#manipulation cw

Which is a detriment to him considering you're somehow in almost every single one of his lectures this semester. And if that wasn't bad enough, you inexplicably decide to attend said lectures wearing outfits that James can only describe as some kind of test of his will. This one is no exception—form fitting jeans that hug your hips and plush thighs with a cropped t-shirt that rides up just enough for him to catch the briefest flashes of invitingly supple flesh.

"Um, hey. Take a—have a seat," he gestures to the chair facing his, hoping you don't notice his sudden lack of a grasp on the English language. He at least has enough sense remaining to remind you that office hours are about to come to a close.

You wave your hand as you sit, an array of silver chains and charms chiming as you do. "Don't worry, I'll be super quick. Pinky promise." There's a disarmingly sweet smile on your face as you reach a pinky out in jest, one that widens when he finds himself reaching out to link with his own without even thinking. "Awww! That was so cute!"

The rational part of his mind knows that he really should shut down these little comments of yours. You've given him more than enough chances, lingering around after his lectures are over and popping into his office with a list of questions you'd written down in endearingly rounded lettering. All he'd have to do is set that boundary, gently remind you both that he is, at the end of the day, your professor and that your playful flirtations aren't appropriate. Say that he has a wife who he's wholly dedicated to and would never want to disrespect, which is true. He loves Mary more than he could ever put into words. She's been the love of his life for 20 or so odd years and that's never going to change, he's certain.

But you're everything he's been craving wrapped up with a pretty little bow.

You're young; a third-year in a major outside of his department and it'd be a lie to say that your youth wasn't at least part of the draw of you, as much as he tries to tell himself it isn't. It wasn't just that you were young, either. You were...full of vitality. You smiled and laughed and spoke so freely and so openly, unafraid to take up space and James couldn't help but feel himself becoming increasingly more drawn to you as the days of afternoons spent together stretched into weeks. It's gotten to a point where he now sees his classes less as lectures and as time he's able to spend in your presence, coveting your warmth and imagining what it would be like to swallow your laugh into his mouth.

At least the guilt drives him insane. That must make up for it in some way. It has to be punishment enough to visit Mary at the hospital and see her withering away during his visits and feel a deep, deep pit in his stomach that he knows he must accept as a companion. He feels it deepening every time he catches himself being short with her on her bad days, hating himself for being angry with her when he knows she's only scared. But knowing that does nothing to alleviate the tension neither of them want to acknowledge. Nor does it doesn't help that there's a different tension, one of his own making, building between the two of you.

He deserves this guilt. Hell, he deserves far worse for wanting to fuck someone half his age alone, the fact that he's also married with a sick wife warrants some kind of eternal torture somewhere lower and hotter than whenever run-of-the-mill sinners end up.

(A small part of him hopes that before then, he finds out what your skin feels like under his hands.)

"So," he manages to awkwardly choke out after a moment, "what did you want to talk about? If it's the midterm on Monday, you really don't need to be worried. I'm pretty sure you're one of the only ones actually doing the homework."

"Well, you did choose some pretty solid readings," you reply easily, shoulders straightened as if preening from his light praise which James doesn't let himself think too long about, "but no, it's not about the midterm."

James' brows furrow. There's a cryptic tone to your voice, like you're inviting him to guess the purpose of your visit which, upon looking at the time again, really should be ending soon. "Well...what, uh, is this about?"

The slight cock of your head jostles your hair enough that he can smell the mixture of your perfume and shampoo even from where he sits. Apples and sandalwood mixed with something so undeniably you. His mouth waters. "C'mon, Doc. You know."

Does he? You have this look in your eyes that all at once playful and mischievous, almost feline, and it gives absolutely nothing away. All he can do is laugh a bit incredulously. "Ah, I can't say that I do? But hey, it's almost six so maybe we could pick thi—"

"Should I give you a hint, then?"

If this were any of his other students, he wouldn't have entertained this. Honestly, he wouldn't have even let them get this far into his office, just turned them away at the door and told them to come back tomorrow when he's got more time. But it's you. And he has nothing but time for you.

"Sure," he hears himself saying before he's able to think better of it.

You smile like you'd been expecting this, leaning forward on folded arms. There's a moment where he considers asking you what you're doing but he finds himself unable to think of anything at all when he feels you hook your foot under the base of his chair and tug him forward. Whatever confusion he feels is short-lived, however, as you leave him with little ambiguity the second your foot slides along the length of his leg.

Not for the first time, he thinks that he should say something, do something, to stop this before it starts but all he's able to manage is a half-hearted, "don't," that you both know doesn't hold any weight.

"You wanted a hint," you say in that same voice he's heard so many times over the semester, light and full of mirth. "I'm giving it to you."

"I'm married," he splutters out, setting the boundary he should have all those weeks ago.

The toe of your shoe presses into the side of his knee. "Well duh," you say with a conversational flippancy that makes his head spin. "But it's not like you care." It stings like a slap to hear out loud but what can he do? Disagree? Act like he hasn't been wanting to fuck you for almost as long as he's known you? Like he hasn't been hoping for this?

James looks at you desperately, pleadingly, says your name like a prayer. "You're my student, I—Look, I'm flattered but this is extremely inappropriate. We could both get into trouble for this."

"You could."

He blinks. "What?"

A manicured nail points in his direction. "You could get into trouble for this," you correct matter-of-factly. When he doesn't respond, you trace along his inner thigh, stopping just short of where he fears you touching the most. He hopes you miss the sharp exhale you get in return. "All I'd have to do is say you came onto me and that'd be that. It'd be your word against mine and I mean, honestly, what's more believable? A 20-something-year-old college student accosting her professor ooor a however-old-you-are professor trying to fuck his student?"

A wry smile works its way onto your face at the absolutely the look of absolute dread he gives you. "Oh, don't look so scared. I'd never actually tell the department. I just think you need to remember the optics here. 'Specially since you're not exactly subtle."

This all feels like a nightmare he very much would like to wake up from, one that's taken the desires he's kept so close to his heart and given it to him in the most twisted and terrible way. James studies you, searching for answers in the face he's come to be so achingly familiar with. Nothing's changed; your smile is still bright and sunny as ever, eyes still sparkling. It's not as if a mask has come off and he's been duped by this secret version of you that's been in hiding all along. You've never been hiding. You've always been this. This is you. He's just been too caught up in his own feelings, too blind to see that while he was looking at you, you'd been looking back.

And now he's on the precipice of something he's sure he's not going to be able to come back from.

"Why?" he asks, voice strained. "What do you want?"

You give him a cute pout that's laughably at odds with the energy in the room. "Isn't it obvious? I want you."

There's a number of things James could say to that but they all get lost on his tongue, leaving him to stare at you with an expression on his face that's one part repressed hunger and one part pain. He wishes he could say that he only cares about Mary, that he spends his days thinking of her face, that he eagerly anticipates their meetings and counts down the seconds until he's able to see her again but that's a lie. Thinking about Mary, what she is now, not his Mary; the one he fell in love with all those years ago, it only makes him feel defeated. She hasn't been that person in a long time and he doesn't know who he resents more for it.

Still, this isn't right. Mary is his wife and he made a commitment to her. One that he hopes is made of steady enough stuff to withstand the force of nature sitting before him. "You need to leave." His hand comes to rest at your ankle, awkward and unsure like he doesn't know if he can touch you. "We can just...put this behind us, okay?"

For a moment, he swears it seems like you look confused. Like you'd honestly expected to walk into his office, strongarm him into having an affair and that would be that. Your eyes go from him, to his hand, before going back to him as if you're trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle before you. Then you're nudging your foot free of his grasp, pressing into the forming bulge he'd been trying to avoid acknowledging.

"I don't think I made myself clear. Your voice drowns out his wince of what he tells himself is agonizing pain. "I'm not going anywhere until I get what I want. And you know what I want."

James can't think. If he thought it was hard to get himself to do something—anything—before, this was leaving him forgetting he ever had any thoughts to begin with. There's no way for him to pretend like he's not getting hard from this now, no way to feign nonchalance when the sole of your shoe is rubbing slow and dangerous against him. He could push your foot away. His hand is close enough to do it, gripping the arm of his chair so tightly that bone threatens to tear through skin—but he doesn't make a single move to stop this. You're regrettably aware of this too, cheek resting in the cup of your palm as you watch him. There's no challenge in your eyes, no dare for him to struggle. It's as if you already know that you've won.

"Puh-Please," he begs, voice no more than a punched-out gasp. "Just-just stop and I promise, I won't say anything to anyone, I won't touch your grades—" A firm press has him cutting his own sentence short with a groan he muffles into his hand.

"But you know that's not what I want, silly." You rub along his shaft, soothing, languid strokes that apply just enough pressure for a haze to settle over his mind and tightness to begin forming in his gut. "And I know it's not what you want either so why deny yourself?"

He could move his chair back. He could stand up right now and end this entire thing if he wanted to. "Why...why would I ever want this?"

"Because you've been spending the better half of the semester fantasizing about cheating on your sick wife with one of your students." You straighten your head to face him properly. "How is Mary, by the way? Doing any better?"

His heart drops. "How do you know her name?"

You smile, all sweetness and sunshine. "I know a lot of things about you, silly. Like that you always drop by the hospital to see her on your way home. Or like how bring her flowers every Thursday on your lunch break," you say like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Oh and I know which floor she's on. Still haven't figured out her room number though—"

"I thought you said you wouldn't tell anyone." He's aware of how pathetic he sounds, that the wet spot in his pants only makes it doubly so.

