#slowburnfilth

Paper Cuts

Pairing: Elijah “Smoke” Moore x Black!OC (Nia) Series: Request Summary: Nia just wants to finish her paper. Smoke just wants her stuffed. The tension between deadlines and dick turns into a slow-burn punishment—cockwarming that spirals into back shots, ragged moans, and a comedown wrapped in filthy humor.

Warnings: 18+ / MDNI — cockwarming, edging, breeding talk, punishment pace → rough back shots, filthy language, cum inside, light spanking, big-daddy dynamic, study/desk setting, explicit sex, humor in the comedown.

An: 🍻to my first request 😅🥲

Summary: Julie never meant to become that author. She left her Killmonger fanfic days behind, but one viral fantasy novel later, a live TV interview drags it all back—right before Michael B. Jordan himself shows up. Now the internet’s in chaos, her publicist calls it opportunity, and Julie’s just trying not to die of secondhand embarrassment while the man she once wrote into 50k-word thirst fables actually wants to know her.

Julie liked to say she became an author by accident.

The truth was messier. She had always been writing, scribbling in marble notebooks, clicking away on an ancient Dell laptop that wheezed like an old man, updating fanfiction chapters on sites where usernames sounded like bad passwords. For years, she was “KillerQueen97,” an identity that felt safer than her own. Under that name, she wrote entire sagas about Black Panther’s Erik Killmonger; half-political manifestos, half-hard-core devotionals; stories where grief became poetry and desire stretched across whole pages of hard strokes, heavy moans and loads of ‘cum’.

It was indulgent, sure. But it was also practice.

That practice carried her through college, where she earned an English degree with a minor in African literature, and then through a master’s in gender studies. Julie knew the texture of theory, the sharpness of critique, the way power and desire were braided into every story. All of that, the scholarship, the politics, the way she annotated even romance novels, bled into her writing, even when she was just trying to spin another 12,000 words about Killmonger hard fucking someone against a throne.

And practice turned into something more when a tiny independent press emailed her out of the blue. They wanted to publish her trilogy of Killmonger retellings, yes, the ones that had readers typing “slow burn? she invented it” in the comments. She’d nearly deleted the email, assuming it was spam, but six months later there they were: three slim e-books with her pseudonym plastered across the cover and the tiniest print run she had ever seen. She made five hundred dollars total and thought she’d peaked.

Then came her first book. A dystopian, decolonial, anti-capitalist fantasy, dark but tender, an ode to every paper she’d ever written and every fic she’d ever posted. She wrote it while working at a publishing house, revising chapters in between slush-pile rejections. And somehow, it went viral.

Now she was on morning shows, grinning nervously while women in sequined jumpsuits asked her about her “process.”

She’d dressed the part. Her stylist had strapped her into an emerald green satin dress that curved with her body like it was in love with her. Julie was all cinnamon-and-fire: skin warm and freckled, hair a copper halo of curls, glasses large enough to double as armor. She wasn’t delicate, never had been. She was bold, shapely, impossible to ignore and she dressed in an elegance that said she knew it.

Inside, of course, she was a mess.

When Jennifer leaned forward with her devastating smile and asked, “So, Julie, if your book were made into a movie, who do you see playing the leads?” Julie’s brain immediately summoned Sandra, her publicist, like a tiny drill sergeant inside her head: Be smart. Be strategic. Say literally anyone safe. Some actor with two indie films and zero Google Alerts.

But Julie’s mouth had never been a team player.

“Keke Palmer as Shadow. And Michael B. Jordan as João.”

The audience clapped. Jennifer laughed. Julie laughed too, in that brittle, too-high way of people who know they’ve just detonated their own landmine.

And then, it did.

“Speaking of Michael B. Jordan,” Jennifer said, drawing out the pause like she’d won an Emmy for it, “we hear you used to write about him before…”

Abort. Abort. Smile. Pivot to Octavia Butler.

Julie nearly swallowed her tongue. She blinked at the cameras, at the studio lights, at the people who would soon be tweeting clips of this very moment. “I…uh…not exactly,” she stammered, attempting to look like a “serious author” rather than the woman who once wrote a 50k slow-burn where Killmonger learned to bake bread and shared two girls with his cousin T’Challa.

Jennifer, sparkling and merciless, pulled a slim paperback from under her chair. Julie’s paperback. One of the old, repackaged fanfics.

Sandra’s voice in her head: Talk about your twenties. Bring up cultural context. Smile like this was always part of the plan.

Jennifer, to the audience: “Tell us more about this…”

Julie’s heart went rogue. But she managed a half-joking, half-pleading explanation: fanfiction as community, as practice, as cultural scholarship. She talked about how fan fiction actually shaped her and million others as writers and also about how important fandom is to keep the culture alive, referenced Black Panther for credibility, sprinkled enough laughter to disguise the sweat sliding down her spine.

By some miracle, the interview ended on a high note. Jennifer hugged her, the audience cheered, and the segment producer mouthed great job from offstage.

Julie exhaled. She had survived.

"And we’re so glad you wrote about Killmonger, because we’ll have Michael on the show later.”

Julie’s soul left her body.

In the car afterward, Sandra gave her a look that belonged in the Smithsonian under Publicists Who Have Seen Too Much.

“What,” Julie said, wanting to crawl under her own skin. “What’s with the face?”

Sandra folded her arms, perfectly composed. “Do you want the short version or the long version?”

Julie groaned. “The short one.”

“You’re trending.”

“The long one?”

Sandra adjusted her oversized sunglasses like she was shielding herself from Julie’s stupidity. “Hashtags. Memes. A think piece already up on Medium about the cultural significance of your ‘Killmonger thirst canon.’ Someone just tweeted, Julie invented horny literary theory. It has six thousand likes.”

Julie slammed her head against the seat. “Sandra. He’s going to see it. Michael B. Jordan is going to find the fic where I wrote about him handcuffing someone to a radiator and giving a five-paragraph essay on prison abolition mid oral sex. He’s going to sue me. Or worse. He’s going to pity me.”

Sandra scrolled on her phone, unbothered. “You mean the one where he “dragged a finger down her spine like punctuation, like every comma was a promise”? Or the one where he invented six new ways to use olive oil for sex?”

Julie covered her face with both hands. “Stop. Stop, stop, stop. I’m going to die in this car. My ghost is going to haunt every Goodreads reviewer who gave me less than four stars.”

Sandra smirked. “Honestly? The prose was kind of good.”

Julie peeked between her fingers. “Not helping. He’s going to need therapy.”

Sandra arched an eyebrow. “Or maybe he’ll be flattered.”

Julie buried her face in her hands. “Flattered? Sandra, I wrote about him spitting in people’s mouths. That’s not flattered, that’s exhibit A.”

Julie sat up. “What? What now? Is there a TikTok of me ugly-crying in 4K?”

Sandra tilted her screen toward her. “Worse. Or better. Depending.”

On the screen was a message chain. From a number Julie didn’t recognize. But the name at the top.

Michael B. Jordan

Her stomach dropped. “That’s fake. That has to be fake. Please tell me that’s fake.”, she pleaded.

Sandra grinned like a wolf. “It’s real. His team reached out. He asked for your number.”

Julie blinked. “Why would he…? No. No, this is some elaborate scam. It’s probably just a guy named Michael Jordan from Ohio with a Samsung Galaxy Note.”

Sandra tapped the message. “He said, and I quote: Her book is actually really good. Shadow’s monologues go crazy. Ask her where she got that bread-baking scene from.”

Julie’s entire skeleton tried to escape her body. “He read it?

Sandra nodded. “Seems like it. And he knows the bread thing.”

Julie pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Oh my God, Sandra, he thinks that’s me! That’s me, kneading metaphorical dough like it’s foreplay. He’s going to think I wrote him into a carb-based sex cult.”

Sandra shrugged, smirking. “Maybe he likes carbs.”

Julie groaned. “No. No way. Give him a fake number. Tell him I’ve joined a nunnery. Tell him I took a vow of silence. Tell him…”

Sandra was already typing.

Julie yelped. “What are you doing?”

Sandra didn’t look up, her smile sharp as glass. “Oh, sweetheart. He’s Michael B. Jordan. You answer when he calls.”

@8lia-murasaki

The Mine Series (Michael B. Jordan x London)

What started as a one-night stand between Michael B. Jordan and London, a shy but playful Twitch streamer and freelance comic book artist from Miami, quickly spirals into something neither of them expected. When Mike crosses paths with her again, the game changes — he doesn’t just want her body, he wants her as his sugar baby.

But what begins as a filthy, teasing arrangement turns into a war of control: power flips, jealousy sparks, possessions claimed, and every line between love and lust blurs. Across twenty one-shots, London learns to play just as dirty as Mike, and Mike proves he’ll do anything to keep her.

Through rough nights, soft mornings, public risks, punishments, aftercare, and rare glimpses of tenderness, the sugar daddy/sugar baby roles evolve into something rawer and realer. By the finale — Mine, Forever — there are no more games. Just two people who fought, teased, and broke each other down until the only thing left was love.

