Can I Be Your Good Girl?

your nails dig into the back of his neck as you let out a pitiful little whine and then a sharp gasp as he suddenly pulls the entire thing out in one go, a slick popping noise as your hole reluctantly releases its tight grip.

he spits on the thick head and starts to slide it back inside.

‘ah! too big, too big,’ you protest, panting, your head thrown back against the pillow beneath you.

‘aw,’ jack coos, ‘but look how much she wants it, baby.’

he grinds the toy deep, palm butting up against the base until the head kisses your cervix. you choke on your own spit, going a little cross-eyed at the pleasure-pain. jack pulls it out slow, about halfway, shaft dragging before abruptly pushing it back in, pussy wet enough to hear the slide.

‘this greedy cunt always needs something inside her, isn’t that right?’ he says.

you whimper and moan as jack speeds up his hand. the ‘shlick shlick shlick’ sounds of your pussy getting stuffed filling up the space between you.

‘i—oh,’ you say, catching jack’s eyes as your breathing grows ragged.

he’s watching you with such intensity and desire, like he wants to eat you, swallow you right up. it makes you a little dizzy.

‘your pussy feel good, princess? nice and full of cock?’

‘mmn—,’ you moan, teeth biting into your bottom lip. you give him a small nod.

‘yeah, ‘course she does,’ jack says, ‘daddy always knows what his girls need.’

he leans down and breathes you in, holding you close, his forearm flexing as he pumps your cunt full of the silicone toy.

‘and what they need right now is a good little fucking before bedtime. so they can be all relaxed and have sweet dreams while daddy goes off to work.’

the next time the toy’s pressed deep, he rubs his thumb against your swollen clit. you moan, squeezing tight around the toy, pleasure shooting electric.

‘mm, there we go,’ jack murmurs, circling your clit as you spasm, ‘can’t forget about her too, now can we, princess?’

he doesn’t stay there for long, abandoning your clit to start sliding the toy in and out again, ignoring the way you grasp at the short curls on the back of his neck.

‘oh, fuck, wait, please,’ you say, your voice high and breathy, needing his attention back there, more than desperate for it.

‘shh,’ jack says, ‘just relax and take what daddy gives you. be a good little hole for me.’

he’s fucking you hard with the toy now, your stomach tensing each time it slides home, your leg shaking where jack has it pressed up against your chest.

‘but—,’ you try and say, but jack just shakes his head, giving you a knowing look that has your mouth snapping shut.

‘no more talking, baby. holes don’t talk, okay? holes get used.’

the sound you let out is so pathetic it mortifies you, heat spreading from the center of your forehead out, down, past your cheeks and your neck, into your chest. suffusing until you feel like you might actually start glowing from the warmth.

jack presses a kiss to your forehead, humming.

together, the two of you watch as the toy in his hand splits you open again, head catching against your opening before your pussy sucks it deep inside, back where it belongs.

relaxing in his hold, all control released, you let your boyfriend pump you full of fake cock for as long as he wants, until he decides you’ve had enough, your eyes wet with desperate tears and your lips gone swollen from your gnawing teeth.

‘does my little girl want to come?’ jack finally asks, his voice sweet and coddling.

you nod frantically, looking up at him, pleading with your whole face.

‘she can come,’ jack says, pressing the toy deep, a featherlight touch of his thumb on your clit.

but it’s all you need, sitting on the edge as you have been, and you shake apart, mouth dropped open to whisper a repeated, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ to jack, eyes locked onto his own, his pupils blown wide, devouring you.

he kisses you when you’re done, wet and filthy, full of tongue like he’s trying to taste how grateful you are.

‘good girl,’ he praises you, sucking on your bottom lip.

he slides the toy out careful and slow, letting your knee lower down to the bed.

you let out a quiet whimper when you’re left empty, feeling sensitive and open. bereft, your pussy clenching down around nothing. but jack doesn’t leave you empty any longer than he has to, slipping three thick fingers inside, curling them up against your pubic bone.

‘shh, don’t worry, baby. daddy’s got you,’ jack says, nuzzling his nose against yours. ‘daddy’s always got you.’

he stays like that, fingers pressed deep, plugging you full, until you fall asleep, sated, in your shared bed.

