#atmospheric... hot... the implications...

With nothing else to do on a weekend afternoon, you've been catching up on anime and drinking more coffee than is necessary. Anything to take your mind off of Suo's words and the implication of them.

Your phone lights up.

Sakura: i think suo needs you

You rub your eyes to make sure you read that right.

Not even a second goes by before the next text chimes in.

Sakura: he's being weird. saying u shouldn't come

What the fuck?

You text back.

Y/N: I'm coming over rn.

"How dare you invite her."

It's Suo, hissing behind the door. He sounds angry, furious even, like he wants to rip Sakura in half.

What sounds like grappling and muffled punching comes from the other side before Sakura opens the door, winded and sweating.

You don't give him a chance to greet you. "What's going on?"

It's already weird enough that Suo was talking to anyone like that, much less his best friend.

Sakura runs a hand through his hair. "I don't really know." His face goes beet-red all of a sudden. "He's being an idiot. Says he needs you one minute and then the next that you can't get anywhere near him."

This does absolutely nothing to illuminate your understanding of the situation.

Why hasn't Suo greeted you? Why, actually, is he nowhere in sight?

Sakura tracks your eye line.

"He got exposed to somethin'."

You can only blink.

From behind his bedroom door, you hear Suo let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Did we not agree that wouldn't be said?"

You turn, and Suo is leaning on his door frame, one arm bracketing his waist. He's wearing low-slung pajama bottoms and a tank top, kimono hanging loose about his shoulders.

You gulp.

He looks delicious.

But what takes you aback is is the pained look pulling his features taut, the way his eyes are glazed and bright with fever.

He also looks wrecked.

Your stomach dips, and you start clearing your throat to make up for how dry your mouth suddenly is.

"Hello, Y/N," Suo says, breaking into your obvious perusal of him. You flush hot at being caught, even as a zip of heat curls up your spine at the look in his eyes. It's almost approving.

"Are you sick?" you blurt out.

From behind you, Sakura snorts. "That's my cue to leave. Thank me later, asshole."

Suo grimaces and opens his mouth to say something. It falls shut just as the door does.

The atmosphere shifts as soon as the two of you are alone. What was imperceptible with Sakura's presence is now heavy, magnetic.

"You should go," Suo says softly.

The palm clutching the doorway slips, and Suo stumbles. Without thinking, you rush to his side, propping him up with two hands on his chest. Suo groans like you've shot him, and you drop your hands as quickly as you raised them.

"Suo, you're really starting to freak me out—"

"Now?" he interrupts, eyes fever-bright. "Now I'm freaking you out? Not the other day when you bolted?"

Where before it seemed he couldn't get far enough away from you, now it's like he doesn't know how to stop himself from touching you. He settles for a grip on your arms, bracketing you in place.

"Do you know what those idiots did to keep me distracted from my outburst?" He smiles bitterly. "They took me to a garden and made me smell flowers of all things, all so that I wouldn't drive myself mad at the thought of those cretins you used to date laying their hands on you. And somehow, whatever I was 'exposed to' made me like this."

He lets the kimono fall open, gesturing down his frame with sardonic pride. "Aching and hard for a woman who doesn't even want me."

Reasons you shouldn't do this rip through your head, the chief among them being that Suo is your friend.

"That's not true," is what you say instead.

Suo pushes off the door and collapses on the couch, a melodrama to his movements that nearly makes you grin.

His skin glows with a light sheen of sweat, his jawline working like he's fighting back a curse.

"You need me, don't you?'

Suo groans, scrubbing a palm down his face. "Y/N. Don't you dare be intimate with me as a favor."

"That's not why I'd let you fuck me," you say, smiling when he stops short. "You could work this out with someone else, right? But instead you complained enough to get Sakura to interfere and text me. It's me that you need, then. If I've read the situation right."

There's a beat where you worry you got it wrong.

And then Suo sits up, smiling slow and easy and full of bright, shining hope, and your heart practically stops.

"Sweetheart," he says, and the pet name alone makes your knees buckle. "Are you sure?"

You don't trust your voice.

You nod.

He moves faster than you can process, drawing you to his chest until you can hear his heart hammering against your ear.

"Let me show you good it can be." The words ghost along your temple. His voice hasn't lost that frantic, harried edge; it's as if he's afraid you'll disappear. One hand encircles your wrist, and he kisses your palm before placing it at the back of his neck. "Let me worship you the way you deserve."

You can feel yourself panting, and he's barely even touched you.

"Suo—"

He captures his name with a kiss, cupping your jaw and angling your head so he can lick into the seam of your mouth. Breaking away, he pressed open-mouthed kisses along your neck.

"You don't know what it was like to see you with them," he murmurs into your throat. "How often I had to break away to fuck my own fist like a rutting animal."

More. The word grows large in your head with every confession from Suo. You shuck the kimono from his shoulders, tracing your fingers down the column of his spine.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" you ask as he shivers into your touch.

"Cowardice. What else?"

It's rare for Suo to criticize himself so openly, but he continues, punctuating each sentence with a kiss to your jawline, your collarbone, back to your mouth.

"The fear of losing you in the capacity I had you. The fear of terrifying you with how much I feel for you. You've no idea how hard it's been to hold myself back, sweetheart."

Suo, for all his brilliance, is still human. You realize that now.

"Stop holding back then."

It's the permission he's been waiting for, if the predatory smirk sweeping over his face is any indication.

"Go in my room and take off your clothes," he directs, then leans in close to nip at your nose. "I don't trust myself not to rip them."

"No."

He arches a brow. "No?"

You loop your arms around his neck and tug him close. The ridge of his cock scoots along your belly.

Suo's face darkens with promise.

"You're not playing fair, Y/N."

"I've wanted you for a long time, Suo," you admit, heart pounding. "Part of worshiping someone is showing them how much you want them, right?"

Fingering the hem of his tank top, you press your hands gently into his stomach. Muscles jump under you, and Suo exhales sharply.

"Perfect girl," he breathes, looking at you with equal parts tenderness and heat. "Using my own logic against me."

He kisses you again, languid and slow.

"Just don't expect me to be gentle."

Even before the effects of whatever he was exposed to kicked in, Hayato's been obsessed with you. He's been able to keep a lid on it through sheer discipline, the only indicator of his torment the sizable callouses he's developed on his otherwise perfect hands.

Now that you're here in his arms, trembling and breathless in the way he's always wanted you, he knows he's going to imprint his ownership of you onto your very soul.

You match his fervent energy, nails scraping across his scalp and skin as you claw and clutch at him, trying to gain access to more.

"You're such a good kisser, Suo," you tell him, a little shy, and it only makes him harder.

"Good enough to call me Hayato?"

It's a request he normally wouldn't insist upon, but he needs to hear your sweet voice say his name. Needs to get you used to it by the time he's inside of you, pumping you full.

You flush and bury your head in his chest.

"Hayato," you mumble.

Adorable.

One finger goes under your chin.

"A little louder, perhaps?"

You glare up at him and bang him with your fist.

He catches it and scoops you into his arms, ignoring your squeak of protest when he lands on top of you in his bed. "Ah, yes. My ferocious little kitten."

He returns to your neck while his body presses yours down into the mattress. You feel like heaven, all soft curves and warm heat. He slots his thigh between yours, nudging your knees apart.

"You can act embarrassed all you like, darling. It doesn't lessen my desire for you in the least."

He drops the full weight of his hips into the cradle of your thighs. His thin pants do nothing to conceal how much you want him. It's almost like he can feel the heartbeat of your needy cunt through your jeans. Luckily, you're just as desperate to get him naked as he is you, and you both make quick work of shedding your clothes.

"In my head, I've always imagined I would draw this part out," Hayato says, filling his hands with your breasts and experimentally rolling a nipple between thumb and forefinger. His cock pulses on your belly, and you whine, squirming your hips up.

"I know, sweetheart. Need me here?"

He cups you in his hand, breathing in sharply at the throb of heat and slick beating into his palm.

"But now that we're here," he says, leaning in close and nosing your cheek, "all I can think of is making you mine."

The head of his cock slides between your folds. He can't tease you past this; the inviting warmth of your cunt is a siren call he can't ignore. He pushes into you in one smooth stroke, unable to choke back the whimper that feeling your bare cunt wrapped around his dick pulls out of him.

"Baby," he breathes.

He holds your face in one hand and watches you watch him working in and out of you, your breaths labored and frantic with desire.

"Hayato—" you gasp, followed by a shuddering moan he'll hear in his dreams. "Feels so good, oh my god - "

The chain holding down the beast inside of him snaps clean.

He manhandles you until you're folded in half beneath him, ankles dangling next to his earrings.

"Who gave you permission to have a pussy this fucking perfect?" he snarls, and feels a rush of pride at the way you react to his vulgar words. You like when he talks to you like this. Your walls suck and pull on him like they're confused on whether to drag his cock deeper or push him out. You say his name again, and Hayato knows he should be gentler, softer, touch you everywhere, but all he can is keep pounding mercilessly into the slick, wet heaven between your thighs.

He feels his orgasm approach before yours.

"I'm sorry, angel." His hips stutter. "Fucking gods, how do you feel so good?"

With a groan, he spills into you, his hands digging hard into the meat of your hips. He barely gives himself time to recover before pulling out, watching the pearly trails of cum oozing out.

"Don't worry." He cradles you in his arms, two fingers working his cum back into you. You twitch, oversensitive, trying to get away, but he holds you firm. "I'd never leave you unsatisfied. Not once. Not when I can see your face when I tell you how good my seed looks leaking from your cute little hole."

"Hayato!" You squirm, embarrassment blooming on your face.

He doesn't care. Your pussy is fluttering like a bird on the pads of his fingers, and you keep humping down into his hand like a bitch in heat.

He loosely collars your throat. Leans in to peck your lips and then your heat-suffused cheeks.

"Come on, then. Show me what those other useless pricks never got to see."

He was going to hide it, the innate possession he feels for you. Stopper it away in a glass so you'd never know how badly it hurt to see you with anyone other than him.

But the aphrodisiac in his blood doesn't care for reason.

It wants proof.

Your hips work faster. Suo can't help but smile at how much you want to please him.

"There's my girl," he coos encouragingly. His cock swells again, bumping your hip. "Look at you, spread open just for me ... You like showing me how good you can feel, huh?"

You like his praise as much as his vulgarity, and soon, you're canting forward, your teeth sinking into his chest as you cum.

"Hayato," you sigh out as you do, and the only reason he doesn't kiss you is so he can hear you say it again. "Oh, Hayato—"

He loses track of how many times he pulls you to the brink and tips you over, because he knows that he won't be satisfied until you're just as obsessed with him as he is with you.

taglist: @tootoomanycats, @shamelessdancer021

There are, you feel, worse fates than ending up marooned in Santorini wearing Jack Abbot’s clothes.

A plague of locusts, for one. Stepping on a lego barefoot perhaps. Or, in what may in fact be the cellar floor of human suffering, finally getting your suitcase back only to unzip it and find nothing inside but hideous hospital scrubs and lonely, misshapen shocks instead of your cute little outfits and your even cuter, very tiny bikinis you were supposed to be wearing on this trip.

And honestly that’s not entirely outside of the realm of possibility.

You packed at two in the morning with the executive function of a feral raccoon rifling through a gas station dumpster, so really the universe would be well within its rights to punish you.

This, then, was fine. More than fine. A salvageable situation. A win, even, if you angled your head and refused to inspect it too closely.

Except for the microscopic issue that his clothes smell like him.

Which you understood in a distant, theoretical way you know rain is wet or fire is hot or men’s clothes tend to smell like the men wearing them. 

But now you understand it in that immediate, full-body way of a person trapped inside the atmosphere of a man she is trying, with only moderate success, not to be weird about.

Tobacco. Leather. Something dry and woodsy underneath, oak maybe, something warm and stern and impossible to separate from him now that you’ve noticed it.

It smells like competence. Like an almost-choice. Like the split second before you do something you already know you’ll have to lie about later.

And now it’s all over you. In the collar. In the cuffs. In every breath you take like your lungs have joined the opposition. 

You huff it in like an addict and make your way into the living room. 

Rain taps steadily at the tall glass windows, turning the whole house dim and silver at the edges.

Most of the group has collapsed into the couch in various stages of damp-haired, wine-soft sprawl, limbs overlapping without much regard for ownership, all of them fixed on some black-and-white film flickering across the tv screen. 

The kitchen counter is crowded with wine glasses in varying stages of neglect, some nearly full, some reduced to lipstick ghosts and shallow red smears at the bottom, and you decide this is as good a moment as any to acquire one of your own.

You deserve it, after all.

You grab an unused glass and pour a generous amount.

From the end of the couch nearest to the kitchen, Victoria looks up from her phone, takes one look at you, and arches a brow. 

“Nice sweatshirt,” she remarks. “Should we be thanking you for your service?”

Your eyes drop to the enormous ARMY stamped across your chest, which, in hindsight, does feel a touch less subtle than you might have hoped. Not understated, exactly. More like a public service announcement.

“Lost suitcase,” you say, heat climbing to your face as you fuss with a sleeve that falls halfway over your hand. “Jack let me borrow something, so… blame the airline.”

Santos lets out a sharp little laugh from beside her, all pleased with herself before she’s even opened her mouth. Never a promising sign.

“That’s a new one. Usually people skip straight to admitting they’re sleeping with him.”

You sputter around a mouthful of wine, swallowing too fast, too badly, eyes watering as you whip around to glare at her over the rim of your glass.

“Trinity,” you stage-whisper, eyes huge. “Jesus Christ.”

“Who’s sleeping with who?”

Jack’s voice lands from somewhere directly behind you. 

You turn and there he is.

Grey sweatpants riding low on his hips, black t-shirt skimming a chest and shoulders broad enough to make the whole rest of the room look underbuilt, all of him calm and self-contained in a way that makes you feel, by contrast, like a person assembled in a rush from spare parts.

You force your eyes upward with considerable effort and bite your tongue hard enough to keep from openly staring. 

Santos is dead. Santos is dead and, before she dies, you are taking every single one of her beach towels. Let her drip-dry for the rest of the trip. Let her know hardship.

“Nobody,” you say quickly, then quicker, before somehow the first version had not been convincing enough. “No one is sleeping with anybody. There’s no sleeping happening. That is not a thing that is, um, happening.”

Jack gives you a quizzical look at that. You imagine he might be considering have you checked out.

Then his mouth tips at one corner. “Shame. For a second there it sounded interesting.”