Status: Complete (20 one-shots)

𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑒, 𝐼𝑓 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑊𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝘿𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙂𝙚𝙩 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝗦𝗮𝘆 𝗜𝘁 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁

ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴏᴅɪᴇ, ʙᴀʙʏ 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑁𝑎𝑚𝑒 Try It On for Me

𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 ᔑωᥱᥱt Ʈootᖾ 𝙎𝙞𝙩 𝘽𝙖𝙘𝙠 Debt Collected

𝙌𝙪𝙞𝙚𝙩, 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡 Mark You Up Let Me 𝙶𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝙶𝚒𝚛𝚕’𝚜 𝙽𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝

Obey Me 𝑁𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑠 Date Night

A/N: I was inspired to write this story by @milkywayzard. She set up the stage for this Gilded Age/Bridgerton tell of the twins and I run with a thought surrounding Smoke and a OC. So here it is the set up, please let me know if you think is any good!

Summary: Chicago, 1893. The city hums with jazz, steel, and secrets. When rebellious Elleonor Davenport is promised to Elijah “Smoke” Moore, the ruthless, storm-eyed heir whispered to have killed his father society gasps. Their betrothal is spectacle, not love. She mocks him, he cages her. Every ball, every glance, every clash of silk and shadow becomes a duel. Hate burns, obsession smolders, and Chicago watches to see who bends—and who burns first.

Pairing: Elijah "Smoke" Moore x Black!OC - HistoricalAU, smut, fluff, angst

Chapter One

The Chicago Gazette, April 12, 1893 If one listens closely enough, one can hear the city hum not with steel and smoke alone, but with secrets. Last evening’s chatter along Prairie Avenue was particularly rich: rumor insists that Miss Elleonor Davenport, untamable, imprudent, too much, has been promised to none other than Elijah Moore, the silent heir of the Moore fortune. A union of flame and stone, of shrieking rebellion and frozen restraint. It cannot possibly last. And yet, if it should… society may never recover.

The Moore estate loomed like a cathedral carved from shadow and stone, its tall windows lit in soft amber, curtains drawn heavy as confessionals. Within, the air was thick with roses past their bloom and the faint scorch of candlewax. In the drawing room, Mrs. Davenport’s voice cut like a bell.

“You cannot expect her to consent without protest, Mrs. Moore…”

“I expect her,” said Mrs. Moore, voice calm, steeled in old sorrow, “to behave as a daughter raised with breeding.”

But Ella was no ornament to be polished and displayed. She stood by the hearth, cheeks burning crimson, her skirts quivering from the force of her tremors. “I am not cattle to be bartered,” she spat, her voice carrying against velvet drapes and gilt-framed ancestors. “You sell me as if I were a parcel of land, when in truth, I am flesh and will not be owned.”

Her mother’s hand clamped tighter upon her wrist. “Enough, Elleonor.”

“No!” Her cry cracked like glass, sharp and scattering. “You speak of duty and alliance as if my heart were a coin in your palm.”

The silence that followed was not empty. It pressed, weighted, as though the very house drew breath with her.

Beyond the door, unseen yet listening, Elijah Moore leaned against paneled oak, his profile in half-shadow. His brother lingered at his side, one boot braced to the wall, smirking like a devil at sermon.

“Well, brother,” Elias *Stack, as only blood and mischief called him* murmured, “it seems you are to wed a tempest. Tell me, do you prefer your women shrieking or silent?”

Elijah did not look at him. His jaw tightened, eyes fixed upon the floorboards, where a thin crack in the wood spread like a wound. “Silence can cut sharper than screams.”

Stack chuckled, low and cruel. “So speaks the sphinx. Tell me, Smoke, will you thaw in her fire, or burn to ash?”

The door burst open then, Ella storming forth in a blur of satin and fury. Her cheeks glowed, her chest rose high with rage. And there he was, Elijah, waiting, tall and still as if carved from the house itself. For the briefest moment, her stride faltered. The hall held its breath.

She hated him. She hated that he was beautiful in his severity, that his eyes caught hers not with warmth but with a coldness that stung, that his very restraint ignited something in her veins. She swept past, skirts brushing against his coat, and that whisper of fabric felt to him like the drag of a match across stone.

Neither turned. Neither spoke. Yet both left the hall scorched.

Later, the brothers sat with their mother in the blue parlor, light falling dull upon damask walls. Mrs. Moore’s posture was erect, her pearls wound tight at her throat.

“It is settled,” she said. “The engagement binds us as firmly as the church’s word.”

Stack reclined carelessly, a glass of brandy swirling in his hand. “A lively bride, a furious household. How charming. I daresay, Smoke, you’ve inherited more than Father’s estate, you’ve inherited his taste for tragedy.”

The word struck like a bell. Father.

Elijah’s fingers tightened against his knee until the knuckles blanched. His other hand trembled faintly, betraying the storm beneath his mask.

Mrs. Moore’s gaze dropped to her son’s hands, then rose again, voice clipped: “Your father chose duty, as must you. That name, our name, will not fracture.”

Stack’s smile thinned, mocking, but edged with something else, resentment, perhaps, or the ghost of a wound left raw. “Ah, duty. How sacred. How... suffocating.”

The air soured with memory, with grief never spoken. Elijah rose suddenly, his chair scraping hard against the rug. Without a word, he turned and strode from the room, leaving the weight of the Moore legacy behind him for the moment.

The study was quiet save for the low tick of a clock and the burn of whiskey down his throat. Elijah stood by the window, watching night settle over the lawn, shadows swallowing roses and hedgerows whole. Yet it was not the estate that occupied him. It was her.

Her eyes, blazing. The wild cadence of her voice, a violin strung too tight. He had seen women weep, women plead, women seduce. But she, she fought, even against her own chains. And though his pride bristled, though he told himself her rebellion was a threat, a nuisance, still, her fire seeped beneath his skin.

He pressed his palm against the glass until it cooled his shaking hand. Discipline, he whispered to himself. Duty. The Moore name was not his alone to guard, it was the grave of his father, the weight of his mother’s grief, the sneer of his brother’s defiance. And yet, behind it all, Ella’s voice lingered like smoke in his lungs.

Ella’s carriage rattled through streets slick with fog, the wheels dragging through the night as if conspiring to prolong her torment. Anger burned in her chest, but by the time she reached her family’s door it had unspooled into something worse, exhaustion, raw and hollow, leaving her body trembling with both fire and weakness. The grand entryway yawned open before her, and the familiar house, once her sanctuary, now loomed as a prison. Shadows clung to the corners, heavy with the weight of her parents’ expectations.

Her mother’s voice cut through the silence the moment Ella stepped inside. “You shame us, Elleonor,” she said, sharp and tremulous, like glass about to shatter. “Do you not see what is at stake?”

Ella lifted her chin, every inch of her vibrating with defiance. “I see all too well. I see you would sell me, mother, sell me for the comfort of standing in a richer shadow.”

Her mother recoiled, as if struck, but before she could gather a retort, her father entered. His presence filled the space like a judgment, stern as a gavel, his face a mask of iron.

“Enough,” he thundered. “This is the match you will accept.”

Ella’s voice cracked, though not with weakness, with fury. “I will not!”

“You will.” His words split the air, final and merciless. “Do you think men will line at your door forever? This is your chance for a husband, for a family. And it is our chance, our only chance, to keep our place among those who matter.”

Her breath caught, fury twining with dread. “Our place?” she demanded, eyes burning. “What do you mean "our place"?”

Silence fell. Her father’s gaze, cold and weary, told her more than words ever could. He looked at her not as a beloved daughter but as a piece on a chessboard, a burden to be moved for survival. When he finally spoke, it was quieter, but crueler for its dismissal.

“Learn to be quiet, Elleonor. For once in your life.”

The words landed like shackles. She turned, each step up the staircase heavier than the last, rage and despair battling for dominion within her chest. In her chamber, the gilded mirror waited. Her reflection glared back, her brown skin flustered, eyes alight like embers ready to consume the world. She pressed trembling hands against the glass, as though it might open to some other existence where she was free, where her choices were her own.

But even in her fury, treachery bloomed within her heart. A memory: Elijah Moore’s eyes, cold, relentless, consuming her as if she were prey. She hated him. Hated that she had noticed the cut of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders, the way stillness clung to him like armor. She hated the burn that lingered when his gaze met hers, hated how hate itself began to feel like hunger. Her body betrayed her, restless beneath the silks of her gown, as though part of her wanted not escape but collision.

She buried her face in her hands. Rage, desire, despair, an unholy trinity, twisted together until she could no longer tell them apart.

__

The ballroom was a cathedral of excess, gilded and glimmering beneath a canopy of crystal chandeliers. Candlelight spilled over silk and satin, over jewels that glittered like stars against the dark, polished floor. The music swelled, sweet and merciless, while the air itself seemed thick with perfume and gossip. The night was built for spectacle, and tonight, spectacle meant Ella Davenport and Elijah Moore.

Ella entered like a storm disguised as a saint. Her gown was the softest shade of blush, a daring choice against her dark, luminous skin. Under the candlelight, she glistened, her shoulders aglow, her curls framing her face like a halo spun in defiance. A diamond clip caught the light in her hair, but it was her smile, radiant, deliberate, sharpened into a weapon that drew every gaze. Men flocked to her orbit, moths helpless to her flame, charmed by her laughter that rang just a little too loud, a little too careless. She wanted them to look. She wanted him to see.

And he did.

Elijah Moore stood at the edge of the room, broad and motionless in deep blue velvet, his shoulders square as if carved from stone. He did not smile, did not bow or preen. He only watched, always watching, a shadow tethered to her light. Where she danced, his gaze followed. Where she laughed, his jaw tightened. The contrast between them was its own performance: she, all fire and defiance; he, cold steel cloaked in silence.

