#ff.doc

Someone from the other side of town whose parents own a disco ball that spins in the basement and makes you all nostalgic for something you’d missed by only a couple years, and they’re throwing a farewell party or a welcome home party, or something? You don’t remember, Steve hadn’t really described it in the jumbled invitation: too busy plotting the return to his glory days. This party was to be the catalyst.

Robin let you spatter nothing but glitter on her eyes, and you bickered with a brooding Eddie from across the room while Steve preened in the full-length mirror, gargling peppermint schnapps before handing the flask around, promising the three of you it’d be fun, swearing it to your unsure little smiles: all so repetitive, you think he might’ve been convincing himself, trying to find his King Steve again.

Robin opens up with it all, overjoyed to talk and twirl and link arms with Steve on the chorus of a song, both oblivious to peoples’ eyes and assumptions while they do their dorky little dances, and King Steve is well and truly forgotten, but nobody minds. 

      You think nothing of Eddie’s sudden absence until there’s a mean outward rush of energy to a corner, voices moving up, and suddenly the music isn’t enough to entertain, there’s more on offer, some kids yelling fight, fight, fight over the song’s swelling drone. 

For all his showy theatrics, Eddie’s not a fighter, but the sense of doom starts to swallow you ‘till you let yourself break through the bodies.

“There she is, woman of the hour!” Someone hollers when you breach the inner circle, and as quickly as a gross little chill carts your spine, Eddie’s lurched forward fists-first, and a guy’s shoved him back like he’s nothing, and then a voice wracks everything: “Get the fuck out, both of you.” and it’s over, the two of you, partners in a crime you’re unaware of.

      On the street, suddenly, the air feels ever-expanding around your shoulders after that cramped basement, and the two foot distance between you and Eddie feels like it stretches forever. The moment drags: your expectant silence, waiting on an explanation: his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth then giving way to a tricky lie.

“I was stashing his fuckin’ pudding pies from the snack table.”

It’s comical how easily you see through it, his arms thrown out, head shaking, chuckling like duh, obviously in the theatrical way that’s so him. You’re left standing on the curb when he steps down, starts wading down the street, slow so you catch up. 

Your stomach’s twisted, but you follow, crack the lull because you know he won’t. Following the gutter and dodging street-parked cars all the way back to the trailer park on Hawkins’ outskirts gets pretty boring without your best friend’s voice, his endless queries and ideas and nonsense: he’s a full body sensation. The quiet is weird, how you know he feels bad.

“That’s my first ever dishonourable discharge from a house party, Eds. Like a bite-sized appetiser for real punk rock.”

He smiles at the sky, first, then glances at you, head shaking.

“Bull shit. Whatever. What the hell is an honourable discharge from a house party?”

“Oh. That’s gonna be Steve in the gutter tonight after, like, 11 more Jell-O shots. I think that’s pretty honourable. Like a soldier, dying in battle, or something.”

Just like that, the party’s almost forgotten, its loud music thumping down the street an appropriate soundtrack to your walk, stepping between streetlights ‘till there’re more trees than houses and, energy hitting a different high, you and Eddie are near-skipping, just-dizzy tipsy and barely stoned. 

Your energy finds its fuse in the promise of a six pack and a game of cards and maybe a joint, if you pull out all the stops:  evil, evil tricks, Eddie calls them, the hiking up your skirt, the doe eyes, cross-armed huffiness, all to make him dip into his own stash for fear of what’d happen if he weren’t a little distracted.

      You know his bedroom inside out, countless hours, stacked sleepovers, and tooth-pullingly hard studying, and writing mostly the worst songs ever composed, together, always the two of you. You know this place. Still, Eddie opens the door for you, exclaims an operatic “Welcome, welcome, no shoes on the carpet, thank-you!” that makes you giggle and god, the two shots feel like four or five as you stand, dumbly, staring at him across the floor, still feeling a little crooked.

And, well, it’s eating at you.

“Did they say something about me at the party?”

And the beat of silence answers it, the way his shoulders fall— a knowing moment of eye contact warms you before the ickiness sets in from imagining the lewd details that had bothered him so deeply. Eddie’s eyes look big from where he sits, catching warmth from the plastic ghost string lights that weave the room’s perimeter above your heads and glint off everything, glowing. He looks apologetic. 

“I hate the way they talk.”

He twists his favourite ring with gentle fingers, voice wrapped around a humourless laugh, making light, or trying to.

“Hate that nobody stops them.”

You get it, you do. He’s pretty good at feigning carelessness, at not complaining, for someone who deals with a lot. You’re good at it, too, shouldering it all. You’re used to it. 

Tonight, you don’t even need to pull out the evil tricks before Eddie’s making for his janky bedside shoebox, slathered thick with stickers and sharpie and the messily scrawled post-its you leave around for him, notes with words too sentimental to say aloud, gluey electrical tape keeping them safe. From beside his car keys and his DND journal and an engraved switchblade, a gift from his uncle, Eddie plucks a pre-roll. 

“Hate this whole fuckin’ town.” You say, a grifting little excitement in your smirk that works to make light, prevailing over the tainted vibes. You toss him your lighter, and Eddie’s still tense, but he m-hmms and sparks the joint with the lacklustre crush of smoke and lighter fluid, and you sit, shoulder-to-shoulder on his red shag rug.

“You wanna skip town with me?” He asks, throat tight, tied up with smoke. 

“Yeah, sure.” You deadpan, a little roll of your eyes. “S’my turn, Ed. Sharing, caring and all that.”

But Eddie gets serious, twisting to face you, not handing off the joint and snapping his fingers when your brow furrows, like garnering the attention of a dog.

“Nah, don’t fuck with me. Been thinkin’ ‘bout selling my van. And, I don’t know, I know a guy, a few bands out in California, It’s stupid, but. But.”

You think for a moment, imagine it, Eddie the musician, the stage presence he was built for, you his trusty sidekick, manager on the weekends, finding a job on the coast, somewhere ever-sunny, far away from Hawkins and all its bad vibes.  

“I could be a really hot merch girl.”

You’re joking, first, but after the thought settles in, you’re not, the light in Eddie’s eyes tossing sparks up in yours, the excitement doubling, doubling again, whimsical thoughts swirling, everything warm and orange and swimming and trading songs on setlists, and your best friend since forever is there, his voice telling you you can do whatever, you can do anything you want, we’ll do it together.

Taken by it all, his wide-open face, overwhelmingly glad, you kiss him. 

      You’re kissing, which is something you do sometimes, but only when you’re both really stoned, or a little upset, or want to try this tongue thing you read about, I promise it won’t be weird. But, tonight, you’re both mostly in your right minds, and there’s no super important experiments, just his hand on your shoulder, pressing like it belongs there. 

Quickly it’s all teeth and tongue and leaning in so hard with your whole bodies, like the one time on the couch when he’d accidentally slotted a leg between your thighs, and you had to stop kissing to take turns showering, and you’d never really bought it up again, but you thought about it, sometimes. A lot of nights. You’d never been so aware of his stupid wallet chain. 

“This is actually bullshit, though, right?” You ask on a coaxing breakaway, fake-happy cynical smiling, nose to nose with him. “We’ll probably go to hell before we make it to California. Or, like, whatever we do in California will book our one way ticket downstairs, for sure.”

Eddie’s head dips, crown of soft waves frizzing at your jawline as he scoffs a little laugh, and he’s told you it a million times, what he’s thinking: you talk too much, think too hard about things in moments that don’t call for hard thoughts. He doesn’t need to say it for you both to understand, but he wishes he knew how to tell you he kinda likes it, the way your words fall. How even your worries feel like a well-told story.

“Fuckin’. Yeah, maybe.” Eddie’s hand stretches down, further on your ribs, and his fingertips dig in. “We're probably going to hell regardless of California, though. Most of Hawkins thinks so.”

His breath is hot on your mouth, brows bumping.

“So we try for California first?” 

Eddie hikes up, quick, on his knees in the lurid scruff of the carpet: the spread of his thighs forms a strong A-frame pointing to the narrow of his hips, shirt rucked up, jeans low, tight. More in your face than he’d intended, especially ‘cause he’s  a little hard, and you’re looking up at him, now, flustered and breathless and far prettier than he should find his best friend, he thinks, but he’s here, now. Too sober to find an excuse, you’re both in too deep.

He smiles, talks lower, serious.

“I’ll put an ad in the paper for that ol’ van come first light.” 

Crawling on his knees, Eddie continues.

“Got a decent wad of cash squirreled away, too. Been saving for years, y’know,”

And you don’t know what’s starting, here, why your legs hinge open, let Eddie between. His wallet chain swings, glimmers on his thigh, and you don’t know what’s happening, but you’re clenching around nothing, embarrassingly, your hips liquid. 

“Really? You wanna throw it on me, rockstar?”

Your loud breath trembles, and maybe it takes the sexed-up sting from your half-joking proposition, but Eddie licks his teeth and laughs a half-hearted fuck off, and sinks to his stomach between your legs.

“We’ll save those frivolous displays for when we are rockstars.” Eddie says. It should be hard to listen, what with your lips tingling, everywhere tingling, his face framed with your knees either side of his head, but his tone is so level, so rational: you eat his words right up. “For now, y’mind if I eat you out? Is that weird?”

“Please, go right ahead.” Both wry and blushing at the same time, your whole body is numb, high-strung, and you don’t know how you got here, but it’s been coming, for years, you think, try as you both did to feign ignorance.

You don’t mean to moan as he fucking nuzzles up, pushing your skirt higher, his breath fanning over everything: soft cotton panties damp with it, lace trim falling victim to his teeth, first, then impatient hands yanking around your ass, a desperate tug that tightens your fingers in his hair, then he whimpers, and his body ticks with a laugh. 

Eddie kisses the crest of your thigh, rests his chin there for a moment, eyes fixed on nothing across the room. “Definitely going to hell.”

You swallow, taking stock of the situation, mostly just trying not to buck and kick and beg. You reckon with the ghosty string lights overhead, trying to come down off this crazy high, come back to earth, if only low enough in the atmosphere to conjure a thought witty enough to compete with Eddie and his ever-running mouth.

“Yeah. Yeah, premarital pussy-eating isn’t super God-honouring, Eds.”

And he thinks he could go on about honouring God’s creations, worshipping at your fuckin’ alter, or whatever, but he’s so hard, and your panties aren’t even around your knees yet. His brain feels like it’s been put through a sieve, nothing left but your skirt, the sliver of underwear, it’s right there.

“Yeah, well. I hear they do a tonne of it in California.” Eddie manages, air long gone from his lungs as he paws at your hips, scooting you down towards him, letting himself look, finally, properly. The white cotton, he’d caught the fluorescent flash of it while you were getting ready with Robin, earlier, a tiny shred under your corduroy skirt. He’d burned up at the sight, then, but the taut fabric is see-through, now, a wet spot that shows everything. 

He’s mesmerised, the way it clings and contours, makes his brain fire like it’s under attack. He must be gulping for air like a goddamn goldfish.

“You’re making that up.” You say, fingers raking back behind his ear, not looking. Like watching him take up space, shoulders spreading your thighs, the sight of it would make it realer than the tickle of his hair or the heaviness of his hand, the weight of his eyes. You’re not often shy around him, anymore, but his slack-jawed wonder makes you blush a little, sink on your tailbone and giggle, unwittingly shoving your sex further into his face.

Eddie pecks the wet spot eagerly, breathes it in, eyes closed tight, and you gasp an oh my god, shivering. With his arms hooked under your knees, his fingers curl into the soft of your thighs, screaming little nail marks into your skin that ground you both. The pressure mounting in your pelvis is mind-melting, unbearable, and you are ticking up, now, the most minuscule rotations, searching for the heat of his face that’s so close, that keeps ebbing.

“The amount of premarital pussy-eating per capita will increase dramatically when we arrive.” He props himself up on his elbows, looking up at you, brown eyes mischievous and matter-of-fact. 

You scoff a laugh but it’s clipped by his lips, a messy kiss to your core once again, thumb pushing under the hem to spread you a little, filthily, brandishing your panties with a thick torrent of your juices, then he’s suckling, mouthing at you through them.

“What the fuck, oh, Eddie. God.”

The edge of his mattress cradles your head, tipped back as he finds your clit over the thin fabric, and you feel him sigh into it, wandering hands fumbling for the waistband once more, a determined pull that exposes you all at once. 

Air has never felt so cold despite your searing face, flushed skin, but then the chill is gone, soothed out by his hot mouth, desperately licking up and up and listening for the cry, the right there, oh, yeah that folds from you when his experimental motions find your bare clit right away. 

And there’s usually not a lot gentle about him, and it’s barely there, hidden beneath the hard push of his hands against your inner thighs, painted fingernails raking scratches all over, but his mouth is endlessly soft and subtle. He watches you, eyes big and blinking, the crinkle of a kind of smile when he makes eye contact and and sucks, and it makes you feel all the more dirty: you wonder how you’re gonna get through this without spontaneously combusting.

It’s flooring how good it is, how good he is— the tongue flutter that should take so long to learn, only really practiced on the crook of your neck, one time after too many wine coolers. 

(The girl who took his v-card didn’t count, you’d both decided, because she’d squealed and pushed his head away after ten seconds and said it was weird, said that guys don’t do that, don’t put their mouths down there, only girls do. But not Eddie, not you and Eddie. You both wanted it. And, ever-so best-friendly, you’d decided to let him practice, like it was the same, on the ridge of your collarbone, the curve, your vocal feedback whispered and drawn out, embarrassingly. 

And somehow, apparently, he’d learned this from that.)

His fingers are something else, though, when he suddenly remembers he can use them, bury them in you, fuck you without fucking you. Two of them knuckle-deep right away, messy mouthing at your clit, still, and part of him wants to be gaudy and obnoxious and throw around taunting little “you like that?”s, but everything else in him needs to see you come. 

Your body, once boneless, now pulls and kicks and you’re practically humping his face, open mouth wrapped around a gasped huh, fuck, all senseless babbles. Eddie’s grinding, body stretched out with a knee hiked up, climbing closer, leveraging his cock against the squeeze of his jeans and heat of that stupid shag carpet, and he’s definitely got carpet burn striping his forearms, red and raw, but he likes that, maybe too much. 

The drop comes all at once, when you realise he’s getting off on this, then pulling off to slap you with a loud, messy clap, the unforgiving hard bite of a set of glistening rings, making you burn and sting and the blood rush, eyes rolling with a wracking sob, then his mouth is there again, insistent tongue easing the pain, a couple fingers thrumming deep to clench around, and you come so hard it shakes everything.

“Fuck, did you just... from getting spanked?” 

He doesn’t need your answer, your body still jolts with it, nerve endings snapping, or something like it. You feel too good to find the embarrassment you maybe should wear. The frizz of his hair sticks to the mess of your inner thighs, and you’re stunned in it, body sunken and heaving with your breath, knees fallen. Eddie breathes hard, forehead dipping to your thigh, lolling momentarily, both in a kind of daze.

      Your whimpers warp to a trembly giggle at the state of him when he finally looks up: lips swollen, wet, everything wet, and smiling. You feel your pupils blow out to red, throbbing cartoon love hearts, and shit, maybe you're more stoned than you thought, ‘cause the dazzled look in his eyes feels just the same.

Then Eddie crawls up your body fast and serious, tells you “Show me those eyes,”, and you do. 

Kneeling between your legs atop the tangle of your panties that keep your thighs locked in place, still, Eddie slacks his belt, the noisy pluck of the studs and buckle pulling you up, chin level with the front of his jeans. Your knuckles pale, wrapped up in the carpet or your skirt or the slumped-off bedsheet at your back, you can’t tell, but then you reach for him, and your afterglow is long gone in favour of tension rekindling between your thighs.

“Can I, Eddie,” 

Your hands try to wander, fingers make for his zipper, but he shakes his head, sharp and tight, wound all the way up.

“No. No, just need,” Eddie swallows, “Need to do, wait, fu-hck.”

He’s burning up, head spinning a million wild colours like a pinwheel in the sun, and the disappointed pinch of your brow pulls through it all in his mind’s eye, the pretty dew of your skin, flushed. He pushes your hair from your face, dragging his boxers down just enough, confident and careless. 

You swallow the moan in a last-ditch effort to save face, like modesty has any place between the two of you, now. You think you might be dripping onto the fuckin’ floor. 

“You’ve got the prettiest cunt in the world, y’know. You know that?”

He strokes himself slow, base to tip, jaw falling. His free hand holds V-shaped under your jaw, keeps your head up, like you'd ever elect to look away from it, ever, and words dawn on you only barely, too taken with the length and girth and the stupid hot mossing of hair and the way it glistens and pulses, leaks when his fingers ring the pink head tighter than you would, if it were you. God, you wish his hand was yours. 

Eddie’s still talking, and you’re only picking up fragments, wetting your lips once, twice and again.

“So easy, so fucking wet,”

“’M not easy, you’re just,” There’s no room for shame, how you talk on the tip of your tongue, lips always a little open, a breath-held waiting for it, “Please, Eds, let me. Y’r cock is, like, so nice, Eddie, wanna make you feel, god,”

It’s a unique kind of torture, having him jack off over you, his pleasure grounded in your torment, your begging. You grasp at whatever, now, your hips helplessly thrusting, one hand white-knuckling the back of his thigh while the other tries, fingers working abrupt circles on your clit to chase a feeling even half as world-altering as the one his tongue had given you.

“Shut up, fucking—”

He’s a goner when it all strikes him, lewd wet noises all that resonates in the room, you saying his name, never fuckin’ listening: it’s all a wild shift from the typical riffs that make the walls throb when you’re together, here, the hyperactive bickering and laughter, but he’s always wanted this, wanted it to be like this, you both have. 

It's a flourish in his mind for half a moment: what song you’ll argue over, later tonight, and then he’s striping your pretty face with cum, fingers curling into your scalp and pumping across your cheeks and lips and waiting tongue with a broken shout. It’s drawn out, fist squeezing his bucking cock, by the wonderment in your eyes, blinking up at him. The glossed oh of your lips teases at an excited grin, and Eddie whimpers, awestruck.

“Made a mess of me, Eds.”

      And he’s still too gone to think of something funny or sharp, humming as he runs his thumb through the mess, but he fuckin’ folds when you move to lick his fingers clean, your hand so delicate around the cuff on his wrist, tongue working gratuitously against his stainless steel rings.

Even like this, you can’t help plucking at him. Can’t help the way the petulance ribbons warmth up inside you: the same kind of bickering feels like more, now.

“They do a lot of facials in California?”

Finally resting on his haunches between your thighs, Eddie rolls his eyes: a tell-tale sign you’ve bested him. It’s not hard to best a man who’s got his cock in his hand, even if he’s tucking it away, but, really, Eddie's been a puddle in the palm of your hand for years, long before he knew how your pussy tasted. 

      It’d taken not two days of back-and-forth, of his name lighting your phone at all hours, for cheap conversation about your classes and his career to fragment into slivers of deeper introspection. Three days before talks of big fears and big achievements were woven between voice memos recording broken pleas and lewd, slick sounds. Then wish you were here would be taped below ten-second clips: fuzzy and dark but where the lamplight glints golden on the slick of his cock, and you can hear him, hear your name groaned in the videos.

And it’d been a few weeks, more than a few nights where Pierre-Luc was there, practically. Where your snapchats would cut around your clay facemasks to show a little too much décolletage, and suddenly you’d have a hand between your thighs, ‘cause God Luc loved it, and he was really good at weaponizing his near-constant uniform of grey sweats and too-tight shirts.

But that was all it was. As your college gradually allowed you back on campus, and hockey made its valiant return, you both found your schedules filling out with things more important than sexting like horny teenagers, and the line died before the feelings did.

      Tonight the sky’s the colour of port wine and it’s late-spring, but it’s Winnipeg all the same: the wind feels like it should welt frost all along your legs while you’re stood on the kerb, waiting for a motley collection of your relatives to negotiate street parking. Your apartment’s barely two blocks away from the restaurant, and walking had seemed like a good idea until now: your shoulders tremble when you loosen them to wave at your aunt in someone’s passenger seat, the driver trying to reverse parallel, and your hair sticks to your lipgloss in the breeze, and maybe it wasn’t the walking, but the showing up at all, that was your mistake.

You think so, especially, when your cousin cheeps out your name from a little ways down the block, picks up her pace to jog into your arms, a hug with an intensity that takes you off guard, ‘cause your eyes are only on the guy following her up, the barest of furrows in his brow: far too familiar. 

The pathetic hope he’ll continue being a stranger, a passer-by, even just for tonight, it’s gone in the way your cousin looks back at him, smiles at him. Your brain whirrs like a cash counter, excuses to leave filing themselves into the dozens, but car doors are slamming nearby, and you know how your parents get about these silly gatherings.

      Your cousin’s smile glows and she’s halfway through something like how have you been, it’s been so long, before you come to centre, swallow around some throwaway answer and let a sigh die in your throat when Luc settles at your cousin’s side, pink-faced in a way he’s sure he can blame on the wind chill. He hopes, anyway.