"No, I said I wouldn't tell the department. Which I won't," you correct, half-smiling when his hips unwillingly buck against you. "I don't want to get you fired."

"But you have no problem destroying my marriage?" he asks, breathless and flushed but incredulous all the same.

"Don't be so dramatic," you tut. "You're the one about to blow a load in your pants just from being stepped on. If anyone's destroying your marriage, it's you."

James stills. "I...I'm not—"

You give him a look. "Oh, please. If I wanted to, I bet I could finish you off right now." A soft hum, thoughtful. "But that would be no fun."

It's the disorientation, he tells himself. It's the shock of your words that leaves him paralyzed, helpless as he watches you slide out of your chair and circle around his desk. His heart thumps loudly in his chest, his ears, his bones, as you reach out to cup his face in your hands. Now that you're this close, he can see every particle of glitter at the inner corners of your eyes, smell every single note of your perfume and, oh, feel how soft your hands are. He doesn't even remember the last time he's been touched like this, like he's wanted—desired. The scratch of your nails against the stubble scattered across his jaw has his eyes falling shut, brows furrowed and head heavy with cotton.

"Just say you want this, James. That's all you have to do. You can do that for me, right?"

Distantly, he registers that this is the first time you've said his name. You make it sound sweet, sweeter than perhaps he's gotten used to hearing in these past few years. His name had been soured into something awful and bitter like bile that he forgets that there was once honey in its syllables. That, before his life became what it is now, there was a time where all he knew was nectar and fresh morning dew. What you're offering isn't that, he's not delusional enough to believe otherwise. But you offer something. A salve, a bandaid, a temporary fix, whatever it is; it is real and tangible and he can feel it beneath his fingers.

(When did his hands end up at your thighs? When did his head fall to rest against your stomach? Why do your nails running along his scalp make it so hard to think?)

James is holding you like he's unsure of whether to push you away or pull you in closer, hands shaking with a cocktail of repulsion and want. There's no going back if he lets himself have this. No way that he could ever convince himself that, in spite of it all, he's still the man he promised Mary he'd be. If he gives in, what does that make him? He could tell himself that any other man—any other human—in his position would face the same conundrum, that this was simply a losing battle he was forced into playing. Though, he knows this is all his doing. That this hellish game is of his own making, the rules and limits set by him. You've simply bent them to your advantage. Worst part is, he can't even be mad at you. There would be nothing for you to leverage against him with had he been the husband he tells himself he is, one who doesn't let the first pretty thing that comes his way get under his skin.

He deserves this, he finally concludes. This must be the punishment he deserves: well and truly condemning himself past the point of no return, leaving there no room to pretend anymore.

His breath comes out in a shaky sigh, blood rushing in his ears he turns his face to press his lips against your sternum, just under your breasts. He's already dizzy, drunk despite only having a paltry sip, but he needs more. So he repeats the motion, a touch lower this time, urged on by your hands in his hair and your soft sounds of encouragement. Again, this time landing in the in-between of your shirt and your jeans—on bare skin, he realizes belatedly. On the bare skin that's been teasing him, occupying far too much space in his head. He has to stop himself from moaning from how soft you are, how your flesh gives so eagerly under his touch. There's going to be a wet spot in his pants, if there isn't one already, but he can't seem to find it in himself to care when he's face-to-face with the top button of your jeans.

Wordlessly, he looks up at you through hazy eyes and you get the message immediately, smiling to yourself as you undo the button and zipper. The reality of what exactly he's doing threatens to set in but James finds that he can easily distract himself by pushing forward, closer to you, until you have no choice but to back up into his desk. He thinks he hears the clinking of your bracelets again, this time intermingling with the rustling of his long forgotten papers, but it's all static to him now that he can see the beginnings of deep pink lace. The groan that comes out of him is a pained thing, wrought with everything he's been holding back for all this time.

Your responding laugh is bright, cheery. "I figured you'd like 'em."

You'll be the death of him, he's certain.

His mouth waters when your hands guide his to your hips, cock twitching in its confines when you hook his thumbs into your waistband and tug and—

"Oh."

The lace is sheer, enough that there may as well not be any fabric there to begin with. Making matters worse, you've clearly waxed yourself clean and left him little room for ambiguity. He can feel his heartbeat in his teeth when he notices the wetness glinting in the low light of the room, inviting.

Slow, as if he's wading through water, he slides out of his chair and onto the ground on his knees. You make a noise, something like hungered approval, and let him pull your jeans off the rest of the way down your legs. Neither of you see where it ends up after you kick it along with your shoes into some corner of his office but it matters very little when he's shouldering your legs apart, pressing his face into your cunt and breathing you in like he needs it.

God, you're so fucking warm. Warmer than Mary is, maybe warmer than she ever was. He hates himself for thinking it, hates himself more for lapping at you through the thin barrier of lace and moaning at your taste on his tongue. You taste like stolen bites of apple pie and you leave his lips just as sticky, just as sweet with residue as any syrupy filling could. It makes it hard to think, to regret. The feeling still lingers somewhere in his chest but it's a dull thing that is easy to suffocate with the louder, more urgent voice in his head wondering how long he'll be left smelling like you, if your scent would last throughout the evening. Does he want it to? To take the evidence of the death of his marriage home and let you linger there? His cock twitches in response, so hard now that it hurts. Doesn't really want to think about the implications.

Right now, all he can think of is how soaked your panties are with his saliva, the fabric slick and wet and almost scratchy to an uncomfortable degree. But you look so beautiful above him. An angel, a goddess; eyelids heavy, hair falling over your face, the sounds of hymns on your lips when his tongue swipes along the parting of your centre, coaxing more of your ambrosia out for him to swallow down greedily. How benevolent you are, to take pity on this sinner's heart.

"Need m-more," you decide, brows pinched and voice reedy. "Gimme more?"

It's a miracle that he isn't immediately undone by you right then and there. "Yeah," he rasps, voice ragged, "yeah, c'mere."

From where he's knelt on the floor, he urges you up onto his desk somewhere between his pens and papers and a framed picture of Mary that your elbow knocks into when you situate yourself properly. She's smiling in it. It's genuine too, unguarded. Like she knew she could be her most vulnerable self with him. Like...like she trusted him with her most fragile parts.

You pull him in closer with your heel at his back and he chooses to forget.

This new position opens you up more than before, as unbelievable as that may be for him to comprehend. Your legs are stretched out as far as his desk permits, one of which you've decided to hook over his shoulder to guide him as you please. Not that he needs much of it as all it takes for him to venture back between the absolution-damnation of your thighs is the sight of your hardened clit through your panties.

"I've never—mmph—I've never been with a guy who liked eating pussy as much as you do," you muse. "Your wife's a real lucky lady."

"Don't talk about her." It comes out more as a whimpering plea than anything else but thankfully, having your clit sucked on gets you lax and jelly-boned enough that you drop the topic anyway.

You're so accessible like this—thick folds parted to give way to the inviting twitch of your hole, the perfect pearl of your clit. It's addicting to watch, even more to taste. He can tell by how sensitive you are that you need more, that you need him to tug the lace aside and touch you properly, but a part of him enjoys seeing you writhe like this; chasing after his tongue and squirming when you get it. Maybe it's his own way of getting back at you. Maybe he just thinks it's endearing to see your face screwed up into a little pout, all spoilt princess throwing a tantrum.

He teases you a bit more, flicking the tip of his tongue across your clit just to see you jolt and fastening his mouth over you in your entirety and humming deep and low, wringing a sound out of you that he can only describe as primal. There's a deep satisfaction he finds in that. Both in the righteous sense and in that of his own primality, though at this point he figures there's no point in separating the two with you. It excites him, it scares him. He doesn't know how far you'll go or what lines you'd be willing to cross to get what you want but honestly, he's not sure if he'd put up much of a fight anymore. Not when giving in, letting you have your way, means he gets to feel you arch up off the desk and wail.

"Wait, wait, wait—" you're pushing him back, sole on his shoulder, out of breath, "—I don't—I didn't—" a beat, an inhale to collect yourself, "I wanna cum with you inside me."

"Jesus Christ." He has to take a second; breathes in, then out. "You...you have a condom?"

The curl of your lip is all mischief. "No."

James starts to say your name before you cut him off. "I don't, like, have anything. 'M clean."

He has no idea why he's even considering this. Has even less of an idea of why his body is screaming at him to just fuck you already. "Are you on birth control at least?" Another smile, this time accompanied with a tilt of your head, that he knows to take as a no.

"It'll be fine," you reassure him. "You can just pull out."

"I don't kno—"

"Oh, c'mooon. I'll let you cum on my face if you want to. Just don't get it in my hair, obviously."

He has no idea how you're able to be so casual about all this, like you aren't an accessory in his infidelity asking him to risk knocking you up—knocking one of his students up. He could lose his job—hell, he could never get a job again if he isn't careful. And that's not even considering what it'll do to Mary. They've been in a bad place for a while now but still, this goes beyond retribution for cold shoulders and words you don't mean. This is a betrayal. A backstabbing, unwarranted betrayal to the highest level.

And yet.

"Fine. Fine, okay, just..." He shuts his eyes, swallows. "We need to be careful, okay?"

You smile, pushing yourself up off your elbows to wiggle your pinky in his face. "Pinky promise."

For the second time today, he finds himself unable to resist giving into this little habit of yours.

"Still so cute," you say, fond and warm. "Now get up here."