When the waltz was called, the crowd parted as if the music itself conspired. Ella had no choice but to step into the role written for her. His hand, gloved and unyielding, took her waist. His other captured hers, drawing her fingers into his grip with a pressure that felt like both a claim and a warning.

Her glare met his eyes, bright as embers against the ice of his stare. They began to turn, the music swelling around them like a storm.

“You think to frighten me?” she whispered, her lips curled into something dangerously close to a smile.

His answer came low, dark velvet against her ear. “I think to bind you. One way or another.”

His hand burned through silk, his nearness a flame she could not shake. Each step was a duel, each turn a clash of will. She spun, she spat venom, yet her pulse betrayed her, hammering beneath his palm. His gaze never faltered, and for one dizzying heartbeat, she wondered if her hatred was only the mask for something hotter, something her body betrayed with every breath.

She tore her hand from his, breaking the spell, and swept away into the crowd. A murmur rippled through the ballroom at her audacity. Elijah’s composure cracked just enough to reveal the steel beneath; he strode after her, cutting through the sea of silk and velvet until he caught her wrist just beyond the candlelight.

“I despise you,” she hissed, her voice trembling with fury.

“Good,” he murmured, his eyes dark and consuming. “Despise me all you wish. It will not free you. We are bound, Ella Davenport. In spite of you. In spite of me. And in spite of the whole damn world.”

But then Elijah’s composure faltered, if only for a heartbeat. His breath grazed her cheek as he leaned closer, his brown eyes, even darker, catching fire in the candlelight.

“I hate you too,” he said, the words rough, torn from somewhere deep. His grip on her wrist tightened, not in cruelty, but as though she were the only anchor in a storm. “But I will tame you, Miss Davenport.” His mouth hovered just at her ear, velvet and threat all at once. “Just give me time.”

She froze, her pulse colliding with his, her fury tangling with a heat she could not name. Her lips parted, though no words came. And in that suspended instant, between chandelier light and shadow, between loathing and longing, they stood on the knife’s edge of ruin.

Then, as though the world itself had remembered them, the music swelled, the crowd stirred, and the spell shattered. Ella tore herself free, her skirts flashing pink and gold as she vanished into the throng. Elijah remained, immovable, though every vein in him thrummed with the promise he had just spoken aloud.

The Chicago Gazette, April 15, 1893 Last night’s ball offered spectacle enough for three seasons, yet all eyes returned, inevitably, hungrily, to the pairing of Elijah Moore and Elleonor Davenport. Their dance was less waltz than duel. She, a vision in rose and rebellion. He, stoic, unyielding, draped in midnight. If eyes could kill, or kiss, the pair would already be a scandal. If hate truly burns brighter than love, then Chicago may soon find itself consumed by the blaze.

@imqueenmelanin @mogul93 @brownsugarcoffy

A/N: I was inspired to write this story by @milkywayzard. She set up the stage for this Gilded Age/Bridgerton tell of the twins and I run with a thought surrounding Smoke and a OC. So here it is the set up, please let me know if you think is any good!

Summary: Chicago, 1893. The city hums with jazz, steel, and secrets. When rebellious Elleonor Davenport is promised to Elijah “Smoke” Moore, the ruthless, storm-eyed heir whispered to have killed his father society gasps. Their betrothal is spectacle, not love. She mocks him, he cages her. Every ball, every glance, every clash of silk and shadow becomes a duel. Hate burns, obsession smolders, and Chicago watches to see who bends—and who burns first.

Pairing: Elijah "Smoke" Moore x Black!OC - HistoricalAU, smut, fluff, angst

Chapter Two

Dawn crawled across the Moore estate like a bruise spreading under skin, blue and tender at the edges. Elijah had not slept. The study was a reliquary of shadow: books standing like soldiers at attention, the hearth breathing a slow, ambered pulse, wax congealed at the lip of a candlestick where the flame had died without him noticing. He stood at the window with his palms braced to the cold glass, and the glass, unpitying, returned him to himself—high-boned face, a mouth too stern, eyes the color of burnt amber, deep and brown as tobacco smoke. He thought, with a contempt as old as his grief, that desire is a poor, unruly thing to grow in a house built for obedience.

He replayed the waltz as one reopens a wound. Her waist under his hand, heat that shocked him through expensive cloth; the slip of her pulse, a wild bird in the cage of his palm; the bite of her whisper against his ear as if it were teeth, as if words could leave marks. He had said more than he should have, said it into the soft place where her breath warmed his jaw. I hate you too… I will tame you. Give me time. Fools speak promises. Men of the Moore name do not. And yet his body hummed with the vulgar truth that he had meant every syllable. He despised the knowledge, and he despised that despising did nothing to quench it.

The door creaked. Stack’s voice came first, lazy and amused. “Still upright? I thought the mighty heir would have drunk himself back into righteousness by now.”

Elijah didn’t turn. “Go to bed.”

“Impossible. There’s too much pleasure in watching you wrestle with feelings you refuse to name.” Stack sauntered closer, the firelight catching the smirk in his eyes. “You danced with her like a man condemned. Tell me, brother, did duty feel that good?”

Elijah’s laugh was quiet, humorless. “You mistake control for indulgence.”

“I mistake nothing. I’ve seen the way you look at her.” Stack leaned against the desk, toying with one of the unopened invitations. “If I were you, I’d stop pretending you’re immune. She’s fire, Elijah. And you...” he gestured vaguely, as though searching for a polite word “...you’re ash pretending to be stone.”

Elijah finally turned, his expression unreadable. “Love,” he said, as if testing the sound of it, “is not required of us.”

“Neither is living, but most of us do it anyway.”

Their eyes met, brown against brown, so alike and yet so distant. For a moment the sarcasm drained from Stack’s voice. “You really believe it, don’t you? That you can build a life from duty alone.”

“I don’t believe,” Elijah said, turning back toward the window, “I endure. There’s a difference.”

Stack studied him for a long, unguarded moment. “Then may God help you when she stops enduring.”

The silence after was a slow exhale. When Stack finally left, Elijah picked up the decanter and poured without looking, let the amber settle like honey in the glass. He did not drink. The ritual mattered more than its reward. Discipline was a liturgy in this house. He turned from the window, and in crossing the rug, Father’s rug, assertive in its blood-dark pattern, he felt the house itself remind him who he was. The heir. The silence. The blade held still until the killing stroke.

The rumor of patricide lingered in Chicago’s parlors and in his brother’s jokes; it clung to him like soot. He did not clean himself of it. Let it serve. If they feared the ghost of a crime, they would not question the man.

But there was one person who did not fear him at all. She met his gaze as if she had a right to it. She flung her heat at him without apology. He admired that, even as he plotted how to cage it. The thought, admiration, felt treacherous. He pressed his thumbs hard into his temples until light spangled behind his eyes. When he lowered his hands, the house was no quieter, but he was. Elijah straightened the cuff at his wrist until the linen lay flat, until the man in the glass looked again like a verdict. The sun broke a thin blade at the horizon. He picked up his pen and began to sign where his mother had left ribbons of invitations on his desk. When the city woke, it would wake to certainty.

Morning found Ella in a bed that had been a haven and now felt like an altar. The first light painted her ceiling with the faint shimmer of the chandelier’s teardrops; an echo of last night’s ballroom trembled there as if the crystals remembered waltzes of their own. She lay very still, as one lies to keep an ache from spilling, and admitted the thing she would not speak aloud: she had dreamt him. Not his words, those had been carved into her already, but his nearness. In the dream she could not name, her mouth was parted, and his eyes were closer, and the music did not end.

Shame heated her before she even pushed the covers back. She rose like a woman throwing herself into a fight, and the carpet welcomed her feet with that expensive hush that said nothing, that said behave. At her vanity, the Gazette lay folded with the tidiness of a threat. She did not open it. She knew the cadence of the city’s voice when it cut, soft as lace and twice as cruel. Flame and stone. Who will break first. She tied her robe too tight and studied the woman in the mirror: dark skin gleaming where the silk gaped at her throat, last night’s pins loosened so that her curls were a wild crown, a mouth like a sin she had not yet committed. She was beautiful, yes; beauty had always been her weapon and her prison. But this morning it looked like a mask to be buckled on.

Her maid announced letters in a voice that tried to sound neutral. The silver tray glittered with heavy paper, the sort that bruises fingers, engraved names blooming with ink: Moore. Greeley. Stone. Invitations, congratulations, command performances disguised as civility. Ella lifted the top card and felt the weight of it. The engagement was no longer a whisper. It had entered the world as a thing that could be held and sent and stamped. She imagined tearing every envelope into ribbons and salting the ashes. She imagined Elijah’s mouth when she did.

Her mother entered without knocking, all starch and tremble. “We go to the dressmaker at noon. You will be fitted for the portrait sitting. Mrs. Moore has arranged a photographer—the new kind, with flash. Don’t make a face; it’s the fashion. There is also a luncheon, and Thomas has offered her conservatory for a floral display in your honor, she will have peonies flown from New York, isn’t that...”

“Stop.” Ella did not quite raise her voice. She placed a hand against the invitations until the edges bit her palm. “Is there any corner of my day that is mine?”

Her mother looked at her with something like pity and something like calculation. “There is only forward, Elleonor.”