But he knows the way you look under the fine silk dancing against your tight thighs, tonight, and he’s fucked. He’s fucked. Your cousin explains to a group of family, now, how “Pierre lives in the neighbourhood, so we walked. Isn’t that so romantic?” and you and Luc, you both see the train about to derail, here. Both feel the panic as it screams in your ears.

      He takes her hand when you all walk in, and drops it to sit wherever your uncle directs him to without complaint: opposite his girlfriend, adjacent you. It’s weird to watch it all: the sharp, wide cut of his knuckles flexing in a cup around her hand then letting go easily, and you know he’s not yours, but he sent stupid fucking hand pictures when you asked, one time, and you’d complimented this signet ring he wore, and, fuck. 

He’d said You want a ring? I’d run away with you if they’d let us out of the country. 

And you’d swooned, laid upside down on your couch, square-eyed and lost in him. 

i’d settle for that one against my throat rn. but i hear vegas is nice this time of year.

Inside you? We could even do Cabo. Maybe Paris.

i want it all with you. paris sounds nice, though.

And now he’s toying with his soup spoon like a kid in trouble, and if you don’t keep your elbows down you feel the warmth of him beside you, and that auric signet adorns the fourth finger on his right hand, and if you think about the way he’d ended that conversation, the almost-sincerity of his promise to take you to fuckin’ Paris? Bending you over on the hotel balcony and kitschy gallery dates? 

You’d spent an hour talking about the city with him, riding out your orgasmic afterglow on the phone together. It was nearly routine. For some reason, now, you think you could cry at this table. 

A healthy dose of jealousy found in the knowing you’d have him, maybe, if you’d tried a little harder. If you’d not both gotten so busy all at once, if the timing had been right. If you’d put more effort in when he kept swiping up on your stories for a few weeks. You shoulder it all, the onslaught, and smile while telling your relatives about this freelance gig you’ve got, how well it compliments school. How you’re thriving, really, on most fronts, but you stammer over the relationship questions, and how Luc’s knee leans into yours under the table, and you feel bad, but you don’t pull away from it.

He lets himself look at you, properly in this light, for the first time, when you manage “Tinder’s a bit of a lost cause, isn’t it?”, coated in an impressive fake laugh along with one of your perpetually-single aunts. 

      This joint’s got these too-expensive chandeliers curtaining honeyed light everywhere, and you’re smiling, gentle and measured and more polite than he’d known you to be, and he has to blink slow like he’s stunned, because he is, a little. It takes a moment to remind himself he’s not here with you, and it feels like a gutting. Luc barely knows what he’s getting at when he picks up his phone from where it’d rested, untouched between fine stemware, but he knows that sitting here without speaking to you feels like burning. 

His name in your notifications still tightens in your chest, all these months later.

She’s not my girlfriend Only came because she didn’t want to answer relationship questions tonight

You need something stronger than the iced water you drink, but it chills all the way down to your stomach, and it helps. The way your nerves prickle, brain buzzes— it somehow makes you feel like you fit in, here, match the roiling energy of this overstimulating restaurant. You can barely form a serious thought.

so what, you were bribed with the oysters and negronis on my dad’s tab?

You text under the table, subtle enough, but you’re thankful for the boisterous mouth of your dad explaining some unbelievable golfing story to his brothers. Moreover, distracting everyone from your shitty table manners. You keep your shoulders back, anyway, sure steeling your spine will save you from swooning into a hunch over your phone, how you’d always wound up for him. Your mom would really hate that, you think.

You catch Luc in your periphery, glancing around, trying to keep up. His eyes glint with feigned interest before they fall back to his phone, and your heart beats loud and uneven like it’s the blunt tap tap tap of his thumb.

Just the oysters. Got a PT session in the morning and I’m a lightweight.

of course you are

And you hope Luc will be done at your dismissal. That history might repeat itself on an abstracted scale, and he’ll reach out to one of your kid cousins across the table and bribe them to swap seats so he can sit beside the girl he came with, much to your uncle’s chagrin. You think about it, though, for a few seconds: where his knee touches yours, his elbow moves so close to your forearm you feel it, there, and then you think about him moving, and it’s nearly like panic. 

Any chance you still want that ring?

It’s selfish how you smile. But he’s smiling, too, and that makes it feel better, a little. Like if you’re doing the wrong thing, together, that makes it less wrong.

nah, just paris. being realistic here.

The hotel balcony or the Louvre?

You’re warm all over, delirious-drunken heat despite the lemon-spiked water in your glass, and it’s pathetic how quick he’s got you, a puddle in the palm of his hand, pressure between your thighs. The room is suffocating, overfilled.

You hear your cousin, for a moment, her high voice recounting shapeless words— hearing her but not listening. You’re glad she’s busy, but you think she might kill Luc when they get home, for the way he’s not partaking in the high frenzy of your extended family, like this wasn’t meant to be his debut and now he’s on his phone, lost under the ruckus. You might be annoyed, too, if you weren’t the reason for it. If the thought of a Parisian balcony and the man beside you didn’t make you shift in your seat.

don’t try to sext me rn

But he puts his phone down, and his knee skims your thigh again, and that ring tingggs against the glass when he hesitates before picking up his water, and you just can’t help yourself. You text again.

the balcony after a day at the louvre.

Your cousin falls back in her seat when Luc’s phone trembles on the table, screen alive again, and her deflation bites at you, but your body’s alight when Luc stands up, plucking his phone from the sparkling chaos of excessive silverware he doesn’t know the purpose of. He excuses himself, leaves without fuss from anybody, and he mustn’t be even halfway to the bathroom before your phone vibrates in the cradle of your lap.

How about the bathroom of this place, for now? I’ll book flights tonight.

i’m not fucking you here are u insane

Just wanna talk.

The free bread on the table’s almost gone and main courses are still miles away, and the tension is building between your mom and one of her sisters, so you go. You tell yourself it’s everything but Luc, but then there’s the stupid, incessant brush of his leg alongside yours, the silken jersey of his stupid-nice pants, tight like barely-holding around his thick thigh, pressing into you like a reminder, and he’s twice as head-spinningly attractive in person. Like all that had done nothing to you at all.

      He stands with his back against the doorframe of a single-stall in the little alcove of a hallway, and he calms when he sees you, visibly so: shy smile hiding teeth and his shoulders relaxing, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The cogs twining tension in your torso begin to come apart, letting your muscles breathe.

“It’s nice to finally meet you.” And you think that’s his idea of breaking the ice, ‘cause maybe you look a little meaner than you want to, expressionless with arms folded across your body, and you don’t really know why. Luc wants to ask if you’re okay, but that’d be dumb, he thinks. Neither of you have a reason not to be.

There are probably a million things in the air to be cleared, but none of them feel right to begin this conversation with. You don’t know why he wanted to get you alone, but you know you stand a little too close to him, and neither of you mention it. Something’s starting, here, energy between the pair of you, you feel it rising, an upward pull you can’t quite place. It’d be so easy to kiss him.

“Sorry I stopped texting.” Is an easy place to start, an easy way to shake the sly little thoughts about his beard and his shoulders and his lips— and you are sorry. God, are you. The word sorry doesn’t seem big enough for the pit in your chest, tonight. For how cuttingly good he looks in all-black, the dress shirt tailored taut across the expanse of muscle, licks of hair threatening to scruff around his ears. No word could be, you don’t think.

“So am I. Got a lot to catch up on.” Luc shifts like he doesn’t know where to put his hands, pocket-to-pocket and far, far too heavy by his sides. It’s darker here, in this sleek little hallway, and he hopes, if he’s as flushed as he feels, that you can’t tell.

“The girlfriend, probably foremost.” You finally smile, pretty and bittersweet, and it melts him, how your head tilts with it, and all his thoughts fall gooey in his chest. He feels like a bad guy. Maybe he is a bad guy. Maybe he doesn’t really care, though, because you’re here, now, and years of grinding out on the ice and quotes about hard work and planning and structure has marred his perception of fate and luck, but he knows this feels too right to not be something like that. On this date he’d only agreed on to be nice, he feels like the luckiest dude in the world to have found you again.

“If I told you we’re not exclusive would you kiss me?”

You stare dumbly, and you know you should tell him to fuck off, ‘cause the girl he came with is around the corner and a couple tables over, and, God, the nitty terms of their relationship shouldn’t matter, but he's afflicted and he looks it, handsomeness aggrandised by apple cheeks, an open mouth, caught between words and sensibility and what he wants, and it overcomes you: you need him so bad it thrums everywhere, shimmery and heavy in your blood. 

“Would you be lying?”

He answers quick and gaspy, desperate:

“Never. It’s been a month of talking. Nothing defined.”

And it’s not a romantic profession or gesture and it shouldn’t be enough, but it’s like a magnet’s pull on the iron in your veins, the excitement of it, and you're on him, kissing hard, pushing your way around into the single stall with his hands keeping you close, your chest flush to his sternum, his heaving ribs.

      Cutting shadows in the desaturated amber light of this too-nice bathroom, his hands stretch across plains of your body, hold tight— move rougher than his mouth. The juxtaposition is mind-spinning and hot and frustrating all at once, grappling with the gentleness of his kiss, and the way he handles you like you could slip away from him, and he’d do anything to stop it.

Backed against the wall, you spare a thought for what it might be like, later, when you’re not in heels and you have to pull and stretch like taffy to kiss him like this, and it’s all you can think about, the next time, the more more more. 

The idea that this will end flows in and spikes in your chest, and Luc’s tugging at your hair, a little hard, pulling your head back to mouth softly down the column of your neck when “Need you,” falls from your mouth like a plea.

Luc catches your eye for a moment, a touch of gentle concern on his face, seeking clarity as he pants “Here?”, and the understated respect of it takes you further into him, finding his mouth with yours once more.

“I don’t— Just need something Luc.” Your thoughts are disorganised, pathways from your brain to your mouth well and truly in meltdown, but he gets the idea. He gets this little smile on his open mouth when the hand in your hair tightens at the root, makes you gasp, your hips jolt up into him.

“I really wanna touch you.” He might’ve been shy about it, were the circumstances different: were you somebody else, somewhere else— somewhere the sense of urgency is not so overwhelming, the fear of loss not spurring on the need to do this, do it right. But he’s here, practically on top of you, and he knew he was fucked the moment he saw you out front, but he’s a wreck for you, now, long gone.

      He’s caught the fervent nod of your head before the breathy “Please.”, and the word is twisted into a gasp with Luc’s hand pushing between your thighs, fingers lithe and intuitive in angling against your slit, pushing heavy enough through the layers of tights and panties that your hips buck, chasing it.

Hand falling from your hair to your hip, Luc guides, helps you cant your pelvis in rhythm with the cyclical working of his hand, and he studies it, smiling: the look on your face, the lips open but brows tight, unclipped pleasure tingling out, “Oh, God, Luc,” and little uh-huhs falling unstifled from your glossed mouth. 

But footsteps thud outside the door, echo in the hall a little louder than the restaurant’s bustling hum, and Luc feels them, a familiar pull, like skates shredding ice behind him, the feeling of somebody catching up, and it’s like years of that has steeled his composure for nothing but this. 

He hates it, but the rush makes him impossibly harder, fizzes in his muscles all over. He quietens you gently, takes your jaw in his big hand and “Shh, sh, I’ve got you. Gotta be quiet.” falls so close to your lips, numb from his teeth, and he kisses you again as he tears at your tights and pushes beneath your underwear, cold rush of air and then his hand, hot and heavy.

You yelp into him when his fingers take featherlight circles over your bare clit, slow and purposeful and not nearly enough, and your nerve grows tenfold in the moments where you're trying, grabbing at his forearm and grinding, but he’s moved from cautious to teasing: you can taste the difference in the kiss made shallow by his fake-coy grin.

You find it in you, for the slimmest moment, to tune out your frustration, like it’s not beating between your legs cruelly, unsated by the hot little waves Luc’s revelling in, and you swallow hard, thumbing at his cheek so he meets your eye, stars in his, and he’s all you want, then.

“Let them kick the door in if they come looking, Luc. Need you inside me,”

      And the footsteps are long gone, and, like, ten minutes is maybe a generous estimate for the time you’ve got before phones start ringing and people start knocking, but he feels a little like the world might break apart if he doesn’t move you, sit you up on the marble counter’s edge and give you what you’re asking for.

He handles you with ease: it’d be graceful, maybe, if it wasn’t undercut by urgency, by your grasping at the width of him, trying to take down the pearlescent buttons of his shirt while he fumbles with the zip on his pants, all moving so, so fast. It’s mulled with panted hums and your voice, catching, when you see him, breathless with awe and intimidation and a little chagrin, maybe, at how you feel yourself pulse, leak filthily. 

“You okay?” He mumbles at your sudden quiet, nudging at your chin with one hand to look at him while wrangling his pants down his thighs a little further, and the red flourish of his cheeks flips your belly, makes this feel real, open. Like you know him, and he knows you, better than anyone.

“Y’wanna hear how it’s better in person? Can I show you?” It’s self-indulgent, how you reach between your bodies, run a tentative hand over the imposing length of him with a smile, satisfied with how it bests him so easily, makes the big man all blushy.

“Don’t have time,” He finally gulps, centring himself with a fist around his dick, so you can’t touch, and it nearly makes it worse, he thinks, because then you’re touching yourself, big, slow circles over your soaked underwear, the obscene hole in your tights, legs spread with your knees up. He can barely look, not here. Feels criminal to have you without having the time to do it properly, to appreciate you right.

“We have a little time...” You try, gaging, this time, daring, maybe, and he steps into it seamlessly, the tone you’d known from him when he’d shamelessly tell you exactly how to fuck yourself all those months ago, stringing up words over the phone line that would make you blush and writhe and thank him earnestly.

“You can make out with my cock when I get to lay you out and eat this pussy. Not before. For now— hey, look at me,” His eyes are dark and it makes them soft, sincere and dead serious as his words, “I’m gonna fuck you hard and quick and,” He pulls the sticky fabric of your panties to the side, “Then we’re gonna pretend this didn’t happen,”

Your whimper is a little pathetic, gauzy and mostly breath and equal parts the sick reality of the situation and the hot, swollen head of Luc’s cock teasing at your entrance, catching and slipping, “Till we can get back to yours and I can make you mine, good and well.”

And that gets you, and you don’t know if you really knew what it meant to see stars before, but when it pops in, abrupt, the hot stretch pushes deep and fast and with his hands all over you, thumbing at your lip, palming at your neck, you know, finally, you’re acquainted with them.

       It’s stream of consciousness, your comfort with him already prevailing as “S’ really big, Luc.” wavers your voice, shoulders dipped back against the cold mirror behind you, and Luc, for all he would love to revel in it, doesn’t let it preen him, more important things to worry about, his brow furrowing deep. 

“You good?” He strains, nearly bottomed-out, big hands finding their hold on your thighs, and it’s only met with “Please, Luc, need it,” from you. And he says something you think you miss, a little, ‘cause his hips jolt up almost involuntarily and you can’t really think straight, as it is, but it sounds like “Fuckin’ killing me.”.

He holds the back of your legs, pushing up up up to keep you open for him as your hips pull and twist and give way to this new cadence, the throbbing pleasure hitting in your lower stomach and building out, knotting you inside. 

“So wet... Makin’ a mess.” 

It mounts fast enough it could nearly be embarrassing, and it’s not at all helped by the way he runs his mouth, almost to himself, mindless and unfiltered. Rambles of pretty girl and so good for me, a new ballast to his ever-smooth voice: it damn near reverberates in your chest on every thrust, overwhelms you equal to the palpable surges along your nerves as you fall in time with one another.

Deep in the marrow of the moment, under the headiness of the stretch, the rock, waves of pleasure like a rising tide, impending— the pressing feeling remains: pleas of “Tonight?” cut from Luc’s mouth, panting as he grabs your hips and drives into you, his words unvetted by sense or foresight, and you nod, desperate, giggle dumbly when he clarifies “Got any plans later?”.

“Uh...” A little moan, wetting your lips as you collect your thoughts like a mixed up deck of cards, trying to focus like he’s not rutting his cock into you, hunting deeper, deeper, “Gonna... G’na be on my knees, I think...”

“Yeah?” There’s something flashy about his smile, the way his beard softens his face through the ecstasy, the pretty cut of his incisors under a curled lip when your back arches, helps him sink further, hit that spot. You’re done-for when he slows, shallows his thrusts and tracks a hand along your body, fingers lighting a ticklish path all the way down, slipping over your dress to split either side of your clit and stroke gently, back and forth and back, cyclical and unwavering.

It brightens everything, the chill glass along the ridges of your shoulder blades fuses with the uproar of heat and pressure in your pelvis— lemon over split ice, cracking and fizzing. Then it turns quickly, lips into an edge suddenly, brutally.

      It only takes the subtlest of upticks in his pelvis, the head of his cock rutting in just so, and you’re right there, rocking messy turns into his hips as you orgasm, chin tipped back, a cry you can’t contain, and everything slows down: Luc can’t help himself, hungry mouth dipping to your chest. You’re searing hot, skin sheening under the rich, burnishing light, reflexive grasping for his arms, his torso, and you’re so stunning like this, he nearly laughs.

“There she is, that’s my girl,” Is quickly bridled with wet little kisses along your collarbone, fucking you through the afterglow, quick snaps of his hips, now, fingers still there. Your cunt pulses around him, only made tighter by the sight of him when he rights his posture, his eyes rolling and fluttering closed and scrunching, turning your coherent thoughts into choppy whines and something that sounds a lot like thank you, Luc, thank you.

“Still with me, pretty girl?” He asks, but he’s about to lose it, too: the tremble in his voice, his choked breath, it’s not lost on you. You gasp as he reaches for the arch of your back, yanking you up into his torso, a hand feeling for your throat and thumb lining your jaw, heavy comfort like a blanket. His chest bumps into yours, heaving, panting, and you’re too far gone, now, to watch your words, your decorum, your head lolling into him.

“Do it inside me, Luc, please. Please.”

He’s rapt with it, the plea on your face, the gentleness of the ask, in awe of you. You whimper, his mouth pecking softly at your temple, as his hips tick up, he moans, “God. Say it again, baby. Say— fuck. What do you need?” 

You whine for half a moment, try to shove a hand between your bodies to play with your clit, but he’s mean about it, swatting your hand away, steadfast in that subtle cruelty until you give him what he wants, ‘till you say it.

“Need it, Luc. Fill me up. Make me your girl. Need your come, please, come inside me.”

He’s losing rhythm in favour of desperate, rabbity thrusts which shake you, and you can’t really tell, but you don’t think you stop talking, just lose coherency in all your begging, all your neediness, the titillation of hearing him say it: my girl, my girl, my girl while he pins your hips, fucks you into the counter.

With his fingers back on you, then, it’s unstoppable, inevitable. He’s burying his free hand in your hair to tip your head back, and kissing you hard, all messy licking, nipping, a growl when you’re coming, again, your cunt contracting and legs squeezing around his hips, hands clawing under his shirt— jaw hinged open to mewl his name. It’s all you remember when his hips stutter, shoving all the way in at once, barely pulling out before rocking back in, all his muscles wound tight tight tight.

He fills you up, hot and deep, threatening to flow out around where he’s buried. The stretch, the barely-fitting headspin is exacerbated now you’re both used and throbbing and— god, he huffs like he’s sobbing, groaning with the last of his load spilling into you.

You’re both breathing hard, like there’s not enough air to go around, and the oxygen on offer is heavy, hard to take down. Luc smiles to himself with his head bowed, and it’s strange, like the kind he wears after a bad loss but someone’s told a good joke in the tunnel, making dinner plans in the locker room, singing badly in the shower. Something akin to hope set behind it, held in tight: metal-gilded like the onyx in the ring he wears, warm gold.

      He pulls out slowly, and something breaks in your throat, disappointment, maybe, sudden emptiness carding up through your sinews, settling, cheesily, in your chest. You smell his cologne on yourself, shuddering off in waves when you move, find your footing on the ground despite shaky knees. 

You’re both deadlocked within yourselves, rearranging clothes, shakily praying your underwear catch the mess of him, the filthy flow. He’s pinching his buttons closed, and you find the top of your breast striated with long, blotchy rakes from teeth, sensibly covered by the neckline of your dress, but you don’t even remember when he’d done that, too lost in the fervour, the rush, since the moment the bathroom door shut behind you. It fills you, warmth in the smouldering pit behind your sternum, the proof he was there like a badge, or like a brooch. Either way, it’s yours to keep.

And the sweet is hard to keep out when the bitter makes it hotter. You agree you’ll leave first, and he’ll wait a moment before following, and he tells you he’ll call it off with her after dinner, and you nod like you’ve just shaken on a business deal. You should feel bad, but all you can feel is him between your legs, the tear in your stockings, exposed panties under the too-short-for-this dress, the dull ache.

It feels full-circle, like Can’t wait to taste you texted to your phone months ago, and, now, "I’m gonna spend, like, hours, eating you out, later,”, murmured against your ear from behind, matter-of-factly, his hand mapping a line up the side of your body, a sharp, playful little slap to your ass that makes you yelp, first, and roll your eyes after.

He laughs a soft “Huh. I’m serious, baby.”, rubbing at your shoulders.