He has no idea how long he'd been kneeling but judging by the ache in his joints when he stands, it had been far too long. You don't give him long to dwell on that though, winding your arms around his neck with a pleased little sound. Those hands don't stay for long, sliding down his chest, down his stomach, down further still until you reach his slacks. You don't need to wait for his assent to start unbuttoning them, taking the painfully hard outline of his cock and the accompanying wet spot as enough of a reason to make haste in pulling him out of his pants.

"'S all for me?" you ask softly. James doesn't know what to do about the genuine awe in your voice, mind too focused on not cumming from your hand—soft, smaller than his own—around him.

Foreheads touch, an incidental thing he doesn't rectify. "Yeah." His voice is far away, not his own. "All for you."

You shiver, pumping him slowly. "It's so thick," you sigh airily. Your head tilts up a fraction, nose brushing against his. Any closer and you'd be sharing breath. "Put it in me?"

He grits his teeth with the effort it takes to stave off his orgasm.

He takes himself in a single hand, half-dazed as he watches you roll your panties off your hips and down to the floor where it lays in a pile at his feet. Then, it somehow becomes very different. Real. The lace wasn't doing much for your decency in the first place but still, it was a barrier. A safety precaution. It gave him enough that he could feign enough denial at what he was allowing himself to do. Now, he must confront it; slick (because of him), twitching (for him) and radiating heat like a furnace (inviting him).

(All for him.)

It's almost too much, almost enough to scare him in the ways that matter. This is the moment where he realizes this is the point where a good man could just…stop. That, if he were ever the man he had been convincing himself he was, he could end this now and still have enough lines left uncrossed that he'd be able to be at peace with himself. But you're there, hand on his wrist in what is both a demand and a request, and he can't find it in himself to do much else than comply.

Mary flashes in his head again; cold, alone, angry, waiting for him to visit—

The head of his cock is guided to your entrance, testing. You bite your lower lip between your teeth, brows furrowed as it pushes in only a fraction.

"D-does it hurt?"

You shake your head, grip his wrist tighter; begging.

He makes a sound of acknowledgement, one he hopes is assuring. Then he's pushing in further, lips parted when he's enveloped by the sheer heat of you. All he can think of is wetness and softness and heat like he's never known heat before and—the tightness. You're got a grip on him like you never want to let go, like you want him inside you forever and oh, isn't that a thought? And he's not even all the way in, he realizes with a pang to the gut.

Singleminded in his goals now, he places his free hand on your hip to steady you as he pushes in more, more, more until—

"Oh, fuck—"

Your voice is breathy and pitched, chest heaving with laboured breaths when he bottoms out. He's not faring much better; collapsed against you, face pressed into the side of your neck, one hand pressed to your back to keep you steady and the other braced on the desk near your thigh. It's all he can do to keep himself upright, groaning at just how you fit around his cock. Like you were made for this, made to be exactly what he needs. The thought alone has him twitching inside you, exhaling hotly against your skin.

There are hands against his back, under his shirt. "James," you say, all but into his ear at this angle He shudders when he feels the bite of nails. "James, kiss me, please."

The last time he's kissed a woman was back before Mary got sick. Back before she'd turn her head away from him where she used to dive back in for more, frowns where there were once smiles. He debates it for a moment, considers telling you that this would be too intimate, a step too far.

"I shouldn't..."

He turns his face, inadvertently nosing against your jaw.

"A little late to play shy now, doncha think?" A whisper; your face turns, too. Close. Too close? Not close enough? Your lips brush against his when you speak. "You're already breaking Mary's heart, might as well enjoy yourself."

James kisses you like a man starved. Ravenous, wrought with latent energy that threatens to tear you both apart. There is no room for you to make your quips, tongue preoccupied in his mouth after he coaxes it in with his own. It's sloppy, unpracticed; he's certain your teeth have knocked together more times than is probably appropriate and it's glaringly obvious he hasn't done this in a while. But you're more than happy to take the lead. You hold his face in your hands, slow the pace to something more manageable and smile when he moans into your mouth. He lets you run your nails across his back in slow whirling motions that go straight to his cock and remind him he's yet to actually start moving.

Between kisses, he manages, "c-can I—did you want me to-?"

"Please."

He groans, panting when you press your nails into his back. "How? Tell me how you want it."

"Hard, please, need it hard, James. Need you to fuck me ha—fuck, yes, yes, yes, like that, just like that, fuck—"

He pulls out almost completely half of the way and slams back in, spurn on by your begging. Sex with Mary was never like this, always gentle and tender and slow. It really was making love, he thinks. Intimately vulnerable in a way you can't replicate with just anyone. Something reserved for the most devout of lovers.

What he's doing to you now, what he's been wanting to do to you since you walked into his office—since you walked into his life—is anything but. He pulls out almost half of the way before slamming back in and jostling you so hard that your godforsaken bracelets clink together in time with the smack of skin-on-skin. This carnality, this basal need to hear your whimpers and feel your body twitch and shake, insides squeezing around him just as tightly as your arms do around his neck, it's all new to him. It's something he'd long desired, of course. A vice he never would have thought to bring up with Mary. Even back when they first got married and things were new and fresh, the thought of doing this to her, of fucking her like she's something to be fucked rather than someone to hold and pleasure—he could never do it.

But you bring out the worst in him, ask the worst of him which he gives to you freely. The force of his thrusts send you falling back against the desk with him on top of you, face buried into the juncture of your neck and shoulder as he pounds into you at this new angle. It's a good one, he figures, if your gasps and choked-out noises are of any indication. You hold him to you like you need him to keep fucking you, like you need this craving sated just as much as he does. It spurns him on, makes him fuck into you harder, makes him want to embed himself into you. He loves Mary, he does, he loves her more than anything in the world but God, you make him feel like he's alive.

He pulls back, he has to pull back, has to look at you and he's glad he does. Your lipstick is smeared across your face with barely any leftover on your pretty lips, mascara smudged from sweat and what he can only assume are tears beaded at your waterline but what gets him, what makes his stomach twist with vicious desire, is the look you give him. Half-crazed, half-desperate, you look at him like you know. Like you can read his mind, like you can read him like the back of your hand and know which buttons to press, what his deepest wants and are and how to use them to get what you want.

He'd give you the world, he wants to see you cry, he wants to tear you to bits, he never wants you to stop saying his name, he wants you to get out of his fucking class, he wants, he wants, he wants—

"I'm close," you gasp.

Though he doesn't say it, he's not too far behind you, thrusts growing more and more erratic.

You moan openly now, hand sliding between your bodies to rub at your clit with equally erratic swipes of your fingers. God, he can't take his eyes off of you. You're all desperation wound tight and waiting to burst, so close you can almost taste it but motions too frantic to reach that peak. It's something to behold, something James can't tear his eyes away from.

He's still entranced when your eyes go wide, brows pinched together and—there it is.

"Cumming, cumming, 'm cumming—kiss, need to k-kiss, please—"

James swallows down all of your noises, every last stuttered out gasp and moan and whine of his name before you're kissing back with fervour, licking along the seam of his lips and urging him to follow suit with sweet words spoken into his mouth.

"Let go, James. 'S okay, just give in. Don't think too hard about it, yeah? Yeah, oh, fuck yeah, yeah, baby. That's it, cum for me. Give it to me."

The telltale tingle starts at the top of his spine and zips down throughout his fingers, his toes. When he can tell he's right on the edge, he shifts to move away but finds that you've locked your arms and legs around him.

"Want it, want it inside," you say through heavy breaths.

That's what does it, as ashamed as it makes him to admit.

He stares at you in dumbfounded horror as he feels himself flood hot, thick liquid into your insides, a sound somewhere between euphoric and afraid wrenched out of him when you clench around him to drain out every last drop.

"Oopsie," you say into the silence, brushing his bangs out of his eyes.

You still cling to him, even as the stickiness of your bodies and the heat become too much. Neither of you move. He's still staring at you. "What?" you finally ask.

"You promised we'd be careful," he says slowly, like he's talking to a child.

And like a child, you roll your eyes. "Look, if it bothers you that much then I'll pop a Plan B in the morning, okay?"

"That's not the—"

"—not the point, yeah I know. It's the principle or whatever." You finally detach yourself, scoffing as you recline back onto your elbows. "You're so sensitive, Doc. Most guys would be over the moon about this, you know."

You both hiss when his cock slips free, trail of cum following along behind it. James has to look away, tucking himself back into his pants quickly. "Most guys aren't married," he counters bitterly, watching as you trot around in search of your jeans and your shoes. "Most guys aren't your goddamn professor. You just...you can't just..." he trails off, unsure of what it is he's trying to get across but still frustrated that you aren't understanding it.

He watches you slip your jeans on with nothing underneath, panties stuffed into the back pocket. The mental image of you holding his cum in as you make your commute home makes his fingers twitch. "Oh, I'm sorry—I guess I missed this week's reading on how to properly have extramarital affairs."

Princess throwing a tantrum.

He sighs, deep and long and patient. Doesn't bother replying, just focuses on redressing instead of letting you goad him into whatever back and forth he doesn't want to engage in.

But then you surprise him. "You're...mad at me."

He feels an inexplicable need to comfort you, like you're the one who's been violated. "I'm not mad," he says, voice softer than perhaps you deserve, "just...a little...I don't know."

"But you still like me, right?"

That catches him off-guard. "Um," he starts, brows furrowed. The longer he takes to finish his sentence, the more pained your expression becomes. "Well, yeah. I guess so."