_______

The fittings were a study in hands and pins and patience. The modiste, an artist with a mouth full of pins and a heart full of secrets, circled Ella with a measuring tape, murmuring to the silk as if it were a skittish animal. Satin in the gentlest blush slithered over Ella’s hips and pooled at her feet, the cut daring at the collarbones where candlelight would gild her into temptation. “Stand still, my dove,” the woman whispered, and Ella tried, but fury made even her bones restless. Each prick of a pin was another small surrender, another stitch closing her inside a story she had not written. When at last the modiste stepped back, satisfied, the gown gleamed like a promise made to someone else.

By noon, Ella was driven across the city to the portrait sitting. The photographer’s studio occupied the top floor of a narrow brick building, its tall north-facing windows veiled in muslin to soften the thin sun. The air smelled of varnish and collodion, sharp and chemical; glass plates leaned in drying racks like pale ghosts waiting for life.

Elijah was already there when she arrived, standing beside the great camera on its wooden tripod. The photographer, a wiry man with tobacco-stained fingers, explained that they must hold still, perfectly still, for several heartbeats while the light caught them.

He positioned them with reverent hands. Ella’s gloved fingers brushed the carved arm of a chair; Elijah stood behind her, one hand resting at the narrow of her waist, the other folded at his side. The pose was propriety sculpted into intimacy.

“Do not move,” the man murmured, retreating beneath the black cloth. “Think of something constant.”

Ella stared into the lens and felt Elijah’s breath hover just above the crown of her head. Each second stretched, her pulse, his restraint, the faint scrape of the shutter as it closed. When it was done, the photographer carried the glass plate away as one carries a newborn, whispering, “Beautiful. The light adores you.”

They stepped apart as if burned.

The photographer bowed them out of the studio, hands still smelling faintly of chemicals and varnish. Before Ella could breathe free of Elijah’s shadow, her mother spoke briskly: “Miss Atwater has prepared tea for the newly engaged, Elleonor. We mustn’t keep her waiting.”

Ella’s sigh was the smallest rebellion. “Must we?”

Mrs. Davenport fixed her daughter with a look sharpened by years of restraint. “We must. Commitment, my dear.”

Elijah’s jaw flexed once. “As you wish.” He did not meet Ella’s eyes, but the annoyance was evident in the tightening of his gloves, the measured precision of his every movement.

In the carriage, the silence between them was brittle as glass. Ella watched the passing streets, iron balconies, carriages heavy with lace, men tipping hats at faces more obedient than hers, and thought that if she could leap out now, she might never stop running.

When they arrived at Miss Atwater’s townhouse, the air smelled of roses and scandal. Stack was already there, lounging against the marble mantel, cup in hand, grin perfectly placed. “At last,” he announced, voice smooth as bourbon. “The future Mr. and Mrs. Moore grace us with their harmony.”

Elijah gave him a look that could have frozen champagne. “Don’t start.”

“Who, me?” Stack pressed a hand to his chest. “I only meant to toast the happy union.” His eyes flicked to Ella, gleaming with mischief. “You must know, Miss Davenport, my brother’s brand of happiness can be rather… austere.”

Ella tilted her head. “Then perhaps you might lend him some warmth, Mr. Moore.”

Stack laughed, delighted. Elijah’s mouth twitched, something between irritation and unwilling amusement.

Miss Atwater, resplendent in violet silk, swept forward to greet them. She was a woman of formidable grace, her voice honeyed but edged with purpose. “My dear Ella,” she cooed, kissing her niece’s cheek, “you look radiant and exhausted. I fear the city’s excitement devours you.”

“Only what it’s allowed to,” Ella replied softly.

The older woman’s eyes warmed. Beneath the pleasantries lay something conspiratorial, a shared understanding. “Come, child. Sit beside me. There are… possibilities worth discussing.”

Across the room, Elijah stood near the piano, every inch of him carved from composure. His mother was speaking to Mrs. Atwater with the careful language of alliances, but he could feel Ella’s presence even without looking. She laughed at something her aunt whispered, a laugh too free, too bright. He turned his head, and Stack caught the glance.

“Careful, brother,” Stack murmured. “You glare like a man watching his own undoing.”

Elijah said nothing. He didn’t need to.

And then the parlor changed. A new voice at the door, low, smooth, dangerously warm.

“Miss Davenport,” said the newcomer, bowing with a flourish that caught every eye. “It’s been far too long.”

Antoine Laurent stepped into the room like a memory returning in color. He was broad-shouldered, perfectly tailored, his skin deep and gleaming, his smile an invitation no one could quite refuse. He had the kind of presence that made even light slow to admire him.

Ella froze. “Mr. Laurent,” she said, her voice steady but her pulse unsteady beneath it. “Chicago didn’t warn me you were back.”

“It would be cruel to spoil the surprise.” He smiled, lazy, golden, deliberate. “And what a sight to come home to.”

Her mother’s fan fluttered sharply. Miss Atwater’s eyes flicked to her niece in quiet warning: steady.

Elijah’s posture did not change, but the temperature in the room did. Stack, sensing the shift, whistled low. “Ah. And here comes the spark.”

Antoine bowed toward Mrs. Davenport, murmured something polite, and then turned back to Ella. “You’ve not changed,” he said. “Still impossible to forget.”

“Nor you,” she replied, though she wished the words had come colder.

He laughed, rich and soft, a sound meant to be shared. “Then perhaps we are both doomed.”

Across the parlor, Elijah set his teacup down with exact, deliberate care. “Mr. Laurent,” he said, the words too calm to be harmless. “Welcome back to Chicago.”

Antoine inclined his head. “Mr. Moore. I congratulate you.”

“I’m sure you do,” Elijah replied.

The silence that followed was the kind that drew every glance in the room. Miss Atwater smiled behind her teacup, eyes glinting like a strategist watching pieces fall into place.

Ella felt caught between two gravities: Elijah’s stillness, Antoine’s warmth, and somewhere between them, her own pulse, traitorous and alive.

The hour at Miss Atwater’s passed like a storm behind lace curtains, too much laughter, too much watching. When Ella and Elijah finally took their leave, the air outside felt colder, the streetlamps just beginning to bloom their amber halos. The carriage waited at the curb, breath clouding from the horses’ nostrils like smoke.

Her mother was still saying polite goodbyes at the door. Stack lingered inside, charming someone’s daughter into ruin. For the first time that day, they were nearly alone.

“You enjoyed yourself,” Elijah said at last, voice clipped but steady.

She tilted her head, smiling without warmth. “You make it sound like a sin.”

“Flirting with Laurent in front of half the city was a sin,” he replied. “Or perhaps only a strategy.”

“Strategy?” She laughed, low and dangerous. “You think everything is a transaction, Mr. Moore. Not everything a woman does is about you.”

“Then why do you do it to me?” His words landed soft, almost tender, and that made them worse.

Ella’s pulse kicked. “Because you’re the only one who looks at me and sees a cage instead of a choice.”

He stepped closer, close enough that the faint scent of cologne and smoke reached her. “Because you act as though the fire you play with won’t burn you.”

“Maybe I want to burn.”

“Elleanor,” he said, and her name in his mouth was almost a plea. “You think Laurent could handle you? He’d worship you for a week and run before the ashes cooled.”

“Then perhaps I’ll make him run,” she snapped.

The sound that escaped him was somewhere between a laugh and a groan. He moved before he thought, his hand braced against the carriage behind her head, the space between them charged and narrow. “You want chaos,” he murmured. “But chaos is a poor substitute for power.”

“And what do you want?” she whispered. “Obedience?”

His breath brushed her cheek. “Peace,” he said. “And you make it impossible.”

The world slowed. A servant passed by with a lantern, catching their faces in sudden light, her defiant chin, his hand too close to her hair. The lantern paused, then moved on. The damage was done.

Elijah straightened first, cold returning like armor. “You’ll learn, Miss Davenport,” he said quietly, “that fire always needs something to consume.”

She met his gaze, unflinching. “Then pray it isn’t you.”

He opened the carriage door. “Get in.”

She did, without a word. The ride home was silent but alive with everything unsaid, the rustle of silk, the pulse of breath, the war between restraint and ruin.

A/N: Okay, so I guess you really liked this story and I am so happy and it was a surprise cause this was an idea I came up with since I open this account as a MBJ, Sinners page I was didn't know where it was going until this weekend. So yeah, thank you so much for reading and let me know what you think! Also, this was supposed to be a slow burn, but I spend like four hours writing cause I couldn't stop, so... yeah.

Meanwhile, in a green room at WB studios…

The hum of the fluorescents mixed with the muffled roar of the studio audience still filtering through the walls. Michael sat in the corner chair, posture loose, phone balanced easily in his hand. A speaker played some electronic pop track, but in his head, it was quieter, slowed down, like the moment after a fight when you’re still catching your breath.

His team orbited him, manager, publicist, assistant, buzzing like static. Everyone had an opinion, everyone had a joke, but he wasn’t really hearing them. Not fully.

On his phone: her book: "Shadow and Flame" Screen glowing with underlined passages, fragments people were already tweeting out like gospel. He scrolled slow, thumb dragging across words he’d already read. He’d picked it up on a recommendation, expecting something sharp but niche, something he could flip through between meetings. Instead, it had caught him. The way she cut into the page, unsentimental, sensual, a little dangerous. Like she wasn’t afraid to bruise the reader to make her point.

