hm?”
“Talk to me.”
A low chuckle rumbles from his chest as his fingers trace idle patterns on your thigh—close enough to where you want him that it’s maddening, but not close enough yet.
“Talk to you?” His thumb brushes higher, teasing along the crease of your leg before dipping just barely inward, not quite touching where you need him, but close enough to make your breath hitch. “What d'you wanna hear? That you're goddamn pretty laid out like this? That I've been thinkin' about how you'd sound when I finally got my mouth on ya?”
His other hand slides up to grip your hip as he leans down slightly, still watching you.
“Or,” he murmurs against the inside of your knee before nipping lightly there and making heat spike straight through already-overheated skin below. “How bad I want ya shaking before we're done.”
A moan slips past your lips, quiet and shaken and you squeeze your eyes shut. You barely knew him, and yet he was face first in your most intimate place. You want to please him. You want him to want you.
“Is it good?”
Joel exhales against your skin, warm, damp, so close to where you need him, before answering in a voice rough enough to drag shivers down your spine: “Fuckin' perfect.”
His thumb presses firm just below where you ache most before dragging upward in one slow stroke that makes your hips jerk off the mattress. He clicks his tongue at the movement but doesn’t scold, just tightens his grip on your thigh with a low, “Easy.”
He leans down and licks a slow stripe up through slick heat like he’s savoring it. His groan vibrates straight into you as he does it again, slower this time before pausing to murmur against trembling skin: “Yeah. You taste good too. Think you don’t?”
You’re panting, and you look down at him between your thighs. His pupils are blown and he’s so handsome you wonder how you never noticed before.
“I-“ you swallow, not sure if you should share this because it’s too emotional. Joel is here for your body, not your feelings. You squeeze your eyes shut. “N-nothing.”
His attention flicks back up to your face, sharp and focused in a way that makes the air feel too heavy to breathe. “Bullshit,” He says flatly. “Look at me.”
You open your eyes, and Joel is staring at you, gaze steady and dark. He's watching you with a kind of intensity you can't remember a man ever giving you before. “You were about to say something.” His voice is even, but there's an edge to it now, a command. “Say it.”
He's got you spread wide open on the bed, knees pushed apart, completely exposed for his hungry gaze.
“He wouldn’t say things like that,” you whisper, and you hate having this conversation while his tongue is inches from your cunt. “He talked but not, not like you.”
Joel stills completely for a heartbeat before exhaling sharply through his nose. His grip on your thigh tightens just enough to make you aware of the strength in those calloused hands before he deliberately relaxes it again.
“What’d he say?”
Your cheeks burn and you exhale, rushing the words out. “wasn’t good enough. I was never good enough at things like this,” You don’t look at him, letting your head fall back and your thighs shake in his hold. “but you’re nothing like that.”
“Good.” The word is rough, almost guttural as he leans back in without breaking eye contact. “Ain't him here right now.” His mouth brushes against overheated skin, making your breath catch all over again before adding with a low hum. “And I ain't ever gonna half-ass this for ya.”
Then he does what his words promise, shuts you up thoroughly by dragging his tongue through slick heat slow enough that you feel every damn second of it, pausing only to murmur against wet flesh when your hips jerk helplessly upward: “Yeah... there ya go.”
Joel doesn’t rush to get you off. Hes slow, taking his sweet, filthy time with long, deliberate licks that catch every nerve ending.
You squirm beneath him, your lips parted and eyes tight as his large arm drapes over your waist, pinning you in place. Chin lifting he stares at your puffy slit, fingers spreading you open so he can see just how needy you are.
“Look at ya,” he murmurs, a southern drawl rearing its head. “Absolutely good enough.”
He plants a closed-mouthed kiss to your cunt before working up your frame, his beard scraping your chest and chin before his lips slide over yours. You can taste yourself on his tongue.
His hand cups your jaw as he deepens the kiss, his other sliding down between your bodies. His fingers are rough as they trace your folds again—testing, teasing, before circling tight over where you need him most.