You pin him in place with a bright smile. "Okay. Good." Then you're turning around to tie your laces.

James opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out, doesn't really know what he could say. He's always at a disadvantage with you. Where you're able to get under his skin and take up root there, he's still barely scratched your surface. Nothing you do makes sense to him, has no rhyme or reason that he's aware of. You seem to do whatever takes your fancy at that given moment and that...that makes him very afraid of you. He's not sure what you'll want next, what more you'll ask of him, who you'll involve next. What's worse is he's not sure if he'd be able to deny you. If he'd want to deny you.

You bound over to him once you're finished straightening your clothes, head tilted in question. "Kiss for the road?"

His heart warms against his will, stomach churning with unease as he lets you tug him down to your lips.

"Mm...still tastes like me," you say, pleased.

It takes him a touch longer than he'd like to realize you're talking about him. "Oh." He licks his lips and sure enough—"Guess you're, ah, right."

You trace a finger along the curve of his lower lip. "Mm...should probably grab a breath mint before heading over to the hospital, huh?"

The hospital?

A beat.

Realization dawns; it's Thursday.

It's Thursday. Mary's expecting him. Mary's expecting him and he reeks of sex and tastes of your cunt.

"Kinda inconvenient, huh?" Your arms twine around his neck, faux sympathy clear as day in your voice. "Guess you're gonna have to reschedule."

A second realization, creeping up the back of his neck like a phantom hand.

"You..." he swallows, feels like he's going to be sick, "you knew. You did this on purpose."

You shrug. "Maybe."

He should push you away. He wants to push you away. He wants to wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze—

But he doesn't. Instead, he just watches as you leave. Lets you go without so much as a protest or complaint. Lets you blow him a kiss before shutting the door behind you.

Then he's left alone, nothing but ungraded papers and cold tea to keep him company. Back where he'd started, back where he fears he will never leave.

thank you so much for reading! plssss send your feedback n thoughts here bc i have!! so many feelings and opinions abt this au i need let them out!!

At first, you were nothing to him, just somebody who wandered into his space, too warm for a cold house. It didn't feel strange when you first moved in; it was quiet, and you liked the quiet, you liked the peacefulness, even if the silence sometimes felt like there was weight in its atoms, like there was the faint weight of a gaze when you were in bed.

But then it started as little things that you thought were just a product of imagination: the shower steam would wind in strange ways sometimes, not rise the way hot air liked to escape, but rather towards you; tendrils that stretched and wanted. But who were you to question physics?

Patterns had a way to find you, though; the bathroom mirror would fog just enough for fingertips to appear having danced across it, despite being sure you hadn't touched it. The bedroom door would ease itself open when you were sure you had shut it.

Once, whilst reading, you had felt it — the tiniest flutter beneath your skin when the story turned heated, when its words set your cheeks aflame, and just then, the lamp flickered, and the room started to feel heavier when you touched yourself.

As curious as Choso was, he was demandingly greedy, too. The little things moved on from their subtlety: a brush of air that made your skin prickle when there were no windows and no draft, when there was the faintest press of something wet at the nape of your neck during the summer heat. You had lifted your hair, glanced around, fingers touching your skin only to find nothing there.

It could have been a coincidence, it could have been your imagination — maybe one of those quirks of living alone that creep up on somebody, a flicker of something unexplainable. So you tried to ignore it, tried to rationalise it.

But every time your pulse quickened, when your thoughts went someplace you didn't want to admit to anyone, you could swear that something in your surroundings changed. As if the air became so much more saturated with water, like there was something heavy dripping, like you felt somebody's breath, close, so very close, standing right behind you.

With that, it became more deliberate, stronger.

A phantom brush of air curling up around your thighs, a slick warmth against your lips when no one should have been there — the sudden impression of wetness on your panties that felt wholly foreign to your own arousal. Reaching for a glass in the kitchen, there would be a fleeting press at your slit, thick and heavy, making your breath hitch, drawing blood with the press of your teeth against your lips to keep from releasing a whimper.

Maybe you should have said something then. Maybe you should have gotten an exorcist, maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe then, he would not have lingered with you in the shower, unseen but tangible, the way a tongue lapped at your nipples, the way invisible fingers parted your folds and swiped the tip of them against your clit as you washed up.

Maybe then he would not have dragged the echo of your own wetness across your lips.

So when the call slipped from you, careless and unconscious, a thought born of unbearable frustration, Choso almost manifested in front of you; like calling him gave him a shape to imitate, like inviting him into your space fully gave him permission.

His hands rested in his lap, and you don't know what you had expected, only that the ghost in your home had never been more than a flicker at the edge of a vision. He had the kind of beauty that ached to look at, sorrowful and noble, like a statue carved to mourn. Pale face, almost porcelain with how sharp his cheekbones seemed to sit, with eyes so soft and heavy; dark marks that marred his face like a memory of how he died.

He was stunning, you registered with a dry throat, and terrible.

You stared, drinking in the fullness of his form, slightly flickering, slightly dissolving in something akin to ectoplasm at his feet. His hands were not solid as much as pressure, a suggestion as his hands braced on your thighs, sliding to the inside to spread them.

"Wha—"

Choso's gaze, the one you knew only as a whisper to your senses, burned into yours now with the hollow desperation of a starving man. It was like his translucence crept up on you, the way the heat spiked through you in retaliation, pooling heavy between your legs as it lost its privacy.

It belonged into the space between you both, and he tasted it in the air, wore it well in the way his lips parted greedily. Choso didn't just see you— actually, had been seeing you for months now, but he knew every angle of your body, too, knew every flicker of heat, every secret fold, every squeeze of your legs shut.

It was without your control that they opened again.

A cool touch slithered in between your thighs, prying at the seam of your thighs, his voice a whisper on itself that seemed to press against the inside of your skull as much as it touched your ears, deep in its baritone. Every word lingered, curled around your thoughts, brushed against the ache blooming low in your belly, making it impossible to tell where he ended and the sensation began.

You don't want to hide from me. You never have before, why would you now?

By the time you realised the nudging of his will onto yours, your legs had loosened already, spread wide, so very shamefully pliant under his touch. Choso's own knees pushed against the floor with an impermeability, dark eyes greedy, eyebrows furrowed with a century long denial — carved into him, those decades of being unseen, of being untouched, of being condemned to watch without ever having.

And he did watch; silently, reverently, and now here you were, soft and warm and living whilst every instinct screamed that to not heed your call was a cruelty he could no longer endure. Choso was no thief; he responded to summons, the answer to a starvation that he hadn't been allowed to sate for years.

What was restraint when desire had been festering in him for so long it had become a part of his very existence?

So his mouth lowered toward the slick heat between your open legs. It didn't even feel like a wet touch at first; the drag of his tongue like coldness that warmed you up before he sank down completely, and then it was physical, the way his lips and tongue were so greedy, a last meal that he was intent on devouring, pressing in as though he wanted to consume every drop.

Your hips jolted and you felt it in your throat, the shocked cry that wanted to come out, but he held you down, his hands phasing in and out of existence at your knees.

Choso licked you like that was his only purpose, like no other thought existed for him, every shiver of his tongue translating into every twitch of your cunt; tight spirals on your clit, then the broad flattening through your folds, swallowing every sound you made.

His voice was not spoken; instead, it existed around you and within you, creeping through your body until it curled around your ears, deep and resonant, vibrating through your core though his mouth never parted from you, You can continue pretending if it makes you feel better.

The words struck you in ways you didn't want to, in ways you hadn't expected to be called out for — not by the ghost that haunted you, and your palms shot forward, desperate to push him back, to do something. But the instant your hands should have sunk against his chest, they found nothing solid.

With a shimmer, almost a trick of light, your fingers passed straight through his body. He had let himself go insubstantial, untouchable, except for the fact that he was still touching you—

Between your thighs, tongue thick and hot and relentless, drawing gasps from you, and then—

A slip of something incredibly cold. It parted you, slid between your folds into you without resistance, as if your body didn't get a choice of whether to let his fingers in. There was barely any stretch, no friction, just this aching sensation of suddenly being full, like Choso had bypassed this barrier so easily.

You cried out, the sound strangled, legs trembling against the command of his hands holding you wide.

He stroked you like he had been inside you a hundred times before, tongue latching onto your clit at the same time as two of his phantom fingers hooked forward, pressing up against the spot that made your whole body clench and betray you.

"I-I'm not—" your breath hitched, panic cutting through the haze of heat, "I-I never pretend—"

Choso's eyes drilled into you, heavy and glazed, his answer sliding through your bones, wrapping around your lungs until you could barely breathe, fingers spreading you open deliberately, Never?

Do you think it's necessary to press your cunt against the kitchen counter to reach for that high glass, when there was another one right in front of you?

Your breath broke into shards at the pull of Choso's tongue, wet smacks and sloppy squelches filling the air as he drew you closer, sank his fingers into you more, a sudden shocking stretch as they curled against that spot within your quivering walls.

When you ride the edge of the bathtub, reading the words I write onto the mirror for you, you pretend still?

Was it him that pressed heavy all around you? That pulled heat and saturated the air with need?

It was maddening, thrilling and a little terrifying: a mix of dread and want that twisted heavy inside you with every devouring touch that wrapped around your thighs. You had never truly been alone — not with the way the press of his tongue mapped out your folds, slick warmth coating you as it slipped right through you, as if its wetness soaked right into your nerves.