And now? That same voice, that same pen, belonged to the woman the internet was clowning him over. The fanfiction jokes, the “Shadow Daddy” memes… they didn’t bother him. What got him was the collision of worlds: the switchblade prose and the woman who’d turned him into a fever dream on Tumblr.

“You’re seriously asking for her number?” his manager broke through, half laughing, peeking at his phone. “After she wrote that?”

Michael’s dimples cut deep, betraying the calm front he tried to hold. He scrolled again, eyes still fixed on her words, not the noise around them.

“She’s got a pen like a switchblade,” he said finally, his voice low, deliberate. “And she made me interesting.”

His publicist barked out a laugh. “Man, she wrote about you baking sourdough and overthrowing governments in the same breath. That’s not interesting, that’s chaos.”

Michael lifted his eyes then, just for a second. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t perform for them, he didn’t need to.

“Yeah,” he said simply. “Get me her number.”

But once the laughter died down, they all went back to their phones, back to their schedules and their chatter about brand deals and magazine covers. Michael stayed where he was, thumbing the corner of his phone like it might spill something new if he pressed hard enough.

The truth was, he’d already underlined her twice in his mind before all of it even started. The night before Jennifer Hudson, he’d sat in his kitchen; a script proposal for a movie, untouched, a couple of business proposal from brands, ignored. He read her book until the sky went gray. What had stopped him, really stopped him, was a paragraph where she described loneliness like it was a room you learned to decorate. Not to escape, but to survive in.

He hadn’t expected it to sting.

That was the thing about her writing: she made the private feel exposed, the politic feel personal, the open wound a blaze for resistance but also for joy. She wasn’t writing for sympathy; she was writing like she’d already made peace with herself, so she didn’t care about anything else.

Now, hours later, he could still feel that under his skin.

He tilted his head back against the chair, exhaling through his nose. His phone screen lit up again with another clip of them together, spliced and edited by some overzealous fan. He didn’t even press play, he just stared at the thumbnail, her laughing, eyes sharp, mouth parted, full lips catching light, easy and unbothered, like she didn’t know how magnetic she looked.

Not like the book. Not like the author in solitude. This was different. Livelier, looser. A woman who looked like she might talk over you at dinner.

And he felt something tug in him, not just curiosity, not just the quiet awe he had for her words, but a more physical pull, one that pressed against the edges of his composure. He was used to being watched, wanted, picked apart. He wasn’t used to being… surprised. That’s what she did to him.

Somewhere between those Julies, the sharp one on the page, the bright one on the screen and the freak that wrote him as a horny zealot, was the woman he wanted to know.

His assistant hovered again. “You really want me to text Sandra? Lock this in before it becomes a thing?”

Michael sat forward, phone dropping to his knee. His voice was steady, almost casual, but it pulled all the air with it.

“Do it,” he said. “But don’t make it a press move. Just… get me her number.”

He leaned back again, and for a long moment he just sat there, the room noisy around him, eyes fixed on his screen. The cursor blinked against her words. The internet thought it was about fanfiction, about him being some character. They didn’t know that he’d already seen something else in her, something carved, deliberate, intimate.

And that was the thing that made his chest tighten just a little as he finally typed:

“I finished your book. You don’t make it easy to put down.”

His thumb hovered, then pressed send.

__

Julie had been hiding in her apartment since the show.

Her Venice Beach condo wasn’t big, but it carried weight, warm, lived-in, pulsing with memory. The walls, painted in deep terracotta, seemed to radiate heat even after the sun went down. Purple light from a salt lamp bled into corners where shadows pooled, softening the clutter: stacked records, towers of paperbacks from Baldwin to Morrison, a wall dedicated to pictures of her family and friends. This was her house, but also, herself.

Incense curled in the air, the soft soundtrack of The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon, sweetened by the sticky gold of honey glinting from Oshun’s altar. Candles burned low, their flames bending with the draft, wax bleeding into shallow bowls. The smell was lush, heady honey, sage, her own skin warmed against cotton. It made her feel suspended between prayer and temptation.

She moved barefoot across the rug, her white dress skimming her thighs like a slip she’d forgotten to take off. Her curls, wrapped in a scarf, fell in loose tendrils near her temple, and when she leaned forward to adjust a candle wick, the scarf slipped slightly undone but elegant, like her. Julie felt both a priestess and a woman waiting to be untied, depending on who might be looking.

She had just lowered herself before the altar, murmuring half a plea to her ancestors, when Cardi’s voice split the silence.

“There’s some hoes in this house; there’s some hoes in this hose…”

She knew. WAP. Her college friends, her sisters. Always.

She snatched the phone, thumb sliding across the screen. Caro’s face popped up first, earrings catching the lamplight like disco balls. Dani was already holding a glass of wine, lips pursed mid-sip. Angie wore that smirk, sharp, like she already knew what Julie was about to say and was only waiting to weaponize it.

“JULIEEEEEE,” Caro sang. “The literary seductress of Venice Beach.”

Dani leaned in, squinting at the screen. “No, no, no. She’s Saint Julie, not just books, not just sex, a religious experience.”

Angie tilted her chin. “And meanwhile, every single person alive is calling Michael #ShadowDaddy.” She grinned, teeth bright. “Because of you. The title of your book has become a sex hashtag!!”

Julie rolled her eyes, flopping onto her couch. “Please. Y’all are just happy you don’t have to pay for my therapy anymore.”

Caro gasped dramatically. “Did you hear that? A celebrity shading her best friends. Stardom changes people.”

Julie grabbed a throw pillow and hurled it toward the phone, the motion jerky, playful. “Don’t make me block you.”

The laughter on the other end doubled, voices overlapping until she had to bite back her own smile. Their noise filled the room, cut through the honey and incense, grounded her.

But then, when the giggles thinned, Angie’s voice sharpened. “Okay, but real question: did he ask for your number?”

Julie hesitated. Then, a slow smile twisted at her mouth and a heavy: “Yes.”

The screen erupted again. Caro fell sideways out of frame. Dani slapped her glass against the camera like a toast. Angie just whispered like she was narrating prophecy: “Hoekari strikes again.”

Dani cackled. “Michael Hoekari Jordan, the man that you are…”

Julie shook her head, laughing despite herself. “You’re all insufferable.”

But the laughter settled, as it always did, leaving space for the truth to seep out. Julie leaned back into the couch, eyes tracing the candlelight flicker on her ceiling. Her voice softened. “Sandra gave him my number and I… he texted and left him unread”

A pause. The kind only friends could hold without breaking.

“I just…” She exhaled. “I wanted this to be mine, you know? My book. My moment. I wanted to savor it. Feel it. Instead, it’s already… slipping. Like I’m being swallowed by this Michael thing before I even get to taste what I built.”

The silence on the line wasn’t pity. It was presence. Then Caro’s voice, low and steady: “Julie, nobody’s stealing your story. Not Michael, not the internet. Your words are still yours. You just, accidentally made them sexy.”

Julie laughed once, small, like a crack in the wall. Angie cut in: “And also, bitch, you left Michael-fucking-B-Jordan unread. You might actually be God.”

The three of them screamed with laughter until Julie let herself laugh too, tears pricking at the edges. The altar glowed behind her, candles still burning down, shadows flickering like they approved.

Julie pulled her scarf tighter, staring at the wavering light of the candles like it might blink back an answer. “It’s not just him,” she said finally. “Sandra’s been blowing up my phone every hour. Meetings, interviews, stupid PR angles, like how to ‘leverage’ Michael for more exposure.”

She spit the word out like it burned her tongue.

Caro leaned closer to the camera, her earrings swaying. “And?”

“And it’s exhausting.” Julie’s voice cracked. She pressed her knuckles into her eyes. “I wrote this book alone, editing shitty magazine articles and “personal growth” books, you know? Broke and tired, thinking maybe five people would care. And now there’s hashtags and fake smiles and Sandra asking me to flirt for cameras, like I’m some… prop in a show and then Michael happened to be there.”

Angie whistled low. “So, basically, capitalism.”

Julie laughed through her sigh. “Exactly. Honestly, if it were Thomas Sankara texting me, I’d know exactly what to say but I can’t even figure out how to text him back. Every time I try to open the message my thumbs forget how to move. It feels too big. Like if I answer, I’m stepping deeper into a machine I can’t control.”

For once, none of them joked. Dani tilted her head, thoughtful. “Okay, but hear me out, do it for the plot.”

Julie blinked. “Excuse me?”

Caro picked it up instantly. “Yes. Worst case? He’s an asshole, and you get the greatest heartbreak chapter for your next book.”

Angie smirked, deadly serious. “Best case? ShadowDaddy is actually worth it. Either way, baby, you win.”

Julie let her head fall back against the couch, a helpless smile spreading despite herself. “You’re all the devil.”

Caro wagged her finger. “Correction: we’re your muses.”

They laughed again, the kind of laughter that cracked her open just enough for breath to rush back in. She looked at her phone lying face down on the table, the notification still waiting beneath the screen. The candles hissed, one sputtering out, and for a second, she swore her altar flickered like it agreed.

“I can’t even bring myself to open it,” she confessed, her voice soft but threaded with a nervous laugh.

Angie arched a brow. “Girl, you’re dramatic. It’s just a text.”