Before you can scrape together anything remotely usable in reply, Jack is already moving past you, one hand catching lightly at your waist as he goes, casual, thoughtless, the absent sort of touch that means nothing to him and enough to shave several fiscal years off your life.

He heads straight for the couch, dropping into it.

Santos leans toward Victoria and mutters, in a voice carrying all the discretion of a car alarm, “Yeah. Real shame.”

You choose, with great maturity, not to acknowledge her. Which is easier to commit to in theory than in practice, especially when you turn toward the choice and realize your choices have narrowed to two.

One, the far corner, between Robby and the intern under a blanket that is doing a pathetic job of concealing whatever the hell is going on beneath it.

Or two, the open seat beside Jack.

You cross the room and lower yourself into the space next to him, careful to leave what you hope reads as a normal, socially unremarkable amount of distance between you.

He doesn’t look away from the movie.

“No need to get that defensive about your love life, kid,” he murmurs. “We’re all adults here.”

“I was not defensive,” you whisper back, which, admittedly, sounds suspiciously like the sort of thing a defensive person would say. You take a sip of wine. “It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.”

At that, Jack finally turns his head and looks at you properly. “So you are sleeping with someone?”

Dana’s eyes flick up from the movie, sharp and curious for exactly one second too long.

“Will you keep your voice down?” you hiss, then immediately drop yours lower still, because apparently hypocrisy is one more thing you’ll be sampling tonight. “No. I am not sleeping with anyone. And even if I were, that would be none of your business.”

He lifts both hands in surrender.

“Fair enough. Not my business,” he agrees. You exhale, which turns out to be premature, because then, after a beat, he adds, “Could’ve fooled the room. They seem to think everyone about you is my business.”

Your fingers twitch, and the wine makes its move, sloshing clean over the rim and splattering across the front of your — his sweatshirt in one dark, awful splash.

“Shit,” you blurt, already half setting the glass down, reaching for the hem in a burst of useless panic, like maybe if you rub at it fast enough you can bully time into reversing itself. “Jack, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just, you said that and I…”

“Hey,” he says, catching at your wrist before you can make the stain worse. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” you say, mortified. “I just spilled red wine all over your sweatshirt.”

“You spilled red wine on an old sweatshirt,” he corrects.

Before you can launch into a fresh round of apology, he leans in and lays a hand flat over the stained part of the sweatshirt like he’s assessing damage. Entirely practical. Entirely innocent. A normal thing to do when something has been spilled on his clothes.

Your body reacts like it has never encountered human contact before, going warm and taut all at once, every nerve abruptly standing at attention.

You become excruciatingly aware of the space between you, which is to say there almost isn’t any.

“It’ll wash out,” he concludes, drawing his hand away.

You swallow, still staring at the stain because the stain is safer to look at than his face. “I feel awful.”

“You look awful.” 

Your head flies up so fast your neck nearly protests. He catches the horror on your face and, finally, there it is, the quick flicker of amusement.

“Upset, I mean. More upset than I am.”

“Of course I’m upset. You were nice enough to let me borrow your clothes and within, what, an hour, I’ve turned one of them into a crime scene.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“It’s merlot on gray cotton. I ruined it.”

“It’s not ruined,” he says, easy as anything. “And even if it was, I’ve got more.” His eyes flick briefly to the sweatshirt. “I was going to let you keep it anyway.”

Your brain, already functioning at reduced capacity, latches onto I was going to let you keep it anyway and immediately begins behaving like it has never encountered a normal sentence before. Which is ridiculous. It is a sweatshirt. People loan each other sweatshirts all the time. Probably. In very casual, emotionally neutral circumstances. None of which feel remotely relevant here.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that happens,” you murmur, “when the airline loses your entire life. Murphy’s law ans all that.”

He laughs softly through his nose.

“What all was in the suitcase?”

“Everything,” you say. “Clothes, makeup, skincare, my will to live.” Then, because apparently embarrassment has made you reckless, you add, “My bikinis too, which was kind of the point of coming to Santorini in the first place.”

He is quiet for a second.

“Too bad,” he says. “Would’ve liked to see those.”

Santos lifts her head from the couch like a shark catching blood in the water.

“Gross,” she says. “Can you two either make out or shut up? Some of us are trying to watch sad people chain-smoke in peace.”

A quiet laugh ripples through the room. Dana hides hers behind her wineglass. Victoria doesn’t look up from her phone, but the corner of her mouth gives her away.

You lock your eyes on the television with the rigid focus of a person trying not to burst into flame in public.

Your face is hot enough to qualify as an environmental hazard. A flare-up risk. One loose spark away from requiring intervention.

Beside you, Jack shifts back into the couch, looking unbothered. 

“Good movie,” he murmurs.

You take a long sip of wine and decide, not for the first time, that the airline owes you financial compensation, emotional damages, and possibly a public apology.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

Your soft pants filled the room, along with the sound of occasional slurps. The atmosphere was hot, your pretty white lace crop top clinging to your body. “Ki- fuck please” you whine, lifting your head up from the pillows you were lying on. Your boyfriends head lifted from between your thighs, lower mouth already wet from your previous orgasms. His grip on your thighs didn’t wavering, the usual infuriating smirk placed on his face. “Baby, I’ve spoiled you all day. Let a man eat his dessert” and just like that, he balled up spit and spat it directly on your cunt, watching it roll down to your hole. You whimpered as you clenched around nothing, walls pulsating at the feeling. He smiled, before leaning back down to suck your clit softly.

The day had been one of the best birthdays ever with lots of gifts and praise from Riki. He organised a birthday dinner for you with all your girls, encouraging you to dress up. But he knew the moment you walk out of his bathroom in that tiny skirt and white lace crop top, he was done for. The top sat perfectly on your body, emphasising your chest and wrapping around you like a glove. The skirt, a basic black, yet nothing but normal. It was short enough to let your ass hang out if you bent in the wrong direction and he could practically see the black lace panties that clung to your sweet cunt underneath. He had to bite his tongue to stop him from saying something because at the end of the day, it was your special night and he didn’t want to ruin it.

And that’s how you ended up here, sprawled out on his bed, thighs wrap around his head. The short skirt long forgotten, and the pretty lace panties you wore specifically for him, ripped and thrown across the room somewhere. Your hands tangled into his hair, as you released another moan. He hummed against your cunt, sending vibrations through your body. “Feels so good” you slurred, drunk off the ecstasy he had been given you all night. 

His tongue worked relentless. Sliding up from your hole, to softly nip at your clit, eliciting a sharp moan from you. Your thighs clench against his head, gripping his hair into a make shift ponytail. “Baby fuck” you gasped as you felt his tongue slip into your hole. “She’s so wet, I slip in so easily angel. Do I get you this wet?” he spoke placing soft kisses over your clit. You hated how oblivious he acted, knowing damn well only he could get you like this. Your breathing laboured as you looked down to meet his dark covered with lust.  “Yes- god yes” he smirked before biting softly at the flesh on your thigh. His one hand untangled from your thigh and reached down to spread your cunt open. Your body twitched as you let out a whimper at the sensation. Your cunt was so sensitive from the previous orgasms already.

He continued eating you out, like someone who’s starved. Your walls pulsating against his tongue as the warmth in your stomach started growing even more. “Close princess?” He hummed against you. Your body jerked at the sensation. You couldn’t speak, too consumed in the pleasure. Your one hand gripped the bed sheets under you, and the other still in his hair, tugging the blonde locks. you began to grind against his mouth, chasing the high. “That’s it baby, use me” he spoke softly. “fuck ki” you whimper, the coil in your stomach tightening further.

He placed two of his fingers on your clit, rubbing harsh circles on it. You moaned out in pleasure at the sensation mixed with his tongue. “I’m gonna—, fuck ki!” you choked out loudly. Your body jerked as the coil finally broke, cum slipping out of your cunt slowly. He continued sucking and licking and slurping, like his life depended on it. Your eyebrows were furrowed, lips slightly parted as you threw your head back. You held his head in place as he helped you ride out your high, still eating you. He licked up the sweet juices, humming in satisfaction at the taste. “Too much!” You whimper becoming overstimulated, but too weak to move away from him.

“Riki did you—“ sunghoon stopped mid sentence as he took in the sight in front of him. Riki’s head between your thighs, you gasping for air from the orgasm. He knew it was wrong but still he felt his pants tighten. Riki lazily lifted his head as he heard the sound of sunghoon’s voice, while you, on the other hand, were to dazed to pick up on what was happening. “Did you need something?” He asked like this was the most normal thing in the world. “I- uh” sunghoon stuttered with red cheeks. “Gon’ keep on staring or join?” Riki smirked looking at you and then back at sunghoon. Sunghoon’s breath caught in his throat but before he said anything, he slipped inside, closing the door behind him. 

A tight, cold knot twisted deep in your gut. You locked your jaw until your teeth ached, the venom of his insult stinging like an open wound. "It's still early, Mr. Kang," you managed to force out, fighting to keep your voice level. "And your yard is indeed beautiful."

​"But beautiful isn’t enough to make rent or put some food on the table, isn't it?" he scoffed. He took a deliberate step forward, his heavy shadow stretching across the property line to swallow your tiny porch. "My Haerin, she’s graduating soon. Bright girl. Already planning for university, building her future. Not like you, drowning in poverty."

​Mrs. Kang nodded vigorously beside him, her lips pursed tightly. "We want the absolute best for our daughter. Good influences around her. People who aspire. Not a failure like you." she dragged her gaze pointedly from the peeling paint of your house back to your face, the unspoken warning painfully clear.

​The implication hung in the morning air, thick and suffocating. To them, you weren't a neighbor; you were a blight, a pathetic cautionary tale for their golden child. A sudden surge of impotent rage—hot, bitter, and entirely useless—churned in your chest. You wanted to lash out, to scream until your throat was raw, to rip apart their perfect, manicured facade. But the words died before they reached your tongue, completely strangled by the crushing, undeniable weight of their judgment.

​"Excuse me," you mumbled, the words tasting like ash. You spun on your heel and retreated into the dim, suffocating sanctuary of your house, the flimsy wooden door slapping shut behind you. Even through the thin walls, the faint but unmistakable sound of their condescending laughter tracked your retreat like a physical weight.

​You slumped against the peeling paint of the door, squeezing your eyes shut and gritting your teeth. Good influences. People who aspire. Their sanctimonious words ricocheted through the heavy silence of your living room, each syllable a fresh, jagged stab to your pride.

​Then, the quiet was broken by a low, wicked chuckle bubbling up from your chest. They're were so utterly blind with their arrogance. They had absolutely no idea about the hidden, illicit world you shared with their golden child—their perfect, 'innocent' Haerin. A perverse, delicious sense of revenge began to simmer in your veins, a dark and intoxicating counterpoint to the morning's humiliation. It was a secret weapon they would never see coming.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the afternoon, the harsh heat of the day had finally mellowed into a warm, golden haze. You were slouched on your rickety porch swing, nursing a lukewarm can of soda when she appeared.

​Haerin emerged from the crossroads. Her backpack hung casually over her shoulders, and her school uniform remained crisp and white in the soft afternoon light. Even from a distance, the striking, cat-like eyes of her was unmistakable. As her gaze locked onto yours, the soft—innocent curve of her lips shifted, revealing a sharp, undeniably mischievous spark.

​She tilting her head slightly like a curious feline as she scanned around. Her house are quiet; her parents were nowhere in sight. Those quick, darting eyes found yours again. A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk played at the corner of her mouth as she changed direction, walking straight toward your house, or toward you to be precise.

​Understanding the silent cue, you stood up and retreated back into the shadows of your living room. Your heart gave a sharp, triumphant thud against your ribs. The lingering, bitter sting of her parents' morning insults began to wash away, rapidly replaced by a potent rush of anticipation and a dark, thrilling resolve.

​Seconds later, Haerin slipped inside, bringing a gentle afternoon breeze and the sweet scent of cherry blossom shampoo. The stagnant air of your rental, usually so heavy with failure and melancholy, suddenly felt electric. Standing there in the dim light, still wearing her pristine uniform, she looked the very picture of pure, untouched innocence—the perfect, devastating lie.

"Oppa," she whispered. The word left her lips as a low, husky purr, a sound that never failed to send a hot shiver tracing down your spine. Those striking, cat-like eyes—usually so bright and carefully composed for the outside world—now held a heavy, hungry glint. It was a raw, unfiltered need that completely shattered her angelic facade.

If there had ever been a more comfortable pillow in Hawkins, no there wasn't. You had the best one. Nobody else could have it. And the duvet was so warm and fluffed up. While you were glad to be awake to experience the coziness, you almost wished you were still asleep. This was truly the perfect sleeping atmosphere.

Then, the pillow moved. It sunk slightly, then turned in towards you, draping a weighted arm across your back and pulling you in tight.

This is a high-tech pillow, you thought without much brain power. Then, it hit. Pillows didn't hug you. Pillows didn't adjust automatically. So what was under your head?

You lifted yourself up off the pillow, ignoring the rolling aches that were beginning to set in. As your eyes adjusted to the early morning light shining through the window, you realized that your pillow wasn't a pillow. It wasn't even a stuffed and fluffed piece of fabric. It was Eddie. Half of his torso was hidden under the duvet, but from what you could see, he was shirtless. You realized that you were shirtless at the same time that he popped an eye open.

For a moment, you stared down at him, trying quite hard to rationalize this. Had it just been that hot in the trailer last night? You knew Wayne was trying to cut back on the electricity bill, so maybe he'd just neglected any air conditioning? Or maybe you and Eddie had just... wanted to be closer? Get some skin to skin?

Jesus, why didn't you have your shirts on? It's not rocket science, it's just remembering. What was so wrong with your memory?

"Look who's alive," Eddie hummed, reaching his arm up and around you. "How's your head?"

"It hurts," you replied. "Why?"

"Well, because when people get totally shitfaced, they tend to wake up with a headache. Now, come back. You're warm."

Your brow furrowed as Eddie pulled you back down into his chest. So, you got wasted. That explained why you couldn't recall much. But it still rubbed you wrong that neither of you were totally dressed. No explanation you came up with seemed to fit just right. You opened your mouth to speak, but Eddie beat you to it.

"How's the rest of you feeling?" He ran his hand down your lower back. He stopped right where the hem of your pants should have been. But as he caressed the skin, not a barrier in sight, it slowly donned on you that you were missing a lot more than just a shirt. "Seemed to be feelin' pretty good last night, hm?"

"What?"

"I said, you seemed to be feeling pretty good last night. Are you still feeling good?"

"What?"

"Man, did I blow your eardrums out, too?" Eddie chuckled, looking down at you with mild amusement. "How do you feel? Good? Sore? Stiff? What?"