“Joel…” Your voice cracks on his name when he rubs slow circles just right, pressure toeing the line between not enough and too much. Slow, lazy strokes. No rhythm that would finish you, just selfish enjoyment of how your body responds to his touch. He swallows every sound you make like it's something special.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs against your lips—but his fingers don't stop moving. “Use them pretty words.”
Your head is fuzzy.
You blink, try to string words together in a coherent fashion. “Inside.”
“Inside?” He hums, withdrawing his fingers and pressing his hips to yours. He’s hard in his pants, and you give a broken echo of a moan at the pressure before you nod.
Joel exhales sharply at the nod, something hot and primal flashing in his eyes as he leans back just enough to yank open his belt buckle with one hand, teeth gritted. The sound of leather sliding free is loud in the quiet room.
“Yeah,” he rumbles, eyes dropping when denim finally gives way, shoving fabric down just enough to free himself without breaking contact for longer than absolutely necessary before pressing close again: “Inside where, sweetheart?”
His palm drags up your thigh possessively while calloused fingers tip your chin up, forcing you to meet that dark stare even as heat floods deeper between already-slick thighs below from sheer tone alone. No room left for doubt now about what exactly kind of man has crawled into bed with you.
“Say it.”
“Me,” you whisper, and he grips his length, the head red in his fist. “Inside me.”
Joel groans, a ragged, gravelly sound that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, He's watching you like he's ready to eat you—will eat you, if he has his way—and the thought makes your skin tingle in all the best ways, and all the worst.
He adjusts positions, hand moving from your jaw to your neck, calloused thumb brushing over your throat as he leans down over you, lips just a breath away from yours.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he murmurs, shifting closer until you can feel the heat of his skin against your inner thighs. “That what you want? Wanna feel me in you?”
The blunt head of his cock brushes over your clit and you jolt, mouth falling open and then he’s pushing in, your walls cradling him like a vice.
You choke on a gasp, feeling a stretch you hadn’t felt in weeks. It’s different than with your ex, and you feel warmer, tighter, brighter as Joel begins to move his hips. A hand braces by your head while the other paws at your breast, rolling a nipple between his fingers.
You have to look away, the intensity of his gaze, the look in his eyes—it's like he's trying to memorize every detail of how you look in that moment, searing the image into his mind—and it's like he's reaching right into your chest to grasp at something in you—the words escape against your will, “God, why are you so…?”
The hand at your breast moves to your chin, guiding it back to him, making you look at him. “No, don't hide from me.”
You scrunch up your nose because you don’t know him. He’s a neighbor, a passerby, a fellow survival. Someone you’d never considered all that deeply til now. Now he’s all you can feel; all you can want.
He kisses you and you close your eyes, bathing in the touch of his affections, your legs wrapping around his waist.
His mouth moves and he kisses and licks and bites everywhere he can reach, like he's trying to consume you through skin instead of food, desperate to get every scrap of everything he can from this. His hand slides down your body and you can feel callouses, rough and warm everywhere he touches. He pushes your leg higher, changing his angle so he can get deeper.
The kiss is more teeth than tongue, but you don't mind. It's everything you want, everything you didn’t know sex could be.
Theres a heat at the base of your spine, and your thigh twitches, your nails scraping lightly down his chest and he lowers himself, balancing on his elbow so he’s closer.
“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs into your hairline. “I know you’re close.”
You're shaking, hips twitching, begging in silence, but Joel just hums and keeps kissing you, completely lost in the filthy bliss of touching, stretching, and causation of making you this wet. This needy.
He's all coiled-up muscle, a coiled-up beast of a man, and you can feel how much he's trying to restrain himself, to not let it go too fast.
He nips and nibbles at your jaw and your throat, and his body is all heat and friction and power and weight, pressing you into the mattress. His hand finds its way back to your breast, his hand fitting over the curve of it as if it's made to be there and you snap.
Your legs tighten and back arches as waves and waves of pleasure explode over your skin. You’ve never felt an orgasm like this, not with your ex and certainly not with yourself. Water pricks at your eyes and you moan, loud and deep and Joel murmurs into your ear, praising you quietly as he fucks you though it.