“Yeah? Serious about Paris, too?” You’re fucking around, now. Almost high-strung, waiting for a knock, for someone to call you out, and this little swirling stroke of luck and fate or whatever the fuck, to fall apart. But, in your blurred afterglow, Luc slotted against you, still nearly-hard on your lower back, you don’t really care. You can’t imagine letting anything ruin it. 

“Mm. Leave it with me.”

      He kisses the back of your head before you finally break away, and pulls softly at your hand as you go. Your cousin sticks out like a beacon at that table when you round the corner to find your family, and the indecency of the mess in your underwear suddenly hangs like heavy raiment over you. 

Your seat and Pierre’s, both empty, jackets strewn and half-full glasses and crooked silverware from restive hands. It should be tell-tale, so obvious. 

But, there’s a blemish of maraschino on her pretty blouse, and she’s big-eyed and grinning and entertaining one of the aunts, not a care in the world. Maybe she hadn’t even noticed. You sit high on tense muscles, legs crossed tight under the table, and join the conversation like you’d never left, like fifteen minutes that felt like an hour or two hadn’t fallen away and changed so much with them. Maybe it’d been twenty minutes.

“Everything okay?” She asks, a genuine sidebar. So nice. 

“Yeah, turns out one of Pierre’s trainers is this guy I was seeing last summer. Got caught up talking about what an asshole he is.” The lie comes easily, and eases both you and her. Your phone throbs in your hand.

How soon can you get a few days off work?

A link to a hotel website comes through, next, then a screenshot of the balcony, a private terrace with a suspended daybed, sprawling city views. Your face must be candy-red.

i’ll see what i can do they’re gonna hate your québécois over there lmao

You wonder, briefly, if you look as out of place as you feel. As fucked-out as you feel. You’d smoothed your hair in the mirror, and he’d told you, doting look on his face, “You look... unaffected, mostly,”, trying to reassure you like your hair wasn’t tangled, makeup wasn’t blurred, the proof of your actions wouldn’t be glaring to anyone who cared to look. 

You could feel your pulse in your hands and throat and teeth, everything, asking “Did I feel unaffected?”. And he’d closed his eyes, groaned a desperate laugh through “Baby, don’t get me hard again.”. But he was already halfway back there.

      Luc, coming back out, walks with strides heavy and confident. Ruddiness crawls up from his collar and he smiles, asymmetrical dimples with his teeth seizing the inside of his cheek, trying to subdue it, the elation that’s so inappropriate, now.

Let em hate it. We don’t need to leave the suite, anyway.

He sits, and all the meals come out like it’s been rehearsed, timing impeccable. Luc pens one more message, and has to pretend that he hadn’t seen you freeze up, squirm in your seat. That he wants anything but to walk you home, now, give you everything he’s promised. With your elbows knocking under the table’s crest, though, it’s like neither of you had ever left. 

As you grope the bed to find your phone, you have half a panicky idea to screenshot the profile and send it to your friends in a flurry of “oh my god what the fuck look at this” and “lol should I swipe?”.

When Mikko pops up in the big group chat, a chaotic little part of you wants to send the screenshots their way, tack on a “Josty’s on the hunt” message and watch your extended circle flame his profile.

You think better of it, though— knowing how this looks (how it is, really). Curled up in JT’s guest room after movie night, after almost everyone else’s gone home, swiping tinder at something-past-eleven. It’s not subtle, and you doubt your frustration will be helped by your friends cawing about it in the group chat, so you shut up and hold your breath before tapping through to Tyson’s next photos.

You’re hit immediately with an obscene amount of thigh and bicep in a gratuitous wakesurfing shot, and the low hum from the space heater in the corner fills your ears as you groan almost silently into your fist, rolling your eyes because why does he have to look like that? And, shit, since when does he make this little ache bloom between your thighs? Your shaky fingers grip your phone a little tighter, letting your head sink deep between two pillows, like shielding half your face will make this any better. 

The next photo is from a few months back, taken at the party where JT had first introduced you to his friends after you’d moved out from Illinois. You were still a little reserved around the boys, so you and the girls huddled and Tyson had approached you periodically, gradually tipsier but charm never wavering, to make sure you were good, top up your drinks, ask if you needed an uber (or a shot).

It’s not until now, tapping through his fucking tinder profile, that you realise just how sweet that’d been of him, watching out for the new girl for nothing in return. And it’s not until now, staring at a photo where he and the boys are shirtless, fake flexing in sunglasses at nighttime, camera flash exaggerating the ridiculous contours of his body, that you realise, shit, maybe you’ve got… a thing… for Josty. 

JT’s presence in the photo right beside Tyson churns your stomach. You grew up with his little sister, and in the absence of an older brother of your own, JT was what you wound up with. Scanning the picture, its familiar background, you vaguely remember the variations JT spits when introducing you– “my sister’s sister” and “basically my sister”, and you know what they’re meant to imply, when he says them to his friends, but as you stare at Tyson’s tinder profile, of all things, you meekly hope Tyson hasn’t taken those dumb implications to heart.

Tyson’s last photo makes you scoff, the pixelly mid-celly action shot, avalanche logo proud on his chest, a little flex buried behind a stack of largely unassuming photos. Once the feeling of ugh, obviously he had to include that has rolled through you, you find yourself smiling a little, endeared by it— sorta proud. And fuck, yeah, maybe the way your heart squeezed at that first photo was a red flag, flailing at half-mast, a harbinger of a crush you hadn’t really known you harboured.

It takes a full five minutes of restless back and forth in your head, deciding you’ll play it off as a joke on the off chance you match, and looking away from your phone while you do it, to finally swipe right.

You heave a choke, eyes bulging, as the It’s a Match! graphic fills the screen immediately. Snapping up in bed, you lock your phone as though that’ll make what’s just happened un-happen, waiting, frozen in the dark, for something. Like he’s going to yell down the hall from where he’s meant to be sleeping in the living room, or something.

Your head swims with thoughts of oh, this is a joke, and we both swiped right because we know each other, no other reason, trying to rationalise it, knowing, somewhere in your head, that it’s not as big a deal as it feels, with the way your heart is pumping. You know you’ll laugh about it while playing never have I ever at some party down the line, maybe. Still, you wince when your phone vibrates against your leg, once, twice.

What are u wearing rn baby? Jk. come hang

You want to scream-laugh and bury yourself under the covers and most of all, pretend you hadn’t seen the messages. Pretend he hadn’t messaged mere moments after you’d swiped, so you could pretend you were sleeping. Climb out the window? JT lives on the tenth floor. Fuck JT’s nice ass apartment. You’d known this could happen, but you’d kinda assumed it wouldn’t. That he’d swipe left if he found you (better still, roast you in the group chat like you’d wanted to do to him. He’s too nice for that, though. Of course he is.).

You hold your breath as you slip out of the room, pulling up the door handle to silence its latch as you close it slowly— and you hold your breath as you shuffle down the dark hall as though the press of your socks to the hardwood could possibly rouse JT through the walls.

As you breach the light blanketing from the floor lamp in the far corner, Tyson twists on the couch to greet you, smug little smile on his face as he throws his arms out, says “Welcome to our first date.” without a lick of sarcasm, and you scoff a laugh, easy.

The tension you’d fabricated is drained away, seeing him all smiley in a dense nest of blankets and pillows like this.

“Damn. No candles? Romantic music?” You let your eyes dart around the room comically, assessing the night’s damage: the packages leftover from midseason cheat snacks, the deck of cards strewn over the table. 

“It was a last-minute thing. I have popcorn, though.”

Tyson leans to lift the bowl on the coffee table, shaking the long-cold kernels about noisily, cracking the swell of silence which fills the room behind the clipped volume of your voices, and you shhh him aggressively, pointing towards the shadowy hallway, JT’s room. 

“He can hang with us.” He rolls his eyes, working at you like a little kid, as though getting under your skin is going to impress you, somehow– and you suppose that’s always been the nature of your relationship: play fighting, pulling pigtails. It just feels charged, now. You snatch the bowl from Tyson’s hand, watch his smirk drop, satisfied.

“Now JT’s invited on our date?” You gasp, feigning offence, glancing back at him as you cross the open plan to the kitchen to empty the stale popcorn. 

“No– no.” Tyson sputters. And, for a second, he sounds like he might add something, but you finish rinsing and drying the bowl and he hasn’t continued. Something about it turns your stomach.

“Come, get in. ‘S cold.” Tyson tells you, lifting the layered patchwork of blankets that engulf his lower half, beckoning you in.

Your eyes narrow at him, face contorting sarcastically, and you watch as his brows raise, eyes roll.

“Don’t be weird about some blankets. It’s pretty obvious why you were on tinder at eleven p.m.”

Your throat goes dry, because he’s right, and god, it’s embarrassing that he’s called it out, but it doesn’t change how you’re still a little hot all over, and that wakesurfing pic spins in the back of your head, even looking at him, now, wearing a plush hoodie and waist-deep in fluffy bedding.

“Hey, chill. You were on tinder, too.” You compose yourself quickly, flicking an accusatory point of your finger in his direction with raised brows, hoping, by some grace, the weird, sheeted lighting means he doesn’t catch the glow of your cheeks, hoping he doesn’t quite know your timbre well enough to recognise the waver.

Tyson lifts his hands in mock surrender, warping his voice sarcastically to chide “Oh, you caught me,” before he flips the duvet off to let you have it, leaning to fish over the heavy wool knit you’d given JT as a housewarming gift years ago.

“’S like JT’s never heard of central heating before.” You mutter, if for nothing but to fill the quiet as you take up place beside him on the couch, tucking yourself comfortably beneath the still-warm duvet which bunches up thickly between the pair of you.

“He doesn’t earn enough to use it, unfortunately.” Tyson sighs, nods solemnly before his eyes cant towards you, glinting a little as he staves off a smile, “‘M sure those tiny shorts don’t help your case, though.”

You barely let the thought settle before you’re throwing a pillow at his head and he’s catching it, apologising with red cheeks and “I knew that’d getcha. Y’r shorts are fine.”.

“They’re just fine?” 

And you don’t know what you’re doing, not letting what he’s said settle before you cut back: there’s still a nagging warmth in you, and your mouth runs with it, testing. You roll the inside of your cheek between your teeth.

“I can’t think too much about ‘em in JT’s house, honestly.” 

He looks shy while saying it, and your whole body goes cold and tingly-numb watching him, hearing what he’s said, the way his cheeks are ruddy and his chin tucked like hiding, a little. Your dumb almost-smile fills the gap while you process, shift your seat unconsciously, heat curling between your legs, and you pray he doesn’t notice.

“Fuck off.” You settle on laughing like he’s joking, even though he’s straight-faced.

An unoffended hum clears it, whatever that moment was, and Tyson continues.

“Y’know, I was losing hope. I swiped right on you weeks ago, like last movie night. Whenever it was that you and Mikko, like, whatever.”

His words wrap around you, the weight of them, feeling like he’s holding the flyaway at the end of a spool of thread, about to unravel. Tyson shuffles his phone between his hands absentmindedly, not looking at you. 

“What d’you…” 

But you know what he means. 

“I didn’t go home, y’know with Mikko, or anything, Tys. We carpooled.” 

“Yeah, JT told me. Still, you left with him, his hand was on your back, I was kinda jealous, whatever, whatever.” Tyson says, sweetly self-deprecating and assuring in the ways he always is, and his words feel like a swarm of butterflies in your chest (and, right now, you don’t even begin to unpack the mention of JT.).

“Point is, it was a long shot swiping right. Didn’t think you’d ever hit me back. ‘M glad it’s paying off.”

Tyson looks at you, mouth pinched into this little smile he does, and you hadn’t realised but you know it up and down, know the satisfaction behind it. For all the facetious digs, you feel the change, here, things being laid out flush on the table, between you both.

“Paying off? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I swiped right by accident.”

“You’re my mortal enemy.” His smile blooms. 

“So, why’d you swipe right?”

You don’t miss a beat.

“For sure the wakeboarding pic.” You furrow your brow like pssh, like you’re telling him obviously. Your eyes try to find the version of him from that photo, here, now, within the billow of layers. All you discover is his hand, hard and cut with veins, which clutches the blanket on his lap: it waves heat through your lower abdomen all the same as that photo did. 

He chews on his lip, brow hard, then you watch him light up, a-ha—  remembering the photo.

“Fuck yeah. I knew it’d work.” He says. “‘S that why you’re squirming like that?”

Sitting there, the duvet weighs a tonne on your bare thighs, and there’s no air in your lungs, you’re hot all over, and inside, too. 

“I’m not, squirming, Tys.” You try, squirming, cris-crossing your legs and shifting a little. 

“You are so! It’s kinda sweet.”  He looks overjoyed. You want to sink into the rowdy sea of blankets.

“Sweet?” You nearly laugh, fingers curling into your blanket, knuckles white. “Please don’t mock me.”

You feel dumb, pleading, and if your legs weren’t frozen, tight-muscled, you’d probably be packing into an Uber, by now.

“I’m not mocking you. Bein’ dead serious.” Tyson, easy smile still cool and calm, sticks a hand out, extends his pinky to promise. Level with him, you take it, exhale when he doesn’t let go: he has this weird little way of soothing, soft dark eyes puppy-wide, brows upturned.

“Let me know if I’ve read this situation wrong.” His voice is smaller than it’s ever been, than you’ve ever heard. Hands entwined, dropped to the couch now, your pinkies are pinched red, latticed together, both tight as each other. 

“You haven’t.”

The edge of his hand presses against yours. 

“Are you wet?” 

You nod, and his breath falls in a strained sigh. 

His fingers drift up to take your hand, properly, tug you closer, maybe, but your tongue lashes before you overthink it, and it stops him, freezes you both.

“Can I suck you off?”

It’s all you want, the weight of him in your mouth, and there’s no room for shyness anymore, not after his question. Tyson’s head tips back into the couch, grip plying away from the blankets, fingers flexing, his one hand squeezing yours. A little part of you thinks about those fingers, too, wants to wrap your lips around them.

“Fuck.” He nearly whimpers.

“Yeah?” You’re doe-eyed, curious. More than a little excited.

“Yeah– yes, please.” You see him swallow, nodding vacantly.

So you push the blankets away (which is okay, the air could nearly sizzle against your skin, you think, everything’s suddenly warm, everywhere), and move to kneel between his legs, and it takes all you have to keep from giggling shyly when he hands you a throw pillow, says “For your knees, y’know,” nervously. A shimmery warmth rises in your chest at the gesture.

He helps your eager hands tug his sweatpants down around his midthigh, cock bobbing free, hard and heavy, proud between his legs. Your lax mouth nearly waters at the sight– likewise, he blinks hard, watching the way your eyes widen, tongue wets your plush lips. His exhale shudders, and tension claws at his abs as you lean in on your elbows.

That tension dissolves as your hot tongue meets the head, laps tentatively at his sticky precum, and quickly, you melt into it all, spitting on the tip and lazily pulling the slick down his thick shaft with fingers that don’t quite ring around the girth of him. You tug back up to the flared crown, revelling in his tiny reactions: the slump back of his head, clipped breath, struggling to stay quiet when you hit somewhere sensitive.

He watches, enthralled, as you take him into your mouth, pretty eyes fluttering shut with every bob of your head, taking him a little deeper into the back of your mouth on every pass until he’s butting the back of your throat and you’re choking him down, clenching around him. He wishes it didn’t turn him on so fucking much, seeing the tears well up as you pull off him, a mess of sticky spit and precum lacy between his cock and your chin, your smiley mouth.

“Taste so good, Tys.” You hum, kissing gently against the velvet underside, all tongue and loose suckling at him, practically making out with his cock, the bliss of it nearly blurring his vision. 

The compliment goes straight to his dick, and Tyson slowly rings your hair tight around his fist, murmurs “Okay?” and when you nod, he squeezes, tugging at your scalp deliciously.

“Fuck my face?” You ask, oh-so-innocent, gasping when he bucks his cock towards your mouth unconsciously, smearing your mess against your cheek.

“Tongue out.”

There’s a steady sternness to his tone that pits your stomach, that you don’t have time to unpack before Tyson guides your head, slowly, at first, bringing you up and down on his cock, tongue lolling, getting you both messy, drooly. Your forearms rest on his inner thighs, lax now he’s controlling the movement, picking up pace as he gages your reactions.

Bets are off when he catches one of your hands float down between your legs, though, and if he wasn’t fighting for his life to stave off his own peak (or, if he wasn’t on JT’s poor couch, fuck) he’d call you out on it, let this escalate to something with a harsher energy, something you’re both keening for, but can’t quite have, here. 

You gag as he sinks into your throat, wet and frothy and clenching around him, jaw going blissfully numb as tears bloom, spill to sear your cheeks. Your hand ruts tentatively at your core, aimless swathes of your fingertips over your clit that only just quell the ache, but not the desperation. 

The weight of him is all-consuming, salty-sweet on your tongue, and it’s not long before he’s backing off, struggling to keep his mouth shut while you whimper and moan, gag around him, your fingers toying with your clit gently: he can see it, your arm moving, the tight rotation of your torso, kinda, and if he thinks about it, he knows he won’t last.

Tentatively, Tyson lets your head lift, hand still heavy at the crown of your skull but pressureless, and, mindlessly, your hand finds his cock in the absence of your mouth. 

“Tys.” It takes him a second to come to centre, open his eyes. You feel him throb in your hand, and try again: “Tyson.”

“Yeah. Yeah?” He blinks, once, twice, clearing his clouded head.

“Tell me this is mine.”

You whine “Tys,”, faux-pouting when he takes a second, his breath ragged, and you blink up at him, tugging hard around the head of his cock, encouraging a fresh drool of precum, making him whine. 

All at once, Tyson huffs, rolls his eyes and leans quick to grab you around the ribs and pull you up, make you crawl onto the couch with him, plucking a gaspy little laugh from you at the sudden roughness of it. 

“You’re such a little slut.” He chuckles, shakes his head, drawing a hand up to twist your hair around his fist once more— holding you level with his gaze, and your jaw gapes around a shocked smile, a fresh lick of your juices soaking your panties, your shorts, by now. You gulp, suddenly aware of the filth of it all, the cool air freezing against the mess on your face, between your legs. Something about it gives you a rush of confidence.

“Yeah, but so are you. Tell me your cock’s all mine, Tys. That this isn’t a one-time thing.”

The facetious, mean demeanour he wears melts for half a second as he processes, pulls you in to kiss you hard, open. His face goes hot, head blurred at the taste of himself heady on your tongue, the harsh, minty cut of your toothpaste still lingering.

And, with his tongue in your mouth, Tyson shoves his free hand down the front of your shorts, then yanks you back by the hair at just the right time, leaving you, tongue a little out, fighting for air, hitching a gasp as his fingers find your cunt, dripping.

“Only if this belongs to me, too.”

With one hand in your hair and the other pressed to your pussy, Tyson’s face is more serious than you’ve ever seen it. Your chest burns in the best way.

“All yours, baby.” You smile, meaning it.

Juxtaposing the roughness with which he’d yanked you onto the couch, Tyson’s hands move to guide your hips, tugging you over his lap. He reaches up, stroking your hair from your face, all the shyness he’d had earlier back in the smile he glows with, now. 

“I’ll ask you on a real date when my dick’s soft again.”

You laugh softly, hand pushing up under his hoodie, helping him tug it off: you’re indulgent in the way your hand brushes his abs, and if he notices, he says nothing.

“Better get to work then, huh?”

It takes all Tyson has not to land a sharp little slap to your ass at that, but he’s vaguely still aware of JT down the hall, and Tyson’ll be damned if he lets this be interrupted, now. It takes little more than a nudge to bunch the soft material of your shorts up to the side, and you’re so wet it’s everywhere, soaked through and it’s starting to slick up your inner thighs, a little, Tyson could nearly finish on the spot when he realises, but his fingers dig into the flesh at the junction between your ass and thigh, and he’s a little distracted. 

Your one hand steadies his cock, the other pressing on his shoulder. And you let the head catch your hole and draw yourself down, so slow it feels torturous, like it’s crushing his entire chest, and when he finally bottoms out, opens his eyes to find your teasing little smile, your hips unmoving, and, with the realisation that you’re fucking with him, he uses the squeeze he has on your ass to flip the pair of you, huffing “Fuck this.” as you yelp. Your back’s arched over the mound of blankets and pillows, tilting your hips up for him, practically presenting yourself, suddenly lewd in a way it hadn’t been moments ago, even when he was inside you. You feel your cheeks burn. 

“Don’t have time to play.” Tyson mutters.

You nearly laugh, smile so big that his frustration could nearly dissipate at the sight. Nearly. Then, you talk again.

“You really wanna ask me on that date, don’t you, Tys?”

The blunt head catches your cunt again, nudges forward, sits shallow. You gulp around the little sigh that nearly slips, blink hard, hide the beckoning pleasure, as though he won’t notice the telltale throb around the tip of his cock.

His curls sweep over his face, so you can’t see it but he rolls his eyes, his lower lip slipping, pinched red and angry, wet from where it’s been drawn between his teeth.

“Not if you’re gonna be a fuckin’ brat.”

Your hips tick, stomach turning first at his words, then at the sticky swirl, the upward drag of his cock against your clit. And your body thrums, hands shaky and numb where they nestle in your rucked up shirt, but the little vein of rebellion, of pushing still runs hot in your head.