You stayed quiet for a beat, mulling over his words. Seemed to be feeling pretty good last night... blow your eardrums out, too... could be feeling good or sore...

Oh, my God; you slept with Eddie.

You jerked up from his chest, a look of alarm and confusion veiling your face. How would you even move forward from this? Were you safe? Was he drunk, too? Who started it? Should you lay back down, or do the walk of shame home? And why the hell was he smiling at you?

"You just clocked it, huh?" He asked gently.

You nodded, slightly too stunned to speak.

"Well, lay back down, and we'll talk about it. I don't think I'll be able to focus with your, um... assets, shall we say, in my face." He gave an encouraging tug, silently asking you to settle back in. Reluctantly, you did, although you opted for a real pillow this time. Not his chest.

For a moment, he didn't say anything. He just smiled and stroked your hair. The smile on his face had shifted from amusement to admiration. The only other time you had seen a look remotely like the one on Eddie's face was when you had put a bar creep in his place. Sometimes, he could still hear your voice in his head, asking the middle-aged man if he recommended his wife instead of him, since you weren't that into men. It still made him laugh.

"Your questions are written all over your face," he finally said, scratching your scalp. "Go ahead and ask."

"...were-- were we safe?"

"Yes, we were safe." He nodded. "I'm always safe."

"Were you drunk, too?"

Eddie let out a little chuckle. "I had, like, two shots. You had the rest of the bottle. I don't even think 'buzzed' was the right word for me."

"But you still... did it with me? Even though I was drunk?"

He bit his lip, clearly conflicted. "I... yeah, maybe that wasn't the smartest choice I've ever made," he admitted, hand stilling. "You really wanted it, and I tried to talk you out of it, but I didn't really try that hard. I'm sorry."

"I-- I'm not mad, Eddie; that was just... stupid." You rubbed your forehead.

"...if it helps," he slowly began. "You weren't the only one who wanted it."

Well, that changes things. Quite drastically, actually. You were the brave one that instigated it, but he wasn't entirely opposed to the idea. So, what happened next? Did you chalk it up to the tequila and move on? That ask seemed rather impossible.

"...what do we do about it?" You asked in a small voice.

"Not a whole lot we can do, sweetheart. We already had our fun. Can't exactly take that back, can we?" Eddie began to run his fingers through your hair now, working out the knots the two of you certainly helped to create.

"No, I mean going forward. How... do we just move on? Or..." The question hung in the air like a fog. Neither of you really knew what the best choice was, or what you wanted.

"I think that's entirely up to you," he offered. His other hand went to your waist, dragging you right up against his chest. "But the way I see it, there's three choices: we can say, 'woah, we shouldn't have done that, and we'll never do it again,' or we can explore it some more, or we can split right down the middle and discuss what being friends with benefits might look like. I'm fine with any of those. So, whatever you want, I'm okay doing."

"...Eddie, I don't know what I want," you mumbled, dropped your head down against his neck. He still smelled like cigarettes, even though he hadn't smoked in probably twelve hours or so. What time even was it?

"Aww..." He couldn't hide the grin plastered on his face. How was he supposed to when you hid so willingly against him, looking for comfort and reassurance? The hand that had been carefully untangling your hair stilled, opting to cup the back of your neck instead. "It's okay. You don't have to know right now."

"I want to know right now," you responded. "I don't want this to go unsolved."

"And we will work through it, I promise. But I know somebody's who's hungover, and I know she's hungry, and so am I. So, why don't we table this for now and go get some breakfast?" Eddie offered, tapping his fingers absently along your side.

"I don't want to eat. I want to figure this out."

"Wayne says you should never make a decision on an empty stomach."

"Wayne shouldn't be talking in a conversation about his nephew's affairs. That's weird."

His chest rumbled with gentle laughter under your cheek. You had a point there. It was sort of weird to be talking about his uncle when discussing a hookup. But, then again, he'd used up a lot of energy last night. Very little was going to come between him and some stale Honeycombs.

"You're right; I'm sorry," he conceded. "Let me ask you this: do you like me?"

You swallowed. If there was ever a time to tell someone how you really felt, it was definitely now. It should have been done before going straight from first base to fourth base. Not even first place; you were just in the dugout!

"You're hesitating..." Eddie sang gently. You didn't need to look up to see the smirk on his face; it was clear in his tone. "Does somebody have a crush?"

"I-- No...?"

"I'm very convinced. Good job. So if you like me, and--"

"Wait, wait, I didn't say--" You started to sit up, ready to plead the case you knew you didn't have.

"Shh..." The hand on your side slid up over your shoulder, up your neck, all the way up to your jaw. He held it carefully, like you were made of glass and there was an energetic child in the premises. "You don't have to say it. You hesitated, but you slept with me. Besides, I saw the way you looked at me the other day when I asked that waitress if she was single."

"I looked at you because it was embarrassing! Men are scary. But you don't get that."

He laughed. Fully, truly laughed. "Honey, I went to high school with Jason Carver, remember? I know how scary men can be. But you looked so dejected when I asked her. And the way your face lit up when she said she was engaged... I think that tells me a lot more than an answer to any question will."

"...you're supposed to be stupid," you grumbled, laying your head back in its spot against his neck. He didn't take his hand away from your cheek.

"I know. But I'm not. Crazy how that works. Anyways, if you like me, and I like you, maybe there's a clear option here."

Uh, pause a minute here. If Eddie liked you, then why did he flirt with every woman within a five-mile radius of Hawkins? And why did he ask the waitress if she was single? More importantly, why didn't he say anything? He was never shy about flirting, so why was it different when it came to you? The most you ever got were some pet names. And he only held your hand once. And it was at a haunted house, so you didn't get separated. It barely even counts.

"How come you never told me you liked me?" You inquired.

"I could ask you the same thing," he mused. "Well, I mean, I guess you sort of showed me. It's sort of hard not to assume that you like me when you put your hand down my--"

"All right, enough talking from you," you cut in, much to his amusement. "But I do like you. Okay?"

"That's very okay with me," Eddie affirmed. "So, do you want to just... roll with this? Maybe see where it takes us?"

"...yeah."

A warm wave of excitement rolled through Eddie's body. If he lived in a cartoon, he surely would have floated up into the air like he was smelling a freshly baked pie. Instead, he cast his eyes down to your little hiding spot. You looked so vulnerable, so comfortable... just perfect.

"Mm, look up at me for a minute?"

You tilted your chin up, surprised at just how close you were to Eddie's face. Close enough to feel his exhales ruffling the hair on the top of your head. His big brown eyes locked onto yours, sclerae still slightly red with sleep. You took in his long lashes, the way they curled up enough to almost touch his eyelids. The pitted marks on his cheeks from the acne he'd only recently gotten to clear up. The soft pink of his lips.

Within a blink, those soft, pink lips were pressed against yours. It stunned you for a moment. If he hadn't kissed you, you probably would have done it to him, but still, it was so sudden. And somehow, still the most tender thing you'd ever experienced.

"There," Eddie enounced, pulling back just enough to leave a small gap between your noses. "I figure that was kind of overdue, huh?"

All you could do was nod.

"I'm glad you agree." He tucked a loose section of your hair behind your ear. It immediately fell right back into the same place. "Now, I know you said it's weird to talk about Wayne at a time like this, but I'm seriously going to die if I don't eat within the next, like, four minutes. Do you want me to bring you something, or does your head hurt too much?"

"I can get up. I just need to figure out where my clothes are."

"Oh. Yeah..." Eddie rubbed the back of his neck, turning to look at the disaster he called a bedroom. Someone's pants hung off his desk chair "Good luck with that one."

“You— I can't believe you, you—” you tried to suppress your frustration and outrage to focus on the practical issue at hand. “How am I supposed to get back home?”

“Hm...” He closed his eyes again, lazily letting himself fall back down onto the bed, bouncing slightly on the springs from the impact, before replying in an equally nonchalant tone—

“You don't.”

For a moment, you only stared forward, slack-jawed and blinking as you processed it. Your eyebrows furrowed.

“You did this on purpose.”

It was a statement, not a question. But without any real note of disbelief or surprise — no, as soon as you processed the conclusion, it felt entirely unsurprising.

You only felt a bitter bile of anger begin to rise in your throat. Maybe in part at yourself, for your own gullibility. You could have — should have — predicted something of the sort.

You wanted to smack the smug grin off of his face when he spoke.

“Maybe.”

You took a deep breath, hands curling into fists.

“…And now I’m miles away from home.”

“Pretty much.” You could see the sly grin on his face growing wider, seemingly satisfied by your outrage. “Hey, don’t look so mad. You fell for it. Kinda your fault.”

A few seconds of quiet transpired, the significance and severity of the matter, and how trivially it was being treated, leaving you momentarily stunned into silence.

“The hell?” You stumbled as you climbed off the bed, standing in the small space of the room not taken up by the equally rather small bed, awkwardly crossing your arms over your naked chest. Your panic began to escalate. “Why?”

Instead of showing any acknowledgement of your obvious distress, his smile only seemed to get wider as he sat back upright. “Aw, come on, calm down. Let me explain.”

“No no no, I can't— I have to go home!” Your breathing grew rapid, your hands reached up and grasped harshly at your hair. “I was supposed to be back by now! I have to—”

Your eyes darted down to the floor, the sight of your clothes in a crumpled heap reminding you of your nakedness. With warmth of embarrassment rising to your face, you crouched down and began rapidly grasping at each piece you could make out in what faint light was available.

You heard rustling in the bed behind you.

“…What’re you doing?”

“Going home! I’ll go find someone to let me off!” Your tone was firm and blunt, leaving no room for negotiation. Perhaps you were being too harsh, considering you thought he didn’t have any malicious intent, just total lack of consideration… but no, that itself was enough to warrant your anger, you reasoned, given the severity of your situation.

You hated how he was so nonchalant and cheerful, even when you were at your angriest. It was one of many things that infuriated you about this man, in the short few weeks you’d known him.

Yes, it wasn't as if you even knew the man very well anyway. You had just happened to offer to help a handsome and very clearly lost foreign stranger find a specific location in the town, and talked a bit, and talked more on the way, and talked back and walked right up to the hotel — that much did make you hesitate just a moment, a brief halt in your steps from startle seeing all the familiar masked people all around that everyone in town resented so deeply, making the connections — but you'd still walked in nonetheless, in part from excitement, and in part the hand on your back that pushed you forward.

You knew a young, horny boy when you saw one. They had no patience, and were more than eager to get to the action part.

And you'd been looking for something immediate, so to speak. Fast enough to be home by midnight.

Thus, within mere minutes of meeting, you were being rutted into like an animal in some hotel bed.

Fucked in a way you'd never had before. A ferocity completely foreign to you, each movement so hard it made you see stars. Arms strong enough that they lifted your hips off the ground without any sign of strain. A degree of eagerness and enthusiasm you couldn't let go of. Girth that stretched you out fully, a way you'd never experienced, a way that kept you reminiscing about it for days.

But it wasn't as if you'd chosen to come back purely on your own volition.

You'd thought the matter a one-time thing, at least until you were — much to your total startle and panic at the time — approached by strange men in masks, asked if you were the person whose name they were looking for, and promptly, firmly escorted back to the same hotel as before.

After that, you'd just been summoned at random intervals. Sought out by the same men in masks as you made your way around town, told your presence was requested, and silently escorted back. You knew who they were, understood the people you were dealing with — but it was a temporary matter. Whatever he did for them wasn't your business.

Thus, most of your interactions were not very long, and did not consist of many words. You were rarely in the room for a few minutes before you were both naked and locked together between the legs.

And thus, you found yourself here.

You knew he was leaving. You'd come back to get one last thing off your chest. You just hadn't gotten that opportunity before things progressed.

You felt at the fabric of your clothes in the dim light, holding open one of the leg-holes of your undergarments, and moved to lift one of your legs to step into it, but before you could complete the motion, there was a creaking as the mattress shifted again, and you grunted as a pair of arms — with an unmistakable iron firmness of strength — wrapped around your waist, and you found yourself dropping your clothes as you were hoisted into the air.

“Hey—hey! You— mmf!”

You cut off as you were ungracefully spun over and dropped onto the bed, bouncing with the motion of the springs upon impact. You pushed yourself up on your forearms, but he let his weight fall back onto the bed beside you, wrapping an arm around your waist again, pulling you back down, lazy motions with no sense of urgency, but still firm enough to force you into compliance.

The total lack of acknowledgement of your distress was, you felt a biting sense of shame to admit to yourself, not unexpected — the man you’d chosen to keep seeing so many times was many things, but considerate was not generally among those traits. Knowing that this attitude was really nothing beyond exactly what you should expect only made you more frustrated, perhaps just as much at yourself as him.

“Don’t freak out so much. Everything’s fine.” With the same grip around your body, he pulled you close, an unsubtle beckoning for you to calm yourself. “See, I have something to tell y—”

“It absolutely is NOT!” Rage bubbled up in your gut, spilling out into your words. You writhed against the hold. His grip loosened, allowing you to tear yourself free and sit upright.

You turned your torso to face him, sitting on your calves. With a begrudging sigh that was clearly intended for you to hear, he followed suit, sitting upright beside you.

“Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, Ajax. I told you this was the last time I could come see you — for good.” You put your hand against the lower half of your face, fingers curling in a gesture of frustration. “And I told you this time I wasn't here for… ugh!”

Your mouth pulled into a taut line as you recalled the prior exchange a few hours earlier — you'd come in, pushed him away at first, tried to be serious, something about how you couldn't do that this time, that since he was going home, this would be where you two parted ways for good, contrary to his previous suggestion of coming back to see you again.

And that you had to tell him something.

Your attempt at cutting ties had been interrupted — the firmness with which you were grabbed and pushed down to the bed and the husky ‘shut up’ in your ear that had essentially been the end of the interaction, the memories of how easily you'd caved flooding your chest with shame in the present.

And thus, you’d ended up in the same act as every time before, and had never gotten to the important part of what you were trying to tell him.

"Come on, don't be like that.” His voice had a playful pout to it, one that made your blood boil. “Here I'm trying to tell you something nice, and you're getting all mad?"

You huffed a deep, frustrated breath, pinching the bridge of your nose.

"Fine. Fine! What is it?"

"In case you're not putting it together,” he said — perhaps with a hint of exasperation, as if your reactions thus far were needlessly dramatic — “You're coming home with me."

You stiffened, blinking a few times as you processed.

"That's— that's it? That was what you were going to tell me?" You breathed a deep, heavy sigh of exasperation. “I can't take a vacation now, I'd have to— I have to be back today! You couldn't have asked?”