And it was without surprise that the pleasure built like a hum, that the pulse beating between your legs grew stronger, body betraying you as it arched up into Choso's mouth. Thighs clamping around his head, shaking, it was a futile attempt to push him off, but it didn't matter for he was inside you, anyway.

Maybe you don't pretend, his voice dark and cold, almost soothing to the hot burning of his words, but you ache. For me. When you rut against your sheets, it's me you're calling. Why else would I be here?

Your spine bowed off the chair as he sucked at your clit, hard, fingers pumping until the pressure burst and damp warmth clung to your skin, spilling messy as it dripped through his hand, faint splatter on the ground.

Legs quivering with aftershocks, Choso's mouth finally stilled against you, and it was with trembling hands that you reached down to try and cup your pussy from him, to shield yourself only to pass straight through his hand.

What curious sight, what curious feeling — the way your skin felt so warm and alive against your mound, pressed against the throbbing slickness of your lips, and the way that did nothing. His fingers, flickering in and out of sight, still moved inside you, through you, languidly, like there was no cover at all.

The way you still felt every unhurried curl, the obscene sensation of something cool and claiming you, and your breath stuttered, half a sob, half a moan, because what defence did you have when you could see your hand trying to protect you, trembling and useless?

It was inevitable, it was unbearable, it was—

Your thighs shuddered open further, and his voice coiled around you, soft and pleased, and if you didn't know he was not alive anymore, there might have been something akin to a glimmer in his eyes, Look at you, fighting me with one hand and begging me with the rest of you.

The second time you gushed around his fingers and the press of his slippery tongue on your clit, it struck you without warning once more. You felt him everywhere you had ever imagined, everywhere your body had ever called for him, every click fold and every secret tremble. Swallowing around another whimper, you dared look at him again, and for a dizzying second, your senses cleared, faltering.

That mournful beauty of Choso's flickered. His eyes, holding such deep desperation to remain, had hollowness clawing at them, and his dark hair shifted slightly as if brushed by wind that did not exist. With the ebbing of your orgasm, he had been disappearing — not completely, but his form was shimmering, edges blurring.

A harsh exhale left you, one that almost turned into horrible laughter if it hadn't been for the bite of your tongue, "You— you're slipping, but you're not leaving. W-Why are you not leaving?"

Choso's eyes snapped up to yours, and a low hum shuddered through the air, a vibration that you felt more than you heard, and his fading fingers flexed deep inside you like a reminder.

"You've always left—"

The words broke apart on your lips. It wasn't defiance in his eyes that you saw, not stubbornness to prove you wrong, no, he looked like he was straining, like every last threat of him was fighting just to stay connected to you.

He couldn't leave. Why not?

Your mind latched onto the question, desperate for an answer that wouldn't claw at your ribs. Fingers still hooked deep inside you, he was the one who refused to let go — that had to mean something, that had to mean you weren't the only one unravelling.

"You like this too much," you breathed out, barely audible. Your hips tilted; a small, deliberate grind against his hand, seeking confirmation, trying to test something, anything. "Don't you?"

And just like clockwork, his form solidified, his mouth — oh god, his mouth — shimmering briefly before pressing wet and cool against your clit again. Shame burned deeply within you at the realisation, but alongside it a reckless need. A confidence you rarely felt, if only now because you understood; this feral and grasping need to survive by using what little you had.

You choked on a cry, "A-all…this time—"

"…watching me…" — His fingers twitched inside you; an involuntary spasm, like he couldn't help himself.

"…touching me…" — This time on purpose, curling, dragging against that tender spot withing your walls.

"…starving for me." — They drove deeper and you could swear you almost felt him in your throat, as though his need was burrowing through you, trying to hinder you from speaking.

"All this ti-hime," you gasped, and your hips ground down, tethering him, a lifeline, "lurking, hah, jerking off to me whilst I slept—"

His body ceased being a silhouette, no longer just belonging to the darkness. When the air fractured around him, the light bending oddly and the temperature dropping, shadows slowly peeled off Choso, like the room was leaving him surrendered to you, leaving him there, there, body trying to knit itself together under your words.

"Like a dog at the door," you hissed, shaking, though you didn't know if from fear or the wild satisfaction curling hot in your gut, the words pulled from some raw, unguarded place inside you, "Is this all you can manage? J-Just a ghost in my, ngh, cunt?"

Choso stilled for the barest second, before he suddenly surged forward, more solid than he had been before, like your accusation had yanked him fully into this world. Your pulse spiked. The moment his focus narrowed, the moment his body lunged to cage you, your hand shot out to his wrist — solid now, incredibly so — and you shoved, nails biting into the flesh that hadn't existed minutes ago.

His fingers slipped free from you with a wet, obscene pop, and your legs almost buckled from the effort, heat receding as adrenaline rose. Choso halted in his movements, chest rising like he wanted to snarl, but no sound came, and his form stuttered and flickered in response, sheer furious desire unspent.

Your teeth sank into your lip as you half-stumbled out of the chair and away from him, bare feet slapping against the floor, trembling muscles screaming with restless urgency. The orgasm he had almost pulled from you moment ago hung incomplete, ripped away before it could bloom.

Blood pounded in your ears, a rush that drowned out all other sound, skin tingling from the traces and whispers of his touch, until you escaped to another room and slammed the door shut. No noise, except your heavy breathing. No vibration in the air, no pressure that engulfed you, nothing.

He wasn't following.

The house was empty and still, like nothing had ever been there at all, the space dimply lit, silence pressing in, and for a second you just breathed, lungs burning like you had sprinted for miles instead of across a few rooms. Your skin prickled with cooling sweat, the remnants of arousal still slick between your thighs.

Pressing the heel of your hand to your chest, you tried to steady the gallop of your heart beneath it, and a rasp escaped you in the empty room, "Coward."

You knew Choso heard you, though walls or doors were not a hindrance to him, not when he heard you through that tether that still vibrated in your lower stomach and in between your thighs, a pulse as invisible and intimate as his breath on the back of your neck.

He didn't answer, but the lamplight on your dresser flickered once, so subtle and faint you might have imagined it, and the thought of him in the dark somewhere, having gone back to an incorporeal state — in between your walls, beautiful and terrible, smiling faintly at your challenge — had your heart fluttering.

The silence stretched, and your breath calmed. You could almost convince yourself you had imagined having came on Choso's tongue, that he left you alone now, when the air shifted at last.

It wasn't noticeable, just the slightest weight settling against your skin until it grew thick, humid, your skin growing slick with how heavy it clung to you, and the half-filled glass on your desk toppled over, liquid dripping off the counter, slow and thick.

"You're pathetic," you whispered, and your mirror fogged up in response, very slow, crawling in from the sides until the glass was a pale blur.

And then, against that haze, broad at the base and growing narrower, he pressed himself with deliberate weight. The outline of his cock dragged upward along the glass as if he were grinding against the barrier, leaving a streak in the fog with every slow thrust.

His voice, seemingly everywhere and nowhere, curled through you like smoke, heavy and deliberate, Pathetic? Curious. Is that why you spread for anything that presses you hard enough?

The pressure on the mirror increased, and flushed against the foggy surface was a chest, the imprint of a big hand, fingers flexing, condensation droplets running down the mirror length.

"I don't—" you bit out, and your stomach flipped violently, heat surging, "I don't spread for you—"

Don't lie, the silhouette of him pushed closer until you swore you could feel it, You've been spreading for me for months.

His outline jerked once, hard and needy, before vanishing, leaving behind the fog and your reflection staring back at you. Ignoring his obvious taunt, forced your lips into something resembling a smile, your pulse thundering beneath your skin.

"Maybe," you whispered, and the light flickered again, "but it doesn't change a single thing, does it? No matter how much you wanna hump my mirror—"

Your bed frame gave a long, slow squeal, as if something heavy and relentless had just mounted it, and you spoke over it, "—you can't touch me. Not unless—"

Like a tantrum, he created sounds to reflect his whims; wet, rhythmic and obscene. The springs of your mattress started squeaking a steady, brutal rhythm, paired with low and guttural grunts. The whisper of your name, soft and coaxing, so impossibly close and just out of reach, as Choso mimicked the sounds of your own desire, the wet squelching he knew of your cunt, making you listen as he allowed the whole room to fuck around you, for you, because of you.

Your knees knocked together, breath coming fast again. Your wanted to hold still, to not give him what he wanted, but then the headboard slammed once, violently, as if somebody had driven hips into hips — you flinched so hard, you nearly moaned.

Should I let you listen to what I'm going to do to you?

The bed groaned harder, louder, wet noises intensifying until you couldn't hear your own thoughts anymore, and he wouldn't stop, not when you pressed yourself deeper into the corner of the room, trying to anchor yourself to keep him out.

But what were you to do when your phone lit up on the nightstand? When your own voice spilled from it, breathless and broken, a perfect recording of your moans from earlier that you knew you didn't take, looping back at you with a clarity that had your cheeks set aflame?

Look at you, Choso's voice threaded through the playback, low and almost velvet, winding straight into your skull, This is what I hear and see when I watch you. Every night.

The air grew damp, suffocating, and the reflection in the mirror across the room flickered, once and twice, before it warped.

In it, you weren't pressed up against the corner anymore, you were on the bed, shaking legs spread wide to fit a shadowed body between them, bending over you, mouth on your throat.

Let me in, the mirror-version of him whispered against the image of your skin, his tongue dragging languidly up the hollow of your throat, leaving a trail of spit. When Choso's gaze lifted up, there was devotion in the dark of his eyes, feverish and unholy, looking right at you, You're already halfway there.