“Mm. Bad news, then.” You manage.

“D’you ever shut up?” Tyson sighs, finally pushing in, fast and deep and filling you up and you swear you feel it in your stomach, the pressure: your hand claws mindlessly for your lower belly, feeling the way your muscles move to accommodate it, the tight fit of him. Your mouth is open, brows knit, but no sound finds its way out, too taken by the sudden pleasure. Tys barely rocks back at all before he’s trying to push deeper, satisfied at how your jaw stretches around something unintelligible, a wrecked little moan.

And he’d chirp you for it, how he’s found how to shut you up, but you’re so hot and tight, it’s all he can think about, finally sunken within you, your plush walls slick and squeezing him, so he bites down on his lip, lets his head tip back and fucks into you.

You’re lost in it, instantly, numb to everything but the tingling along your nerve endings that swirls into this depth of heat at your core, and the fire prodded, stoked by Tyson’s hard, quick thrusts, nearly bruising your insides, sending you wordless, breathless.

Once a moment has passed, he’s found a stride that has you whimpering in lieu of the moans you’d both prefer. 

(There’s something crushingly hot about this, though: the shaky breaths, the facial expressions: the flushed skin and dropped-jaw, pinched brow silent cries, there’s a desperation in it, one leaning into how you couldn’t wait, had to do this here, now. There’s no other option but to take one another apart.)

He leans forward, into you with his pelvis, a new pressure, new pace: his hips rutting against your spread thighs, fingers pulling the crooked bunch of your shorts and panties up and away, watching your folds split around the girth of him. The look in his eye is loving, almost, wearing a blushy smile as he pulls out, pushes back in, his cock coated, glistening obscenely, making these lewd noises, squishy and wet, and Tyson’s fuckin’ mesmerised. 

He reaches down on a thrust, strokes the flat of his thumb over your clit, making your thighs jolt, tremble in his hands, and you’re suddenly chasing, your legs kicking and head falling back as the feeling curls from your cunt up into your abdomen.

Tyson huffs to save a groan and asks “Close?”, as if he couldn’t tell, like your hips aren’t rocking circles under his body, your cunt clamping down on his cock, needy. 

So you nod, a little frantic, eager. You press the back of your hand to your lips, focussing on calming yourself as much as muffling yourself, as your face scrunches, the stretch of his cock inside you ribboning pleasure up, everywhere, white-hot as it glimmers along your muscles. Tyson holds the sarcasm, this time, opting to let his fingertips find your hard, slick little bud once more, circling until he feels your body tighten up, then he’s backing off, changing the pace, grinning when your chest heaves a dry sob before he starts again, buries himself to the hilt to keeping you open on his cock and thumbing at your clit.

And you want to tell him that it’s not funny, that you really wanna come, but you don’t trust yourself to say it quietly, right now, not when it’s fucking building, again, and you think you might actually cry if your back arches and he pulls away once more.

But, he knows, sees the sweat gleam your brow, the absent roll-back of your eyes, the way your fists hook, white-knuckling blankets: your throaty little whimpers turn to what he thinks could be please, please. He knows.

He doesn’t pull away, this time, and the crash of your orgasm rolls through and he’s barely thrusting anymore, instead pulling your ass up to where he rests on his haunches, shoving himself all the way inside your spasming pussy, forcing you to cream on his cock, to gush around him. 

At the too-loud crawl of his name from your fried throat, one of Tyson’s hands clamps hard over your mouth, but he smiles, enthralled, watching you lose yourself in it. You’re moving perfectly mindlessly against him, your pelvis rocking out the rippling pleasure as his fingers lighten on your clit, now slow and gentle, barely-there, but the most delicate of strokes, now, make your cunt squeeze, your whole body tauten, tremble. 

You’re so lost in it, so gone, you think you’d barely notice the sudden uptick of Tyson’s hips, cresting his peak, too, the flood of heat inside you, if not for the airless grunt, his head tipped back and abs locking up, hand pushed through his sweat-slicked curls, wild and everywhere. 

You’re glad you notice, though, as aftershocks shake you: you remember, only just, to appreciate this (even half as much as your body does: you feel your fucking heartbeat in your cunt, your muscles all warm and liquid along your limbs.). 

Tyson hums, moans, maybe, and moves his hands for your sides, holding fast, stilling you both in place ‘till your breathing finds some semblance of evenness. 

“I never wanna pull out.” Tyson’s head falls as he murmurs it, equal parts petulance and pleasure, now, he’s revelling. You find yourself nodding, agreeing. 

“You’re still fuckin’ hard, Tys.” You say, feeling it, the overstimulated throb of him— or maybe it’s you. Either way, he’s still stiff and buried to the hilt in your drooling cunt, filling you entirely. The subtlety of the pulse encompasses you, squeezes your stomach, then your pussy, around him. Tyson slumps, a little, “Huh-ha.” corralling from his mouth before anything coherent can construct itself.

“Gimme a sec.” He manages. You lift on your elbows, a little, look up at him starry-eyed, smiling. Your lips part, goldfishing, kinda, as he pulls out, slowly, spinning your head.

“I’m never getting that date, at this rate.” You chide, your knees pulling up toward your chest, and you’re blushing at how hard it is to stop your hands from reaching for him, pulling him back in: the emptiness between your hips borderline fucks with your head, how bad you miss him.

But then he’s canting the pad of his thumb over your messy slit, frictionless, playing with the torrent of his cum swirled through yours, and his mouth is opening at the sight of your used little hole pushing his cum out, and he can’t think of anything to cut back at you with other than a broken “Fuck.”.

You’re in his lap, practically, hips propped up on his knees, sticky and leaking filthily all over his bunched up sweats as his cock throbs against the cleft of your ass, and he’s softening slowly, but god, you make it tough without even trying. You’re doe-eyed and still flushed, breathing hard and Tyson can hardly take it. He swallows, blushing deep, trying to string together a series of words which will make sense, ‘cause god, he needs more of you. Can’t let this be a one-time thing. 

“My dick’s the softest it’s gonna be, baby. Come to breakfast with me, tomorrow?”

And for all you might’ve expected him to ask, now, it still fills you with butterflies, the cluelessness laced with hope which dances across his bright face. Then, you’re nodding unmistakably and ripping him down to you by his arm: a messy kiss, overjoyed, only choked out by the hard thrust of two fingers into your sensitive cunt. 

      Those tiny shorts were one thing in trying to crack him, but you quickly learned words got you closer. You’d catch him in the bathroom doorway or while helping bring plates inside and get up on your tiptoes to get closer to his ear and murmur something, “Wouldn’t it be so hot to take me in my childhood bedroom?” you’d ask, “Shut me up with your cock down my throat so we don’t get caught?” and his cheeks would flush a little, but he’d remain stoic and strain “Not here,” through a sigh before breaking away from you.

      Inviting a friend from one of your college classes over while Jamie was tinkering around the yard with your dad was, maybe, a little mean. Making him watch while the guy wrestled you into the pool, watch you fake laugh at his bad jokes, him clearly trying to impress you, all while Jamie had to pretend he didn’t care, had to act like he didn’t want to put you on your hands and knees on one of the sunbeds and make that poor, flirty guy watch? Yeah, a little mean.

Your friend left, innocently, a little after lunchtime, though, and all his visit got you was Jamie pressing you into the kitchen island from behind, a big hand shoved between your shaky thighs and rubbing hard over your swimsuit bottoms, telling you so casually as your mouth fell open, “I think he has a crush on you. Your charade still isn’t working, though.” with an easy smile before his hand was gone and he was on his way back outside.

      On the day of your mom’s birthday lunch, it’s ninety degrees and you’ve almost given up on trying to crack him. But, when you hear his truck roll up onto your lawn and feel your heart squeeze as its door slams, a little part of you wants to play the game again.

Rifling through your closet, your hands fall to something silky and little and inky-black, and on any other day of the year you’d never consider it for a function attended by a bunch of families, but with the way the sweat is threatening to bead along your soft skin even at eleven AM, you can’t bring yourself to mind. 

And, if you know how much Jamie loves it when you wear black… well, maybe you haven’t given up on breaking that rule at all.

      Jamie’s already slinking between the kitchen and patio with plates and barbecue tools, dutifully helping your parents before other guests arrive, when you come downstairs. It’s not lost on you, the way his eyes widen a little when they catch you for the first time, and the little swell of excitement you feel at it makes your heart race. 

“How’s it goin’, kid?” He asks, unabashed in the way his eyes peruse the length of your body, only the two of you in the room, but your parents not far. The moment steals your breath for half a second, but then your dad’s calling you outside to show you the shiny new grill-smoker setup Jamie helped him with, and Jamie clears his throat and coughs around it, sighing back to reality.

“Gonna have to remember where we are today, huh?” You grin, tilting your head smugly up at him. 

He looks at you, brows pinched and blinking slowly, tonguing behind his teeth in a way that tells you if you weren’t where you were, you’d easily be over his knee for that. Your low-key sense of pride is clipped, though, when your dad calls out again and Jamie’s hand is heavy on your back as he ushers you towards the door.

      When it comes time to eat, you sit beside Jamie and pretend, expertly, that you don’t notice the way his thigh is tucked up against yours. You’re both a bit outnumbered, out of place by your distant relatives and the neighbourhood moms and all their fussing, your dad tied up so Jamie’s a little lost at the table, so, you find comfort in each other’s familiarity, how easy your conversation feels. 

He’s talking about this one band’s show he’d just seen, offering you the last half of his negroni, and you’re remembering how much you loved their last album, sipping on the unfinished cocktail, and together, you’re both trying to avoid any blatant eye-fucking at this PG-13 meal.

You’re nearly hung out to dry entirely when one of your cousins finally cuts in to ask you, “So, how long have you and Jamie been dating?” in front of everyone, and it’s nearly comical how quickly your mom cracks up in the face of it and assures them, Jamie is your dad’s plus one, not yours, and god, you’re glad nobody sees the way his hand squeezes your thigh below the table while you both laugh it all off above.

      Later, patio lights wash the yard, backlit by a late sunset making everything a little warm, and the breeze blowing through finally offers some relief from the sweltering afternoon. Jamie’s great at this: at riling you up even from meters away.

You’re positive he’s undone one or, like, three buttons on his shirt since lunch, his thin golden chain clung to the heat-flushed skin by his collarbone, tipping his head a little and smiling over his beer, leaning in to charm whichever of your mom’s friends it is who’s approached him, now. He’s cycled through them all afternoon. You’d be vexed by it, maybe, but you can’t be– not when he finds your eye and licks over his bottom lip and fucking winks, so cliché. Still, it stirs in your lower belly and the excitement climbs up your spine.

      He’s got no clue what they’re talking about, really, the older women who all seem to love him. They’re all a few too many wines deep and taken by his height and broad body and kind eyes, and they’re an easy excuse to stand around and let his eyes wander the busy yard, look for you, the flutter of that dress, the little flash of thigh. Meanwhile, you’re all gentle smiles and gratuitous laughter, appearing far more innocent than he knows you can be.

You’re stuck deep in a conversation with a friend of your mom’s (one who remembers when you were, like, six, and wants to know everything that’s happened since) when you notice Jamie across the yard once more, this minuscule cat-and-mouse game finally threatening its crescendo as he gestures a thumb towards the house, a smirk on his mouth before he sips his beer and excuses himself from the conversation he’s caught in. 

You hear your heartbeat pulse in your ears as you mention going to find someone, get something— you don’t really register whatever excuse you manage to rattle off while your stomach leaps and twists, watching Jamie duck inside as whoever you were speaking to bids you goodbye with a shallow hug. 

      You’re about to be confused when you get over the threshold and Jamie’s nowhere to be seen, but he takes your hand from the shadowy spare bathroom by the back door and starts pulling you in, flicking the fluorescent overhead on with his spare hand so he can see you again. 

“Guests are using the bathroom here. Upstairs is free.” You cut in quickly, leaning against the doorframe to stop him from tugging you closer. You chew the inside of your cheek while awaiting his response, sure he’s going to curb your advances once more, but Jamie tugs his fingers through his hair and sighs, “Fuck. Come on, then.” 

You have to stop yourself laughing with how giddy you are on your way upstairs, Jamie’s lumbering frame in tow. You give a precautionary glance down the hall to make sure nobody’s around to see the both of you skulk into the bathroom, sneaking like teenagers; the exact kind of playful tension you’ve craved for weeks. You think you could die with how fast your heartbeat batters in your chest.

      The moment the door’s deadbolt clicks, he’s on you. Hands clasping your jaw, he kisses you hard, hungry, tongue nearly instantly pressing in. Your head spins as he pulls your hips flush against him, hiking you up, fingers finally groping at your flesh with desperation matching that which you’ve felt for hours, what feels like forever, now. 

When your hands begin wandering, though, fingers searching for his shirt’s buttons, the soft smattering of chest hair, Jamie breaks it all off, spins you around so your lower stomach meets the cool, stone basin, freezing the hard breath in your throat in a gasp. 

“Fuckin’– I love this dress.” He talks low and his hands smooth over the satin on your hips as he nudges his body forward against yours, “Too bad I can’t ruin it here.”

His words feel like a punch to the stomach after the way you’d gotten your hopes up, after how he’d kissed you. You find him in the mirror, ruddy-cheeked and panting a little with the most innocent smile on his lips.

“You’re so mean.” You groan with your head tipped back into his chest, more than a little frustrated, by now. Your shoulder blades press into his pecs and you feel his body tremor as he chuckles, watching you, admiring.

“Yeah, because your pussy floods every time I am.” 

Your breath holds and you feel hot all over. You see your cheeks grow red as much as you feel it, but despite it, despite how you kinda wanna stomp your feet in protest, he’s right (and you probably should be used to how good he is, by now, but it’s a little impressive that he’s noticed, made that connection.). 

“You could do something about it, for once.” You try to quip, meeting his eyes in the mirror, his baby blues gone a little darker. You feel the slick between your thighs flow from his comment, his boldness in calling you out like that, and maybe the little inkling of shame that comes with it.

“For once?” His hips rock forward against you, half-hard in his jeans, and he smiles with a guiltless curiosity, tilts his head like a confused puppy. “Remind me, how many times did you come the other night?”

You hide a smile at him for a bare moment, searching for words through the haze of excitement and growing arousal, lost in the feeling of him pulsing against your lower back, big hands crawling up your torso, their heat enveloping you.

“C’mon, use your big girl words. How many times was it, kid?”

You feel your face grow warmer, if that’s even possible, suddenly shy saying it aloud. Jamie’s hand finds your hip and rests there lightly, and the almost-innocence of it makes you squirm.

“‘Till I cried, then one more.” You finally admit, breathless at the memory (and at how he’s using it, now.).

“Then one more, for good luck.” Jamie reiterates, smiling fondly, his weight against you growing heavier when you hum appreciatively, searching for his gaze in the mirror once more. He bends to dip his head down, getting closer to your ear, his free hand sweeping your hair over your shoulder and letting his fingertips dwell at the base of your throat: tiny movements all exaggerating how much taller, bigger than you he is, standing behind you. Your whole body feels like it’s vibrating, thrumming.

“I can’t make you cry like that, here. But… God, this fucking dress.” He starts, excruciatingly slow in running his fingers up over your backside, you arching into him, rucking the dress up to reveal your thong, and he asks, “How long do we have, do you think?”

The air feels cool as it chases the pressure of Jamie’s hands along your ass, now bare to him. You can hear it, the commotion from the party outside, muffled, cheery voices of people who have no clue what’s happening in the guest bathroom, parents with no clue what their sweet Jamie is doing with their darling daughter. The thought buzzes along your skin, sending a fresh pulse of wetness to your core. You swallow hard, and try not to rush your words:

“Fifteen. Maybe twenty, at a push.” 

You see him contemplating, exhaling slowly with his fingers squeezing at your skin, and where your muscles once were held stiff and tense, you soften under his touch. You brace yourself with shaky hands on the counter as Jamie reaches around the front of your body to gently pull your panties to the side, you hissing softly through your teeth when the cooler air meets the sticky seam of your cunt.

“Made a fuckin’ mess of these, eh? Been dripping for hours?” He runs his fingers along the soft, wet cotton of your panties, knuckles ghosting over your inner thigh, avoiding your core. “Can’t ruin the dress tonight, but these…”

He runs the pads of his fingers along your slit experimentally, watching your face, gaging the uptick of your hips, studying your tiniest reactions. Then, he pushes two thick fingers inside, smiling a little at the way your voice breaks around a yelp, your mouth falling wide open.

“Tightest cunt.” He nearly smiles against your temple, muttering to himself. “Gonna take my cock here? Gonna make it fit in this tiny pussy?”

He pumps only a handful of times before he adds a third finger against the first two and you’re gasping his name at the intrusion, the overwhelming feeling of him opening you up, getting you ready for his cock, as much as he can with only a handful of ticking minutes. He strokes expertly at your g-spot, thumb barely drumming over your clit, working out the wetness obscenely, and it’s all so much, his entire body pressed to you, lips mouthing softly at the side of your head, all of it exactly what you’ve been working for all summer. 

Your hips alternate between pushing forward, chasing the thrusts of his fingers, and rocking back against his clothed cock, obsessed with the way his body tenses up at the added pressure, and Jamie would maybe punish it, if he were feeling mean, the way you’re begging without anything but wordless whimpers, joyfully teasing him with your hips. But, tonight, he’s not feeling mean, so he revels in it, how fond he is of you, so beautiful like this.

Before you have much of a chance to chase any real high, to find any relief, his fingers are out of your pussy, and you feel frustratingly empty, throbbing, legs kicking a little, making him laugh softly. 

Jamie strings your juices up against your mouth, slick fingers shoving between your glossy lips. He watches adoringly, your eyes screwed shut as you suck his fingers clean, savour the sweety-salt of it, and you see it, the fire in his eyes, his mouth open, feel his big cock jump in his slacks, pressed hard to your body as he murmurs senselessly, “Good girl. Clean it up, so good for me.”

He grabs your face with fingers still wet, thumb stroking your soft cheek.

“J, need you. Want you so bad it hurts.” 

And he’s a sucker for you, really, despite your bratting and his arbitrary rules, he’d give you whatever. Especially when you beg. Especially when he’s got you like this, pretty little dress bunched up over your hips and you’re dripping, and he’s rock hard, and there’s probably ten minutes before anybody will notice you’re both gone, let alone come looking.

“It hurts, does it?” He mutters, brows raised in question, “Pretty cunt hurts ‘cause it’s not stuffed with a nice, fat cock?”

And you don’t need to answer, not with the way you’re writhing back into him, brows furrowed and mouth glossed, slack, keening. He’s trying to stave off a little grin at how good you look, nipples peaked under the thin fabric sticking to your sheening skin, your hand finding its way between your own thighs, trying to gain some friction between your slick folds but your stroke is messy, unfocussed: overexcited.

“Ahuh, J. Please.” Is all you manage.

With his free hand, Jamie unzips his pants and shoves them down only enough to pull his cock out, his body wracked by an exhale as he presses the thick, drooly head to you from behind. It’s hot against your skin, pussy puffy and soft and pliant but, still, you’re tiny against the insane thickness of him. 

“It’s so big.” You mewl, fingertips dipping to pull over his length messily, smearing your juices into his where he weeps precum. The crown of his cock nudges into your entrance once, twice, then sweeps up against your clit, repeating, driving you crazy. 

“You can take it.” He says when he feels your body tighten, feels your breath shallow and a little panicky, and he rests his hand atop yours gently. Despite the lewd circumstances, his hot, heavy member rubbing at your little slit messily, butterflies beat their wings in your belly, and you breathe a little easier, relaxing against his frame. 

      Jamie meets your eye in the mirror, gaze steady and serious and waiting, entirely, for your reassurance, regardless of his member throbbing between your thighs, and you know you could call it all off, forget all the teasing at once and he’d kiss you all over and walk you back downstairs. Hell, he’d take you back to his place and make you gush on his tongue until the size of his cock is a nonissue, if you asked. That’s not what you want, though– the ache between your thighs wants him here, now, needs the rush, the headspin.

You nod just enough for him to see, tongue wetting your lips hungrily, a little go-ahead. 

Your brows furrow as he buries himself slowly, groaning with it, his chest rumbling against your back. 

The stretch burns hot and you’re so full, feel him so deep, biting down on your bottom lip to save crying out, face screwed up. Your feet barely touch the ground, pinned up against the basin by his pelvis, his hand which creeps between your body and the sink to hook under you and tease at your clit. You can’t wait to watch the faint, spotty bruises bloom on your thighs from the bite of the counter (moreover, you can’t wait for Jamie to kiss them in apology, eat you out to make it up to you. Maybe it’s greedy, looking forward to the next time before this one’s even over. You can’t convince yourself to care.).

“Atta girl, fuckin, split apart on me. I'm so proud of you.” Jamie huffs, sighing finally when he feels his tip prodding up by your cervix, zeros in on how impossibly tight you’re choking him, struggling to take it all at this angle. 

The dopey little smile on his face when you find his eyes makes your heart melt, unable to stop yourself from letting out a satisfied, mindless giggle at him, at it all, and, like playful revenge, he cants his hips upward a bit, angling against your g-spot, and your eyes roll back, the ah-huh you let out a clear indication he’d gotten the best of you, there.