That time, it was his turn to seem bewildered by your statement for a moment, shaking his head. As if your conclusion was somehow less logical than what he immediately followed with.

“Hm? Not a vacation. For good.” He patted the top of your head. “You're kinda slow sometimes, you know that?”

Your eyebrows raised up, body going still. You opened your mouth to speak, perhaps to clarify if you were hearing him correctly, but before you could get a word out, he sat upright, placing a hand on top of your head, pulling you in to lean in close.

“You're coming to live with me.” He pressed his forehead to yours, noses brushing together. “You can just forget about your work and rent or whatever it is you’re so worried about. It won’t be a problem anymore.”

You blinked, frozen stiff, too bewildered to even pull away.

If the dread showed on your face, he didn’t seem to notice at all, continuing on. “You can just leave everything behind. You'll never have to worry about anything again.” He leaned back, letting his head rest propped up against his hand, smushing the fleshy part of his face in a way that was almost childishly endearing.

A few moments of silence passed. You sat still, a myriad of horrible emotions twisting around in your gut. Panic, desperation, embarrassment, awkwardness—

Guilt.

Finally, after a few moments, your silence became enough to invoke an inquiry, albeit seemingly not doing any damage to his cheerfulness, which remained on his face and in his voice.

“…Well?” He shifted slightly in place — you didn’t miss the muscle that moved underneath the flesh. Something that had once attracted you, but now gave you a sense of unease on top of it all, realizing how much of a disadvantage you truly were at here, and moreover, just how bad of an idea it had been to storm over here, into an enclosed space, with information that could very well make him mad.

He tilted his head. Your silence indicated an obvious hesitation, which went against what seemed to be an expectation of enthusiasm. He seemed to come to his own conclusion as to why.

“Ah, don’t feel bad for my sake. It took some persuading on my end, but you don't have to thank me.”

You swallowed. Your eyebrows furrowed, you couldn’t look him in the eye, instead turning your gaze to your legs.

“I can't.”

Another few moments of silence followed. Something in his tone shifted.

“…You worried about your work or something? They'll figure it out when you don't show.” His face turned to a slight pout, corners of his mouth pulling taut. “Don’t worry about the small things. Come on. This is good.”

Unease crept up in your gut. “No, that’s— that’s not it.”

“…Mm? What is it, then?”

“That's what I was trying to tell you!” You words burst out of you in frustration, hands held up with your fingers curled in an equally exasperated gesture. “But you didn't let me finish what I was saying last night before you… you…”

Your face contorted with embarrassment, and you huffed in frustration, closing your eyes and burying your face in your hands.

“…You didn't seem to mind.”

“Oh, shut up.” It was all you could manage, through clenched teeth, muffled by your hands covering your face. “Just… God, this is too much…”

“Come on, what's wrong?” Albeit laden with a hint of slight frustration, he still had that upbeat tone — so damn obnoxious, so uncaring towards your obvious distress, trivializing as you'd found he always was, laughing off anything you were upset about as overdramatic or an overreaction. It made you grind your teeth in frustration and rage, at him, at the situation as a whole, and at yourself.

You just had to keep agreeing to come back. You couldn't have just refused. Your own impulses put you in this situation, and you knew it.

“That's— that's what I was trying to tell you before! This— God!” You pulled at your hair. You shuffled back, around him, desperately climbing out of bed again and backing towards the wall, disregarding your nakedness, anything to put distance between the two of you. "I didn't— I didn't agree to this! You didn't ask me if I wanted this!”

He didn't move to pull you back, but there was an ominous slowness to how he sat up and turned to face you. His smile twitched.

"Wow, you're being pretty harsh, huh? I'm an important person, you know. Kinda thought you'd be flattered.” His voice now gave way to very blatant irritation. “…A lot of people would be saying ‘thank you,’ yeah?”

He'd expected a positive response. Your lack of compliance — even a lack of gratitude — was unexpected enough to be offensive.

You felt uneasy. The bastard wanted you to be grateful.

Those alarm bells in the back of your head went off again. You were very familiar with them by now.

Perhaps you should have paid them more attention.

Even if you didn't have the other factor in the back of your mind, your gut vehemently rejected the notion outright, an instinct culminating from the nagging sense of unease and wariness you'd always felt around this man.

You had no trouble recalling how little self-control or regard for your will he had, what you'd quickly realized was simply an immutable personal trait. It was something that had caught your attention within your first meeting.

You fully acknowledged to yourself — not without a gut-twisting sensation of guilt — how easily you'd hopped into bed with the man.

But holding you down with force you couldn't have fought against even if you wanted to, shoving himself inside of you without ensuring you wanted to take it that far, putting his hand on your throat without asking and nearly choking you to unconsciousness—

It was hot. You would admit that much. It had turned you on more.

But at the same time, it had rung very loud alarms in your head.

You knew from experience — and what felt like common decency — that the vast majority of men asked about things like that the first time, before they knew with certainty the things you were and weren't okay with.

There was something wrong about that level of boldness — a complete lack of restraint or consideration for your feelings about certain actions, unhesitating to act on primal impulse with no regard for consequence. It gave you a sense of unease, telling you he was someone you should be cautious around. Someone to avoid anything serious with. The kind of man you should have a little fun with and then cut off, someone that presented a genuine danger if it ever went beyond that.

You remembered the flash of panic — the second time you'd hooked up, if you recalled correctly — when he put his mouth on your neck, started to bite and suckle on the skin.

How you'd squirmed, struggled to pull back, panicking at the thought of him leaving any marks that would be visible when you went home.

Wait, no, don't do that, listen—

You'd pushed your hands against his chest. You'd pressed your elbows to the mattress, pushing your body away from him.

His first response had been to grab your waist and pull you back and bite harder.

You'd had to struggle with force.

I'm serious! Stop— stop it—

Only then had he finally relented.

Fine, fine...

You had reflected on the matter that night, after he'd fallen asleep, after you'd slipped out and ran home and checked yourself in the mirror to be sure the mark wasn't visible.

If the first interaction had been a red flag, that second one had thus been a blaring horn right in your face.

But you’d gone back anyway. A fact that now stung in your chest, right along with the stomach acid that began to rise in your throat.

You'd figured it was fine. You knew from the beginning that he was only in your life temporarily. If anything, the situation was the perfect setup for a temporary relationship. The knowledge that he'd leave the area within a short time provided a clean break that would erase what you'd done without having to clean up the mess or worry about some unforeseen incident exposing your actions.

You’d anticipated an easy ending.

Not this.

You wouldn't have wanted this, even without that factor to consider.

“No, you're not — you're not getting it. I can't.” You tried to make your voice firm, but an obvious wavering panic shone through.

He sighed. “Come on. Whatever it is, it can't be that big of a deal. You can just forget about it. What is it, anyway?”

You bit your lip.

“I can't go with you.” It was all you could manage out.

His voice gave way to irritation. “Kinda feels like you're talking in circles here. What are you so hung up over?”

You gut felt as if it were twisting inside you. You curled your lips inward and bit down on them, tilting your head down, covering your eyes with your hand in a natural reflex of shame and dread and the utter discomfort of the confrontation looming before you.

You were quiet for a few moments, gathering your thoughts. As you lowered your hand, you could see him tilt his head with a soft hm? of curiosity, seemingly having noticed just how solemn and foreboding your own silent expression was.

You swallowed, took a deep breath, and squeezed your eyes shut. You clenched your jaw, holding your hands by your sides with stiff arms and clenched fists.

“I…”

The words wouldn't come out. You wanted them to, you wanted to get it over with and unload the painful burden of secrecy from your shoulders, to simply do it and be done with it all. The sooner you did, the sooner you could wipe your hands clean of it all, be done, move on.

And yet you wanted nothing more than to not say a word. The mere thought made your stomach church, an innate repulsion, the desire to look away and ignore the festering.

Each in equal push and pull, wanting nothing more than to be done with it all, yet shrinking away from the daunting trepidation of the act required to do so.

You put your hands up to cover your face.

“I’m married.”

Dead, empty silence, only subtly broken by the faint metallic groan as the ship pushed further through the water. You kept your hands buried in your hands, unable to bring yourself to look up, riding out the agonizingly long pause that followed.

There was no immediate outrage or shock. His tone was still genial, as if certain you’d said something else.

“…Mm? You’re what?”

You squeezed your eyes shut, nearly unable to bring yourself to say it again. You took a breath so deep your shoulders shifted.

“I'm married. I have a husband.”

“…”

“…”

You couldn’t bear to look up, but you couldn’t bear not to look, the trepidation and uncertainty of a reaction causing dread to swell up in your stomach. You put your hands down, but your gaze stayed pointed at the ground. Nonetheless, you could make out his face, still with that dumb grin, in a blank stupor.

“Aha… that's…”

A few seconds of silence passed.

“…Oh. You’re serious.”

His tone flattened out with the latter words, a blunt, observational statement.

You spoke through gritted teeth.

“Yes.”

Even still, in your peripheral vision as you opened your eyes again, you could see his expression barely changed, as if the shock was too much to even react to.

“…But you've been—”

“I know.”

“For over a month now—”

“I know!”

More quiet. Your fists clenched so hard your arms trembled.

And more agonizing moments passed. So silent, you heard a wave slosh against the outside wall.

It was broken by a laugh.

“Haha! Oh, that makes so much stuff make sense now.”

He held his hand up to his face in a gesture of amusement. You shifted uncomfortably in place, uncertain and uneasy with the unexpected response. It was as if he found it funny, not the immediate anger you’d anticipated.

“Ah, I've been such an idiot. You were always leaving so fast, and you never wanted to do anything around town…” He sighed, more like relief rather than any negative emotion. “Now I get it. You were covering your tracks, huh.” He turned his gaze back towards you. “And here you're mad at me for lying.”

The end statement cut like a knife. You bristled, muscles tensing.

“I didn't lie, I just didn't— I didn't say anything.”

He didn't answer verbally. The are-you-serious expression and tilt of his head said enough. You clenched your fists.

“Okay, fine, you— you have every right to be upset. I should have told you.”

“Oh, you think?”

“I get it! I'm sorry, okay? Is that what you want me to say? I am! I’m sorry! I feel awful about it! But I can’t change it now! And I didn't— I didn't mean for it to go on this long, it just…”

Guilt twisted into your chest at your next words, but you curled your fingers and forced them out.

“I was bored, he's at work all the time, and then I met you, and— you're a foreigner, and I knew you'd leave eventually, so there'd be no loose ends and it wouldn't get messy, and, and,” the words came out rapidly, you stumbled over them as heavy emotions stirred and clashed inside your chest. “—I didn't think it would go on this long, and it was never a serious thing anyway — and I told you that! You agreed to that!”

The corners of his mouth pulled taut.

“Yeah, that’s like the standard thing everyone is supposed to say. It doesn’t mean you mean it.”

“Well I did!” You clenched your jaw, balled your hands into fists. You felt your eyes water, a burning sensation. “I know this was really really bad, and I should have told you, and I feel — God, I feel terrible.” You buried your face in your hands, hot tears forming against your eyelashes as your voice strained with the urge to sob. “It's been eating me alive, okay? I know how awful it is, it just happened and—and I really tried to tell you, but—”

“No you didn't.”

You stiffened, freezing in place, looking back up at him with an uneasy startle.

“…Huh?”

The grin felt different now, the slightest shift in the expression that went from conveying a genuine cheerfulness, now seemingly forced onto his face, twitching. His voice carried an unmistakable passive-aggression, nearly making you wince.

“Oh, I'm not stupid. You never tried to tell me before now.” His eyes narrowed, gaze laden with palpable disdain, even through an otherwise pleasant expression. “You just figured the problem would make itself disappear once I was gone.”

You went quiet. Your stomach churned. You shrunk back against yourself.

“If I had to guess,” he continued, voice lowering to a quieter, darker tone, “you came here last night to tell me now so you don't have to feel as guilty about not telling him, yeah?”

You stiffened. It was the kind of blunt, but precise accuracy that carved deep into your chest, as he finished,

“Just so you can sleep a little easier.”

Your lower lip trembled.

“No, it’s— look, this— it doesn’t even matter! Be mad about it if you want to, it's not important now!” Misery and anger swelled in your chest — at yourself, at him, at everything. “It’s irrelevant! The point is, I told you, I need to go home, and I need to go home now. I can’t go with you — I’m not going with you, not now, not ever. You have to go find someone to let me off and take me home. I mean, I—I barely know you!”

You were rambling. And you knew you were rambling, the words spilling out of your mouth, you needed to stop, you couldn't stop, the pent-up stress of it all pouring out of you as your restraint fully broke.

“I need to get on my with life and forget about this. It was nice of you to ask me to go with you, but—”

“I didn't ask.”

You stopped short, blinking in momentary bewilderment.

“What?”

He slouched forward, resting his head on his hand once more.

“I didn't ask. I told you. I said, you're coming home with me. That's not a question, is it?”

You paused. Trepidation, wariness, anger, bewilderment, every jabbing and gut-twisting emotion the exchange had thus far produced pooled in your chest and rose up, climbing further up your body, as if the room were filling with water. You grit your teeth, miserable anger in your blood, in your voice.

“Did you not hear anything I just said?”

“No, I think I got it all.” There it was again, an artificial nonchalance, simultaneously sounding as if nothing were wrong, yet clearly communicating an antagonizing intent. “You were getting kind of repetitive towards the end there.”

Another few seconds passed.

“I'm married.”

“Uh-huh, definitely got that part the first time.”

“He'll have already noticed I haven’t come back all night! He’s probably worried about me!”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Your eyes welled with tears. The frustration turned to exasperation, desperate, miserable exhaustion. Your voice cracked as you begged.

“So you have to take me home.”

He shrugged.

“Nah.”

You hesitated yet again, blinking in stupor. It was as if you were punching a brick wall, unyielding, a barrier without any visible opening.

“What do you mean, ‘no’, you can’t just…” You trailed off in your bewilderment.

He held his hand out in a passive gesture. “Looks like the ship is still going the same way to me. I don't see why I have to do anything.”

Your mouth opened, closed, opened again, pushing for response, yet finding little coherent thought.

“…But…”

He waited, half-lidded eyes trailing up to your undoubtedly bewildered gaze. His mouth turned upward again, just ever so noticeable, as if your distress and confusion were entertaining.

It made you angry.

“Listen, you—” you stumbled over your words, letting your mouth run whatever your brain summoned without much thought. “It's not like something serious with you would ever work anyway, so—”

“Mm?” There was a visible shift in his expression. The former trace of amusement dissipated — the smile remained on his mouth, but it vanished from his eyes. “…What makes you say that?”