The you in the mirror arched of the bed, a shameless mimicry you hadn't given it permission for, and—

Your pulse stuttered against your will, and he felt it. He felt the tug of every little secret ache you tried to ignore, a magnetic pull as every pulse was mirrored back to you. The image dissolved, and the next second, long and pale fingers pierced first through the glass of the mirror like water.

Then a hand, veins dark like ink under his translucent skin, and the other followed, bracing against the frame as he began to pull himself through, inch by goddamn inch.

Not unless what?

At the reminder, you turned around to bolt through the door into another room, when suddenly all noise cut and your furniture came to a still, only for the only thing to hinder you, so incredibly loud in the sudden silence, to be the turn of the lock.

Barely any time to realise that when you tried to turn the door knob, it didn't budge. It wouldn't budge, why wouldn't it—

Choso's chest pressed flush to your back within an instant, the cold of him bleeding through your heated skin. His breath left gooseflesh in its wake, ghosting your ear as his arms caged you in place. Even when you tried to pull away, tried to meet the door to put some space between you and the phantom at your back, he followed you so very easily.

His hands, as terrifyingly solid as before, closed over the flesh of your hip with a strength that was inhumane, bruising.

Even as you breathed, it only left the wood beneath your mouth damp, and the room seemed to shrink until it was only him at your back, the iron band of his arms around you, the deep cold of his chest, something incredibly hard against your ass.

Even as you fought — or tried to, clawed at the hands holding you, kicked weakly, gasped out to let you go, he was not budging. Solid and immovable.

I've been so careful with you, Choso whispered, his voice fraying, the faintest echo of it in your mind, coaxing you to relax, I could have split you open a hundred times over. I could have owned you in every corner of this house. And I didn't. I waited.

A shiver ran through you, and you hadn't thought that ghosts could have a scent, you didn't think that Choso would, but there you smelt it — the air was heavy with the scent of wet stone and crushed leaves, and beneath it, a subtle musk, thick and intimate, pressed against your mind as if it were a part of him.

Your stomach tightened, a flutter between your thighs, a shiver running down your spine as his own manifested legs kicked yours open. Every rise and fall of him throbbed against your shoulder blades, the tense contour of him, yet at the same time, it was fleeting, like your nerves were trying to trace the outline of smoke.

It was vexing, the way he could switch between cold and warm and the way it seeped through you.

"And?" the wood tasted faint and earthy, muffled voice soft, almost tender, cooing, "So what if you did? No one asked you to, Choso."

The air behind you turned sharper, cold enough to sting as his breath brushed your ear.

No one asked me?

Low and incredulous, almost laughing, though no humour to be found, You think this—

A ghost touch flattened over your lower belly, something akin to fingers digging into your flesh, —isn't asking? Every night you ache for something you can't name, and you think it isn't me?

The door rattled violently once, as if struck from the other side, Why don't you say it again? Say that you don't want me here?

His mouth, real now, brushed your temple, your cheek, the line of your jaw as his fingers travelled down south, tender and possessive in a way that made it clear to you that he had memorised every curve and every hollow of your body, that he claimed them as his own without asking, reverent and all-consuming.

Your lips curled, breath trembling, "I don't. You're not even real, nothing but a trick of— of my body, some weird parasite that I can just get rid of whenever."

Heavy breathing against the shell of your ear and you watched the hand next to your door waver, a violent shimmer.

"That— that terrifies you, huh?" you pressed, daring to tilt your head just the slightest to catch his gaze. They were trained on you; a feverish hunger, swallowed up by his black irises. There was no blinking in the same way a human would, no faltering, just want that pinned you in pace, "That I can end you just by…closing my legs?"

Is that a challenge?

A low growl vibrated around you, and the shadow of him pushed closer, heavy, You think you can taunt me with restraint?

The pressure against your ass grew harder, more solid, aligned with your words as he ground against you, and like a murmur, Choso's voice licked your skin, Try closing them now. See how impossible it really is.

You didn't want to play his little games, yet you found your thighs trying to press shut, as hard as you could, a feeble attempt at control — but he didn't care. He existed still against you, molding against your flesh, and his cock slid against the slick seam of your thighs, nestling there as if claiming the space you had desperately tried to guard.

Your teeth sank into your lower lip, embarrassment getting comfortable sitting in your cheeks, and you tried again: pushing, clamping down, curling, your breath getting heavier with exertion, but Choso refused to falter.

Mirroring your movement, grinding closer, his weight a force you couldn't resist, as painfully tangible as it was only a suggestion. He was plastered against your back, a wet tongue against your pulse, and it was so terrifying, it was so intoxicating — an invasion that left your body shivering.

Why do you try still? Why don't you let go? His voice vibrated around you, soft and tender, almost pitiful, brushing against your nipples, tasting the sweat on your abdomen, collecting beads of your heat, You can. You can let me take you. Look at you, already allowing me in.

You did; each movement pushed him deeper, warmth spreading through your cunt despite the cold, body responding whether you willed it or not, and even as panic brushed at the edges of your mind, at the thought of opening up—

and you did; thick as he slid at your entrance, quivering, his tip pressing past the ring, willing, so willing as a sharp stretch bloomed through you. Your eyes fluttered shut. It was a strange mix, full and so impossible as he slid inch by inch, stretching you wider than you expected, filling you so deeply, you couldn't help the cry slipping past your restraints. You felt it in your pussy, in your spine, in your chest like a brand.

Your breath hitched, caught somewhere between a whimper and a gasp. You were aware of every sliver of skin, of how he could slip, how he could glide into the spaces you thought were yours alone. Opening you up with an obscene squelch, knee holding yours to the side, you tasted iron, teeth having found your tongue to bite into.

Your hand slammed against the door in a way to support yourself, and his own hand, transparent having turned solid gripped your fingers, caressed your knuckles, held it in a tender grip even as his hips met your ass, Won't you trust me? I'll take from you exactly how much you need me to.

There was no rhythm, no reprieve as your walls clamped down with a spasm, clenching tight around him, thick and aching. Every stroke was too much as he pulsed, thrusting and withdrawing, sending sparks up your spine. Your breath hitched with every movement, hips rolling back into him instinctively, chasing the friction that made your knees weak and breath stutter, moans spilling out despite yourself.

But what were you to do when he could layer a phantom tongue over your clit? What were you to do when you tried to writhe away from his lapping, from his cock dragging against your pussy, from him reaching deeper in you than your body should allow, only for him to anchor you in place, holding you down whilst the thrusts grew faster, heavier?

When your body was an echo of his hunger, when he worshipped and desecrated you in the same breath?

I'm yours if you let me, your muscles seized up under the onslaught, voice breaking into raw cries as it ripped through you again, I'll keep you save. You'll let me in, every part of you, and I'll make it worth every second.

"Ohhh—" your voice cracked, cunt clenching as if on command, trying to milk him, every spasm wringing more pleasure out of your own body until you were sobbing, begging for mercy that never came.

He fucked you harder for it, faster, until you couldn't tell whether those were your moans, or low groans tearing from him; whether the shivers wracking your body were yours, or the tremors rolling down his spine; whether the heat pooling low and tight belonged to you, or radiated from him in waves that left you dizzy and trembling.

Every gasp, every cry, every pulse of pleasure felt shared, tangled, indistinguishable — and when he withdrew and surged inside, it was as if your pussy walls moulded tighter to him, like you were made to hold him.

"I can-han't take…more—"

The stretch was obscene already, and you were full, so full, when something inside you shifted — no, split.

A sharp inhale tore out of you, and it was instantly that your legs tried to close, to squeeze down and fight it. Choso's fingers curled around your sweaty ones, arms caging you in, knee forcing your legs apart again.

Shhh, you wanted all of me, didn't you?

The weight inside you thickened and thickened, stroking different angles of your quivering inner walls, and your whole body tried to lurch as the stretch turned unbearable, slick heat spilling down your thighs as you sobbed through it. Broken little gasps fell from your lips. He filled you past the point of sense, pressing your most tender spots with relentless hunger. It was too much, it should have been impossible — and yet. Yet your walls clenched and squeezed around him, desperate for every inch.

Your body can take more. I can make it take more.

You believed him.

Touching you with the certainty of someone who had handled your body more times than you could count, you believed him.

Clenching helplessly around Choso's touch, waves kept wracking you, and with every pulse you felt something being drawn out of you, like he was drinking the every peak of it straight into himself, dragging it out of you like a confession wrung from someone's throat.

Don't you feel how empty you've been? How I'm the only one who could ever fill you?

It was inevitable, not a choice, and in that surrender, in the trembling, he claimed the space between you both.

Let me have you. All of you. Every last part.

Shaking, you were — from the rolling of his hips, the thickness of his cock, the phantom lapping of his tongue on your clit, your nipples, your mouth, everywhere at once, folding you in on yourself, and from his words.

Were you the one reaching? Risking? Were you the one guilty of need, when it was him deciding and him choosing, taking from you all that you could offer?

His breath — was it cold anymore? Hot? His body solid and unyielding behind yours, his tongue leaving behind a burning trail and when your head tipped back against his shoulder, a realisation burned through you like fever.

You didn't have to confess to anything, didn't have to admit to anything, no explanations.

None for the nights you had parted your robe before the mirror; none for the ache you felt for months, for years, too ashamed to speak it into existence; none for the guilt of your own hunger you carried around.