      He barely moves inside you, at first, save for the most shallow lurches of his hips and whatever friction you can garner by rocking your own body, desperately trying to fuck yourself on his length. But, his fingers stroking over you gently alongside the squeeze of your tight pussy wrapped around the sheer size of him makes you squirm on his dick embarrassingly quickly, arching forward, away from him and over the sink while your hips move back and forth. You bite down on the back of your hand to stop yourself from yelping as your high grows closer, winding pressure building irresistibly.

“Already?” Jamie murmurs mockingly at how you’re moving on his cock, trying to take more of him, more of what won’t quite fit, you already painfully close to coming. His fingers rub steady circles between your thighs, sweeping down to where his cock is seated within you to swipe your leaking juices over your clit periodically. “I’ve barely even fucked you yet. Fuckin’ filthy.”

His mean words wind you higher and within moments he feels your cunt seize up around him, your high hitting you hard, all at once, squeezing obscenely on his cock, repeating fuck, fuck, fuck in whiny sobs like a mantra. He’s unmoving inside you, now, and he curses into the crown of your head as your body tosses, head falling forward.

“You cum so fuckin’ pretty, sweetheart. Look at you.” Jamie muses, hand gabbing your chin, pushing your face up so you watch yourself in the mirror, watch him, you both elated, ready for more. You smile lazily at the mess of your hair and the stunned cast on your face and the lewd sounds between you, how messy your pussy is for him, clenching around him.

“So good.” You swear, breathing hard as your hand finds its place gripping the forearm Jamie uses to prop himself up, prop you both up, really, and your fingernails dig in. “Thank you, J. So fucking good.”

Carefully, in time with the sweet murmurs of “Good girl, taking me so well,” the drive of his hips picks up pace. Your eyes are rolling again, and the honeyed daze you’re stuck in is obvious as the faint aftershocks of your first climax glimmer up through you, jolting your body sporadically. Your cunt pulses around the fat cock rubbing against your g-spot as Jamie chases his own orgasm.

“You’re so good, letting me use your pretty cunt like this, even with your parents right downstairs. My best girl. Best fuckin’ girl.” 

His chants fill your mind, making you lightheaded in the best way, and as his pelvis drives up into you faster, the fluttery little skirt of your dress tickles the tops of your thighs.

“Want me inside?” Jamie asks breathily, meeting your glassy eyes in the mirror, grind of his hips not slowing, like he wants you to struggle for words, he basks in it. 

“Ye-ah. Yes. If you get cum– oh my god, Jamie.” He chuckles haughtily at how you can barely string together your words, your jaw hinging open around a moan when his hips stutter just right and one hand gropes at your tits over your dress. 

“Can’t even fuckin’ speak. Fucked stupid on my fat cock, huh, baby?” 

“Fuck off. I’ll kill you if you cum on this dress.” You swallow hard to talk steady, and vow between your whimpery moans. Vague memories of where you are right now slink back, making you shudder, contract around him so sharply it hurts, a fresh lick of your wetness dribbling down his shaft filthily.

“Shut ah– shut up.” He manages— though he’d maybe laugh at your promise if he wasn’t balls-deep in your dripping cunt, so tiny around him. You feel, where his thighs press to your ass, where your hand clutches his forearm: his muscles tremble beneath the skin, holding back only enough to stop the both of you from erupting in a way sure to get you caught. Regardless, with the steady drive of his pelvis– the heady pleasure-pain of him nudging against your cervix, you barely stand a chance. 

“C’mon, pretty girl. Give me one more, sweetheart. Know ya want to.” He presses down on your clit hard, frothy slick and the quick pound of his cock in and out and in all you need to finally clear the edge, your body giving way to him entirely as your weight falls limp against the sink, crying out for him, savouring the tender way he pulls you close, his deep voice rumbling “Messy baby, creaming all over my dick. Such a good girl for me.” talking you down through it.

Your hole contracting around him pathetically, like it’s trying to push him out, the stimulation too much, is what cracks him, finally, like you’ve wanted for weeks. He snaps his hips hard into yours once more, and he’s cooing your name, throaty and broken with no regard for the party downstairs as he pumps his white-hot load against your tender cervix.

You’re humming his name contentedly, gratefully, all soft smiles and uneven breaths as he stills inside you, brushing your hair back over your heaving shoulders and leaning down to press a soft kiss to your temple.

“Ready to go back down?” Jamie asks, smoothing your dress out over your stomach like he’s not still buried deep inside you, softening slowly. You run your hands over your clammy face as you remember everything, now, how it surely won’t be long before someone comes looking for either of you.

You ignore Jamie’s sarcastic little chide, grasping the basin as he pulls out carefully, sighing with the motion, only to quickly push his hand up against your swollen pussy, now heartbreakingly empty as you spasm, pushing his cum out over his fingers and your inner thighs.

Like it’s the dirtiest thing you’d felt today, you blush, dipping your head in the mirror, avoiding your own gaze. Jamie feels his cock twitch at it as he pulls your panties back over your sensitive mound, wiping his messy fingers clean on the soft fabric by the waistband, and you’d nearly complain about that, but your thoughts are still a little airy and, fuck, facing your family is coming close to the forefront of your mind.

“I never wanna go back down.” You huff, spinning to face Jamie, finally. He’s tucking himself back into his slacks, straightening out his clothes, trying to ignore how that dress just flared as you spun, once a-fucking-gain.

“Doing it here was an awful idea.” You determine.

Your mouth is wrecked and glistening from all the biting and panting and Jamie wants, so badly, to kiss you, but he thinks you might throw a fit if he tries right now (or if he tells you he told you so, which is tempting), so he just laughs, his own cheeks a little red from the shame of it. 

“It was hot, though. While I was buried in you, y’know.” 

His breath hitches when your shoulders slump and you comment, “Don’t flirt with me, now,”, and your arm curls around his body, fingers dipping into his back pocket. His exhale comes slow when you pluck his car keys, circling them around one finger playfully.

“I’m gonna text mom and dad. Tell them that Maddie from study group picked me up in a crisis or something. I’ll be in your car waiting.”

Your amusement grows as Jamie’s eyes widen a little, brows furrowed and mouth hung open, floundering in a way you’ve never seen from him.

“Baby, no– why do I have to go alone? How am I meant to go shake your dad’s hand and say goodnight after that?” 

“Yeah… You should definitely wash your hands, first.” You deadpan, nodding solemnly.

When he cuts you an aghast look, you raise your hands in surrender and hold back a laugh, continuing, “Okay. I’ll go say goodnight with you. Tell them Maddie’s in crisis and you’re dropping me off on your way home.”

      And it works, you think, as nervous as you both are. If anyone were to look close enough, they’d find the angry crescent nail-marks in Jamie’s forearm as he shakes your dad’s hand, confirms the plans they have to take the boat out the next day. 

Maybe they’d notice the way your pretty lips are swollen, your lipgloss gone entirely as you peck your grandparents’ foreheads. If it were lighter out, if they were looking and you moved quickly enough when you bent down to hug your mom goodnight, maybe they’d cop an eyeful of the milky white, sticky between your supple thighs.

Your parents have been friends as long as you’ve been alive. He’s been on the fringes of your life, always in the background, both of you comfortable with his place there.

And, sure, a crush on him has always shimmered somewhere shallow to the surface of your mind. Half the town felt it, really, the crush. Have you heard Tyler’s back? would light up your group chats and your parents’ landlines whenever he’d make the long drive up.

For you, the crush had been snuffed out easily through middle school fights, then high school, college hookup rumours, with every article out of Boston reminding you who he was whenever he wasn’t who you knew him to be, it was snuffed out. But then he’d do this again, come home, and ask how your siblings are (I know we don’t call each other enough,), and pour you another drink without needing to ask, and that shimmery little crush, it’s snuffed out remnants, would surge right back.

It was hard to deny, the cliché of it all, how he was closer with your siblings than he was with you, your friendship stunted by age and social circles, but he picked you up from cheer or band or the mall, sometimes, before you could drive and when your parents worked late, and he was the local high school’s flashiest hockey player with the talent to match, so despite the distance between the two of you, riding shotgun in his car always felt like winning.

That’s probably why when he offers to drive you home, now, years later, you still don’t miss a beat.

Riding with your parents to this dinner had been for convenience, to begin with, but now they’re joining the Seguins on the couch, a few bottles of red deep between the quartet with no sign of letting up. Tyler looks at you when the ancient VHS player comes out and the laughter grows, both your parents winding through old home videos. His mouth and brows crimp in an almost-smile, somehow embarrassed as the parents coo. 

He clears his throat.

“Before the bath time ‘94 videos come up: do you need a ride?”

“Yes please.” Maybe you answer a little too soon, but Tyler is scooping up his keys and wallet and telling your parents he’ll see them tomorrow in the laying out of some plans you must’ve missed while you played 20 questions with his parents about your own career. He’s charming as ever, the way he has your mother wrapped around his finger even still, makes your father smirk, and something about it makes your heart race.

Outside, the night air is fresh and crisp and the driveway is bathed phosphorescent gold by streetlights, glinting in the black of his car’s windows. Tyler trails you, both checking your notifications while walking down the drive.

“Does it turn you on how much your family likes me?” 

At his jab you lock your phone and scrunch your brows, feeling your chest throb once, twice.

He does this, sometimes, too. Says something just inflammatory enough to see you, or anyone else poor and unsuspecting and in the same room as him, squirm. You hate how it still gets you, but you’ve been on the wrong side of it enough times that the pit in your stomach heals over quickly.

“Oh, yeah. You’re totally husband material.” Turning back against his Audi’s fender to look at him, Tyler doesn’t miss a beat, not that you’d expect him to.

“Thanks. I’d definitely marry you on a night out in Vegas.”

You scoff a laugh and raise your brows, crossing your arms across your chest with feigned offence.

“Really? Vegas?”

He smiles like he’s admitted a truth he’d been privy to forever, something weightless. He rocks back on his heels, moving his arms to match yours. Eager for his elaboration, you watch his smile steel in place, his shoulders held back. 

“Yeah. Think I’d marry you in Brampton, or Dallas, too, if I thought you’d say yes.”

The feeling of working with him to construct a long-winded joke is nearly lost. You feel it fading, pushed out by the almost-seriousness of what he’s said, the way he’s said it, the gentleness of his timbre. He continues when you don’t respond. 

“I think you want me. I kind of think you always have. Maybe not as a husband, though.”

Snapped back to yourself, you almost choke on the nothing in your throat, body rigid in an instant. Despite this, you scoff and bite quickly, “That’s an assumption and a half.”

He laughs at you, full-out and meaningfully, lifting his hands in surrender. 

“Please, let me know if I’m wrong.”

“You know I would.” A grin threatens at the edges of your mouth sincerely, whether it’s joy or embarrassment, though, you’re unsure.

Tyler smiles, reminded why he never really minded driving you ‘round town years ago, laughing with you in the front seat, listening to the wins and losses of your high school days. He smiles like this conversation is easy (and maybe it is, for him), like your heart rate isn’t spiking.

“But I’m not. So you can’t.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Despite what might’ve been admitted between him and you, you attempt to keep the strong sarcasm aflame in your throat, but you feel like you’re burning alive along all your nerves. 

“Don’t look so reserved, now. You can have me, I’m right here.” 

He sticks a hand out to you, like you’re meant to shake it, or hold it, maybe, but you don’t. The car is cold against your backside when you lean back into it and your arms fall to your sides. You don’t register your jaw’s slack until the chill breeze lights up your wet lips, and you’re asking him “Come here?” Before you even know why.

He paces the few feet forward and takes your face in his hands and kisses you, finally, a little shy and chaste and unexpected, and your chests bump as he exhales heavily and you kiss him again, heavier this time, years weighing on it.

One hand falls to your hip while his other shifts to grip under your jaw, pushing and pulling your head as your movements flow together, tongues toying between teeth and teasing little smiles. Everything smells like the fresh-clipped lawn and his fabric softener and it’s cold for August but he’s on you, hands everywhere, and the heat radiates.

There’s nothing gradual about how the ache between your thighs grows for him, how you tug him closer by his waist and how fast he realises what you’re looking for: pins you hard to his car with his hips. He draws his hand from your hip to your knee and hikes your leg up, your dress bunching up around your hips to let his denim-clad cock press to your core. He pecks at your lips once, innocent to spite the thick air surrounding you, heavy on your tongue.

The street is dead quiet and you’re glad for it when his hips rock and hit a sweet spot and you whimper into his mouth, and he takes it as instruction, repeating the motion once more with a cocky little grin, teeth knocking into yours. 

With a gasp, your head falls back and you prop a hand on the car’s hood behind you, the only thing keeping you upright with the weight of Tyler against you, his mouth on your neck, now, relentless, your own hips chasing back after his as the rhythmic rub against your clit pulls pleasure up through your core.

“Gonna ruin my jeans,” He grunts but he ruts again and again and your cheeks glow because he’s right, you can feel the slick in your panties and, over his swollen cock, the zipper on his jeans pressed into your slit, and you can’t hide how you kinda love it, how he doesn’t care, working you hard. 

“This is so slutty.” His fried voice chokes around what could be a laugh, but it loses its humour when you whine a little too wantonly, his words sending a jolt right to your cunt.

His movements are swift to halt and he brings his fingers up under your chin softly to meet his eyes, shadowed in the low light but you can see well enough that they’re narrowed, pupils blown and lusty in their own right, and he smirks when he speaks: “Did you like that? You like being called a slut?”

“Tyler,” You whisper with a feeble tilt of your head, bent knee pressing into the outside of his hip, trying to leverage your core against his once more, but he leans out of it, bringing a hand to circle the curve of your jaw.

You think you’re gonna die when his free hand slips down between your bodies, pushes underneath your ruined panties and dips into your folds, pulling away before your body could fully process his touch had even occurred. Your throat feels tight, wordless. 

“You can’t act shy, slut.” He starts, cocky smile lilting like he’s playing, toying with you, but you think it might be the most serious, hell-bent he’s ever sounded. Your cunt pulses around nothing as his fingers, slick with your juices, dip into his mouth, “Not after how you’ve been moving,” 

The vestiges of shame glower in your belly and throb between your thighs as your mouth opens and closes, looking for words that stay hidden. With both hands on your waist, Tyler promptly turns you, presses a hand into your back to fold you against the polished black hood of the Audi, flips your dress up so your ass is out for him, his hands wandering, your skin burning. 

With your clothed chest against the chill metal, you could almost laugh at how insane and filthy this all feels, the porch light his parents leave on bouncing off the sheen of the vehicle below you, and that hot little burn of shame comes back and grows within you, only turns you on more, your body thrumming with it.

“You want me to fuck you?” Tyler questions simply. He’s not touching you save for the hand anchored on your lower back, but you feel him behind you, stood still, the heat of his body encompassing.

“Yes.” Panted from your mouth frenetically is all it takes for him to pull his cock out and push your panties aside and sink the throbbing head past your puffy lips, and the pressure so, so deep within you feels enormous, the tight burn delightful.

“Huh-fuck,” He chokes, swallowing thickly as he’s static in you, both your breaths bated, getting used to one another, and as a reminder, more to himself, he rasps, “Gotta be quiet. Everything out here echos through that front window.”

You’d have killed him for telling you that right now, had he not begun rutting into you, his body pressing you hard to the car where the smooth metal bites the tops of your thighs. Strings of obscenities roll off his tongue lowly: arching your back deeper tilts your pelvis just so, and you swear the press of him inside you has you seeing white, keening for him from the centre of your throat.

You really can’t help it, the clench of your cunt nor the heady cries you’re trying to muffle with the back of your hand when Tyler’s fingers slink to where you stretch around his cock, gliding up with a fresh lick of your juices to meet your clit.

Something akin to a chuckle comes from him at your attempts, and his free hand crawls up over your shoulder to cup over your mouth, hoisting you back almost-upright into him, letting you prop yourself up on your arms, the change in angle meaning his brutal pace hits a little deeper.

“I’m not gonna last long like this, babe, I’ll be honest.” He mouths at your temple, breath fanning over your heated skin. Your fingers strain against the ungiving vehicle’s hood, your body threatening to unravel as his pace steadies once more, all too much alongside his bullying of your clit with the soft movement of his fingertips. “But you’re close, too, huh?” 

You nod frantically, his hand in place over your mouth making the movement tough, but it’s all you can give. Well practised, he keeps his movements steady, chuckles through his own desperate panting.

“Yeah? You’re gonna get off on being fucked outside, are you?”

“Ah. A-huh.” Your face scrunches into his palm, all your attempts at words muted by his hands and his cock and the trees and neighbours houses in your blurred periphery as you nod helplessly, pleasure mounting and teetering. 

“Fucked in my driveway against my car like a slut. My pretty little slut.”

That’s all it takes to tip you over, that little possessiveness. You hear the smile on his mouth as your body shudders and arches, hips circling back into his, still chasing while you crest your high, the feeling in your abdomen spiralling, searing, his fingers still rubbing at your heat while you clench down on his cock. 

“Fuck. God, Tyler.” Your voice is broken and whiny and comes between short puffs of breath against Tyler’s lazy hand on your chin, now, as he continues to drive into you, little currents of overstimulation firing up, making your pelvis jerk. 

It’s like he takes your orgasm as permission for his own: before you’ve stopped writhing back into him with the convulsions of your cunt fluttering around him, still, his entire body weight is pressing you hard to the car. 

His chest is crushed into your back, and he’s filling you, hot and sticky with a lewd groan, his hand falling from your mouth to your chest, pushing below your neckline fervently, kissing at your neck and squeezing at your tits. You moan softly at the feelings, all of them, the slight twitches of his cock buried deep, the involuntary bucking and the clenching of his abs against your ass while you swipe your hair from your eyes, your arms shaky where they hold you upright. 

Your head is levitating and you only feel brought back down when a breeze swallows you and cools your dewy skin. You laugh something short and disbelieving while Tyler pulls out slowly and tugs your panties back across your swollen mound to dam the obscene flow of his cum from your body. He taps your ass gratuitously and smiles while you turn and fix the skirt of your dress, watching breathlessly as he grabs the passenger side door for you.

“Leather seats, baby. Wipe ‘em clean.” He motions for the seat like your chariot awaits, but you’re stuck at his words, a little jab to the gut, the way he does, sometimes. 

You pause and gape at him for half a second, his shit-eating grin, face twisting in mock-repulsion as you scoff “You’re disgusting.” and stave off a smile of your own. As you climb in, you try your best to ignore the faint, hot slide of him between your thighs. The leftover feeling warms you, a shudder prickling up your back. Tyler dips his head to finish you off with words that shift excitement in your belly:

The beach house had always been this way, home to many a wayward summer fling, fast friends made in childhood because her house has a pool, mom, can we stay over? and the old-timers, those you grew up beside in Pittsburgh, who knew you inside and out.

It didn’t feel quite as sweet anymore. Those fast friends and old-timers, all a little too busy now. A glass of wine and a meal and they’d head home, and left there, you’d be. It felt like your childhood was falling through your fingers, and you just couldn’t move fast enough to catch it.

Your parents had only stuck around for a few days. “You girls, promise us you’ll have fun,” They’d said, the bright, young part of their retirement meaning the beach house was just a stepping stone, a place to park their RV for a night or two.

“Who the hell is going to grill the fish? What even is the point of fishing at all, if dad won’t be here to grill the fish?” You’d asked, flabbergasted when they’d first announced their premature departure over dinner.

The table laughed, and your sister’s husband assured, “Don’t worry, kid. Sid’s pretty good with the grill.”

You sunk back in your chair, a childish pout threatening to weigh on your bottom lip at what felt like the hundredth hit of bad news you’d heard since your arrival at the house. Obviously you didn’t really care about the grill. However, everyone had kept mentioning Sidney, and his name coming up once again piqued your interest, if only enough to prevent your frustrated tears from falling.

“Oh! What time is his flight getting in? We might catch him before we leave, d’you think?” Your mother exclaimed, smile gleaming at the thought, full cheeks glowing red from the crisp white in her glass. Your father listened intently enough to the response— your mom’s attention span failing her when she reminded you to sit up straight, darling, you’re slumping again.

You topped up your glass, matching your mom, adjusting the little linen skirt you wore while you stood. Part of you was thankful: while they were busy discussing Sidney Crosby or their son-in-law’s team dynamics and what that meant for the upcoming season, they weren’t discussing your recent departure from college to do, what was it again?— you’d hold your breath every time you would explain the whole freelance photography thing to your family of academics, because, frankly, you didn’t quite know how to make it work, just that it was going to, because it had to.

Saying goodbye to your parents the next morning was only made easier by helping Sidney unload his luggage from the rental car. With the carry bag containing a few of his golf clubs slung heavy on your shoulder, you kissed your parents cheeks and wished them safe travels.

Your sister and her husband still sending off your parents, you showed Sid inside. Asking how his flight was and commenting on the weather came easily to you, after years of listening to your parents do it, yet your words rolled over Sid, who was undoubtedly tired (The flight wasn’t long, he’d explained, but it’s never fun, is it?).