There was an unnerving edge to his tone. Awkward tension coiled in your stomach, the rush of panic increasing further still as you realized exactly what you'd just said.

“It’s not— I mean, it's— it’s just that…”

Your mouth opened and closed again, but nothing came out. Your eyes darted to the wall as you continued.

You recalled the sense of alarm again. All the unease you'd felt in the few weeks you'd known the man. The alarm bells in your head every time he'd acted in a way that you immediately noticed as far too bold and impulsive and violent and so utterly selfish for you to ever not feel wary, uneasy, afraid.

You swallowed. Your gaze darted around to anything in the room except him.

“You're just— you're really… intense.”

He rubbed the back of his head in a sheepish gesture. You didn't like the look on his face. The corners of his mouth twitched. His eyebrows furrowed a bit. His voice was a little too upbeat for the circumstances, but no longer passive-aggressive — rather, something darker subtly seeping into the tone.

"...Aha… what does that mean?”

Your hands clasped together against your chest reflexively, muscles tensing in awkwardness and dread, unable to take back the poor choice of wording.

"It's just — look, there's different — people look for different things depending on what they..."

You trailed off into awkward silence, unable to find adequate words. A moment passed.

Still, he seemed to grasp your meaning nonetheless.

"Ohhh, I see, it's that kind of deal.” His eyes narrowed just a bit. "You want to have your fun sleeping with one type of guy and then have another waiting at home, yeah?"

There was a gentle swish of the hair as his head tilted. His smile didn't falter as he added—

"Some loser."

You stiffened.

"I— hey, what the hell?" Your nose wrinkled with sudden, shocked offense. In spite of everything you'd done — every betrayal, every sin, every lie — your immediate reflex was defensive of someone you really did love. "What— what's that supposed to mean? You don't know anything about—"

"Nah, I know how that whole sort of thing works.”

The sheets shifted as he stood up. Your pulse spiked, you drew a sharp breath and took a step backwards, holding your hands to your chest defensively. Your back hit the wall in the attempt to step back, given the small space of the ship cabin. Your eyes darted to the door leading out a ways to your right, and you began to take a single side-step in the same direction, but he was already right in front of you in an instant.

A small, frail sound came out of your throat, the very beginnings of some words of protest, but he cut you off before you could speak, a hand far too firm for comfort grasping your jaw, voice still an unnerving amalgam of vexation and ominous joviality.

“You married some doormat so you could go sleep around without consequence, yeah?”

“No!” The response was immediate, instinctive. “It— it's not like that!”

There was no moment of silence of disbelief, no stammering as you struggled to process the accusation.

The words you were confronted with already existed in your mind. Gnawing away at your subconscious. Your vehement denial was pre-planned, anticipated, a decided response you'd formulated in your subconscious to an accusation not shocking in the slightest, having always lurked in the darkest corners of your thoughts.

“Aww, so you really did!” His fingers pinched at the flesh of your cheek, nudging your head. “You wouldn't get so defensive if I was wrong.”

Further tears pooled in your eyes, a lump forming in your throat.

“I didn't, I'm— I'm not…”

“Poor guy. That's rough.”

“No, I didn't! I have no reason to… this just happened, okay?” Your voice cracked with the strain and oncoming urge for tears, pitiful and high-pitched. “I didn't think about it.”

“No?” He tilted his head. “In that case, we must be a lot like each other then?”

You went silent. Nausea overwhelmed your body, each breath an attempt to soothe a feeling of sickness.

“…No… no, but— but that's not—”

“Right. Sure.” He ran a hand across your scalp, fingers lacing into your hair. “Ah, that does make sense. When you told me just now, I was wondering what kind of husband would let you go wandering around at night like you always were.”

Your jaw clenched. The tears escaped your eyes and began to run down your face.

The gnawing, black maw of guilt writhed around your chest, a crushing pain, constricting your body in place.

“You locked down some poor guy too spineless to tell you what to do,” He continued. “Probably doesn't ask too many questions either.”

“Stop.”

Your voice was weak, a quiet pleading. Your toes curled into the cold floor. You squeezed your eyes shut, not daring to look either in his eyes nor either of your unclothed bodies.

“But then you have to go hunt down something else that actually makes you feel good, yeah?”

”Stop.” You sniffled, summoning your boldness to look up at him. “You don't— you don't get to tell me anything about my life. You don't know anything!”

“Oh, I think I do.” His tone didn't give any leniency for your distress, entirely ignoring your obvious emotional turmoil. “In fact, I think you sought out someone like that to marry from the beginning.”

The grin on his face now rested entirely devoid of any pretense of pleasantness, only unadulterated, cruel derision.

“You needed someone that will forgive you, even when he does find out.”

You curled in on yourself, hands clasped close to your chest, as if you could somehow shrink away from the words that followed.

“And you know someone like me wouldn't.”

His hand moved to grasp your throat. You stiffened.

"What was it you said... intense? You really mean that I wouldn't let you walk all over me, right?”

“No!” You shook your head, anger rising up in your throat. “That's not it, I just wasn't thinking at all, you're— you don't get to talk like that to me!”

“Ah, there it is. You're just proving me right, you know.”

He opened his mouth to add something else — some other jab at your spirit, blatantly reveling in your misery and shame — but paused, features shifting to a momentary realization, having thought of some genuine inquiry.

“Hey, am I even the first guy you've gone behind his back with?”

You tensed. The question hit with such force you physically flinched, sucking in a sharp breath through your nostrils. More devastating than any of the antagonism that preceded it, gutting the last of your composure.

He straightened up, body moving back away from you just enough for your eyes to lock onto the motion, for your gaze to meet his.

Your lower lip trembled as you shrank back, hugging your body with your arms, vision blurring as your eyes squeezed shut, and your face scrunched up with unrestrained emotion.

That alone was more of an answer than words could have been.

“Ah. So now you feel bad, but you didn't feel bad enough the first, what, dozen times?”

You sniffled, features contorting with bitter fury that swelled in your chest. He leaned in closer, but your back was against the wall, unable to get away.

“No! I didn't— it wasn't—”

“Oh, my bad. Ten? Five? What number am I?”

“Shut up!”

Your hands reached forward and connected with his torso. You shoved him, jerking your full weight forward to push, a motion that came out of reflex, without any thought behind it.

A thump resounded off the floor as he staggered one step back. But nothing more than that. If he hadn't been leaning forward and not expecting it, you probably wouldn't have been able to move him at all.

Still, the reaction was immediate. His eyes seem to fixate on your form.

“Aw, you're that mad?”

His hand had already latched onto your wrist before you could pull away.

“Alright, alright. Tell you what.” His thumbs brushed over the skin below your eyes, wiping at the residue of tears. “You know what? You're right. It doesn't matter now. So… forget it.”

Any attempt at boldness failed you. Your arm shivered in his grasp, your voice confused and frail.

“…What?”

He rested his other hand on top of your head. It would have been a gentle gesture if not for the way he grasped and pulled on your hair.

"Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not forgiving you. But all your crying doesn't change the present, does it?”

You felt your body stiffen. Your shoulders tensed upward. He didn't miss a beat, nor react to what was undoubtedly a look of dread that crossed your face as he continued.

“And I mean, on my end, it's sort of complimentary, you know? It would be really different in the opposite position, but…”

Your feet shifted ever so slightly. A subconscious action, perhaps, an instinct of flight, to move towards the only exit.

The motion was enough for him to feel it. He pulled you closer in response.

“As long as you start to understand a little gratitude is in order, I'll still keep you.”

Your jaw hung slack, mouth slightly ajar. You blinked, a dull stare forward.

He tilted his head. “What? I told you that you're staying here a dozen times now. You really need to work on being a better listener.”

The daze lasted but only a moment. You jerked out of his grasp.

“You—”

You stumbled against the wall. The fear and dread didn't dissipate, but the frustration and desperation of it all burst into a surge of unrelenting fury, rushing through your blood, face scrunching up with bitter anger, a level greater than anything in the exchange thus far. Your voice curled into a nasty snarl.

“Goddammit, I don't want to go with you! I don't want this! I want to go HOME! What are you not understanding?!”

His hand latched into your hair.

Within a mere second, the room blurred around you, a rush of cold air on your skin. Your back slammed back down onto the bed, creaking with the sudden weight, knocking the breath out of you as a gutteral sound of surprise escaped your throat.

You didn't get a single second to even try to sit up, held down at your shoulders by incredible strength and body weight combined. Your eyes went wide as you looked up at him looming over you — likewise with an expression that had finally dropped any lingering pretense of warmth. His voice was near unrecognizable, low and growly, through clenched teeth.

“And I told you that's not happening. What are you not understanding?”

You recoiled in a reflex of intimidation. You chest heaved with quick, panicked breaths, frantically grasping at the hands locked onto your shoulders, holding you down. His hands tightened their grip against your struggling.

"I pulled a lot of strings to get approval to keep you, and now you don't want to? You'd rather go back to some pathetic, sniveling—”

“Shut UP!” You clawed at his hand, desperately jerking your body upwards in a hopeless attempt to pull away. “Don't talk about him like that, you—”

“Oh, and now you care so much about the guy?” His eyes narrowed. “Little late for that, isn't it?”

You opened your mouth to spit some insult in return, but your breath hitched as his body pressed down against yours. The sensation brought you back to acute awareness of your nakedness, something which you'd been so busy with arguing that you'd essentially forgotten.

More importantly, the firm sensation pressing against your thigh.

Your breath hitched. Your body stiffened, your voice came out not in the commanding, firm tone you'd intended, but soft, scared, desperate.

“Stop.” You squirmed. “I-I can't—”

“Oh, now you don't want it?” His voice was low and quiet, the mocking intonation biting. “You didn't mind at all just a little while ago.” He leaned down further, body pressed flat against yours, lowering his voice. “Remember?”

It felt as if there were a knot in your stomach. Shame and guilt and bitterness so consuming it was overwhelming. You shook your head, clenching your teeth, pushing against his chest.

“I know! I shouldn't have— just let me go, please…”

His hand latched onto your wrist, slamming it down against the mattress above your head, leaning down low, to speak directly into your ear.

“Just a few hours ago you had your legs wrapped around my waist…” He rolled his hips, grinding his cock against your mound. “If you felt so bad, you could've said ‘no’ then. But you didn't.”

You squeezed your eyes shut and thrashed. Your legs flailed, back arching as you struggled with every bit of strength you could muster, jerking your body up against his grip. A gutteral sound of desperation and fury poured from your throat with the exertion.

“Aw, you're being so mean.” His free hand grabbed your leg, forcefully shoving it to your side, so far it hurt. He moved forward, inserting his body into the space between your legs, ensuring you couldn't shut them again. His voice lowered.

“But I think I'm pretty good at getting you more agreeable.”

Your eyes widened. Your legs flailed as your heart began to pound harder, faster, drumming inside your chest.

“Hey— hey, don't you dare—”

It didn't require any build-up or preparation. You were both already naked. Fluid from a few hours prior still coated a thin layer in between your legs.

You threw your head back, gasping for air at the sudden, overwhelming sensation, body splitting apart to accommodate intrusion. Your free hand bolted out, grasping at his arm, a motion first intended as resistance, but quickly you found yourself clinging purely out of reflex, fingers curling into his skin.

“Ah— ah, ah fuck, God, you—” you cut off in a gasp for breath. “You…”

You didn't have a suitable word. Your mind melted against the sensations, and no word you could summon would possibly be as insulting and derogatory as you needed. You needed to retaliate, to fight, to express your loathing — but the shudder that ran up your spine overwhelmed your thoughts. The voice above you almost sounded distant through the haze, but you could make out the husky tone and labored breath that had not been there before.

“There you go.”

His breath shuddered. You could see the muscles in his torso contract with the motion, felt him twitch inside of you. He leaned in closer, voice dramatically low and husky, words intertwined with labored breaths.

"And you know what? He probably knows."

Your gaze turned to his, eyes widening with trepidation. The last shreds of the barrier surrounding your vulnerability collapsed, giving an opening, something to pry into. His eyes fixed on your face, savoring your fear.

"What, you think he's not wondering why you're out in the middle of the night?"

He leaned in towards you, hips rolling against your body. You gasped for air against his hold as the shockwaves of sensation through your nerves. His face nearly touched yours, voice shaken by the labored breaths, but derisive nonetheless.

"No one's that stupid."

You could feel his breath as he spoke against your face. You could make out the smug grin even through your blurred vision, voice laden with mirth.

"Maybe he's one of those freaks that likes it."

You clawed at his hand. He didn't so much as flinch. Your nails digging into his flesh only made his grin wider. The ridicule in his tone because more glaring, pure malevolent mockery.

"Hey, maybe we should go back. He could sit in the corner and watch us f—"

You heard the sound before you felt anything, thought anything. A harsh impact that reverberated across the room.

The motion was purely reflexive, an instinct of utter, unrestrained fury. You felt the impact against the firm heel of your free hand. His head jerked to the side with the action, a direct line of connection where your clenched hand swung through the air.

A moment of stillness passed. Too stunned to even react.

Slowly, he turned his face back towards you, expression slack-jawed, a momentary stupor. Dull, lightless eyes fixated on yours, a gaze that felt as if it clawed into your chest and tore into your flesh.

His pupils went wide. Within seconds, the pale skin had turned pink where your hand had connected, against the nose and the soft flesh just below the eye.

Pure silence followed. In the moment of quiet, a thin trail of blood began to run down from his nose.

And then, he smiled. A grin that stretched across his face, lips parting to expose his teeth.

You pulled your hand back as the realization of what you'd done settled in. Dread spiked like ice in your chest. You tried to pull your knees up, tried to curl in on yourself, but his body against yours, inside yours, kept you forced open, exposed, vulnerable to his will.

“I… I didn't mean to—”

You squealed as his body practically lunged inward. A sudden force and ferocity that had you thrashing, crying out, gasping as your vision spun. You felt the intrusion suddenly rush to rutting into your body with brutal, frenzied thrusts, so fast and so mercilessly harsh it rocked the bed against the wall.

His body leaned fully down against yours, face buried into the crook of your neck. His hands held your hips firmly, jerking your body with bruising, crushing force in time with each movement. Brutal, violent movements inside your body, eliciting uncontrollable, obscene sounds from your throat.

“Ah—ah! Oh God, fuck, I—” you cut off with a deep gasp, body shuddering as his cock rammed into a spot inside you that sent pleasure bursting through your system. “Stop— Ajax— AH!”