*

his head was tilted up, groaning to the ceiling. his readers had gone out of alignment, it now sat on the pointiest tip of his nose. his hair unruly from your fingers roughly running across his scalp, and his face flushed and sweaty — he looked absolutely laughable like this. what would his peers or juniors think if they caught their very serious and very professional attending — helpless before a pretty young thing?

there was a large, creamy stain starting to form on jack’s dress pants, and it’s only getting bigger the longer you keep this up. 

“oh god. fuck– ff-fifty. i’m fifty.” he almost whined at the end of his response. 

“again.” you pressed. the roll of your hips getting faster and more desperate.

“i’m fifty. i’m fifty.” he held you firmly at the soft curve where your hips met your thighs, encouraging your movements. his breathing had become more ragged, his moans and groans getting much louder as he’s nearing his peak. 

you begged once more. “say it again, please. dad, please! i’m gonna cum if you tell me again. please. please! i’m gonna cum–” 

since you asked so nicely, looking so pretty as you did, jack leaned in close to the shell of your ear. the lightest touch of his lips and the gruffness of his voice made you shiver. 

“i’m fifty years old, babydoll. shouldn’t have any business playing around with your dad like this, hm? but you’re a nasty girl. when nasty girls feel achey here–” he pressed the pad of his thumb over your throbbing clit. “–they fuck themselves on their dads’ cock.”

“aahh!” you shrieked at the top of your lungs, the walls of your cunt intensely pulsated around his fat length. 

“shit! i’m gonna cum. i’m not wearing a condom – baby, baby i gotta pull out!” he tried to maneuver himself so he could take himself out before he shot his load in you. 

but you kept yourself buried deep, using your position to your advantage. 

“babydoll–” jack warned you. “get up, young lady.”

“no!” 

he wriggled and squirmed beneath you. he should be able to overpower you but if he got up all of a sudden, he’s afraid he might push you down the floor or hurt you in any way. he just desired for you to gently pull out. 

“you asking to get spanked?!” 

he didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he’s very strict about using practising safe sex. it was already risky enough to let you warm his cock in the first place. he also didn’t want you to feel regret  — if something or someone did come to fruition. he didn’t want to put any pressure on you if you were unprepared to step into that chapter of your lives. 

“don’t care, daddy. jus’ wanna feel you cum inside me. i need it.” if that was not convincing enough for him, you took hold of his face in your hands to look him in the eyes. 

despite the sensitivity of your core, you started to slowly grind on his lap again, mercilessly not giving your lover any other choice. 

that made the dam burst, loads and loads of his spend was released in your sex. his cries were sharp, the loudest you’d ever heard from him. you noticed there were actual tears in his eyes, you carefully wiped them away with the tips of your fingers. 

“daddy? i reallyyy want a sister, but i don’t care that much at all, to be honest. a healthy sibling would be perfect.” ♡

“Later.” You tug the plastic bag from his hand, thunk it onto the entry table, and hook a finger through his belt loop. “Kitchen’s close enough.”

The fridge whirs, oblivious, while you drag him backward until thighs hit cool marble.

Pope can smell cilantro, gasoline from his truck, the sweet-and-salty rush in your sweat. You taste it, too, licking the hollow beneath his ear like a kid sneaking frosting.

“One track mind,” he mutters, masking a thick swallow when his jeans tent under your touch.

You pull back just far enough to look at him.

“That's not true. I think about a lot of things. They all just end —” Your hand settles over the hardening shape in his pants. “— here.”

He laughs a little, but it dies when you kneel.

You slip two fingers beneath the waistband, teasing skin before tugging down. Fabric puddles at his feet, leaving him bare and aching. You move to trace the underside with your tongue, a lazy path from root to head, then look up through your lashes.

“You leave me alone for hours.” Your hand tightens at the base of his cock, possessive. “What else am I supposed to wait for but you coming home and letting me have this?”

Pope guides himself to tap against your tongue. You happily oblige with an open mouth.

“Yeah? You wait all nice and good for me, princess, or did those needy little fingers wander?” He feigns a thoughtful hum. “Sheets looked a little rumpled when I walked in.”

He watches your mouth struggle to form words, tension fluttering in your cheeks where he fills them.

“Tried,” you admit, voice thick with obstruction. “Made it ‘til lunch before I… got impatient.” Your palm glides up his length in apology. “Does that still count as waiting?”