When the tour found you both at the bottom of the stairs, Sidney asked, “Where do I sleep?” and, when your response tumbled from your mouth almost without your permission, you could’ve paid someone to euthanise you on the spot.

“Next to me.”

You were quick to backtrack, cheeks and ears growing hot.

“Like, the room. The room next to mine, Uh, just through there. I mean—  you can take the guest room upstairs if you’d like, but it shares a wall with, uh, I think they’ll be... kinda loud, maybe, so...”

Your heartbeat quickens at how much Sid seemed to be enjoying watching you flail. Crooked smile lighting his face, with a hand sinking into his pocket, he threw you a life ring.

“You’re alright, kid. I think I get it.”

He didn’t move towards his room, though, subverting your expectations. Your throat grew dry with the weight of his gaze on you, face still impossibly warm. He looked good, with stubble coming in thick, the collar of his shirt stretched out, letting you see a glimmer of thin, gold chain at the nape of his neck. Somehow he’d come into his own since you’d first met him just a few years prior, the man ageing like wine.

“Are you sure? I could keep talking,” You tried to jest, thankful when a second life ring yanked you from the intensity of the moment: your brother-in-law clapped Sid on the shoulder, asking how he’d been, and you took the chance to slip outside to help your sister mix drinks on the patio.

“Are you good?” She snickered in the most obnoxious older sister fashion, watching you clip your hair back, pulling it off your clammy skin as you exhaled heavily. She was somehow aware of whatever was happening in your own head a lightyear before you’d be allowed to find out.

You obviously weren’t totally naïve to the effect Sid had on you.

You’d only met him a handful of times, the first being during your sister’s wedding weekend, he a groomsman and you the maid of honour. Neither of you were fully comfortable standing before everyone you knew in that light, but both loved the bride and groom (and the prospect of an open bar) enough to deal with it.

You were barely nineteen, your gap year right about to end and your stomach turning at the thought of leaving Pittsburgh for somewhere out west. Still, you smiled in the photos and dutifully told your friends and relatives about the major you’d chosen, and Sidney asked questions whenever it was just the two of you at the head table, and he’d listened earnestly while you fumbled through your answers. When your nerves became evident through your lack of knowledge, Sid smiled and said you’ll figure it out, kid.

You’ll figure it out.

His words were simple, which, you thought, was why they stuck. And you did figure it out, after you let things blow up and barely dodged ruining your own reputation with the whole college-dropout thing.

You could only pray Sidney had taken down too many celebratory fireball shots on the wedding night to remember the conversations he’d held with the bride’s baby sister. You really didn’t want to have to explain yourself, now, to someone you still harboured a schoolgirl-status crush on.

“I’m peachy,” You assured, reaching for a lime and a paring knife. “’M at your service, Barmaid.”

You salted the rims of a few glasses before your sister demanded you make yourself scarce (You’re getting in the way, she said, remember what happened last time you tried to shake the cocktails?). You feigned forgetfulness at this, eager to help with the cocktails then, because you’d be useless when it came time to cook dinner later.

“I couldn’t get the strawberry daiquiri out of my hair for days, Y/N.” The men had slunk through the french doors soon enough to hear the end of the story.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have let an 18 year old in on cocktail night,” You rolled your eyes, turning up the drama for your own entertainment as you moved to walk inside, “I’ve grown up, I’ve learned. I’m a better person now,”

Zipping down the hall to your bedroom, you dug through one of your duffle bags for the novel you were halfway through and a swimsuit small enough to dodge the tan lines the last few hours of the day’s sunlight could threaten you with, and god knows you didn’t spare a single thought for anyone who would see you in that swimsuit.

When you step back outside, nudging the lurid rim of your sunglasses up your nose a little, the three people you’d left on the patio were bickering over how best to prepare the lobsters your father had left for dinner.

You watched as Sid was first to notice your return, his knee bouncing under the table. Offering him a small smile, you set your book down to pick up one of the highly ambitious cooking magazines they were carding through in search of a recipe.

“If we don’t get to see Sid’s apparent pretty good grill skills, I’m getting uber eats.” You cut in with a sigh after a pathetic flick through the pages, finally reaching over the table to steal a sip of your sister’s cocktail. “This is good, can I have it?”

Your sister didn’t dignify you with a response, or even a roll of her eyes, rather she turned to Sid to ensure he was up to cook.

“Can I taste?” You asked Sid when you rounded the table to move towards the pool, and he narrowly avoided sputtering on the sour, red liquid of his drink at the question, his mind thoroughly in the gutter, hating the things you, or, moreover, that bathing suit, were doing to him.

“M’hm. Yep.” He nodded after missing a few beats, handing you the tall glass. The man leant back in his chair, and pulling your eyes away from the way his thighs stretched was a feat.

You sipped quickly before setting it back on the coaster before him, a little put down by how he seemed to avoid your gaze completely when you thanked him.

“She does this, Sid. Next time she asks to taste your drink, set boundaries. She’s like a child, or a small dog. Gotta train her.” Your cheeks flushed a little at your sister’s dig, knowing she was out to make you sweat a little in front of the cool, older guy, like this was high school. You turn away, hoping nobody caught the ruddiness of your cheeks at her comment.

“If I drowned right now, I fear you would not save me.” You call back to your sister, stepping into the chill, blue pool water.

“Glad you know how to swim, then.” She bit, earning light chuckles from the men.

Rib-deep in the water, you tipped your head back to wet your hair before moving to the side of the pool, turning your attention to your novel, and spent that afternoon trying, really, really trying, to keep your eyes off of Sidney.

Sidney didn’t get to sleep for more than two hours on his second night at the house, before you were knocking at the front door, rousing nobody in the house but him.

For a moment, longer than he’d like to admit, he considered letting you stay out there, after you’d left your phone behind and dipped out quickly, barely describing where you were going, and foregoing any indication of when you’d be home. Your sister had spent a chunk of time worrying about you before she resigned with a bottle of moscato, sighing “If she dies, she dies.” and the men had laughed, but Sid knew she was concerned. He was, a little, too.

But, now wide awake in the stupidly comfortable guest bed, it became clear to Sid that your knocking on the door wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, and the happy couple upstairs couldn’t hear it at all.

Petty as he could be, he wasn’t about to sacrifice his own sleep to punish you. He pulled himself up, yanked a shirt over his head, and headed to open the front door for you.

“Hey, thanks, Sid.” You grinned easily, like it wasn’t 1am and you hadn’t just been drinking on the beach, catching up with all the neighbourhood girls and their college boys, the few who still came home for summer.

Sid barely grunted, running a hand over his face before sticking out an arm for you to grasp, waiting for you to reciprocate before he took you by the forearm to help you through the door.

“I’m a grown-ass adult, Sid—” He cut you off when you stopped to hiccup.

“This isn’t fuckin’ actin’ like it.”

Head hung and cheeks burning at his comment, you watched as Sid found your hand and placed it on his shoulder so you wouldn’t stumble while you stepped out of your tennis shoes. It took all you had not to squeeze that one spot, looking up at him while he, down at you, only the warm hallway light filtering through the foyer to let you see one another. Your thumb toyed at the ring of his shirt’s neck, baby blue fabric stretched taut over his tight body. Your palm bridged the crest of his trapezius, and temptation had your head spinning.

“If you track dirt through this house your sister will kill you. That’s if she doesn’t kill you, first, for worrying her like that.”

You didn’t respond. There were a lot of things you didn’t do, that you really wanted to, when Sid wrapped one of his warm arms around your midsection and made sure you walked a straight line down the long hallway to your bedroom. You didn’t cling to him, didn’t even let yourself glance at those goddamn grey sweatpants. Didn’t let your hand upon his shoulder fall to his back, to his hip, you didn’t.

And you definitely didn’t think about the pressure mounting between your thighs.

“Would you be into me, do you think?” You did ask, voice small.

Sidney, reaching for your door handle with his free arm, stopped at your question. Both his arms fell, like the muscles had simply opted out of function for a moment, and you stood there, so fucking close to him, and he stayed.

Would you fuck me. That’s what you wanted to ask. Take me for a night and don’t ask a single question about school or my friends or think about my sister when you say my name. Or, you wanted to ask, could you love me—  could you think about all of that and, still, take me anyway.

No liquid courage was enough to have you ask either of those things, though. So you settled for something smaller, more open-ended. Sid’s jaw fell initially, and you watched every muscle contraction, by the light spilling from his bedroom, as his expression hardened once more.

“Go to bed, Y/N.”

“Mr. Media-trained, I asked you a question!” You were playful, brushing your hair from your face, naively hopeful that you could shift the energy. Regardless of your attempts, his tone was steely.

“Yeah and I’m not answering it. Go to bed.”

Sidney could’ve sworn he felt his heart break when you stammered out an apology.

You clearly were a little out of it, and earlier in the day his teammate had murmured something about Y/N’s “uncharacteristic affection” for him while they had fishing lines in the bay, and with that little revelation, his heart skipped a beat and his throat felt tight, eyes flitting towards where you were lain out on the sand at the time, tiny white bikini top undone in the back.

Still, you were his best friend’s wife’s younger sister, so kind of his best friend’s younger sister, and some a decade his junior, and the reasons he couldn’t let his thoughts go there mounted quickly, but still, there you were. Cheeks pink, slack-jawed and glossy-lipped, and saying sorry simply for asking a curious question.

“Go to bed.” His voice broke to a whisper through it, and he didn’t say anything more before turning for his bedroom, crawling back under the sheets, his place still warm.

Sid’s brain was fucking melting.

You woke before 9am the following morning, found a text on your phone matching a handwritten note on the kitchen island— “Spending the day with some of the cousins, we should be back for dinner. feel free to take the paddle boards out, it’s gonna be a beautiful day x”

Something about the note wrung at your chest, not quite a betrayal or anything, but you wished they’d waited up for you. You supposed you mightn’t have deserved the courtesy after the little disappearing act you’d pulled the night before, but, still, it hurt a little.

Leaving the note at rest, you walked outside, bowl of granola in one hand with a cigarette lit between two fingers on the other. A little sun streamed in through the skylight under the patio, warmth rippling over one of your arms, gleaming off the spoon.

You tried not to think about what you’d asked Sid the night before, nor how you’d only had two beers and a shot down on the beach, which was not nearly enough liquor to excuse the question you’d asked him in the hallway. Really, you barely knew the guy. It was a moment of self-indulgence, and it was unfair of you to put him in that situation. Now, you could only hope he’d tagged along with your sister and his teammate, and you could lick your wounds, home alone, in peace.

You wouldn’t be so lucky.

Sid came outside not ten minutes after you, scruffing a towel over his hair, wet from the shower, and you could’ve screamed when he bid you good morning, kid, like nothing in the world had changed.

You didn’t even like cigarettes, but this one, rolling between your knuckles, gave your line of sight an anchor, so you didn’t look totally stupid while vehemently avoiding looking at Sidney.

If he’d have asked, you would’ve told him you didn’t smoke, really, you promise. Told him the ridiculous truth: you’d found the pack your dad left in the little office off the hallway a few summers ago, before his heart doctor made him quit. Like a little kid, you’d lit it on the stove and taken it outside where you took one drag and coughed the smoke back up, your body rejecting it, it along with the idea that maybe, after this summer, things would be different. You’d stand taller, and you’d know, all of a sudden, exactly how to be a grown-up, to be considered in the same circle as your own family.

But he didn’t ask.

“I don’t mind,” He said after you’d already squashed the cigarette, burnt almost to your fingers, against the limestone pavement, marring it black in a messy circle. He didn’t ask a damn thing, but part of you really wanted him to, so you could explain yourself, about the cigarette and about last night, and he wouldn’t think any less of you for any of it. Maybe that made you childish, you thought. The desperation you had to explain yourself, even to a person who, you thought, couldn’t have cared less.

A cool breeze stole the final wisps of smoke away and, in doing so, it took also the heat from your face and chest.

“Are you okay?” Sid spoke softly. He always did, but this time, eyes set straight ahead on the rippling pool, one of it’s corners sparkling in the morning sun, he meant to.

You wanted to actually scream now, because why would he ask you that?

“Yeah. Just try’na eat my granola.” You gave him a wry smile.

Sidney didn’t respond, and your spoon remained firmly stationed on the table, shiny and untouched.

The moment weighed heavy between the two of you. A tiny bird chased bugs at the edge of the pool, and it was the most interesting thing either of you had ever seen, at that point. The avoidance was wearing thin, though.

“I feel like I’m watching a lot of endings, and I don’t know what beginnings could possibly follow them,”

He looked at you, then, waiting for you to continue, and he didn’t need to prompt you to finish with words, for you could feel it. His arms crossed over one another and leant on the table, his upper body leaning forward, too, willing your continuation. Your whole body buzzed with it.

“I left college this year. Which I don’t regret, but I’m trying to be a grown-up, you know. I have a job and I pay my own rent, all of that. And then, like this morning, the family are doing things without me, and I feel like a little kid again, except I look around and nobody else is a kid anymore, just me, and I’m trying to control everything, and everything keeps slipping.”

“The playground’s empty.” Sid chuckled, a little bit bittersweet, and you knew he had some semblance of understanding, despite how stupid you’d felt when you finished rambling. He continued, “You get used to it. Eventually your hometown friends will start having kids, and you’ll go on vacations alone.”

“Or with your teammate and his wife.”

He laughed at that, if not because it was funny, then because it was sad.

You finally picked up your spoon, and Sid asked about your job, and there was no judgement behind his line of questioning, no waiting to compare it to what you could’ve done had you remained in college, because frankly, he didn’t even remember what you’d been studying. Too many fireball shots, you’d resigned, but really, he didn’t remember much of that conversation because it was so clear how little you’d cared about it at the time.

He smiled when you showed him some of your work, because it was good, but more because you were proud of it, and there came from him no undercutting sighs of “if that’s what makes you happy,” because it was what made you happy, and it was just that simple for him.

"I’m thinking of heading down to the beach. You wanna come with?” You asked when your bowl was empty, you bending down to pick up the discarded cigarette, lest your sister find it and actually wring your neck.

“No, no, you go. We’ve got a long day on the driving range planned tomorrow, I’ll take it easy today. I might go put a line in and see if I can catch us dinner.” He explained easily, thinking out loud with a hand scratching at the nape of his neck.

“Okay. Good luck.” You left him with a small smile and gaze thoroughly subverted from the flex of his bicep before you dipped back indoors, undoubtedly a little disappointed he wouldn’t be joining you.

“Trust you to be inside watching an old game on the prettiest day all summer.”

You, having entered through the back door silently, made your presence known as you entered the living room. You held a half-peeled clementine in one hand while you pushed your sunglasses up onto your head with the other, beach towel slung over one shoulder. “D'you catch us dinner?”

Sid drew his eyes from the television, brows raised, like he wanted you to repeat what you’d asked— first time he’d heard it, too invested in the play occurring onscreen, but, frankly, if he’d heard it a second time while looking at you, there was every chance it wouldn’t have sunk in, then, either.    

The way you looked, he felt like a fucking pervert just being in the same room as you, thinking like this. The daintiest gold chains around your neck, skin glowing, just a little sun kissed. And that bikini.

That stupid fucking bikini. Soft white fabric held together by mere strings. Setting your clementine and sunglasses on the coffee table, you knelt at the opposite end of the big, grey couch, and you had no clue, he thought, what that bikini had been doing to him since he got here.

“Fish weren’t biting. How was the water?” Sid asked, fist squeezing around the cold, wet glass of his beer bottle, training his eyes on the muted TV and nothing but.

“Warm. It was nice. I’ll have to take you down to my favourite spot sometime. It’s between these rocky outcrops away from the rest of the beach, so the waves are really gentle.”

He liked hearing you talk like that, with conviction, like you were confident in whatever it was you had to say, and he was lucky enough to have heard that tone from you a little more today.

Swivelling your hips a little to watch the game, you asked a few questions, ones with answers that felt like common sense to Sid, but, he realised, mustn’t be to someone without his years of experience on the ice.

He smiled when you commented on the game, excited to see how you were so excited to learn, and he’d answer you, speaking with his hands, leant forward on his elbows, propped against his knees, thick thighs flexing, dark gaze flitting between you and the screen.

You probably only took in about a third of the information he spat. How could you pay any more attention when he was sat there, just looking like that? The way the slightest movements in his wrists would be felt in the obscenely on-show muscles of his shoulders, where the white tee he wore fit just a little too tight, it could’ve sent you spiralling, had you let it.

And you kinda wanted to let it.

“Can you do me a favour, Sidney?” You asked at the very end of the second period, butterflies beating up a storm in your belly with a surge of courage given to you by watching the man smile like that, so effortless in explaining the way his game worked.

“Anything.” He’d responded without a second thought, foregoing asking what it was you needed, lest that end the two of you up in more trouble than he was sure you were already in, what with the things he was guilty of thinking about you.

Pulling the claw clip from your hair, you let your tresses fan over your shoulders, two tiny braids falling at either side of your face frame, and Sid’s breath was bated, watching you move towards him carefully, your eyes bright. You were awaiting protest, so thankful when it never came.

It started so slowly. Your head in his lap, neck bent back the tiniest amount over the crest of his strong thigh. His big hand was soft at your chin, thumb at rest just by your lower lip.

“I just need something, Sid.” You didn’t even fully know what you were asking for. He didn’t, either, but your soft sigh when his thumb dipped through your lips gave him some idea.

You tried bringing one of your hands up to feel him, even just a grip on his forearm would’ve been enough, but Sid chuckled lightly, crooning, “hands to yourself.” and you did as you were told, one arm locked at your side with the other lain across your own torso, your fingers gripping at your warm skin arbitrarily.

With the pad of his thumb rolling soft circles on the tip of your tongue, Sid allowed himself, for the first time since he’d arrived, to take you in wholly. Your eyes hooded and glassy, pupils dilated, your warm skin shining a little. Your swimsuit was still damp from the ocean, strings tied in bows, taut against your skin, goose bumps arising the longer his gaze lay on you. You pressed the softest open-mouth kiss to the side of his thumb, digit still teasing, lashes fluttering, and he sighed.

“You’re hungry, huh?”

It would’ve been so easy. So fucking easy for him. Slip one finger under the soft, stretchy fabric over your breast, push it to the side and this would go further than either of you had bargained for.

“M’hm.”

He didn’t, though. He wouldn’t. This was just… a moment. You needed this, needed someone else to sit in the driver’s seat for a second. He convinced himself he could be anyone, in that moment. You just needed someone.

And he pushed away the thought that maybe that fact fucking hurt him, because regardless, you needed this. And he needed to be there for you.

Pushing against your lower teeth with his thumb to cleave your jaw open further, he hollowed his cheeks and let his own saliva fall into your mouth, warmth running over your tongue, and your eyes rolled back a little before they fell shut, and you swallowed him down, taste of fresh lime from the neck of the beer he’d been nursing, now light on your tongue.

“Thank you.” You breathed, and Sid could’ve lost it on the spot.

When he moved his thumb from where it was playing in your mouth and replaced it with his index and middle finger, you choked back a moan.

“You can take it. I want to hear you.”

He pretended not to notice the way your legs fell open at that, one knee propped against the back of the couch, the other calf hanging off the side altogether. The tiny linen skirt you wore to feign modesty around the house was bunched all the way up over your hips, now. He couldn’t let himself look at those high-cut, baby blue bikini bottoms, not the way they left nothing to the imagination at the best of times, let alone when you were like this, your pelvis already grinding so filthily against nothing. None of those thoughts could be part of this, whatever this was.

“Pretty baby.” He murmured, and you hummed appreciatively, eyes falling shut while his thumb rubbed softly at your jaw, two fingers moving heavy on your tongue, open-mouthed. Your head tipped back to allow him in further, and your cheeks hollowed around him as you suckled, tears welling up with every tiny gag.

“Breathe, baby. Breathe around my fingers. You got it.” He coached you tenderly through the choking feeling. With his free hand stroking through the hair at the crown of your head, you sighed softly, burgeoning smile blooming through the openness of your mouth when he pulled out.

“Think you can take another?” He didn’t know why he asked— maybe it was a surrogate for how badly he wanted his same fingers stretching your cunt, or how desperately he wished it were his cock you were suckling so lovingly down your throat. Maybe he was just a little fucked up for getting off on this, seeing how far he could push and still have you take, take, take.

“Mm, really wanna try.” You nodded, excited to take just about anything he’d be willing to give you.

He felt bad for how hard he was in his swim trunks, just centimetres from your soft cheek, a crystalline tear sitting atop the skin there. You needed this.

Three fingertips caressed the tip of your soft, pliant tongue, and before they’d really passed your teeth by much, you gagged, proper tears spilling with the heave of your body. You didn’t need to say anything at all for Sid to remove the third finger but press the first two deeper, your cheeks hollowing while your tongue swirled and your hips bucked, entire body growing warmer, little more than a thrumming nerve.

“Maybe we try a third another time,” He assured, and again, your jaw fell slack with the bloom of a grin at the mere prospect of there being another time.

Sid’s hand, wet with your own saliva, wiped at the tears on your cheeks gently, moving you from blissed out to burning hot and acutely aware of the feel of his hands caressing you— that action, somehow even more intimate than him knuckle-deep in your mouth.