The sounds from your mouth were wanton, lewd, humiliating, but you couldn't stop them, despite trying with all your willpower to do so.

They cut off with a whimper as his mouth latched onto yours. Within a mere moment, he’d already forced his tongue into your mouth, a low moan accompanying the relentless thrusts. Your face scrunched up at the metallic flavor of blood that had run down to his lips.

You squeals and cries were muffled by his mouth. His hand pushed against the back of your thigh, forcing it up against your chest. A trail of saliva strung between your mouths as he pulled back, a manic hunger in his eyes as he looked down at you.

"Your hands are free."

A drop of blood dripped from his chin, onto your collarbone. His pupils were blown unnervingly wide, black nearly consuming the blue, hunger fixing its gaze on vulnerability. He leaned back into you.

"Come on. Fight it. Hurt me."

Your eyes watered. And you complied — out of desperation and rage, not any desire to fulfill his command, but compliance nonetheless.

Your fingers on one hand curled, latching into his hair. You pulled as hard as you could.

You felt him shudder.

Your fingernails on the other raked into his back, pressing so firmly you could feel them pulling and scraping at his skin.

His hips slammed into yours with force.

“Fuck, that's right, don't stop.” He murmured against your ear, strained by heaving breaths. “Keep going. Fight me.”

Your chest rose and fell with rapid, gasping breaths. You could barely think, overwhelmed by pleasure and rage that twisted and twined together into something sickly, a knot in your gut and throat that consumed your body whole.

Your hand balled into a fist, slamming into his back. Your nails scraped at his chest.

But you only felt his cock stiffen and twitch, felt his hips move faster, harder.

And then, for a moment, it slowed, ever so slightly. He raised his torso up, propped on his arms. He stared down at you, blood from his nose smeared against his face, across his lips that parted with a grin of unadulterated, manic glee.

“You never got what you needed without me.”

Hot tears ran down your face. Your lip trembled in futile fury. You could only force out the same word as before.

“Stop.” You swallowed, a lump burning in your throat. “Please—”

“That’s why you needed more,” he interrupted. “That's why you kept coming back to me.”

His grip latched onto your hair. He jerked your head back with painful force.

“You took your own clothes off. You got on the bed on your own.”

His gaze was fixed to yours. His breath was husky, breathy, laced with mirth and vitirol alike, watching the tears pour out of your eyes.

”You begged me to fuck you.”

You couldn't look away, gasping, squirming, whimpering. Your shoulders shook with a sob.

“You needed me.” His breaths heaved. His hips rolled into your body. “You don't even really want to go home, you just feel guilty. You'd regret it. You—” his hips slammed into you — “need this.”

But then, his expression shifted. His grip tightened. It was a person you'd never seen before, a ferocity and malice that felt wholly foreign.

“Or were you just gonna replace me? Go running to the next guy's bed, is that it?”

“No! No, I—” You whimpered, sniffling, shuddering gasps for breath. “I wouldn't, please don't— I'm sorry! I'm sorry…”

It scared you. Fear pounded in your chest. The apology came out by instinct, a desperate logical attempt to appease.

"Tell me then.” Each word was spoken through heavy, labeled breaths. “You didn't answer before. What number am I?"

You squirmed. Your lips curled inward and you bit down, shame and humiliation flooding into your chest. You squeezed your eyes shut and rapidly shook your head.

Your eyes went wide again as his grip crushed your shoulder.

"Tell me."

You hissed at the pain, drawing a sharp breath between your teeth, sniffling, gasping with a sob.

"F-five...” you took a few shuddering breaths, lungs desperate for air. "Please— please don't hurt me."

His eye twitched.

“Ahaha! God, you really couldn't help yourself, could you? You need this that much?”

The nausea was overwhelming. You felt your heartbeat pulsate in your skull.

“No, no I…” You swallowed, gasped, thrashed against the hold. “Please stop, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! No more…”

The negative emotions overwhelmed you. Amalgamating into a weight in your stomach of pure despair and misery, a feeling you couldn't escape, even as physical pleasure built up alongside it.

He slammed his hips with force. Another drop of blood splattered onto your stomach.

“You're sorry?”

“Yes! I'm sorry… please forgive me, please, I'm sorry, please—”

“Then act like you did before.” His grip turned so painful it made you cry out. “Come on. I know you remember. Do it.”

You hesitated. You hit your lip. The shame that coursed through you — both from the memory of what you'd done before, and the thought of those kinds of words leaving your mouth again — was a crushing weight in your chest.

But the pain of his grip was too much. You clenched your jaw, shivering across your body.

“Please…” you squeezed your eyes shut, “please, don't stop, please don't stop, i-it feels so good, please—”

His hips moved faster again, his hand released its grip on your thigh, coming to rest against the mattress. You could hear a satisfied laugh-like breath, shuddering with pleasure. But the next words came out as a firm comment nonetheless.

“Wrap your legs around me. Like you always did.”

You complied. They trembled against his skin.

In spite of it all, heat began to pool between your legs. His cock drove into spots inside of you that radiated pleasure against your will. You whimpered, a pitiful, desperate sound, closer to the cries of a little animal caught in the maw of its predator than anything human.

He leaned in again, smile widening with realization.

“That's it. Come on, give it to me.”

Your insides burned, spasmed, each beat of your heart pulsating hot blood through your veins, rushing through your throat and your chest and in between your legs. Your breasts swung back and forth with the movements, in rhythm with the smacking sound each time his hips rammed into you, each thrust sending a ripple through the softest flesh of your body.

Your eyes squeezed shut.

“Stop, stop…”

You didn't expect your begging to have any effect. You knew full well that the words came out interlaced with pleasure you couldn't mask, almost more of a moan than a plea. You knew he could feel your body begin to tremble. He leaned in further, forehead brushing against yours.

“Do it. Prove I'm right.”

The voice in your ear was too much. You whimpered as you shuddered, clenching down on him. A high-pitched whine as you rode out the peak of sensation, shoulders racking with another sob, legs quivering.

But it only lasted for a moment, as it always did. As was the nature of the act — all the effort and movement for but a fleeting moment of bliss. The one comfort you could take was the way it wiped your mind blank, devoid of thought, free from the emotions that crushed your heart.

All the intensity from just a moment earlier faded. All the sensation wiped clean.

For a moment, everything was still. You could only feel your chests pressed against each other, rising and falling and pushing against the other.

And finally, there was movement. You shuddered as he slid out of you, collapsing beside your body.

Your head lolled to the side. In the short time since awakening, the sun had begun to come out further. The faint rays of early dawn poured in through the tiny window.

Slowly, as the dread began to return in full force, as the blankness faded from your mind, you turned your head to the other side.

He smiled at you. His hand grasped the side of your face, not without a subtle firmness.

You swallowed. It hurt, the soreness from his grasp and the dryness of your throat each sending a signal of pain. Your thoughts slurred together, incomprehensible, overwhelmed, but you managed to get out one more plea. Some final, desperate attempt, one you knew was futile before you even spoke, but in your dread, it came out anyway.

“You can't do this to me.” You sniffled, wiping the tears from your face. “I have to go home.”

He looked at you for a moment. You saw something different in his eyes than before. The hunger, the crazed lust was gone. Something darker took its place, brows furrowing and eyes narrowing. Bitterness for your persistence.

He shrugged, and in a voice far more callous than his usual tone, gave a dismissive reply.

“Go ahead and jump overboard then.”

Your shoulders trembled with small, suppressed sobs. Your body shivered.

You were certain he noticed, but he didn't seem to care. He pulled you into his arms, muttering in complaint.

“You're really dramatic, you know that? You have to get over it at some point.”

You no longer had the energy to fight back. You rested in his arms, trembling, but not resistant.

A few moments of silence ticked by.

“Hey. One more thing.”

Slowly, you tilted your head to meet his gaze. The expression on his face had returned to that false-pleasant expression again, foreboding, ominous. Your heart beat a bit faster.

"This is the only time I'll ever overlook something like this,” he said. “Just for the record."

His voice was too cheerful. You stiffened further in his hold, curling into yourself. He grabbed your hair, forcing you to keep your head tilted to look at him.

"If you ever,” he continued, voice growing quieter, “do this stuff to me? And I find you with some other guy?"

He smiled, far too wide of a grin, pressing your foreheads together in a sickly gesture of affection.

"You're dead.”

You froze stiff. You could feel your heartbeat in your throat. The room seemed to grow darker. Your eyes, you were certain, reflected your fear.

It was clear an acknowledgement was expected. You nodded your head. Your voice was nearly a whisper.

“I… okay.”

“Good, good.” He leaned forward, brushing his lips against your forehead. “But you know, you won't have that kind of urge anyway, once we're together all the time. I mean, you came to me because that's what you needed. You know. You won't want anything more anyway.”

His fingers curled into your hair.

“Right?”

“Right!” You nodded. “Right…”

“Mm.” His hand ran a soothing stroke down your back. “Glad you understand.”

The arms that locked around you with an iron grip sealed your fate.

Your breaths were hoarse with the strain on your throat. You could see your arms trembling. The sweat coating your skin began to make you feel cold, only alleviated by the warmth radiating from his body to yours.

For a moment, you wondered what he was doing right now. Images of hypotheticals formed in your mind. Pictures of the things in your home the way you'd left them, in intent of returning. You pushed them away, unable to bear further pain.

But the club atmosphere only amplifies all of your senses, dialing them to an eleven. The hot, sweaty temperature only seems to cling to your skin like pin prick needles, as the kaleidoscope of lights make your heart soar, making you feel alive and grounded in this very moment under all the colors. Your eyes feel wider, your smile bigger, your heart thumping.

A hand on the small of your back lulls you from your appreciation survey of the room, and you turn your head to look up at Rafe, who's closer than he ever has been before looking prettier than under under the purple and blue and red hues. His hand is searing hot against your body.

"Hey," he shouts over the music, yet his voice feels like it's the only thing you can hear. "You good?"

You think you nod.

Truthfully, you aren't really sure. All you know is that you're smiling because apparently that's the only thing you know how to do on this drug, as you can feel yourself beaming wider than ever before. Plus, the lights keep distracting you on how well they reflect off the features of his face, occasionally glistening the thin chain around his neck.

Rafe seems pleased at your response (or lack thereof), as he hands you something ice cold that makes you furrow your brows, nearly jolting from the contact. Soon, you look down and see you're cradling a plastic cup full of water.

"I told John B a vodka cran," you pout with befuddlement, frowning up at him as if it's his fault.

And it is, because he shakes his head slightly in disbelief at you. "Only water tonight, remember?"

You find yourself rolling your eyes, but the airy smile on your face gives away your indifference as you watch him raise a brow, a knowing one, because he had promised he was going to take care of you tonight, even though you know Sarah and John B are probably tripping, too, and are drinking on top of it.

It's funny, though, (if that's the word you can use) that he's hardly paying attention to the birthday girl, to his sister, using up all his time to watch you, stick with you, care for you instead of her.

Although you push the implication to the back of your mind. You know Sarah's done molly before, so Rafe probably isn't worried since she knows what to expect. Plus, she has John B. And Kiara. And Pope and Cleo. You'd say JJ, but he is objectively the least qualified person on the planet to be trip sitting anyone, let alone an inanimate object. He killed a plastic plant once.

"What about them?" You nod towards your friends at the bar. Rafe lazily follows your gaze as you watch them juggle drinks and mosey onto the dance floor in a make-shift conga-line. "They're drinking. What if I feel left out?"

He turns back to you with a knowing look. A warning.

You nearly shrink under it, absolutely knowing that you're contradicting yourself from the bundle of nerves you were emulating merely an hour ago. But you can't help but feel a little out of the loop, despite the concerns you had about accidentally ingesting an ungodly amount of the drug a little while earlier. Your friends can handle doing both, so why can't you? Why won't he let you? What obligation is he under to micromanage your beverage intake?

Normally, you'd be so infuriated to fumble under one pointed glance from him, but right now you can't find yourself caring, and bring the water cup up to your lips for a small sip, seceding.

Rafe seems pleased with how he can get you to fall back into line without even having to say anything.

"Good girl, Star," he says low.

Curse the lightness in your chest for responding to that with a sheepish smile, instead of your trademark scowl or eye roll.

"Whatever," you mumble, trying to maintain your stoic dignity but only making things worse when all you can do is fucking grin, and you know he is absolutely relishing in your rare portrayal of sweetness. "You take this. I wanna dance."

"One more sip."

"Rafe-"

"A big one. C'mon, one more than you can go."

You narrow your eyes. "Only if you have some, too."

Rafe rolls his eyes, but there's no malice to them. Instead, they twinkle with amusement. "Alright, if that's what you want."

"That's what I said."

"Okay, so drink."

And you do. You take a few small sips, and you can't help but sigh at how refreshing it is, especially given how hot it is in the club and how nice it feels going down your throat, almost grounding you. Taking a big inhale through your nose, the airy chill of the ice stings your nostrils. You manage to take one more small sip, but you nearly cough it up when you realize he's been staring at you the whole time.

He's taking this whole protector bullshit thing a little too serious. Although you blame the fact that Sarah would kill him into next week if he appointed himself the role of trip sitting you but let something happen.

Generously, you hand over the half-full cup to him, who takes it gingerly from you and downs the rest of it in one go.

A few droplets dribble down his chin, and you can't help but scoff jokingly.

"Show off."

Rafe hazardously chucks the empty cup behind his back with a chuckle, gripping your forearm as he begins to drag you into the crowd to find wherever your friends disappeared to. The skin-to-skin contact sends electricity through your veins, amplifying your already heightened mood. A wave of pride swells in your chest that he grabbed you. Out of all these girls dancing around him, eyeing him as he towers over the crowd, he's with you.

The thought makes you reel, as it inherently contradicts everything you feel about him soberly. You shouldn't care about that, and the newfound possessiveness makes your stomach churn.

As he essentially drags you to the dance floor, people bump into you with no consequence, drinks sloshing and elbows digging into your arms, one in your back, and someone even steps on your foot. The grip on your forearm gradually sneaks lower, and lower, and lower, until he's lacing his fingers through yours, gripping tight and secure. You slip a little at the transition, nearly dropping his hand in the process, though he doesn't let that happen.

Because one thing is for certain, which is that Rafe Cameron is not letting go of your hand no matter what.

Eventually, you find yourself walking into his back, unaware that he stopped bulldozing through the sea of people and instead is still, on high alert. You look at your surroundings, frowning when you don't see any of your friends around, instead seeing faces of strangers dancing and laughing and having a great time.