He winds your hair around his knuckles and tugs until you’re staring straight up at him, guiding your mouth off him with a soft pop.

Pope clicks his tongue, pity painted on like cheap gold leaf.

“Aw, sweetheart. Must've felt like torture, didn’t it?” His thumb smears the shine across your swollen lip, then lifts so you can see the string of spit stretch. “Don't worry, I'll help you learn some real patience... after you watch me finish what you couldn't wait for.”

MARIA NOTE happy tuesday besties! wishing u love in your heart and freakiness in your spirit! stay cunty! stay hot!

"That last bite is yours."

"No, yours."

Jack smiled at you from across the table, his eyes narrowing with teasing disapproval. The candle between you shifted in its glass holder, its flame catching the tines of his fork when he leaned forward over the remains of dessert.

There was barely anything left to argue over. A single bite of chocolate cake sat in the center of the white porcelain plate, surrounded by dark crumbs and milky streaks of melted ice cream. Still, he turned his fork onto its side and pressed it through the middle with the same concentration that made you think of him as a doctor—the emergency surgeon with a 10 blade in hand, the soldier cutting a crike in the field—dividing the last bite perfectly between you.

You pursed your lips, trying not to smile as he straightened the fork again, speared his half, and lifted it toward his mouth.

“You are so—”

“Charming?” he finished for you.

Your eyes narrowed, though the grin had already started pulling at your mouth. You leaned onto your elbows and collected your own half from the plate, letting him watch you take it.

The chocolate was dense on your tongue, the cake soft through the center and covered in a dark icing that clung to the roof of your mouth. Melted vanilla ice cream had soaked into the bottom layer, cooling the sweetness before you swallowed.

"—infuriating."

But there was no bite to your words, no heat to make them land anywhere tender. Your belly was full and warm, the dark restaurant and the last glass of wine leaving you a little light-headed, your limbs heavy beneath the table. Jack’s eyes caught the candlelight when he sat back to look at you, chin tipped up with a note of amusement.

“I seem to recall someone calling me ‘hot’ a couple weeks ago. What changed?”

“You refusing the last bite of chocolate cake, of course.” You shrugged.

“Sheesh. That easy to lose my title?”

"Mhm," you hummed into the last sip of your wine before setting it down.

"S'just too bad." he said, shaking his head and biting his lip, "worse is that it's 6:45."

This time, your lips did purse in disappointment. The hospital was only a few blocks away. You had known that all evening. It was why he had chosen somewhere downtown, why his overnight bag was under the table, why he had glanced at his watch twice during the movie and again when the waiter asked about dessert.

"Can… I call you in sick?"

“Oh, yeah, that’d go well.” He chuckled, sitting up to set his napkin on the mahogany table, his eyes skating around for the waiter. He caught the man’s attention and made a small writing motion with his hand, asking for the check.

You lifted your hand to your ear in an imitation of a phone.

“Yes, hi, this is Jack Abbot’s friend. I have to call him out because he’s really not feeling well.” You paused, nodding gravely at the imaginary person on the other end. “Oh, yeah, it’s a severe case of hot-older-man syndrome. He’s got it really bad. Okay, thanks for understanding.”

Jack shut his eyes. His head tipped back, his face pulling into a grimace that made you laugh before he had even spoken.

“Okay. Too many things wrong with that.”

“Really? I thought it was pretty convincing.”

“One—friend?”

You rolled your eyes. “Not this again.”

He opened his eyes and looked at you across the table. The amusement was still there, tucked into the corners, but his attention had sharpened.

“Think it’s okay to say we’re a little more than friends, sweetheart.”

Your stomach gave a hard squirm beneath the table. You lowered your hand from your ear. “Fine. Jack Abbot’s very special acquaintance.”

His mouth flattened.

“Lady he occasionally has dinner with? Shares with his fellow attending?”

His eyes danced around the room for a moment, as if checking to see if anyone heard that. Then he stared back at you with an eyebrow raised.

“Fine,” you conceded, unable to keep your smile from returning. “A little more than friends.”

“Thank you.” he said, nodding, and then continued, settling back again, “And two—old man?”

“I said hot old man, thank you very much.”

He scoffed. “I know you’re not talking about me.”

“You’re right. I’m seeing another Jack Abbot after this.”

“Better hope he doesn’t work at my hospital.”

You opened your mouth, but Jack lifted a finger before you could answer.