“Mm, Sid. Want your cock.” You were breathless and feverish, a hand finally crossing your body to tug at the drawstring on his dark shorts. He swats your hand away, bending down a little to spit in your mouth again, this time slightly faster, a little meaner: testing the waters.

When your little grin only grows, he presses on.

“What do you say?” He asks, strong hand holding your jaw in place to keep the eye contact, keep your jaw locked open.

You swallow, blinking hard.

“Thank you.”

You whimpered quietly when you heard a car pull into the driveway, Sid’s head snapping to the foyer, “What time is it?” He asked, like it mattered, because your siblings were home early regardless, and like that, the reverie was shattered entirely.

His hand withdrew quickly, gave your cheek a hard little tap and reached down to pull your skirt down, protecting your modesty. He helped you sit up, his big hands setting the skin on your bare back alight, your head still a little out of it.

“You’d wanna check you didn’t leave a wet patch on the couch.” Sid was almost grinning when you looked at him, your face blank.

“I’ll kill you. If I did it’d be your fault.” You glared across at him, returning to your post in the corner of the couch, reaching for the beach towel you’d let fall to the floor. You wiped down your face, the rough, salty fabric burning over your swollen lips.

“I’m going to shower.”

Sid smirked at you, reaching for the clementine you’d abandoned on the coffee table. 

“Have fun.”  He stated, your back already to him. You had no time to respond before the front door swung open, and your brother-in-law nearly burst out laughing when he stepped inside first, seeing the TV— game somewhere near the end of the third period. You were halfway down the hall by then, heart racing in your ears.

“Come on, man!” He drawled, throwing his arms out at the sight of an ice rink on the television. “We’re on vacation!”

You heard them, faintly, from your bedroom, as you gathered up some clean clothes: your sister discussing a few potential afternoon plans, suggesting you all hire a few jet-skis or hit the driving range early. You heard it, but you barely processed it, still feeling your pulse throb in your throat, a kind of bliss enveloping you that you’d never quite experienced before.

The last thing you heard before you pulled the bathroom door shut, a comment from Sid that threw you back into a spin—  

Maybe it was worse that you talked. You traded anecdotes and laughed until your sides ached. He wanted to hear about even the dumb things, stories of losing friends while travelling in faraway countries during your gap year and getting tipsy to go grocery shopping at midnight during your time in college.

It was definitely worse once you made it to the place where two rocky outcrops gave way to a tiny beach, more pebble than sand, where the water gleamed cobalt, and swirled rather than crashed. There, you learned how much you liked hearing the chronicles of Sid’s times in locker rooms and tunnels, and going home to see his family.

It felt like you’d lived three chaotic lives, comparatively, to his single, hockey-centric one, but his musings bought with them a sense of steadiness. Sure, he didn’t have tales of Italian rooftops (and questionable hostels) to match yours, but, on that same note, you didn’t have stories of finding a minuscule slice of heaven in an empty rink (nor your parents sacrificing their lifestyles for your dreams). 

Your circumstances had been wildly different from his, yet your experiences were inexplicably similar. A different breed of the same pressure burdened heavily on the backs of both of you since childhood. He, to be something great, and you, to do something great.

And, the one fact that effloresced from the shot-for-shot trading of your experiences was growing clear: sometimes, you both wished the world around you would just slow down.

Once your ribs stopped hurting, the sun low in the sky when the laughter died, your chest felt bruised, because, you were realising, you didn’t want to talk to Sid like this. Not after the thing on the couch, the way you’d asked him to see you like that, to take you like that and he did, so tenderly.

If you talked, and if you laughed, you couldn’t feign nonchalance at the dinner table, keep your family none the wiser. You couldn’t fake it was just a sex thing, or a power thing, and act as though his quirks weren’t rapidly growing endearing, as if you weren’t watching him open up to you in real-time. 

If you knew how his mom kept safe a dried-up bouquet of flowers for each of his individual achievements, you wouldn’t be able to go back to not knowing. 

Once he’d told you those things, you couldn’t lie, tell yourself you didn’t care.

And, if you were smarter or stronger, maybe, once the jig was up and the lie was a bygone, you’d have stopped all this whatever it is in its tracks. Save yourself some trouble later on.

“What’re you thinking?” Sid asked quietly, propping himself up to look at you for the first time since you’d both thrown your towels down and lain, lazily, side by side. The dark sunglasses resting atop his cheeks made it easier for you to stand up and swipe down the backs of your thighs. Made it easier to move away from him. 

“A whole lot of nothing.” The side of your mouth quirked up in what you hoped would be taken for a show of assurance. 

You haven’t done anything wrong, you wanted to say. I just can’t afford to catch feelings for someone I can’t have.

Sid followed suit, brushing the sand from his trunks before shedding his shirt. He stood on the shore for a second, the ocean lapped at his ankles, tide at a slow rise while you stood there, too, back to him, shoulders tense as your arms were crossed. 

“Can I touch you?”

And, like that, there you were, in his lap again. All his. And, if that was going to work without shredding your heart to mere ribbons, you decided, it would have to be exactly as it was. His hands on you, nothing more, and you, all his, only ever for that moment.

His breath fanned delicately over the nape of your neck, and your skin tingled, ears ringing. 

“Please.”

The way the word left your throat in a powerless whimper felt a little pathetic, but when the back of his hand ghosted a stripe along your spine, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You shivered despite the high sun’s warm bite, and the ocean’s coolness was felt all at once, soft peach fuzz prickling. 

With one hand settling on your hip, Sid’s hot, lax mouth fell to the crux between your shoulder and neck. Your shoulders softened with arousal imitating relief, arms falling to your sides.

His free hand came up to toy with the tie of your swimsuit at the curve of your back, a lone finger hooked underneath the string with no intention of removing it, but a reminder that he could. 

You pushed back into him, sighing when his tongue and teeth pressed against your neck with the clearest deliberation. 

And, if you’d felt how hard he was, Sid thought, you didn’t say anything.

His kiss was taken nearly as soon as it had been given, replaced gingerly with his forehead lulling against the back of your head, an arm draping itself around your body mindlessly. 

“You feel what you do to me, Baby?” He spoke low, broken with rasp.

Once again, he was here. Apologetic for that tightness in his trunks, and even more rueful now he’d put words to it, albeit in a sick, roundabout way. His face felt searing, and you sensed his trepidation. You could feel it in even the most diminutive shifts of his muscles. 

Your heart raced at it, brow furrowing. That all-too-familiar slipping feeling seeping in. Reaching for the forearm he’d lain across your ribs, you nudged it just a little lower, willing his big hand to the seam where your swimsuit bottoms met your skin.

“I love this, Sid. So much.” You stopped your voice there, lest the continuation you could’ve given discourage him. You could’ve told him, truthfully, how badly you needed him to take you. How, if he’d asked, you’d have gotten on your knees for him, right there. 

Moreover, you wanted to tell him that you hoped, desperately, that he was even half as into you as you were into him. 

(And maybe that tension in his shorts made you feel a bit more secure in those hopes, and a bit less like a charity case.)

Regardless of could’ves and wanted tos, Sid let your few words catch him, for they were all he’d needed to hear: 

whatever it was he felt, you didn’t mind. You’d grasp it, and you’d hold him in it. Maybe this whole thing was a favour, just a moment. But it belonged to both of you, now, equally.

He smiled, the burgeoning relief he felt teetering on overwhelming, and his hand splayed over your stomach, fingertips finally dipping underneath your bikini. 

“Anyone ever touched you here before?”

He hadn’t even cared about the answer, he thought. His goal, now, was nothing but to rile you up. Occupy your mind. After all, that objective was the genesis of this. And it was becoming nothing, really, if not a game the two of you were playing. 

Within these moments, were they to continue, Sid decided, it was his job to follow your lead: pull you out of yourself, safe at his side. And for now, all he wanted was to make you squirm.

You turned your head in hesitation, enough for your lips to find purchase below his jaw. His hand was static, not yet deep enough to feel where the wetness pooled. His thumb caressed your lower stomach, tiny strokes coaxing your answer forward.

“Don’t remind me about my ex right now,” You exhaled shakily, flustered smile against his skin wringing at his chest, just a little. “He never wanted to try it.”

Sid hadn’t cared about the answer at all, until the answer was no, not really.

“Fuck.” He spit, pressing a chaste kiss to your temple, mouth lingering there while his middle fingers skimmed over your clit, sending a jolt through you, relieving only an iota of pressure. The tiniest of moans broke in your throat as your brow furrowed, eyes crushing shut.

“’M gonna fuckin’ ruin you.” 

Before you could process his words, the way your body pulsed at them before they’d fully washed through your head, Sid withdrew completely. You watched in awe as the man took a step around you, wading a little way into the ocean.

“You’re fucking cruel.” Words you’d meant to jest came from you more akin to a whine.

“M’ not fingerfucking you on a public beach. Much less when it’s your first time.” He explained sternly and logically, the way you’d imagine he’d explain something to a rookie teammate on the bench, something which felt unfair and frustrating. He paraded an undercurrent of experience and confidence which reassured you.

Still, it didn’t satiate the slick between your thighs.

“You fingerfucked my throat on a... public-like... couch.” You tried to quip as though it’d convince him, but Sid only laughed. You watched (stupidly, you felt) with your hands on your hips as he sunk back into the water, cupping his hands to splash it over his rosy face, card his fingers through his hair.

“Whatever. I’m going home.” You finally huffed childishly, turning for your towel and tote bag. 

You could nearly hear it on his face: the crooked smile, an unguarded moment.  

“Y/N. Swim with me?”

He sounded bright.

Cruelly, it only reminded you of how, sex removed from the equation, he and all his unguarded brightness couldn’t be yours. 

Your chest felt open. You slung your tote over one shoulder, nothing but your phone and a half-empty water bottle swaying inside. 

“That’s probably not a good idea.” 

You tried not to sound sad about it. Raised your voice a little and said it with a smile, so he could hear you over the shuffling of rocks and sand and relentless water enveloping him. Still, all your tries couldn’t prevent the way Sidney’s grin fell.

He knew why. He really did. Perhaps the age difference could’ve been negligible, unique circumstances considered, but your family couldn’t. Sid knew how proud Letang was to play the role of your big brother, he had been since the very day things got serious with your sister. You were the closest thing he had to a sibling, even before the wedding had put it to paper, and he’d always held you in that regard. 

Kris had never told his teammates not to fall in love with his brand-new baby sister, but, in all fairness, he hadn’t thought he’d needed to: that kind of a thing was a given. And he’d never once even considered he’d have to have that conversation with Sidney, of all the guys in the entire league.

Knowing why you bent down to pick up your still-dry towel did nothing to ease the hurt when you did.

“I’ll see you when you get home, Sid.”

You tried on that ill-fitting smile once more and hoped he could tell, somehow, how badly you wanted to stay as you left.

When he got home things were so normal it hurt, waltzing in a little after dark with his towel cloaking his hips and shirt slung over one shoulder. 

You were alone, living room lights turned down a fraction on the dimmer with an old Pens game playing loud on the TV. With a knee tucked up to your chest, you scrawled messily on the notepad taken from the kitchen fridge, typically reserved for scribbling takeout orders and neighbours’ phone numbers, a page now marked with questions and exclamation marks and a shoddily drawn diagram of a rink, right at the bottom.

“Hey,” You started, pausing your shorthand to turn down the volume when you heard the door swing open. “Kris has shrimp going on the grill.” 

Sid tried skimming over it, the shred of irony he found here, you tucked up on the couch like this, room glowing by the light of a game on the television while he stood, damp and salty. The floridity of your complexion told him it wasn’t lost on you, either.

“What’cha writing?” He asked on his way to the fridge. “If you don’t mind sharing.” 

You swallowed around your tongue, face hot. 

“Just a few things I don’t understand. I tried googling some of them but all the articles are written for, like, sports bros. So I was gonna ask Kris, or you, if you want to answer them, maybe,” 

So much for keeping it at his hands on you, nothing more. 

You wanted to scold yourself, roll your eyes at your own behaviour and just how tangled your feelings were becoming. You’d flicked the TV on when you’d arrived home, and a game queued up from earlier in the day played, and for probably a hundred reasons, you couldn’t bring yourself to turn it off. 

Sid couldn’t help it, the blushing like a high school freshman, the hand which came up under the delicate chain below his throat, fidgeting with its tiny links. 

“Of course I’ll answer them.” He said, soft-toned as ever.

You smiled at him, across the room, shuffling to find a glass in the cabinets, crease in his brow reading determination.

You liked him like this, you thought. He wasn’t an NHL superstar like this, half-dressed and still warmed by the sun under downlights, front office staff and media all so far away that they couldn’t touch him, no matter how badly they wanted to.

“The game’s not over yet, so I’ll hold you to that, later, when my list is done.” You breathed smoothly, put at ease by the coolness he was showing, like he’d entirely forgotten you’d been at the beach at all.

Mid-morning, at the kitchen island, you argued an absolute lost cause with Kris and Sid. 

“If they penalise it, players won’t slug the puck, like, halfway across the country just to kill time, basically. It means it’s not worth it for the players.” Your sister tossed down the magazine she’d been clutching in the living room and closed her eyes, exasperated by just listening to your determined vexing. 

“Jesus. Neither of you could’ve just said that ten minutes ago?” You stressed back at Kris and Sid with a roll of your eyes, a dramatic flick of your hands.

Maybe you were playing it up, and maybe you’d understood perfectly fine what icing was the first (or, like, the second) time they’d tried to explain it. But the fingers rubbing at Sid’s temples while he slumped over the counter were a bit like a reward. To have thrown him off his game (and turned a few grey hairs out of him) felt like some kind of comeuppance following the way he’d slighted you on the beach.

You were having too much fun to really hear the steady pull up of cars in the drive out front. Referring back to the notepad in your hand, about to open your mouth once more, your sister lifted a pointy finger at you across the room and warned, “Drop it, I swear to God,”, and you did, if only for her sanity, instead opting to watch her move towards the front door.

You sat in the kitchen, leathery barstool clammy on your thighs, as a patchwork of hockey players and their partners rolled in, Kris and Sid equally beaming at the surprise organised by your sister. The players represented a few teams scattered over the league, and catch-ups weren’t common at all, let alone ones without the looming pressure of a game or high-profile, highly-strung event. 

The piling in of people for the weekend felt nice. The walls would vibrate with the clamour and booming voices and laughter, and there were too many people for the number of bedrooms or patio chairs, but it felt like a surrogate family, strangers or not.

At the bottom of the stairwell, Sidney, ever the gracious leader, had traded away the comfort of his guest bed in exchange for the pull-out couch before anyone had even asked. 

You glared at the back of his head for that—  for bringing that insane idea to fruition, as your sister stared blankly at you in your peripheral, awaiting a similar foregoing of your bed to allow another of the couples some privacy during their weekend stay.

“My bed is so comfy,” You started, petulance grinding to a painful halt when you, once more, met the eye of your sister, who stood there with a harsh crease in her brow, head tilted in a way which put the intrinsic fear of your mother into you. 

You finished quickly: “Which is exactly why you should enjoy it, Nathan.”

If growing up with your family had taught you the mastery of one thing, it was faking one killer smile. Kris caught your eye, mouthing an endearing thank you alongside a smile more genuine than your own, which sweetened the deal a little. Partly because you liked Kris, but more than that, because you liked having Kris owe you favours, being that he was the only other person here well-versed in the language of your sister.

Once the newer guests had settled, drinks flowed in the yard (we can day drink, right?!, one of the ladies gleamed, already popping the prosecco). You stood at the kitchen counter before you joined them, mind mulling over nothing at all while you found rhythm in slicing lemons, content in listening to the muffled music and laughter chiming through from outside.

Sid, after moving the last of his luggage away to the office to allow one of the couples a little more space in the guest room, entered the open-plan living room. 

“Hey,” He begun, pulling your attention, quirking your brow over your shoulder. He had a feathery stack of bedding scooped up under one arm, and had started folding it over the arm of the sofa. He continued.

“Are you on birth control?”

You nearly choked. 

At the question itself, obviously, but moreover, the casualty with which he’d asked it, like there wasn’t a pack of people just past the glass doors which broke the patio from the living room. Like it wasn’t broad daylight, he wasn’t folding the eiderdown, and you weren’t minding your business, in an oversized tee, chopping fucking lemons, taken so very off-kilter by him.

You glanced over your shoulder, eyes wide. He looked at you like he’d asked something weightless, waiting patiently for an answer. You didn’t respond for long enough that he felt the need for elaboration.

“We’re sharing a room now. Thought I’d be precautious.” 

He simpered, and the enthusiasm with which he’d offered away his guest room started to make some sense.

“Sharing the living room, Sid. I’ll take the little sofa.” Your voice occupied a strange midpoint between exasperated and trembling, and you returned to your chopping board while he began to pace for the door, his bed linen stacked neatly. His hand lingered on the iron door handle, sight flitting back over the expanse of space between the big, grey couch, and the little velvet loveseat you apparently intended on sleeping upon. 

You let your mind wander to the potential for the total breakdown of whatever this was, which would occur if you were to be found in bed with Sid when morning light broke and someone came down to brew coffee.

But, you also thought about the reward if you weren’t found out. With the imagining of that reward tucked away somewhere dark, you called to Sid before he stepped outside:

“I am, by the way.”

By mid-afternoon, you’d downed two spiked lemonades to help pull you precariously out to join the party. Kris’ friends were intimidating, somehow equally in the offseason, when they were mix-matched with their guards down, than when they were uniformed soldiers prepared to dazzle thousands on the ice.

It was warm outside, one of those weird days where the breeze sticks to your skin and makes it tough to breathe. Clouds rolling in the distance thickened the briny air: you could smell the storm coming, the salt and grass mixing with the pavement intoxicatingly.

You’d not had any complex interaction with Kris’ friends since the wedding, when you were a smidge shorter and a smidge shyer, and of course, that shiny college acceptance letter from somewhere hard to get into was how your family introduced you.

Nathan Mackinnon seemed to be the only one who remembered anything about you at all, now, and maybe that little extra mile shouldn’t have surprised you. 

In the earliest hours of the morning following the ceremony, your face numb and brain surging, one of the bridesmaids had pointed a lazy hand to Nate in a back corner, still a little uncomfortable in this glitzy world and it showed, and, she slurred, he’s been eyeing you up all night.

Now, you wondered, whether things might be different had you crept over to the corner occupied by Nate and asked him to dance. Maybe you could’ve wound up looking across the table at him, here, and Sid, sat beside him, head tilted back hungrily, would be meaningless. Maybe.

Things would’ve been simpler. It would’ve made sense, you and a guy closer to your age, playing on a team closer to your college, a little further from Kris and your sister, not one of Kris’ closest friends. It sure as hell would’ve made a lot more sense than whatever feelings flurried about your head, now, years later. 

But, that night, in a whirl of powder and heady perfume at that velvet-foiled table, Nate didn’t matter. You were busy talking to Sid.

For all your flaws, now, you were relatively good at cards. But, God, you were thankful you weren’t playing with cash. It’d only taken Kris emptying your pockets one time (on your birthday, no less) for you to learn one lesson: hockey players play a lot of card games. On planes, buses, in hotel rooms. He’d bought all your drinks after taking your money, but no amount of top-shelf tequila could patch up your pride after the beating you’d taken at that green felt table.

Your dwindling chips were serving as a painful reminder of that night, but there was a sliver of hope left, maybe. It was just you and a stupidly smiley Nate left, his stack only a few chips taller than yours.

You felt the hope abating when Sid tapped Nate’s shoulder and leant in to whisper something, bravado puffing his tanned shoulders, the slightest of smiles on that tender mouth.

Whatever that something was, it must’ve been good.

“All in.” Nate sucked in a sharp breath, neck red from the rum and coke by his hand.

The company around the table was spring-loaded, grasping their drinks in wait.

“What the fuck?!” You gaped, giving yourself away, and the table went up in playful jeers. 

You tucked your cards to the table, face down so nobody caught the off suited two and four you’d held strong with for, probably, far too long, and ran your hands down your face for a juncture, someone moving to reshuffle the cards as you rubbed your temples, eyes scrunched.

“Count me out of the next hand. I’m going to be a sore loser over there, in the pool.” You sulked, pushing your chair back from the table. Your thighs clung stickily to the mesh when you stood, shirking away from the disappointed babbling with an apology you didn’t mean. 

“Good hand, Nate. You had me going for a while there.” You smiled even if you didn’t fully believe it, the sportsmanship of your father barrelling back to you.

“I’m gonna apologise for that one,” Sid commented, a pitiful excuse to follow you away from the table after you’d already stepped into the pool, knee-deep and peeling your shirt from your body. 

With your hands hooked on the limestone lip at the water’s surface, wet chin against the warm, dry pavement, you watched Sid pace over.

“What the fuck did you say to him?”

If you weren’t halfway livid with Sid, there’d have been something unreal about the angle you had on him right there: the mounts of his bowed legs in shorts just a little too short, curving through the view of taut abs— why was he still shirtless, again? It’d been hours since they were in the pool. You’d be lying to say you weren’t at all contented by it. 