“From Erik Killmonger himself,” Caro cut in, sing-songing the name as if she didn’t knew the man was at least a half of Julie’s body of works and a lot more than a half of her deepest desires”.

Julie groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “Don’t EVEN...”

Dani smirked. “You know what I’m about to say.”

Julie shook her head, curls bouncing under the wrap. “Don’t.”

“For the plot,” Dani declared, grinning.

Caro and Angie chimed in at once, “Do it, do it!”

She shifted, propping the phone against a pillow so they could watch her fumble. Bare feet tucked under her, she held her own phone in both hands, thumbs hovering like she was defusing a bomb.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But if it’s cringe, I’m suing you for emotional damages.”

Angie leaned close to her own screen, eyes sparkling. “Open it.”

Julie inhaled, slow and shaky, then tapped. The chat thread bloomed open, Michael’s message waiting.

Her friends screamed, the noise a riot of overlapping voices—“WHAT DOES IT SAY?!”—but Julie just froze, eyes wide, lips parted.

Her whole body went still.

“Julie?” Caro whispered.

The message glowed on the screen.

____

Julie didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until she opened his message. The words swam in her vision for a second, so simple and steady and direct that her stomach flipped. She slapped a hand over her mouth, half a laugh, half a scream, her body curling in on itself like she could keep the electricity in.

Caro’s voice still echoed through FaceTime: “Open it! What did he say?!” Angie was howling, “Don’t you dare leave us out!”

“I finished your book. You don’t make it easy to put down.”

Julie fumbled, hit the red button. Silence. Her reflection filled the black screen, flushed cheeks, hair wild around her face. She buried her face in her pillow and laughed into the cotton, a laugh that felt like crying, like relief.

When she rolled onto her back, the ceiling spun with it. Excitement. Fear. Heat. She pressed her palm to her chest to slow her heart and prayed:

Mother, Goddess of water, abundance, love, light, and creativity, may the sweetness of your honey flow into my life. We give thanks, Oshun, who descends from the heavens as God’s messenger on earth. Please Sweet mother, give me the sweetness of the word, the honey of the soul, and take away the stupid of the brain.

Hours later, hair still damp from a shower, she finally typed.

Julie: That’s generous. The truth is… writing it was easier than living it. On the page, no one interrupts you.

Send.

The pause between them was unbearable. She pressed the glass to her lips, felt her pulse in her throat. Then, three dots.

Michael: That’s the kind of line that makes a man underline a page. You’re dangerous with words, you know that?

Julie closed her eyes, warmth spreading low. Dangerous.

Julie: And still, you asked for my number. That’s reckless. Michael: Reckless is reading your whole book in one sitting and then wanting to talk to the author more than sleep.

She laughed, short and sharp, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

Julie: You didn’t even skim? Not once? Michael: Not once. I wanted to see if Shadow and João would actually make it. If you would let them. Julie: You thought I’d kill them? Michael: I thought you’d hurt them. And you did. But then you gave them softness. That was the shock. You wrote tenderness like it was war.

Her breath hitched.

Julie: Because it is. Tenderness is survival. Especially for us. I learn that from Octavia Butler. Michael: You get it. You made politics… intimate. I felt every line in my skin, not just in my head.

Julie tilted her chin, grinning at the screen.

Julie: So now you’re quoting me back to myself. Bold move. Michael: I’m not quoting you. I’m warning you. The way you write… it makes a man want to know what else you can do with that imagination.

Her legs curled under her, pulse flickering like a candle.

Julie: Michael… Michael: Julie. Julie: Are you trying to make me shy? Michael: You? Shy? You wrote three Killmonger fanfics where he was saved by pussy. I don’t believe you know how to be shy.

She burst out laughing, throwing her head back.

Julie: You READ them?! Michael: I studied them. I needed to understand the evolution. You started with one wounded man and ended with an entire revolution. And you made it sexy. How do you even pull that off? Julie: Maybe because I know men are dangerous when they don’t know how to be held.

Silence. Three dots. Stop. Three dots again.

Michael: Julie… that’s not a line. That’s prophecy.

Her throat tightened.

Julie: Or maybe it’s just foreplay.

The pause stretched, almost unbearable, until...

Michael: What was that? Julie: Foreplay. Michael: You’re really going to do this to me over text? Julie: You’re the one who asked for my number, remember? Reckless. Michael: Reckless is wanting more. Right now.

She whispered, “Oshun, give me courage.”

Julie: Describe “more.” Michael: More is the way João kissed Shadow like they had all the time in the world even when they didn’t. More is not holding back. More is letting you ruin me in real time instead of on the page.

Her hand trembled against the phone.

Julie: Michael… Michael: Tell me how you’d write me. Right now. No edits.

Her whole body buzzed, fire spreading in her chest, belly, thighs.

Julie: Fine. I’d write you as the man who looks calm in the storm, all dimples and smiles, but carries thunder in his bones. A man who swears he’s steel, until someone presses the right words against him and he melts. And when he melts, it’s unbearable, it’s sweet, he gives in so completely the only thing you can do is beg.

A long pause.

Michael: You’re really not going to let me sleep tonight, are you? Julie: Do you want to sleep Michael? Michael: Not if this is what's waiting for me awake. Julie: Then write me. Michael: Write you? Julie: You heard me. You’ve read me. Now write me. Michael: Dangerous request. Julie: You said I was dangerous first. Now prove it. Michael: Bet. I’d write you with a body that makes lies collapse. All curves, all fullness, like you’ve been daring the world to carry you and it can’t. Julie: Oh. Michael: Your lips, don’t get me started. No editor alive would cut them. They’d beg to keep them on the page. Julie: Are you flirting with my lips? Michael: With your lips. With your hair. That autumn fire that makes me think of riot season. And with your breasts, too. I’m not noble enough to pretend otherwise. Julie: Bold. Michael: Bold is what you do on paper. I’m just trying to keep up. Julie: You make it sound like I’m too much. Michael: Julie… there’s no such thing as too much. Not with you. That’s the whole point. Julie: Careful. I might start believing you. Michael: Good. Believe me. Because if you were here, I’d already be on my knees. Julie: And then what? Michael: Then I’d ask you to keep writing me. With your mouth this time. Julie: You’re really going to do this to me over text? Michael: You started it. Reckless, remember? Julie: Show me reckless then. Michael: Okay. Then I’m on my knees, mouth on your pussy. I’d use my tongue until the only word you remembered was my name. I’d keep you soaked, enough to drink from you like you’re the only cure for thirst. And right when you’re on the edge, I’d make you beg, really beg, for me to let you come. Julie: And would you let me? Michael: Depends. Were you good? Julie: I’m always good… Michael: Prove it. Show me. Now. Julie: Ok.

The phone camera trembles slightly, propped against her thigh. In the amber light, her brown skin glows, white dress bunched around her hips, curls spilling forward. The shot holds her hand between her legs, moving slow, spreading herself open, her folds glistening, trembling with need. A low gasp escapes her lips, just barely caught in the mic. Her fingers circle, press, dip inside, then slide out again, coated. She lets her hand linger, wet and wanting, before dragging it up over her lips, eyes closing as she tastes herself. A single moan.

The video cuts off at 5 seconds, enough to brand itself in him forever.

She sends it. Waits for the little “delivered” checkmark. Then types, simple, merciless:

Julie: Good night, Michael.

Julie never meant to become that author. She left her Killmonger fanfic days behind, but one viral fantasy novel later, a live TV interview drags it all back—right before Michael B. Jordan himself shows up. Now the internet’s in chaos, her publicist calls it opportunity, and Julie’s just trying not to die of secondhand embarrassment while the man she once wrote into 50k-word thirst fables actually wants to know her.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Julie sat in her home office, incense coiling through the air in slow ribbons, her plants dripping with the last of their watered sheen. She had scrubbed her altar, prayed until her knees ached, filled her journal with confessions, but nothing dislodged the weight of last night.

The kiss still lived in her body.

It wasn’t just memory, it was presence. His mouth pressed into her, soft and firm all at once, the shock of his tongue, the weight of his body leaning in as though the whole streetlight bent with them. She swore she could still smell him on her, cedar, vanilla and sweat. A scent so stubborn it felt like he was standing in her doorway still, waiting.

She sighed heavy, dragging her hands over her face. On her desk, her phone lit up again: one unread message. From him. From yesterday.

Her whole body ached, but she didn’t know what to do with the ache.

Her chest squeezed. She needed the girls.

Caro answered first. “JULIEEEEEE.”

Seconds later, Dani’s face popped up, already mid-scream with her wine glass in hand. “What the fuck, bitch, spill!”

Angie joined last, her smirk sharp as always. “Don’t you dare tell me nothing happened.”

Julie groaned, flopping back in her chair. “Oh my God, you three are relentless.”

“We should be relentless,” Caro snapped. “We’ve invested years in your dry-ass love life. Now dividends are paying out and you’re holding back the report?”

Julie bit her lip, heat blooming in her cheeks. “We… kissed.”

The scream that came through nearly cracked her phone speaker. Caro clutched her chest like she’d been shot. Dani dropped halfway off her couch. Angie just laughed, rich and wicked.

“Finally!” Dani yelled. “Our girl lives!”

“Details,” Caro demanded. “Like, did his tongue touch your tongue or was it PG-13?”

Julie buried her face in her scarf, muffling a laugh. “It was… definitely not PG-13.”

“Oh my God,” Angie said, fanning herself. “She kissed him like she writes. Revolutionary foreplay.”