"I thought I saw Sarah," Rafe mumbles yet you hear him just fine, scanning the crowd irritably and running a hand through his hair. "What the fuck."

"How did you lose her? You're seven feet tall."

You stifle a laugh at how fast he whips his head to look at you, glare at you, but it bears little to no threat as you still remember the big, bad Prince of all Pricks is still holding your hand as if it's the only thing grounding him to earth. That hardly intimidates you.

"Now we're stuck here," he snaps, annoyed at the predicament he got the two of you into. "It'll take forever to get out."

You frown up at him, then take a second to take it all in: the people dancing and singing, the heat of passion, the mixture of blues and reds and greens so pretty there might as well be glitter embedded in it, how the thump of the bass feels like your heartbeat, how you fucking love this song. It's almost as if the universe is telling you to slow down, to embrace the present, to enjoy the moment.

Whether you admire the scene for five seconds or five minutes, the difference feels like nothing to you as you peer back up at him again as you watch him scan the crowd hurriedly with furrowed brows. Frankly, you aren't sure why he's so stressed out, because you friends are somewhere nearby, and you know you'll find them eventually.

You're not sure where this newfound nonchalance is coming from, but you bite your lip with anticipation as you slowly loosen your grip on his hand, and with his attention solely on trying to locate his sister, he doesn't notice that you let go of his hand.

But once the contact leaves, Rafe is snapping his gaze down to meet yours.

"What are you-" He nearly snatches your arm.

But you swerve his grasp and feel yourself swaying to the music, moving in unison with all the other people surrounding you. "Dancing!"

"But-"

"No buts, Cameron," you nearly tease, patting his chest right above his heart almost to ease him, but instead it makes his breath hitch. The contact makes your palm feel light. "Would it kill you to enjoy a few songs?"

"Yes."

You roll your eyes, yet refuse to let him damper the mood. You fully embrace your love for this song by twirling and bumping into people around you, but no one notices because everyone's doing the same.

Closing your eyes, you let yourself succumb to the tune, letting the melody fuel your movements and the lyrics quietly utter from your lips. You feel no need to scream them or let your voice go raw, instead murmuring the words you know and letting your body do all the communication.

You might as well be floating. Well, at least that's what it feels like. Despite the choking hot environment, your skin feels like it's burning, but not uncomfortably, with liveliness, airiness, a newfound joy shrouding your senses. Truthfully, you have no idea what you were so worried about before.

After what feels like an hour until the song is over, you peek your eyes open and blink a few times to adjust to the jet streams of light, looking around for Rafe.

Only to discover him staring unabashedly at you.

Despite the heat that rises to your cheeks at the intensity of his blue-eyed gaze, you can't help but tilt your head at him in mock irritation.

"You aren't dancing." Not a question, rather a statement.

His brows raised in offense, as if you asking that is detrimental to his character.

You pout. "Why?"

Rafe snorts, his shoulders jerking lightly from the gesture. "I don't do that shit."

"You too good for dancing?"

"Don't know how," he says before he can take it back. "So I won't."

You frown. Such a simple sentence reveals so much about him.

To outsiders, he's the untouchable Rafe Cameron: the tall, epitome of anger and impatience who definitely has a glaring problem when it comes to him openly disliking something or someone. He has no problem voicing his grievances in order to get exactly what he wants, no matter who he stomps in his path. People have told him he resembles that of a guard dog, nothing short of a protector, something scary and uncertain to strangers. He's not perceived as someone who indulges on something as silly as dancing, as it would taint his character. It serves no purpose, so he's not doing it.

To his friends, he's the fiercely loyal companion who still has a very defiant glaring problem, but it's usually done out of caution or in teasing. He's quite the joker in a deprecating sense, and loves to fulfill dares even if they are unreasonably dangerous because he craves having something to prove. He'll do anything for the people he cares about if it means stepping into a role, providing whatever he needs to in order to deem himself worthy. Still, he'd never be caught dead doing something as stupid as dancing, as he sees it as something for his friends to make fun of him for, something pointless.

Despite all of it, you hate that he feels that he can't indulge into one of simplest pleasures of life because he simply won't allow himself to.

Because it has nothing to prove.

Before your mind says no, you find yourself lunging forward and grabbing his hands, bicycle wheeling them in a poor attempt to make him move, to feel, to dance. You ignore the jolt of warmth that shoots up your arms at the contact, and you hypothesize he feels the same given the way he sucks in a particularly harsh breath.

He lets you have your fun for a moment, but not without a dejected sigh as if you're making him do manual labor.

"Star." A warning.

But you continue, grinning. "Nope, don't Star me. Don't you dare tell me that you don't feel the slightest urge to dance right now."

Rafe opens then closes his mouth, pondering your prompt. For a moment, his eyes travel down to your connected hands and then quickly back up to your face.

"Nope."

"You hesitated."

"Wh- I did not."

You spin yourself using his hand that's practically limp in yours, nearly spilling the drink of the girl behind you. When you nearly stumble back into him, you laugh. "That was so awesome. You should try it."

"St-"

"Nope." You cut him off, one hand gripping his like a lifeline and the other practically shoving at his ribcage to try and get him to spin around. "C'mon, temporary truce, right?"

He scoffs in disbelief. "You're being-"

"What?" You interrupt annoying. "So much fun? A blast? A hoot?" When he opens his mouth to retort, you cock your head to the side and squeeze his hand particularly for emphasis. "You're tripping on molly in a club, and you're telling me you're not going to dance? Not even a little bit?"

All Rafe does is stare at you for a moment, and time seems to slow under the flashing lights and the bass booming through the floor. There's a small tug at the end of his lips, threatening to become a smile despite his portrayed annoyance. Whether or not he means to, his fingers twitch against yours and it makes your heart pound all the same.

As if he snaps out of a trance, you watch him roll his eyes so hard you can see the whites of them before indulging in your request and ducking so he can spin under your raised arm.

It's hardly graceful at his abnormally tall stature, and he looks like he'd rather be doing literally anything else, but at your wide grin, he can't help but nearly shrink under your spotlight.

"See?" You muse, grabbing his other hand so you can continue bicycle wheeling them in between your bodies to keep him moving. "Wasn't that awesome?"

"Thrilling," he deadpans, almost sheepish.

The song switches from something you didn't recognize to another one of your favorites, and you let your eyes close as you hum in approval. Now with your sight dark, your other senses kick in: the warmth of his hands in yours as well as the heat radiating from the surrounding bodies, the bass thumping through your ears, the intrusion of his cologne that smells like something expensive.

Without meaning to, one of your hands leaves his to brace itself on his chest in the heat of the moment, lightly tracing the ridges of his muscles as you get lost in the song.

As soon as you realize what you do, who you did it to, your eyes snap open and you remove it as if your palm is on fire.

"Sorry," you say sheepishly, taking in his amused blue eyes looking down at you. "I didn't-"

"Nah," he hums, low and teasing. "Don't get all shy on me now."

It isn't until you feel his unoccupied hand slither around your waist, snaking under your tank top so that his calloused palm meets the smooth surface of your bare skin, where you have the realization that you're dancing.

With Rafe Cameron.

Your mind tells you to retort back and keep up your normal demeanor of bantering with him, but your body betrays you as it leans into his touch. In fact, your body practically craves it as the pads of his fingertips feel like a million pin pricks digging into the soft flesh of your skin, a rush of ecstasy that you've never felt with anyone else's touch. It also doesn't help that you try (and fail) to suppress a smile at the sensation of it all, of how alive you feel despite the club feeling like a furnace.

Your hand eventually finds its rightful place back on his chest, instead inching up towards his shoulder and feeling the sleek material of his - no doubt - hundred dollar t-shirt. Normally, you'd reel at the proximity due to how detailed you can make out the beauty marks on his face and the specks of blue in his eyes, but you're simply leaning into your agreement, your temporary truce.

As you feel each other up as if life itself depends on it, you figure it couldn't hurt to let yourself indulge in the pleasantries of the narcotic effects. Because when you both come down from the drug, everything will resume as usual and you won't have to ever be this close to him again.

Good riddance.

Despite how dismissive he is about it, it seems like he relatively enjoys dancing- at least this version of dancing that's swaying with the thump thump thump of the bass and mapping regions unknown on the bare skin of your back. Your hips move in unison yet don't connect. Your shoulders roll to the melody as his try and emulate your motions. Your eyes scan his face for any doubts or discomfort, but he eventually starts to look sure of himself when he stops darting his gaze to the people around him in worry and rather focusing on you.

Slowly, but surely, you watch him gradually let his guard down, leaning into the moment and simply enjoying the song.

Simply enjoying doing something without anything to prove.

And when your eyes eventually leave his to venture down to the long column of his neck, staring a little too long at the smooth skin that has you wondering how it would feel to nuzzle into the crater to mold yourself to him, it feels as though everyone else around you has disappeared. There are no more bodies bumping into you. No more laughing and singing and screaming. Nothing.

Just you, him, and the music.

Especially when you glance up again only to find his eyes staring right at you.

Now it really feels like you two are alone.

The implications of being in a crowd to suddenly being alone aren't feasible in the slightest, but your brain doesn't care about the logistics of it all, instead solely focused on Rafe in front of you. Tall, broad, warm Rafe, who's holding onto you as one would grip a lifeline, as one would grab something to mark their territory. He's intoxicating, alluring, and emitting everything you need in this given moment.

At one point, he takes your head and spins you around, shoving your hip with the other to give you momentum. You laugh boisterously under the kaleidoscope of lights, barely flinching when his palm comes back to rest on your waist, of course, under your top, which seems like its rightful place despite how audaciously shameless it is in any normal circumstance. But not now.

"See?" You drawl out, tilting your head to the side. "Told you you'd enjoy it."

Rafe mimics your gesture, cockily smirking. "Oh, did you?"

He's so fucking close you swear you can hear his thoughts.

Yet you push that to the back of your mind. "Mhm. And I love being right."

"When are you ever right about anything?"

"Um, all the time? Literally last week when I told you not to drink after you took ibuprofen because it'll make you sick, and you still did it?"

Rafe scoffs playfully. "Jesus-"

"And what ended up happening?"

He rolls his eyes.

"You got sick, and John B had to take you home early."

"Okay," he secedes. "That was one time."

Yet you grin proudly, relishing in his rare moments of fluster. "No need to be embarrassed, Cameron. Just admit that I was right."

In your faux attempt to have the high ground, you nearly miss how his hand has traveled up your arm and is now resting against your neck, so large and firm that it keeps your head in place. His thumb traces light circles along your chin, barely - just barely - brushing against the swell of your bottom lip as if he's testing the waters, calculating to see if you'll pull away.

But you can't. You refuse to.

The heat is almost unbearable, as his touch electrifies your vocal cord and seers hot against your skin, as if it's conforming into the shape of your body and sinking into your flesh. Yet his palm is molded as if it was made to nuzzle here, and it feels so fucking nice that you wouldn't dream of pulling away.

You can't believe you've spent all this time not touching Rafe Cameron, not having Rafe Cameron touch you. Is this really what you've been missing out on? All this time spent shoving him away before he could pull the lint off your sweater or the leaf out of your hair. Have you been self sabotaging without even knowing?

"Star," Rafe muses low, darting his gaze between your eyes with a rare look that you've never encountered from him. "There is never a scenario where I'll ever admit that."

You pout in faux irritation. "Never?"

You try and ignore how his eyes momentarily glance down to your lips, then come back up to look at you as if it means nothing, as if he hasn't just wordlessly revealed his desire to close the distance. Although something falters in his gaze, a sliver of the playfulness leaving the gleam of his eye and instead replaced with something softer, more genuine, something that makes your heart skip a beat at the rawness of it.

"Never," he responds quietly, yet despite the loud music, his voice is the only thing you hear.

When his gaze flickers down to your lips again, you find yourself parting them out of sheer surprise at the audacity of him to shamelessly stare at you like this not once, but twice, to shamelessly express what he wants without having to say anything, not explicitly, anyway.

Yet you understand him all the same.

His hand seems to press impossibly tight against your waist, and you can't deny how fucking good it feels to be caged in by him, surrounded by him, as almost all of your senses are fulfilled by him: his fire palm on your burning skin, his cologne infiltrating your nostrils, his baritone voice alluring you as a siren would her prey, his beautiful blue eyes scanning your face with a newfound possession that makes you reel.

Just one sense is missing, and your lips tingle at the anticipation.

You swear Rafe begins to lean in.

"There you are!"

The two of you blink out of your trance, startled by the body nearly shoving you out of his grasp.

You're no longer alone with him, as everyone has returned in the crowd closer than before. Blinking once, twice to take in your surroundings, you realize that someone bumped into you. Purposefully.

You spin around to meet the culprit, expecting Sarah and your friends, but are instead met with the pretty blonde from earlier, the girl who tried to take the jello-shot from JJ but was thoroughly denied, the girl that Rafe was trying to pick up at the party. More so, the girl who was shooting such aggressive fuck-me eyes at him that you swore they would pop out of the socket.

Her eyes narrow slightly at the sight of you, darting between you and Rafe in confusion, before eventually settling on him, batting her eyelashes up at him with faux sweetness as if she wasn't (probably) cursing you and your bloodline in her head.

"Hi," she says brightly, "I've been looking for you everywhere."

His hand that was previously cradling your neck falls to his side, but the other hand still seers hot on your hip, almost reluctant to let go of his one chance to touch you.

"Alyssa," he responds almost breathlessly, caught in a weird scenario. "I didn't-"

"Annalise," she corrects quickly, her charming smile faltering for a second before returning to its normal state. "Wanna continue our convo from earlier?"

Her question lays thick in the air, as Rafe furrows his brows as he looks between you and her, almost startled at the intrusion but also still recovering from the close proximity shared with you in a way he's never experienced before. He's never endured something like that, and never expected to in his entire lifetime.

Especially with you. The girl who never let him get too close.

You reel at his reluctance, almost letting out a sigh of relief that nothing escalated, because how would you explain that to your friends? To your best friend, your roommate? His sister? Besides, this is the guy who drives you up the wall every time he's in your vicinity, and it would be an utter disaster to venture into uncharted waters with him, of all people.

At his silence, she suddenly turns to you, jabbing a thumb in Rafe's direction. "You're not with him, are you?"

A laugh bubbles in your throat at the mere insinuation of it - at the audacity of her to think you'll ever be with a guy like Rafe Cameron - but you don't let it escape because you frankly don't want to sound like an asshole.