His dark eyes were gleamy, reflecting the glowing below him, and while he looked straight down at you, the angles of his face were made sharp by the water’s ripples. And yet, you were halfway livid, so none of that mattered. Kind of.

“Just told him you were trying not to smile.” 

Your stomach pitted.

“Whatever.” You scoffed quietly, glancing back to the table where the group was absorbed in a new game. The trifling curiosity ate you quickly. “How would you even know that?”

Sid looked around the yard, avoiding your eye.

“Your temple flexes when you clench your jaw, which you do when you’re stopping yourself. From showing anything, not just smiling.”

If you’d thought about it for more than a second, it would’ve made your heart burst, the way he’d noted such an incredibly insignificant thing. But, again, there were more pressing things to concern yourself with. 

“Y’know getting me beat in poker isn’t going a long way in convincing me to fuck you tonight.” 

You’d not known whether the closely-gathered crowd at the table could hear you across the lawn, but, at that point, you didn’t care. You peeked over at them, awaiting any indication they’d heard your dig. If this was how you were caught, you hoped it’d be funnier than it was controversial, but still, you watched. 

Sid didn’t miss a beat. Your body, once soft and liquid, turned rigid in an instant.

“Somehow I don’t think you need any more convincing.”

Long after dinner, after good-nights and still-hollow plans for tomorrow (the driving range missed us today, I’m sure of it, someone chaffed), Sid and Letang sat on the patio, the two of them. 

Listening to Steve Mears’ voice at the lowest volume on the surround sound, you found yourself there again, lime tang stuck to your tongue, amber lights turned down. One of their beers you’d stolen from the cooler sat on the coffee table, barely a mouthful gone before it lost its wet chill. You never really liked beer, more liked the way holding the bottle made you feel.

“You won’t finish it,” Kris had ribbed with a smile, watching you retrieve the bottle. 

“I will.” You swore, palming a few waxy lime wedges from a small dish on the table.

And, in the way that older siblings are meant to be, Kris was right. You poured it down the sink, listened to it gurgle as Sid and Kris came inside for the night, still laughing from something said behind the glass doors.

“What’d I say?” Kris pointed at you, grin growing on his mouth despite his hushed tone, the threat of waking the house looming.

“Shut up,” You replied, pointing the neck of the bottle at him like a threat, only making him laugh. “Maybe if you bought better beer I’d finish it when I steal them.”

“Less than half, right?” Kris pressed on, smiling, your resignation his glorious win. “You drank less than half?

A stupid, grousing little part of you felt warm, not at the banter, but more so, at Sid stood off to the side, bearing witness to it. Like on the first day, when your sister had made you sweat a little in front of him, made you feel like a kid again. 

The cool, older guy, watching you shrink, trying to prove yourself and failing. That stupid, grousing little part of you regretted grabbing a beer at all. But, whether or not Sid had picked up on your sudden disquiet, you didn’t know. It didn’t matter. The hand he slid against the curve of your back as he passed you, remaining a little too long, maybe, the weight of it pulled you back to yourself, drained all your feelings of smallness.

When Kris went to bed, the click shut of his bedroom door upstairs rang through like a starter pistol. Neither you nor Sid spared a word. You brushed past one another in the hallway, in and out of the bathroom to brush teeth and dress down, and pretended the intensity in the room hadn’t grown tenfold. 

Everything wound, coiled tight like a spring, waiting for something to give. 

You nearly gasped when Sid spoke first, felt it in your chest, his placid timbre.

“We didn’t end up getting past icing today.”

He eyed the notepad that sat on the coffee table fondly, all its smudgy ink. 

Half the tension gone, you scoffed.

“It just sounds fake!” You said, throwing a hand out at the TV despite the intermission on screen, the game long ignored, anyway. He helped you reel out the sofa bed wordlessly, toss out creamy sheets, and he pretended he didn’t see the way you were brooding, brow furrowed. 

“I really do think the game could be more interesting if there was a little more chaotic, pointless scurrying back and forth.” You finally collapsed on the bed, duvet puffing up around you, unbearably soft against your skin. 

Sid resigned to the place beside you, chuckling softly, “We don’t need to argue about this again.”, both of you wilfully ignorant to the magnitude of you in his bed, there, in his space like you belonged there (and maybe, by some measure, you did).

“Sid.”

He looked at you, just-hooded gaze knotting you inside. Your eyes were big, looking up, melting him. He swallowed hard before his head tilted in acknowledgement, breath on hold.

“Do you wanna touch me?”

“What?” He asked, voice buoyant, as though you’d started a joke. For a moment your throat went dry, starry eyes forever away, waiting for some kind of mocking you’d not known from Sid, but it didn’t come, of course, it didn’t. 

Lifting a hand to your hairline, to your jaw, instead, he stroked, drew a soft line.

“I thought the poker thing killed my chances.”

Elation teetered in the centre of your throat. Poker was a million miles away, everything was.

“You’re on thin ice.”

“I’m used to it.”

You caught the brittle shell of the joke but his index finger, now curled with a knuckle bent against the seam of your lips, reigned a lot more alluring. 

He started with two fingers, tempting your tongue, mouth lax and forgiving, waiting on an unspoken cue from Sid, something more. The quick press of his thumb up into your lower lip edged your mouth shut around him, and in doing so, pulled from him a sigh as you sucked, eyes drifting shut.

Your chin tilted up to follow the gentle motions of his hand, infatuated by how his breaths were growing shorter, more audible. 

His wrist twisted carefully as his hand thrust, drool collecting at his joints lewdly, soft suction hardening behind the press of your plush lips. 

He gulped, blinked slow. For a second Sid allowed himself to see you the same way he had just a day prior, this same place, occupying this same space in his head. 

Under auric light, even the most overt of the curves of your body lustred, soft from your nightly routine. Sid loved your eyes, the way they’d blaze when you spoke of something you cared for, and now, looking up at him, despite your lashes weighing heavy with lust, you still mouthing at his fingers hotly, he swore that blaze was almost the same.

For all he wanted to acquiesce his best senses telling him to stop it all, everything, right now, Sid couldn’t bear to pull his eyes from where they met yours. With his brow knitted as ever, the tight space under his ribs burned.

At a particularly hard drive of his wrist, you drew in a hard gasp around him, hips mindlessly gyrating, searching for something more than your silken sleep shorts. 

The sight of you, for how endearing and mind-numbingly pretty and dully burning it was in his torso, also mounted in him an urgent need, a fresh sense of arousal, you and those blazing, begging eyes. 

“You know anyone could come out here and see you like this. Yet you don’t seem to care, do you? Do you wanna tell me why that is?” 

He withdrew his hand, touching your cheek where a limpid tear had branded its track. Your eyes fluttered open. You didn’t know what to say. Everything you wanted to say hung behind your teeth, remained shapeless in your mouth, your jaw agape.

“You can be honest, Baby.” He told you earnestly, brushing your hair from your face, the lock shadowy against your skin, only aglow by a few dimmed bulbs in the kitchen, a sick reminder of the publicity of your location. 

“I want it,” You start, swallowing hard. “Really fucking badly, Sid.” 

Your fingertips sunk into his wrist beside your head, thumb resting at where you could feel his pulse, fastening beat keeping you firmly on earth. You looked at him, followed the glowy orange line along his side profile where the washy golden light backlit his skin. 

“Want what? What is it you want so badly?” 

His voice was so soft, tiny smile ruminating. He was fucking with you. He had to be fucking with you, playing dumb like this. Really, though, Sid needed to hear you call this for what it was: something more than a favour, more than a moment. 

He needed to know that he wasn’t imagining it all. The bottom of the stairs, and the patio table, sitting on the sand at the beach— that the sum of these seconds was something more than just this, family be damned. 

He didn’t think his heart could take this otherwise, whatever was about to happen, what had already happened.

“I want you, Sid. I need you to ruin me.” 

At that, maybe unwisely, Sid kissed you, the weight of your words not lost on him. 

It was mellow and chaste, as if he was testing the waters at first, perhaps a little afraid you’d stop it. When your hand found his throat for leverage, his kiss quickly hardened. He dropped his hip against the bed so he was on his side against you, one elbow to leverage his upper body, and you could feel him, even in the places your bodies didn’t meet. 

As the softness of your tongue met his in sync, your fingers followed suit at the waistband of his sweats. A tentative hand dwelled there, and the warmth of your mouth left him for a bare second.

“Can I?”

“Yeah, Baby.” 

Then you licked your palm and your fingers were below his waist, finding the hot, sticky tip of his length. He kissed you again, quick and open on your mouth, cut off by the loose glide of your hand down his warm cock, fingers barely ringed around the thickness.

You could hear the blood battering in your ears at the sound he made, a sharp hiss of air through his teeth while he watched you, trying to keep his eyes open: he didn’t want to miss any of this, needed to remember. The throbbing in your gut matched your pulse, growing heavy there in your lower belly, your pelvis surging thoughtlessly.

A little exploratory, you swiped a soft thumb over the head, smiling breathlessly when his hips kicked up. You revelled in the tiny reactions from him, the speeding up of his breath, chest surging. He clasped your wrist before you had the chance to push it much farther, changing his mind on a dime.

“Another time,” He said at your displeased little hmph. He pulled back up to his knees, resting on his haunches beside where you lay. 

“You keep saying that.” You quipped. “What if there is no other time?”

You could’ve gone cold at the inflamed words now hung in the air between you. You hadn’t even really known what they’d meant before you said them, didn’t what you meant by them, if anything at all. He didn’t let you go cold, though. Didn’t let the moment falter. 

He grabbed your jaw, squeezing just enough to open you up, mouth red and glossed. 

“Tongue out,” Is all that came, bypassing your annotation, the way it nipped at him. Still, you wanted this, your body trembled with it, all that want, so pent up. You stuck your tongue out as instructed, taking him down when he spit eagerly, a chill running down your spine to join with the beating in your belly, between your legs, where his free hand had begun flirting with the inseam of your shorts. 

The nipping at him only grew tenfold when your head lolled into the weight of his hand, captivated eyes glittering up at him, looking like he’d just told you he loved you for the first time. You stuck out your tongue again, proof you swallowed it, and Sid nearly folded.

Your legs spread further in anticipation as his fingers drew down your torso, and you found yourself mouthing at the hand now held on your jaw, thumb bridging over your lips heavily.

“I love your mouth.” His voice wavered some when your teeth found purchase around his fingertip.

“But, I think,” He pressed on, four fingers finally tugging your shorts and panties to the side, “I’ll like your cunt more.”

You gasped to save yourself making a noise any cruder, shivering at his words. The air, cool and moving, was a relief on your centre, but Sid didn’t give you time to appreciate it before he had a lone finger run the seam of your pussy, garnering some of your slick before rounding your clit. You moaned through lips crimped shut, face screwed up in a way so stunning it threatened to ruin the man above you.

It was one finger at first, dipping tentatively, daring you to say something, to breathe, even.

“Your fingers are,” You stopped to finally exhale, fearing your lungs could’ve exploded, “Bigger than mine,”

He chuckled at that, and tried his best not to let the image of you, your own fingers between supple thighs, working yourself over, distract him. Instead, that coaxing smile still on his mouth, he crooked his finger and eased in a second. You pulled your forearm over your face instinctively to cover your mouth as the pleasure forged and tightened, but just as quickly, Sid knocked it away, collecting both your wrists in his one free hand and holding them still.

“You gonna be a good girl? Stay quiet?”

His thumb nudged at your clit, wrist oscillating the tiniest amount to let him rub circles at your g-spot. You could’ve sworn you saw stars, vision gone spotty after you forced your clenched-shut eyes back to him where he watched you, even-faced, still expecting a response.

Your tongue poked out to wet your lips and you gulped, trying to compose yourself somehow. As if that was even possible like this.

“Yes. Yeah, I am.” You managed.

“Perfect.”

Your cunt fluttered at the inkling of praise, and Sid sighed a breathy laugh at your reaction, riling you up a little, hand moving faster, rubbing at that one delicious spot inside you with his thumb still trained on your clit, stroking attentively. 

“Please, Sid.” Your body squirmed and strained thoughtlessly and your hips bucked, hands struggling against the firm grip he held on your wrists. 

“I don’t know what you’re asking for.” His voice was shot, eyes dark. “Need to be more specific for me to give you what you need,”

Just like that, your resolve dissipated, need overtaking. 

“I need you to fuck me, Sidney. Need your cock inside me. I can’t take it any longer. Please put it in.” 

Your muscles tensed around his fingers once more, a soft thigh brushing against him, you enveloping him. His hand thrust slowly forward once more to nudge your sweet spot, now starving your clit of any attention at all. Your legs pressed tight around his wrist, writhing and bucking and trying. 

“You want me to put my cock in you, Baby? You want me to put it all in? Push it all the way inside until you can’t think about anything else?”

His voice got away from him, muttering sternly before he had the chance to vet his words. He could feel your reactions everywhere, sure his skin lay over white-hot coals, it was the only explanation for his roiling nerves. He loved what his unchecked words were doing to you, the way your mouth was split, whimpering from your throat, brow knitted, your body flowing with all of it, everything.

“Nothing else, Sid,”

Sid knelt back, hand leaving your cunt only to sweep your shorts and panties down in one motion. He watched in awe as your legs fell asunder for him once more, his shaky hand rubbing at the silken skin of your shin closest to him. You wanted to frame it, the look on his face in this light, all doe-eyed elation and awe, and you felt tight and pleated inside, seeing him like that, the anticipation overwhelming.

“Nothing but how stretched out you are, huh? How deep you can feel me inside you?”

You were sure he was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.

He gripped one of your legs, lifted your hips over the palisade of his thighs and shifted your body so he was situated between your knees, and you bit back a reaction to just how hot it was, the way he could throw you around at will. You watched him strip his shirt and ruck his sweats to his midthigh, and didn’t bother masking the drop of your jaw at the sight of his cock, leaking and heated, all for you. 

“Please, Sid. Please. I need it. Nothing but you.”

You looked like a fucking painting, halo of hair thrown out around your face, all glistening and rosy. And who would he be, now, like this, to deny you what you needed? 

He could’ve finished on the spot when the first swollen inch popped in— your hot, dripping walls choking him, blowing his mind. Both hands encircled your midsection, bracing himself while pressing you into the mattress as he rocked forward, filling you wholly. 

You sobbed nonsense into your own palm, fingers dug into your cheek so you wouldn’t whine too loudly. Your other hand came up under the shirt bundled around your ribs to tease at one of your nipples, quickly followed by Sid shoving the shirt up entirely, putting your tits on show for him. 

For all his elated doe-eyes had first roused you, nothing could’ve prepared you for this, his slack-jawed smile as he watched your cunt stretching around him obscenely. His hair, longer from the summer, curled and stuck to his forehead, sweat beginning to bead along his temple.

The first time you choked out his name, after his instinctual reaction to press you harder had subsided, he flipped you over with a hand on your hip, cock barely gone for a second before you mewled for it, helplessly empty without it.

You’d begun to say something quickly forgotten when Sid spoke and your blood felt bitter.

“Put your fingers in your mouth when I fuck you. I want you to remember.”

You let out a needy cry, head reeling like you could feel the chill flood from your brain to between your legs, remnants of your clipped orgasm building once more.

You did as you were told and eased your own two middle fingers over your tongue with the side of your face pushed into the bed. Sid made easy work of pulling you back into him by the flesh of your thighs, fingers heavy and rough, tearing a muffled yelp from around your fingers. He manoeuvred you so smoothly, nudging one leg to bend at the knee, opening you up for him, and crawled up closer to you while kneading the flesh of your thighs with greedy hands.

“You comfy?” Sid asked lowly, kindly, pulling your swimming mind back up, your desperate hands moving to seize fists of the duvet beneath you. The consideration bloomed in your abdomen. 

“Yeah, Sid.” 

With that reassurance, he inched forward, the hot head of his thick cock catching at your slicked entrance.

You were fucked, you thought, if someone came out here while he had you like this, nudging back inside you gently with the slightest shifts of his hips, stretching you slowly. 

There would be no hiding this. Something dark in you liked that thought: the idea that they’d know, whoever they were, that you were Sid’s. They’d see it and they’d know, even if it were only for a moment.

Cock finally fully seated in you, he reached forward with a hard sigh, brushing your hair from the sliver of your face he could see. The motion, the steady uptick of his body had him rubbing impossibly deep within you, coaxing a noise that was all head and throat, so pretty he needed to hear it again. 

“Pretty Baby,” 

You pushed back on him at that, trying to meet the calculated moves of his pelvis, heighten their intensity. Reciprocating, Sid found a steady, deep rhythm. An arm coiled around your hip, lifting your body the slightest amount, and his flexors pulsed against your lower abdomen, rubbing over your clit delicately.

You could’ve cried, a stunned moan probably a little too loud, circumstances considered, breaking from your mouth. You could feel the pressure mount in your pelvis fast, and Sid must’ve felt it, too, your heat ticking around him.  

“Hold it, Baby. Hold out for me,”

His thrusts were slow and hard and deep, and you vaguely registered his hand digging into the flesh of your ass, but you could only maintain focus on the fingers at work over your dripping pussy, where his cock railed into you, messy and raw.

“Please, Daddy. I need it. Please let me cum,” You were outright begging now, with little regard for how pathetic you must’ve looked (nor now into it Sid was, eyes pinched shut and head ripped back), and even less regard for the words leaving your mouth (Where the hell had daddy come from, anyway?). Sid had never really considered he’d like it, but now, from you, fuck.

You caught it, for a moment in your periphery, the hard column of Sid’s throat like stone, chin tipped. It took all you had not to swivel and push yourself up, take his skin in your mouth. Instead, you pressed your hand down, down, down, brain whirring, fingertips meeting his between your thighs. 

The stretches of space where his skin flattened heavily against yours, clammy and titillating, were growing to be too much. 

“You can let go, Baby. You’ve been so good.” 

Your body stuttered, muscles pulling. His hand between your thighs, rubbing soft, quick strokes at your clit didn’t stop for a moment, his body surrounding you, pressure everywhere at once in the most extraordinary way. At the crest of your orgasm, blinding heat flowing through you with your mouth pressed into the bend of your elbow to muffle yourself, you thanked him again and again, eyes scrunched shut, your tight heat milking him.

“There she is, atta girl.” His grunted words kept the feeling rolling, your skin tingling all over while your muscles throbbed, reaching fiercely to push his rutting hand from your clit to suspend the overstimulation, you both straining disbelieving laughter, curtailed by the contraction of your muscles around his cock cutting a filthy noise from his throat. 

His rhythm stammered barely a moment after, hands coming to the thick of your thighs and squeezing so severely, as all he’d done to hold out his own release collapsed, the feel of you falling apart at the seams beneath him, tautening around him, and your voice wrecked, still choking on your thanks, all of it too, too much. 

Sid hummed at the keen of his name that fell from you as he pulled out carefully, running a gentle hand over your ass. He could feel his cheeks heat up at the view of his cum leaking from your sopping cunt, burying away the borderline confusing feeling that it could’ve been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, he ever would see, you looking so much like his. Dry-mouthed, Sid hiked his sweatpants back up and grasped for his shirt somewhere on the floor alongside the bed to save the duvet. God fucking forbid he have to explain the stain.

Propping yourself up a little higher on your hands and knees, your fingers came to your core, face, impossibly, glowing even deeper at the evidence of him there, adding to the aftershocks still trembling between your hips. 

Sid groaned quietly at the sight of you, a little unsteady and still affected before him, with two fingers pressing back into your sensitive pussy. You whimpered as your thighs buckled, pushing his seed back in messily. Sid’s shirt was bundled tight in his hand, the same one he then used to turn you back over sharply, tired giggle falling from your lips as your back collided with the bed.

With a nervy smirk, you propped yourself up on an elbow and ran your tongue over your fingers, sucking them clean and humming at the heady taste.

“You’re gonna fuckin’ end me.” Sid strained and shook his head, mind blank of all other thoughts. His smile prevailed, though, over the arousal stirring in him once more. He nudged at your knee as soon as he managed to snap out of that feeling, opening you up for him, and you shared shallow smiles following your little yelp as he pawed over your used pussy with the soft cotton.

Following the passage of a breathless moment, the pair of you sat across from one another and his hand came to yours, lifting it to toy with your fingers, caressing the knuckle where your teeth had scraped, comparing the insignificant marks to the ones he had, matching them.

When the warmth of his hand on yours began to roil in your chest, you stood up, both hands on Sid’s shoulders to steady your spent body. With a tenderness that had your cheeks full with a stunning grin you simply couldn’t help, Sid helped pull your panties back on, followed by your sleep shorts, and he let his hands remain on your hips, a quiet savouring of the moment, disallowing its inevitable slip for a while longer.  

“I’m gonna go clean up a little,” You murmured after a few beats, one hand collecting under his chin in a messy fist to nudge his eyes up to yours. Sid hadn’t realised his eyes were screwed shut at all until it took a moment to coax them open, the glow of your complexion a sweetener.

You whispered, “I want to kiss you again,”, and his eyes fell back to his lap, that tiny devastation creeping in.

"Are you sure that’s a good idea?” 

The air left his mouth slowly, like the drawing out of heavy nectar. It killed him to say it, to remind you of your sensibilities. 

You didn’t want to remember them, either.