You see it now, you don't have to beg. You don't have to pretend. I'll want enough for the both of us.

Your legs went weak under the weight of his words, under the ruthless stretch that seemed to spear right through your shame and lodge in some soft, untouched part of you. It rushed through your chest in a sudden, dizzying wave — like something finally broke loose, leaving your chest tight and your throat tight. Relief clawed up alongside it, sharp and overwhelming, and it never felt sweeter, never felt more inevitable.

I've taken them — every thought you try to bury, every ache you want to swallow, every filthy wish you're too scared to express. They're mine now.

A chill swept through you, biting and disorienting, leaving your skin burning in its absence. Your lips parted, trying to deny him, to say you're wrong, but nothing came out— because wasn't this what you wanted? To not have to hold it alone?

Choso's hips slowed down, a soft press of his hips to yours, mouth trailing your nape like a lover, and his fingers, unbearably real, squeezed around your hand, thumb swiping over your knuckles, Do you feel it? I've devoured it all. I'll keep taking it, again and again until—

"—there's nothing left of you but pleasure, and me."

Your breath hitched, and there was cold and heat, a strange duality; one moment like kissing a winter storm, the next like molten iron searing through your veins. You wished you could kiss him — what would he feel like under your hands? Would he feel like carved marble? Would his jaw be solid underneath your fingertips?

Would he kiss you with a terrible, wonderful patience?

"Do you want that?" Choso asked softly, almost tender, "To disappear into me?"

Nat King Cole plays low through the speakers, the only other sound between them besides the car’s low hum. Christopher tried making conversation when they first started driving, attempting to stoke his boy into small talk and light hearted jokes. But silence is about the last line of protest Cass has to hold at the moment. So he holds it. And ten minutes into the drive, the music went on.

He’s glad, at least, for quiet. He’s glad the car is warm. The clothes he’s been dressed in are casual and comfortable for once. And if he sits very still and the road stays smooth, his body doesn’t even hurt that much. He’ll take the small wins. He doesn’t know what he would’ve done if Christopher tried to put him in a shirt and tie today. Thrown a fit, probably. 

Cass is focussed on watching a neck and neck race between two particularly tenacious rivulets when Christopher pulls into a gravel car park, turning the engine off. “Here we are.”

To call it a car park is generous. It’s more of a worn-down patch off the side of the road, loosely bordered with the sawn-off trunks of some old gums. Cass' eyes slide to Christopher, making no move to unbuckle, “Where? The side of the road?”

Christopher sighs, clearly tired of the attitude, but not annoyed enough to rise to it. “We’re going for a walk. Out you get.”

Cass looks out the window as Christopher steps out of the car. He can see a worn down path through the trees, low ferns and bush scrub giving away to yellowed dirt. Christopher can’t actually be fucking serious. A bush hike? When walking ten steps makes him ache?

By the time Christopher opens his door for him, he’s tucked himself even more tightly into the passenger seat.

“Out you get, darling.”

Cass stares at his hands, picking at the dead skin around his finger nails, “Get fucked.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m not going for a walk with you.”

“I have something I want to show you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t be silly. We’ve driven all this way-”

“You’ve driven all this way. I’ve just sat where you put me.”

There's another tired sigh, “Get out of the car, Cassius.”

“No.”

The sounds of the bush fill up the quiet that follows. Slender leaves brushing against each other on thin branches. The call and squawk of a flock of galahs. Fairy wrens darting in the scrub. The constant pitch of a bellbird somewhere in the distance.

Christopher sighs a final time. “Fine.”

The car door closes sharply, cutting the sound of the world off with it. The boot opens. Then it closes. And then, in the reflection of the rear view mirror, Cass watches as Christopher walks away from the car, down the worn-down path, a picnic basket in his hand and a bag slung over his shoulder. Cass keeps watching, waiting for him to stop and call over his shoulder. And then waiting for him to come back. But he just disappears into the bush without looking back.

Everything feels more silent without him there. Like the car has its own atmosphere. He can’t hear the trees or the wind or the birds. He can see the galahs, pink against the eucalyptus. But the whole world is muted. Excised by tinted glass. His ears start to ring with the quiet of it all. And he sighs just to hear his breath. He shifts in his seat just to hear the rustle of fabric. The movement shoots pain through him that makes him wince. And reminds him why he's been so pissed off in the first place.

One minute Christopher had been beside him at the party, laughter bubbling, hand on his waist like usual. The next he’d been left alone in a room with a dozen strangers, a bit of rope, and far too much fucking booze.

He still doesn’t know where Christopher had gone in the hours in between. Just that they’d left for the party right after dinner. That he'd been given a pill in the car on the way there. That someone, at some point, thought it would be funny to have a competition to make him scream the loudest.

By the time they were coming home, he had an ache right the way through him, blank spots in his memory, and the sun was rising over the trees.

And everything just felt horrible. And he felt dirty and used and awful.

Has all week since.

Cass tilts his head back and looks through the windscreen, up the road that winds up the hills and around a corner into more scrub. Were there houses up here? Maybe. It looked like a truck road, more than anything. There for carting cargo more than people.

Still, though. He could get out. Try to walk it. Find someone. Hitchhike. Run away.

He could be gone before Christopher even knows he's missing. He could be over the state line before nightfall. He could slip away. Never go back. Find someone else's bed to warm. Some other place to stay. Some other person to be. No Cassius Drake, no brother to think about, no record to work off. Just another stranger on the street.

He watches as a white ute approaches up the curving road, bigger and bigger the closer it gets. He could get out. He could flag them down. It gets bigger and bigger. Closer and closer. He could tell them he broke down. Needs a lift. They wouldn't ask any questions.

The car gets bigger, bigger, bigger on the horizon as it approaches. Bigger, bigger, bigger… and then it passes by and around the corner and he can't see it anymore. Cass looks back to the galahs. And then he closes his eyes. He's not going anywhere. Christopher knew that when he left.

The better part of half an hour passes before he sees Christopher reappear on the beaten down track. He watches him approach in the rearview mirror. Bigger, bigger, bigger.

Cass’ only movement is to shift his eyes to stare forward out the windshield, hands curled tight around his seatbelt as Christopher approaches. He braces for a fight. But the door opens and Christopher doesn't say a word. He reaches down and over, and Cass barely has time to process what he's doing before his seatbelt is being unclicked and he's being scooped up and out of the car, door shut with the swing of Christopher's foot behind them.

"Hey."

Christopher doesn't say anything, or even really acknowledge that Cass has spoken. He readjusts him slightly to have a better hold and keeps walking, back down the same path he'd disappeared down earlier. It takes Cass a minute or two to process properly what's happening. It's so far from what he expected Christopher to do he feels disoriented by it.

"I didn't ask to be carried."

"Tell me to put you down," Christopher replies calmly, still walking. “And I will.”

For a moment, Cass chews his cheek. Even if Christopher refused. It'd be as easy as naming him. It would always be as easy as naming him. But he doesn't. He tucks in close, head against Christopher's chest, hand curling in his shirt, and lets himself be carried.

They walk in silence for a little while, up a slope and down again, across a fence line that declares private property, down through denser bush. Cass eyes the swaying trees and the set line of Christopher’s jaw intermittently as they go. Occasionally a bird calls overhead. Occasionally the wind picks up. Aside from that, it’s as silent between them as the car ride had been.

He notices the break in the tree line first, sky a little more visible as the gums open out into a wider sprawl. He adjusts his grip around Christopher’s neck and looks down to see the scrub giving way to rock, tightly packed sand, and a small, still body of water.

Christopher walks them to where he’s set up the picnic under a tree on the banks and sets Cass down on it. The blanket is already splayed out, the basket unpacked: cheese, wine, a neatly wrapped lunch. There’s even a little thermos of something.

Cass is unmoved by it. Or he tries to be, arms wrapped around himself in silent, moody protest. Hell of a way to go for a picnic lunch. The view isn’t even that good.

Apart from the little dam thing maybe. The water's prettier than he wants to admit. Strikingly blue. So blue it almost doesn’t look real.

Christopher gives the elbow of his sweater a brief tug, before starting to take off his own cable knit cardigan, “Strip, darling.”

Cass looks at him with complete incredulity and scoffs a laugh, bitter and angry. A fuck in the bush is it? “Oh fuck off.”

Christopher sighs, folding his cardigan and laying it down on the picnic blanket, before moving to take off his watch, “I don’t want to fight, Cassius. Just strip.”

He kicks a stone and it skitters to a stop before it can make it to the water. “Fucking make me-”

“Cassius.” Christopher’s voice is stern enough to cut Cass off, head jerking up to look at him. He almost never yells. And it always strikes Cass through with as much fear as the sharp snap of leather.

But Christopher looks more tired than angry. And then he sighs again, hands palm up and half pleading. “I don’t want to fight. This is meant to be a nice thing. Just let it be a nice thing.”

Cass stares at him for a few beats. He considers refusing. He considers ruining the whole fucking day. He considers protesting, arguing, throwing insults. Making Christopher angry enough to slam his head against the rocks over and over until he stains that pretty little lake red.

But Christopher is tired. And if he’s honest, he is too. 

They haven’t fucked since Saturday. And they haven’t really spoken either. The silent treatment is as exhausting to give as it is to get, it turns out. If nothing else, it’s achingly lonely. He doesn’t know how Christopher stands it.

And right now, when Cass reaches out… all Christopher seems to want right now is just a truly nice day. A rest. A glass of wine. A reset. It’s hard not to give in to that.