Julie peeked out from behind the scarf, voice small. “And then… I left him outside.”

Silence. Three pairs of eyes blinked at her, stunned.

“You what?” Dani screeched, almost spilling her wine.

“Outside?” Caro yelped. “Like a stray?”

Angie’s smirk sharpened into disbelief. “Julie. You kissed Michael B. Jordan and then shut the door in his face?”

Julie’s laugh cracked, nervous. “I closed it gently!”

They screamed all over again, laughter doubling, Dani falling sideways, Caro wheezing.

But when it ebbed, Dani’s voice came soft, steady. “Okay, Jules. Why?”

Julie swallowed. Her throat felt dry. “Because I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know if I want him. And...” she hesitated, eyes darting to the unread message, “...it doesn’t make sense. Why is he even chasing me? He’s a movie star. He’s used to supermodels, to actresses, to women who look perfect on magazine covers. And me? I’m just… me. I write books. I used to write fanfiction about him, for God’s sake. Why would anyone risk their image for that?”

Her friends stilled, their faces softening but sharp with attention.

Caro leaned in, earrings swaying. “Wait, you asked him that, didn’t you?”

Julie’s cheeks flamed. She nodded shyly. “Yeah. I asked. Straight up.”

“And what did he say?” Angie pressed.

Julie’s voice dropped, shaky and small. “He said… it was because of my book. Shadow. That it got under his skin. That he felt it.” She hesitated, biting her lip. “But even that feels… unreal. Like, people read my words all the time. Why would he care enough to want me?”

The silence on the line was heavy, intimate.

Caro broke it first, fierce. “Because you’re not just words, Jules. You’re the altar, the prayer, the smoke, the curves, the fight. You’ve always been that. You wrote your hunger into the world, and he recognized it. You think he wants some paper doll? No. He wants you.”

Julie’s eyes burned. She dragged her sleeve over them, half-laughing through the tears. “God, Caro, you sound like a manifesto.”

“Maybe,” Caro said, shrugging, “but tell me I’m wrong.”

Julie couldn’t.

Dani leaned forward, her voice gentler. “Listen, Jules. You’ve spent years hiding behind characters; Killmonger, Shadow, João. But Michael? He’s real. Flesh and blood. And he’s seeing you, not the mask. That’s what scares you, isn’t it?”

Julie’s chest squeezed so tight she could barely nod.

And then Angie cut in, sharp and final: “Then stop hiding. Stop acting like this is college, like you can drop a fic update at 3 a.m. and vanish into the comments. He’s not a character waiting for you to play god. He’s a man, Jules. A real one. You don’t get to leave him standing in the street like a prop. Decide. Do something. Be responsible. This isn’t fanfiction anymore.”

Julie sat frozen, her robe slipping off her shoulder, candlelight flickering over her bare skin. The words wrapped around her, too true to laugh off.

On the desk, her phone buzzed again. The same message, unread, waiting like a dare.

____

The silence after the girls signed off was heavy, thick with incense and candlelight. Julie sat there, robe loose around her shoulders, staring at the unread message glowing on her desk. Caro’s voice still rang: you wrote magic into the world, that’s what he’s after. Angie’s, sharper: this isn’t college anymore. He’s a man. Be responsible.

Her thumb hovered, then tapped.

She opened it.

Michael: You left me standing in the street like a fool.

Her laugh cracked the stillness.

Julie: At least I didn't slam the door... Michael: You kissed me like you wanted to own me, then shut me out. That’s crueler than slamming.

Her pulse quickened.

Julie: Maybe I wanted you to think about it. Michael: I did; I haven’t stopped.

She curled into the chair, robe slipping off her shoulder.

Julie: And? Michael: And I decided one kiss wasn’t nearly enough.

Her chest tightened.

Julie: That’s dangerous. Michael: Then let it be; If you’d opened the door, Jules, I’d already have you against the wall.

Her thighs pressed together.

Julie: Bossy. Michael: No, just hungry. You kissed me like you wanted to ruin me, and all I could think was how much I wanted to ruin you back.

She shivered, teeth catching her lip.

Julie: It felt… too real. Michael: That’s the point.

Her breath hitched, fingers hesitating on the keyboard.

Julie: You talk like I wrote you. Michael: Maybe you did. But right now, I’m writing back.

Her body clenched, heat rising.

Julie: What are you writing, then? Michael: That I’d start slow, mouth on your throat, hand in your hair. And then I’d push until you’re gasping, until you forget every excuse.

Her moan slipped before she could swallow it.

Julie: You’re shameless. Michael: With you? Always. I’d do anything to you if you let me. And I wouldn’t stop until you’re saying my name the way I want it.

Her phone trembled in her grip.

Julie: Michael… Michael: Just like that. Say it again. Julie: Michael. Michael: You don’t know what it does to me, hearing it, reading it, knowing you’re already wet for me.

Her laugh broke, half-nervous, half-wanting.

Julie: You’re relentless. Michael: No, I'm inevitable. Open the door this time, Jules, let me show you what real feels like.

Her reflection stared back at her in the black glass, cheeks flushed, hair wild, robe barely clinging.

She typed, steady, decisive:

Julie: Then come.

Her body throbbed with the decision. She stood quickly, almost tripping over her robe, and ran for the shower.

Hot water poured over her like absolution. She tilted her head back, not letting her hair get wet, water run down her spine, steam curling thick in the small space. She scrubbed her skin as if she could erase hesitation, dragging her hands over every curve, every hollow. Soap lathered, slick against her breasts, her belly, between her thighs. She closed her eyes and pictured his hands instead, rough and deliberate.

When she stepped out, the mirror was clouded, her skin glowing from the heat. She reached for the jars and bottles that lined her sink, her small apothecary of desire. Shea butter first, massaged slow into her thighs, arms, and belly until her skin was supple. Then honey oil, sticky-sweet, rubbed into her shoulders, collarbone, and the valley of her breasts until she smelled edible. Finally, a veil of rose, pressed at her pulse points, behind her ears, her wrists, the insides of her knees, delicate but lingering.

She dressed in white lace lingerie, soft and indecent against her slick skin, then wrapped herself in a gauzy white dress, barefoot, fabric whispering across the floor as she moved through her apartment. Bare, glowing, scented like honey and roses, she looked like she was walking into a dream she had written herself.

One by one she lit the candles, flames flickering to life, shadows trembling against her walls. Only the amber lamp by her altar and a low floor lamp glowed, the rest drowned in golden, sultry darkness. The room thickened with scent and smoke, as though she had conjured it all for him.

The knock came just as she leaned to fix the last wick.

Low. Certain.

Julie froze, then padded to the door. When she opened it, Michael stood in the hallway, hoodie pulled low, jaw tight, eyes burning like he’d been waiting at her threshold all his life.

Without a word, he stepped in, kicked the door shut, and caught her face in his hand. The kiss landed like fire, rougher, deeper than the first, his mouth claiming hers with teeth and tongue. She gasped against him, incense and honey still thick in the air, his cologne colliding with the sweetness of rose on her skin. Her back hit the wall, candles flickering from the draft, shadows trembling like witnesses.

“Jesus,” he muttered against her lips, breath hot. “You smell like sin.”

Her lips parted, heart wild, the lace beneath her robe already damp with heat.

With one pull, he found the knot of her dress and tugged. The gauzy fabric slid apart, falling open in a whisper, revealing the white lace beneath, gleaming soft in candlelight. His groan was guttural, low, vibrating against her chest.

“Fuck,” he rasped. “You did this for me?”

Her chest rose, trembling, nipples tightening under lace. “Yes.”

He yanked his hoodie over his head, then his T-shirt, the fabric tearing in his haste. His chest was revealed, hard, cut, sheened with heat, candlelight painting every ridge of muscle amber and gold. For a second, he looked like something sculpted by a god, holy and feral at once.

In one motion, he caught her thighs and lifted her. She wrapped around him instinctively. He pressed her against the wall, the plaster biting into her back. His kiss was sharp, hungry, tasting of salt and want, his breath ragged at her neck.

“Jules… I want you…” he whispered into her mouth, then down her throat, teeth scraping. He pulled back, forehead pressed to hers, both of them panting in the thick golden dark. “What do you want?”

Her breath stuttered, the lace cutting into her soft skin, dress sliding lower. “I want you… doing whatever you want.”

Something inside him broke loose. He kissed her again, hungrier, rougher, devouring. His hand tangled in her curls, tugging until she moaned into his mouth. White lace rubbed against his bare chest, the oil from her skin slicking against his muscles.

With one hand gripping her ass to hold her steady, the other climbed her throat, fingers grazing her neck before pressing, squeezing. The world tightened with it, her pulse, her breath, the sound of her own blood rushing.

“You like this, don’t you…” he murmured, low, dangerous. His grip deepened, making her gasp, making her arch into him. “I read it.”

Her body jolted, heat and shame flooding her spine.

And then, her vision split.

The candlelight bent strange. Gold chains flashed where none were. His chest bloomed with scars, raised and raw. She blinked, heart hammering, tight braids, a violent grin, her ghost. Killmonger. Grinning as he ground her harder into the wall.

Her gasp cracked. “Michael—”

He released the choke, kissed her again, dragging her back to the heat of his mouth, the salt of his sweat. She told herself it was nothing, a slip. Julia, you are with your dream man. Literally. Stop. Focus.