Joel is murmuring things that barely register through your haze, telling you you're ‘so good’ and ‘so pretty’ and ‘can take it like such a good girl’, and you can feel yourself getting overwhelmed again, getting lost in him in a way you don't quite understand.
He kisses you again, and you can feel the change in his movements—from gentle to taking, his breath coming out a ragged rasp against your mouth, and you can't think about anything besides him, all his weight pressing on you, all you can feel is you’ve never felt this good.
“Thought I’d last longer, sweetheart,” Joel murmurs, and his thrusts become ragged. “Didn’t know you’d be so damn sweet.”
He groans, and your lashes flutter as you crane your neck, nipping at his lower lip. Pressing his face into your neck and braving one hand by your head, Joel pulls from you, his opposite hand fisting his cock until his spend shoots on your thigh.
For a moment, the only sound in the room is your mingled breathing—heavy and uneven. Joel exhales roughly against your skin before lifting his head to look at you. His dark eyes are still glazed over, but there's something soft in them now too.
“Alright?” He murmurs as he drags a thumb through the mess on your thigh, almost absently, like he can't help touching you even now.
You nod dumbly because words still feel impossible when he's looking at you like that. Like he’s seeing something more than just skin-deep.
Joel hums approvingly before shifting off of you, but instead of getting up or rolling away completely, his arm tugs you into him until your back is pressed against his chest. His fingers trace idle patterns over the bare skin of your hip like this is normal—like falling asleep tangled together after sex isn’t entirely new territory for both of you.
It’s quiet for a beat, and your heart begins to slow, your temperature returning to normal as understanding begins to dawn on you.
You had just fucked an essential stranger.
And it had been the best sex of your life.
You squirm, his arm warm around you and Joel grunts. “What?”
“Nothing,” you whisper, too quickly, and you feel him pause. “I just- that was-“
Joel makes a low sound in his throat as his nose brushes behind your ear. “Good, huh?”
There's a smugness in his voice beneath a rough, rumbling quality. You can feel his chest rumble with what might be a silent laugh as you squirm, and his hand tightens on your hip.
“yes.”
He presses a kiss to your shoulder as he says, “Just 'good’?”
It had been amazing.
“No, not just good,” you murmur, and you turn in his arms to face him. “But I think you know that.”
Joel grins, the expression stretching lazily over his features. You smile back before sitting up and tugging your flannel over your arms, button the first few to give yourself a little bit of decency.
“And…me?” You keep your tone quiet and your eyes down lest his disappointment be evident on his face.
Joel watches your fingers fumble with the buttons before catching your wrist, a grounding weight. His thumb strokes over your pulse point absently as he studies you.
“Better'n good,” he says simply, like that's all there is to it. But then his voice drops lower, rougher: “Didn't expect you to feel like that either.”
It's not flowery praise or sweet nothings—just honesty that lands somewhere deep in your chest anyway because Joel Miller doesn't seem like the kind of man who lies about things like this. His hand releases yours only to push back into his own hair with a tired sigh before falling back against the pillows behind him—but when you shift uncertainly beside him, half-wondering if this is where polite strangers say their goodbyes, one arm snakes out and drags you firmly against his side again without ceremony.
“Stay put,” he mutters into the dark. “Christ.”
You laugh lightly, and lay your cheek atop his shoulder. “You don’t um, have to stay. If you don’t want to. You don’t..owe me anything.”
Joel snorts, the sound rough with amusement, or maybe just exhaustion, as his arm tightens around you. “Ain't about owing.”
He shifts slightly beneath you, his free hand coming up to brush a thumb over your cheek in what might be an absent gesture if it weren’t so deliberate.
“I’ll stay," he mutters, quieter this time. Like it's that simple for him too.
Maybe it is.
The room settles into something quiet, the kind of silence that doesn’t demand filling as Joel’s breathing evens out next to you, warm against the back of your neck while calloused fingers trace idle shapes over the fabric of your flannel where it rides up at the waist.
Your eyelids grow heavy, and before you begin to drift, you feel his lips press a kiss to the slope of your neck, and you bite back a smile as you close your eyes.
x
AO3 link
Angsty April ML
Joel Miller ML
divider @strangergraphics