Cass strips the jumper, dropping it in the sand at his feet, and then kicks off his shoes, his socks, the soft drawstring pants. The air is cold enough on its own but the wind properly chills him, his skin pricking with goosebumps. He wraps his arms back around himself, looking back to Christopher, half undressed himself and dusting sand and dirt from Cassius’ clothing before re-folding it on the picnic blanket.

Christopher nods to the water, “In you get.”

Cass stares at him. “It’s fucking freezing.”

“Mmhmm,” Christopher agrees. And then he smiles gently, almost playful, and nods again to the water. “In you get.”

Cass frowns, contemplating arguing for a moment or two before relenting, approaching the water’s edge like someone might an angry snake. The water is so still and so blue. Almost milky, even. It barely looks natural. He looks back over his shoulder to Christopher, who is watching him with a mild smile as he undoes his own belt. “Go on, darling.”

He takes a few more steps forward, brings his foot into to the water and-

He flinches back, looking over his shoulder with wide eyes, “...It’s warm.”

Christopher’s smile widens, and he nods. “Hot springs.”

Cass looks back to the water, fascinated. He brings his foot back to the surface, dragging his toe through the water, and then stepping in. One foot. And then the next. It’s warm as bath water.

“Is it real?”

Christopher exhales a laugh, “You’re standing in it, my love. What do you think?”

“No, I mean like… did they make it? Or is it-”

“Oh, I see,” Christopher says. “It’s natural, yes. As far as the story goes, anyway. A friend of mine owns the property. The family stumbled across it a decade or two ago. They thought about commercialising it for a while before deciding it was more special to keep it private. Their own little family sanctuary. You and I are two of about a dozen people in the whole world who knows it exists.”

Cass barely takes in the story. He’s sure it’s meant to sound impressive or interesting but frankly how the fuck is he meant to give a shit when he’s standing in something this beautiful? This unreal?

It's so, so blue. He wades into the water, over ankles, up his shins, to his knees, before looking back again to Christopher, who’s watching him with fondness. He gestures to the water, “Can I…?”

It earns him a smile, “Of course, darling.”

He dives under, a shallow skim under the surface. And when he opens his eyes the water is clear enough that he can see weak winter sunlight dappling the stones below. It’s so weird. It’s so weird and so cool and so nice. It’s like a fucking magic swimming pool, carved into the middle of the bush.

He's always loved swimming. Always, always, always. The weightlessness and the water around him. The movement and the tide. It washes him clean in a way nothing else does. Makes his body feel realer than anything other than sex. It's so easy to forget until he's in the water again.

He’d grown up by the beach. And the worst part of it was always the icy cold. And the worst part of a pool was the smell. And this place had neither. Just peace and water and eucalyptus and warmth. It’s like the rest of the whole world has stopped. Like this place erupted from the earth just for him. Just to hold him.

It soothes the ache in his body and the twist in his chest and when he emerges again from the water, for the first time all week -- all fucking week -- he feels like he can breathe.

He pushes wet curls back from his face to find Christopher seated on a towel laid out on the rocks, one foot trailing in the water, smiling soft as he watches him, “Nice?”

Cass relaxes onto his back to float and drags his fingers through the water —  warm, warm water — and laughs for the first time since the party, “This is fucking insane.”

Christopher laughs too, “Insane good?”

“This is a spa in the middle of the bush.”

“I suppose it is.”

Cass holds his gaze for a moment, feeling the thrum of satisfaction coming off of him. This is all he wanted, wasn't it? All he wanted was to see Cass enjoy this. He dares to give him a smile, “You gonna join me?”

“I might in a minute,” Christopher says. “I need a rest first.”

“Tired already, old man?”

“My arms are a little. I just carried you for about half a kilometer, didn’t I?”

 Cass flips onto his belly so he can paddle over a little closer, “Well maybe if you come in I’ll make it up to you.”

“Just maybe?”

Cass gives him a grin and splashes water up at him in a shining sheet before sinking below entirely. There’s a thrilling delight at hearing the muffled sound of Christopher’s shocked laughter through the water, right before the splashing sound of him coming in after.

-

They eat lunch on the rocks with their feet in the water, Cass wrapped in Christopher’s cardigan. The food is good because of course it is. And the wine is better because of course it is. But there is a soft glow of recognition when Cass realises that the food’s that has been packed is more or less a collection of his favourites. The crusts have even been neatly sliced off his sandwich. It’s weird to realise how well Christopher knows him.

He ends up back in the water not long after, and when Christopher settles again on the rocks, Cass lays himself back in the shallows with his head against Christopher’s legs like he’s relaxing back in a bath. He watches Christopher watch the lorikeets, his face tilted up to the pale winter sun.

“I didn’t think you liked swimming,” he comments mildly.

Christopher laughs, brows raised in mild surprise and brushes a knuckle down his cheek, “Why would you think that?”

“No pool at the estate,” Cass points out. “And whenever I go to the pool at your hotels, you tell me you’ll meet me at dinner.”

“I came with you at The Maribella.”

“To sit by the pool with a book and a drink.”

“I thought about swimming.”

“You thought about fucking me in the pool you mean.”

“I thought about swimming,” Christopher repeats. He reaches a hand up to tuck a damp curl behind Cass’ ear. “But sometimes I just want to watch you enjoy yourself. Is that so wrong?”

The phrasing almost sours things. It’s dangerously close to what he says right before a guest is over. Right before a party. But Christopher doesn’t mean it like that. He knows he doesn’t. So he tries a smile. He lets it go.

It’s like Christopher’s mind drifts to the same thing, though. Because his face gets soft and sad. He cups Cass’ cheek. He brushes his hair back, “Have you liked today, darling?”

Cass nods. It’s surprisingly easy to give him a soft smile. “Been pretty nice actually.”

Christopher keeps brushing his curls back. Gives him that sad smile in return, “I’m glad to hear that.”

Cass wants the conversation to end there. He wants that to be it. To draw Christopher back into the water for a kiss and a lazy float in the water and then go home. But of course it doesn’t.

“I know I asked a lot from you the other night, darling boy.”

Some tired, angry animal tries to wake up in Cass’ chest. He sedates it with a breath deep enough to make his ribs ache. 

“And I wanted you to know…” Christopher continues. He speaks carefully. Like he’s practised the phrasing. Perfected the sympathetic cadence. “We won’t be seeing those friends again.”

Cass doesn’t know if he believes it. And he doesn’t know if it even matters if he does or not. He stays very still, timing his breath to the strokes of Christopher’s fingers through his hair.

“And I’m glad today has been nice,” he continues softly. “I wanted to find a way to thank you. I know sometimes you struggle to find my gifts sincere.”

The tired, angry animal rolls over. Cass holds his breath for a second so it doesn’t rouse and ruin everything. “Is that what today is, then? A gift?”

Christopher laughs in a way that would probably sound self deprecating if Cass didn’t know him better. “It’s.. a gesture. To show you what you mean to me.” He smiles, winding a damp curl about his index finger, letting it lovingly loose back to its natural spiral. “I wanted to give you some of the gentleness you deserve.”

Cass doesn’t know what to say to that. He keeps his eyes on Christopher’s face, tracing the lines of it. The most prominent of his wrinkles are the ones around his eyes. Creasing crows feet that match a merry face. They frame his eyes just right. Strikingly blue. So blue they almost don't look real.

He reaches a hand up before he knows what he’s doing. He cups Christopher’s face. He swipes a damp thumb over his cheek. The shining trail it leaves almost makes it look like he’s crying. Especially when he’s looking at him like that. So soft. Full of a strange kind of longing that has no claws to it. No teeth.

Christopher turns his cheek to press his lips to the side of his boy’s thumb. He presses his cheek into Cass’ hand like a man truly looking to be absolved.

“I love you, darling boy. You know that. Don’t you?”

It’s not an apology.

But it’s close.

Cass cranes his neck up, offering a kiss. Asking for one.

Christopher’s hand cradles his jaw, firm and warm. His thumb brushes damp his hair back along his temple. His tongue slides into his mouth. It’s deep and passionate. But for once it’s not hungry. Cass breathes into it.

Maybe there was a kind of power in this. In being loved like this. In having a man like this love him.

In these moments… it feels worth it. All of it. The hurt, the pressure, the asking too much. He presses and presses and pushes and pushes but then, at the brink of things, he always knows to release. He knows to soothe and pull back and reset. He knows how much give there is before the break.

Cass doesn’t remember falling asleep on the rocks. But he must. Because he rouses as he’s being lifted from the picnic blanket and cradled against Christopher’s chest like some precious thing.

It makes him think of being a little kid. Of pretending to fall asleep in the backseat, hoping to be carried inside and tucked into bed. He can’t remember if anyone ever actually did that for him back then. He can’t remember if anyone ever held him this gently. It’s nice. It’s so, so nice.

"You said your arms were sore," Cass mumbles in quiet protest, head against Christopher's chest. He can feel the vibration of every footfall as they walk.

"I'll survive, my love."

When they get back to the car, Christopher sits him down gently in the passenger seat. He buckles him in. He kisses his hair. He even fetches a blanket from the back of the car and tucks it over his lap.

It’s The Decemberists instead of Nat King Cole on the way back down the mountain.

The heater blows soft and gentle on his face. He watches a flock of carellas careen their way over the backroads. They turn on to the main roads and Christopher takes his hand, gently kisses his knuckles.

As they roll back up the winding entry road of the estate, the sun is setting over the trees.