He stepped back, breath hard, eyes blazing, and stripped her. The dress fell with a sigh to the floor. Then her bra, her breasts freed, heavy, brown, nipples dark and tight in the candlelit air. His breath stuttered; he almost choked at the sight of her.

Her curves glowed golden in the shadows, lush and full, her body filling the room with its gravity.

Dropping to his knees, he hooked his fingers in the white lace panties, damp with arousal. He pressed his mouth to her abdomen, kissing, tasting, inhaling her scent, honey and rose, musk and heat. She closed her eyes, aching, afraid of what she might see if she opened them.

His tongue traced lower, over her pubis, deliberate, slow, marking her. Then he peeled the lace away, leaving her bare. “Look at that pussy…” he whispered, almost reverent. “Just ready for me. Do you want me, baby?”

Her voice cracked. “Yes…”

She walked to the couch, her body swaying, golden and bare, and sat. Spreading her legs, she opened herself fully, slick, glistening, a holy offering.

Michael looked at her like she was Oshun herself, river goddess, honey flowing, rebirth incarnate.

“Eat it,” she commanded, her voice trembling but firm.

He obeyed instantly.

His tongue pressed into her folds, heavy, greedy, licking hard. She gasped, head falling back, fingers clutching the cushions. He sucked her clit, slow at first, then deeper, hungrier, until her moans filled the room. Wet sounds, raw, obscene, mixing with her cries.

She opened her eyes, her hips jerking. And froze.

Braids. Scars. A grin made of rage and hunger. Killmonger staring back from between her thighs.

She blinked, Michael’s tongue. She blinked, Killmonger’s grin. She blinked, both.

The ghost flickered in every shadow, every lick.

Her hips twisted, panic and pleasure colliding, but Michael’s grip locked her down, dragging her deeper into his mouth. She moaned, almost sobbing, the sound breaking.

Then, he slapped her pussy. The sound cracked like thunder in the candlelight.

He looked up, mouth slick, eyes dark, and said it.

“I know you want this, little slut…”

Her blood went cold. Her breath shattered. That was Killmonger’s line. Her line. Word for word, pulled from her book.

It ripped her open.

Julie gasped, pulled her legs closed, her whole body curling back into itself. The air felt too hot, thick with incense and rose, the wet sound of her arousal still echoing in the silence. Candles snapped, shadows jumping against the walls, she swore she still saw him: Killmonger, grinning, watching, alive.

Her chest heaved, her breath breaking into sharp sobs she tried to swallow.

“Jules...” Michael’s voice cracked with confusion. He was still kneeling on the rug, bare chest gleaming with sweat, mouth slick with her taste. His brow furrowed, hands reaching but hesitant, like she was glass. “Hey. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Don’t...” She pressed her palms to her face, hiding, trembling. “Don’t touch me right now.”

His hands hovered midair, then dropped. The room filled with the sound of her breathing, ragged, near tears.

He sat back on his heels, eyes searching her. “Julie… talk to me.”

Her throat tightened. Words scraped out, broken. “Why would you say that?”

He blinked. “Say what?”

Her hands fell, eyes wet, voice sharp with fear. “That. Those words. From my book.”

Michael’s chest rose hard. He shook his head, confused. “Baby, what?”

Her voice cracked into a cry. “Why would you say something from my fanfiction?” The tears spilled, hot down her cheeks, candlelight catching on them. Her body trembled, arms hugging herself like she could hold herself together.

Michael froze. Then, slow, he reached out, cupping her face, thumb brushing tears. She didn’t pull away this time—she was too tired, too raw.

“Jules… I wasn’t trying to scare you,” he said softly, voice low and rough. “I wasn’t mocking you. I’ve read your words. They’re in my head. They turn me on, they… move me. And in that moment, it came out.”

Her lips trembled, eyes wide, almost accusing. “But you sounded like him. Like...” She broke off, shaking her head, unable to finish.

Michael leaned closer, forehead almost touching hers, his voice steady but tender. “Like Killmonger.”

She swallowed hard, a sob caught in her throat.

He brushed a kiss to her temple, lingering. “Julie… it was me. Just me. Flesh and bone. I’m here. I’m not him.”

But she shook her head, still trembling. “I don’t know… I don’t know anymore. It’s like you’re bleeding into each other. I close my eyes and see him. And then you. And then both.”

“Julie,” he murmured, voice rough, “let me ground you. Just… here. With me.”

Her hand rose slowly, hesitant. She touched his shoulder first, warm, real under her fingertips. Then his chest, heat, sweat, the hammer of his heart. Michael flinched at the contact but then closed his eyes, letting her linger.

Her fingers brushed his jaw, the stubble rough, then traced his mouth, swollen from kissing her. She pressed her palm flat against his chest, over his heartbeat.

“Do you feel that?” he whispered, eyes still closed. “That’s me.”

Her lips parted, trembling. “Can I… can I hug you?”

He opened his eyes, sharp, glistening, and nodded.

She folded into him, arms wrapping, cheek pressed to his chest. He caught her instantly, pulling her tight, his chin resting on her hair. His scent flooded her, salt and skin, musk and the faintest trace of cologne, mingling with the sweetness of incense and rose. His hand stroked slow down her spine, steadying.

“It’s me,” he murmured. “Just me.”

They stayed like that, wrapped in silence, until her sobs softened into shallow breaths. He reached for the throw on the couch, draping it over them, cocooning them in heat. For a moment, time didn’t move, just the hiss of candles, the thrum of his chest against her cheek, her fingers clutching his side like if she let go, he’d vanish.

“Why me, Michael?” Her voice cracked, small but cutting. “Out of everyone, why me?”

He exhaled hard, pulled back, and stood, pacing the rug, shadows slicing over the muscles of his bare chest. His hands raked through his hair. “Why you? You really don’t see it?”

Julie’s arms wrapped around herself, blanket slipping. “No. I don’t”

He spun back to her, voice raised, raw. “Because you’re funny. Because you’re smart. Because you’re talented as hell. Because your writing made me feel, and your lips made me thirst. Because you don’t let me get away with shit. Because you’re radical, because you believe in something. You’re brilliant, Jules, your mind is fire. And yeah… because you’re sexy as hell. The kind of sexy that makes my chest ache just looking at you.”

Her tears spilled hot, voice sharp. “And the fanfiction? That’s not what hooked you?”

His jaw flexed, eyes burning. “No! That was never the reason. Do you know how many women throw themselves at me? You think I’m starving for sex? For fantasy?” He struck his chest with his palm, hard. “I wanted you. Not the fantasy. Not the character. You.”

Julie’s breath broke. “But… doesn’t it bother you? That I write that way? That I made him, that people, me, fantasize about him, about you?”

Michael froze, then stepped closer, his voice low but sure. “No. It doesn’t bother me. I’m a public figure, Jules. People love me and hate me just as much as they desire me. I don’t linger in that, if I did, I would’ve quitted fifteen years ago.” He paused, chest rising hard, eyes never leaving hers. “The thing with you… it’s different. It turns me the fuck on that a woman I want can write like that, want like that. But it’s not why I’m here. It’s not what hooked me, Jules. It’s just… fuel. You’re the fire.”

Julie shook her head, voice rising, desperate. “But you said his words! You pulled him into my pussy, Michael. You have no idea how that makes me feel”

He stepped closer, breath ragged, voice breaking. “I wasn’t pulling him in. I was pulling you. Your words. I thought you’d like it, Jules. I thought those were your fantasies and I wanted to make them real. That’s how deep you are in me.”

She trembled, near sobbing. “I… I don't know If I am able to separate you. Sometimes I see him in your face. Sometimes I don’t know who I want and that terrifies me.”

He froze, breath heaving, then laughed bitter and broken. “It terrifies me too... You think I don’t notice the way you look at me sometimes? Like you’re waiting for him to step through me? Like I’m not enough on my own?”

Her lips parted, no denial on her tongue. Tears kept coming.

Michael’s voice dropped, low but sharp, cutting through the air. “Admitted it, if you’re scared, I’m using you as a surrogate for my fantasies… then he’s your surrogate for anything real.”

Julie gasped, recoiling as if struck, the blanket slipping to the floor. The silence afterward roared, the crackle of candles, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Michael’s chest rising and falling like he’d just thrown a punch.

Neither moved. Both trembling, furious, and wanting at the same time.

Michael’s voice came softer, but no less fierce. “And you know what, Jules? You said it yourself yesterday, I’m not him. I can’t compete with him, and I don’t even want to. i already know what I want. I want you. Just you. The woman who can quote Lacan and make it sound like foreplay. The striking red hair. The woman who speaks before she thinks and makes me chase her words. I want her.”

His eyes burned, wet at the edges. “But you? You want a man in a poster. Someone you can leave hanging like a character in a story. And I’m not that. I don’t live in fiction, Jules, I live here. And I won’t live half-real just to fit your pages.”

He grabbed his clothes, movements sharp, angry. “I know now you live more in words than in me. And I… I can’t do that.”

And he left, the door shutting louder than he meant, echoing through the apartment.

Julie stood frozen, naked under the slip of blanket at her feet. Smoke curled from the candles, light flickering against her books. The room smelled of incense and sex and loss.

Empty.

A/N: I am so much of a Jules that it hurts. She is a bundle of scare and want. Let's pray for her, for Oshun to reach her.