You're too happy right now, too airy on cloud nine that you don't want to dwell on the implications of your little moment with him. Plus, you don't want to cock-block him. You saw how cozied up they were in your apartment, and figured something like this was bound to happen anyway, knowing your truce was only temporary and nothing more. Of course, you're a little surprised it's happening so soon into the night, arguably at the peak of your trip, but you should've expected this.

Especially from him.

So you flash Annalise a smile, one that she probably doesn't deserve since she nearly shoved you to the ground just moments ago, and step away from Rafe's grasp even though your body screams at the loss of contact.

"No," you respond politely. "No, we're just friends. He's all yours."

You nearly double take at Rafe when you hear him say your name, a mix between in warning and disbelief.

Watching Annalise grip his arm and curl a talon around his bicep, you dart your gaze back to him, whose blue eyes are so piercing that you almost lose your breath, adding on top of your initial breathlessness at the fact that he used your name, something he almost never does unless he's actually upset. A gloss of anger flashes across his features, but it's hard to mask it over the sliver of worry that you've never seen on his face before.

Part of you understands his apprehension: you're supposed to be joined at the hip, in this trip together, but you saw how annoyed he was with JJ when he scared Annalise off with the shots, and you don't want to be on the receiving end of his irritation. Besides, you planned for this. Partially.

You send him a reassuring smile. "I'm good. Honest. I'll dance nearby, okay?"

His response is immediate. "You'd tell me if you weren't okay?"

The near possession almost makes you reel, and part of you wants to push further and scold him for being so overly cautious with you (as always), but you notice the anticipation of Annalise's hands trailing up his chest and skimming the curt edge of his jawline, ready to fill your shoes as soon as she gets the green light.

And honestly? No, you probably wouldn't tell him in a normal scenario. But right now, you certainly feel fine.

"Yes," you reiterate. "I'll be around, okay?"

Rafe is reluctant, that much is obvious. He barely pays attention to the girl practically clinging to him as he solely focuses on you, staring at him with unwavering certainty so that he'll give in and enjoy his night. Something foreign glosses over his eyes, and you spend a moment trying to decipher the wordless code, but come up short on its implications.

Eventually, after a second of him trying to find any faults in your stare and coming up short, you nod at him again to emphasize that he has a very pretty girl all over him and he's not doing anything about it, and he seems to circle back to planet earth, resting a light hand on her waist to test the waters, to please you.

You try to ignore how he looks uncertain and slightly uncomfortable, probably at the thought of leaving him alone, so you put on your best reassuring smile and send him a wink that has him shaking his head in disbelief at you, a smirk tugging the edge of his lips.

With that image, you twist away from him and venture into the crowd. Yeah, you think as you scan the crowd for cute guys, he's fine.

After a minute of searching, your eyes land on a handsome brunette talking animatedly with a group of guys, assumingely his friends, and you waste no time planting a gentle hand on his bicep to grab his attention, figuring someone like him will do for the time being, figuring you can find your friends after a couple songs because you'd still like to dance for a while longer.

He looks down at you with his pretty brown eyes and blinks, as if he's trying to decipher if you're real.

"Hi," you say sweetly over the music. "Wanna dance?"

The guy huffs in disbelief as he takes in your figure. "Shiiiit. If I ever say no to that, shoot me."

You roll your eyes, yet nonetheless grab his unoccupied hand and lead him a little ways away from his snickering friends, finding a quaint spot smack-dab in the middle of the dance floor as the song morphs into something sultry and melodic, still with the thrumming bass strong enough to vibrate your bones. The contact with him is immediate.

Unlike Rafe's teasing yet firm touch, this guy - who you're gonna call Polo given the ridiculous collared shirt he's wearing - has no problem letting his hands shamelessly wander over your body, over places Rafe wouldn't dare venture in fear of losing a limb.

Not that you necessarily mind, because every touch on your bare skin feels like flashes of lightning igniting in your veins.

His hands are everywhere: your waist that was once electrified by a certain person's touch earlier, your ass, your chest through your tank top, as his lips duck dangerously low to your neck, whispering sweet nothings that you - quite frankly - don't bother to pay attention to. His voice isn't baritone or sultry enough to get you to listen, nor does the temporary solace make you feel as if you were on fire, not like before with-

Then you reel. Why are you comparing this random to Rafe Cameron?

The Rafe Cameron who steals your snacks instead of his sister's, who threw you in the ocean after getting your hair done because Pope bet him a case of beer that he wouldn't, who plays with girls' hearts like it's his day job, feeling little to no remorse on the notion of recycling through his roster to broach some excitement in his life, who has driven you up the wall for a year now.

You've loathed him for all that time. Sure, you're cordial to him for the sake of Sarah, who watches your arguments like a tennis-match and always sides with you out of amusement to piss her brother off, who uses all her excuses to force close proximity between you and him, claiming she needs a form of entertainment for the next few hours, who knows how you feel about a guy like him when it comes to dating.

If it was up to you, you just wouldn't see him at all. But no, he's always there, because she wants him to be. Because she wants both of you in her life. You and-

Rafe.

Who's staring at you across the dance floor.

You meet his piercing gaze when you suddenly get a vantage point over Polo's shoulder, nearly gasping at the intensity of it. Annalise clings to him, arms strung high around his neck as she sways to the beat and essentially grinds herself against his front, but his hands never venture lower than her waist (that are barely touching her, by the way), as he shamelessly glares between you and Polo.

Through the sea of people, through all the constantly changing strobe lights, he sees you. Out of everyone. He finds you.

You barely register Polo's lips on your neck, slowly making their way up to your jaw until his shoulder blocks your view of Rafe, instead being met with his chest. You blink a few times to try and decipher if that was real or not, but you don't get too far in your findings before Polo leans down and connects your lips in a heated kiss.

You try to lean into it. You really try.

Because, frankly, Polo's a pretty good kisser and his hands feel nice against your ass, but you can't help that nagging voice in the back of your mind yelling you that it's not who you want it to be, the nagging image of Rafe staring at you through the crowd with such a dark - almost possessive - gaze that it sent a shiver down your spine, the nagging feeling that something feels wrong, everything feels wrong because it isn't him.

And that thought scares you.

You blame it on the fact that you're high off a drug you've never indulged in before, blaming your racing thoughts on the effects of something you're experiencing for the first time. The cause is the jello shot you took all those ages ago, the effect being delirium.

Without even registering it, your hands are bracing on Polo's chest in an attempt to get him to stop kissing you.

With furrowed brows and puffy lips, Polo looks down at you incredulously, almost offended. "What? What's wrong?"

You open your mouth to speak but the words don't come, and it looks like he's about to add another response.

Until he's suddenly ripped away from you.

You blink once, twice, almost gasping at the sudden sensation of being alone, of nothing touching you. The motion is quick, it startles you, as you try and recover from stumbling as all of your weight was leaning on Polo and now it's dependent on the open air in front of you. You stagger, trying to find your footing as you stare at the scene in front of you.

And holy shit.

You nearly reel at the sight of Rafe with a fist full of Polo's shirt by the back of the neck, holding him as one would scruff a loose puppy, yanking him until his hands are no longer groping your ass, until his lips are away from yours, until he's no longer in the relative vicinity as you.

Once he sees that no one is touching you, Rafe lets go of Polo's shirt as quickly as he grabbed it.

But Polo doesn't let that slide, angrily whipping to face Rafe and shove him particularly hard into a poor group of girls behind him, who scream and shout and cover their drinks to no avail, as some splash onto the ground at the contact.

"The fuck, man?" Polo shouts, confused and irate and a little too drunk to be in his right mind. "We were in the fucking middle of something!"

Rafe barely pays him any mind, instead turning to you with a gaze so serious you can't help but gawk at him. "Found Sarah. Let's go."

You stupidly blink back at him, darting your gaze between the two guys in disbelief that there wasn't a drop of blood spilled. You've never, ever heard of Rafe Cameron getting into a fight and not finishing it, not hitting back, as his trademark is that he'll start a fight and end one. Sarah told you about all the times he'd get into fights in high school, even fights with John B for fuck's sake, and even then he never lost, never backed down, never let someone else get the last hit.

And as you peer up at him now, your shock must be evident as he simply waits for your words, for any indication that you're ready to move again. But you don't give him any, as you're frozen in place and still reeling at the fact that he didn't hit back. Why didn't he hit back? Why did he start this shit in the first place?

He says your name once in warning.

You don't get the chance to respond when Polo reaches forward and shoves Rafe again.

"Hey, jackass," he hisses loudly. "I'm talkin' to you!"

Rafe stumbles one, two steps, darting his gaze towards the guy with furrowed brows as if the whole thing is an inconvenience to him.

When Polo angrily huffs at his silence, he lunges again towards Rafe in preparation to shove him again, but one side step to the right and Polo's missing his target, and - instead - nearly collapsing into you.

The force almost knocks you off your feet as you fall into the group of girls behind you, gripping one of their shoulders ferociously tight to refrain from meeting the sticky ground. One of them, thankfully, snatches your arm so goddamn tight that you yelp, but she undoubtedly saved you from making a quick trip to the ground.

Polo's elbow particularly jabbed your ribs so hard it'll definitely bruise, and you wince at the commotion and stumble like a baby fawn trying to find its footing as he recovers from the unmistakable miss in his target.

Rafe notices the flicker of pain across your face in an instant, and - with the green light to do so - balls his fist tight and brings it down fast and hard against Polo's cheekbone.

A sharp gasp leaves Annalise's mouth, who you didn't even know had been standing here the whole time, and all you do is helplessly blink down at Polo's groaning figure on the gross, sticky floor. People create a circle around the chaos, muttering yeeshes and fucks in between song lyrics as they take in the scene in front of them, eyes wide as they dart from the guy on the ground to the guy who threw the punch, whose surprisingly calm.

Whose eyes are on you.

You barely register Rafe's fingers circling your wrist, grounding you back to reality.

Just as you're about to scold him, to ask him what the fuck he was even thinking, a flashlight beams onto Rafe's face, and his pretty blue eyes squint at the ferocity of it.

A burly bouncer, the one with the flashlight, joins the circle and takes in the scene in front of him: Rafe shaking out his knuckle as Polo spits up blood on his hands and knees on the ground.

Seeing enough to make a verdict, the bouncer grips harshly onto Rafe's shoulder, while Polo's friends get him up off the floor (not without shooting daggers at the culprit, and at you for getting their friend into this mess in the first place). A flicker of panic rises in your chest, and his fingers around your wrist are providing the only solace you can find in the moment.

"Yeah, you're done," the bouncer chuckles huskily. "No fighting."

He begins tugging Rafe away who doesn't complain nor attempt to plead his case, instead walking alongside the bouncer and outstretching his arm to where you stand, unmoving, until his hand is ripped from your grasp and he's disappearing into the crowd.

Fuck.

There's no way you're going to be able to deal with this alone, let alone face the effects head on and maneuver through a crowd to attempt to find your friends who have been missing for what feels like ages. You watch your lifeline go, disappear into the mess of bodies as a needle is flung into the haystack, probably not to be seen again unless you do something about it.

Your heart is in your throat, and you let out a ragged breath.

But it's as if your brain suddenly flips a switch, and you find yourself maneuvering quickly through the crowd, even going as far as pushing people to catch up to the bouncer.

You don't think twice about lunging forward to grab Rafe's hand.

His head whips back in confusion to find the culprit, ready to cuss them out, but you swear his eyes soften when he realizes it's you.

You, the girl who hates any form of touch from him, clinging to him, lacing your fingers with his and trailing his escort out of the club.

If you didn't know any better, you swear that he's fucking grinning under the strobe lights, apparently pleased that you decided to chase him through a sea of people and join his walk off the ship's plank.

The bouncer reaches the side door, opening it for Rafe and looking back to you in surprise, not expecting anyone to have followed him. But, frankly, he could give less of a shit, and merely opens the door wider for you to leave with the culprit.

"Front door bouncer knows what you look like," the bouncer says to Rafe, his voice deeper than you've ever heard before. "Don't try it."

The door is slamming in your face before you even know it, and the silence quickly consumes the two of you, frisked by the breeze and standing alone in a dingy alleyway. Your heart is thrumming in your throat, and it takes a few moments to realize the drug is still fully having an effect, since you notice it now more than ever since there aren't any strobe lights or loud music masking your senses.

Now it's quiet. Your heartbeat is in your ears. Your hands are on fire. The cold breeze feels like a hug.

"Didn't expect you to follow, Star."

Rafe's voice pulls you from your thoughts, nearly scaring the shit out of you as you jump at the sound of his voice, whipping your head to face him.

Cursing yourself, you really wish you hadn't looked, because the expression on his face makes your blood boil.

You nearly want to slap that smug smirk off of his face and call him something abhorrent. But when his gaze darts down for a fraction of a second, you realize he's not being a prick at the notion of you following him through a crowd of hundreds of people, or how your notorious scowl is back on your face, or how he's probably got a hundred lewd comments cycling in his brain at the two of you now alone at last, no.

He's grinning at how you're still holding his hand.

With the discovery, you drop it as if it's on fire. You try and ignore the cocky tilt of his head, egging you on as if it isn't one of the most embarrassing and self incriminating things you could ever do to yourself.

"Whatever," you manage to say, "you're the one stupid enough to fucking punch the guy. Who absolutely did not deserve that, by the way."

Rafe merely shrugs, as if he's not entertaining the thought.

"And now," you continue with a hiss, "we're separated from our friends who are probably in there either having the time of their lives or graciously worrying about us and how we're not with them."

"Maybe," he says lazily. "But you still followed."

The simplicity of his words make you falter, because he's got you between a rock and a hard place. Yes, you can say all you want about how stupid he is and how angry you are at him because he decided to go all caveman and beat his chest. But the fact of the matter is that you saw all of this go down, you nearly got involved yourself, and you still decided to stick with him.

And you have to suffer the consequences because of your choice.

Your eyes narrow at him, feeling light and airy in the breeze and trying to remember why you're here with him, what you both agreed to at the beginning of the night, the reason why you followed him and nothing else. (Because it genuinely, genuinely has to be because of this and no other reason.)

"Temporary truce, right?"

Rafe's eyes widen in amusement, and the pretty blue hues shine with something other than pride, something deeper, darker, something that nearly makes your knees buckle. It's almost as if he knows that's an excuse, a front, a cover to mask what you really want to say to him, what you really feel.

Frankly, what you really want to say to him is a mystery, not even you know that yet. And what you feel is beyond that, it's a complete unknown.

All he does is hum, unconvinced. Something soft glosses over his features, and you barely have time to register what it means before he's flashing you that million dollar smirk that he loves to pull out of his back pocket, one he has on the ready.

"Right. So, now what, pretty?"

© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work without permission. mdni.