“And third,” he went on, “I’ve walked into that hospital with a bullet wound in my back. Highly doubt they’re gonna let me call out because…” He tilted his head, considering it. “What? I’m held up with a beautiful girl?”

"I think it would be only right." you shot back, though your skin warmed and not just from the wine.

The waiter appeared before Jack could answer, setting the leather check folder beside his elbow. Jack slid his card inside without opening it, letting the waiter take it right away.

And when they came back promptly, you watched him open the leather booklet, giving a nice tip and his illegible signature.

Dinner had been his idea. The movie too. He had arrived at Robby’s house shortly after three with his hair still damp from a shower and a clean shirt folded over the width of his shoulders. He should have been asleep then, storing away whatever rest he could before a night in the emergency department. Instead, he had taken you downtown because he knew Robby was working and you would spend most of the evening alone.

He hadn't said that was why or let you ask too many questions. Only told you to hurry up and get dressed early.

“Thank you,” you said. “It was really sweet of you to set all this up.”

“Thought it would be nice to do something different.”

He shrugged, but his eyes remained on the receipt for a moment longer than necessary, the pen turning once between his fingers. As if the compliment landed strangely on him. He could accept being called hot without blinking, but sweet still made him look for somewhere else to put his attention.

“It was,” you said.

His expression softened when he looked back up at you, and he pushed his chair back and stood. He straightened the collar of his shirt, bending down to grab his backpack to hoist it over his shoulder. You rose, smoothing your long skirt where it had twisted and rumpled from sitting for a while, and Jack’s hand left the chair and hovered behind you until his palm settled against your lower back, broad and warm through the thin fabric of your top. He guided you between the closely set tables, his fingers shifting whenever you had to angle around a chair or the corner of the bar.

“Besides,” he murmured near your ear, “what were you gonna do all evening before I came and got you, huh?”

The restaurant door opened onto the noise of downtown Pittsburgh. A car horn sounded at the intersection, followed by the heavy bass of music through an open window. Groups moved along the pavement around you, couples and families out for dinner, delivery drivers rushing in and out of places to pick up food for takeout. The sun was still out, though the light was softer as it hid behind tall buildings.

Jack kept his palm at your back until you were clear of the doorway.

“Wait around for you to come pick me up?” you answered.

It was meant to be teasing, but the answer was entirely true.

You had no plans. You might have taken a book outside and sat along the edge of the pool with your feet in the water. You might have worked out in the room downstairs, though you had been telling yourself that for three days. There was laundry sitting in the dryer and half a container of pasta in the refrigerator that could have counted as dinner.

Mostly, you would have waited for one of them to come home.

Jack made a face.

“What?”

“Think you need a hobby, young lady.”

“I am not joining the SWAT team.” you shot back.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let you.”

You stopped beneath the restaurant awning and turned toward him. “Oh, it’s let now, is it?”

His smile spread slowly. He bent and kissed the side of your mouth, catching you before your own had fully formed. His lips pressed against the corner for only a second, his hand tightening at your waist before he drew back.

“You can do whatever you want,” he said. “I’d just prefer you don’t choose something with a high risk of bodily harm.”

“I’m not even going to get started on what a hypocrite that makes you.”

You stepped onto the sidewalk, and he followed with a low chuckle.

His hand slid from your waist, down your arm, until his fingers found yours. He threaded them together without looking down, pulling you nearer when a group of people came toward you in the opposite direction.

“I do think a hobby might be a good idea,” he said once the sidewalk opened again. “Maybe something part-time, even. Keep you busy while we’re working.”

“Yeah, but most of the time you guys don’t work together.” You swung your joined hands between you once. “So I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

His mouth twisted.

It was a brief movement, gone when he looked toward the traffic passing through the intersection, but you caught it.

You understood the concern beneath the suggestion. Your whole life had revolved around Robby and the hospital. And Robby had you and his work. But outside of that, neither of you had really ever considered doing anything else. Robby liked his motorcycles, sure. Jack had a life, even if part of his was divided between the ED, the SWAT team, and whatever he kept to himself in the apartment you hadn't even seen yet.

You had them. And you were beginning to realize how easily that could become the whole shape of your life. It felt good.

The pedestrian light changed. Jack tugged your hand and led you into the crosswalk.

“You excited for today?” you asked when you reached the other side.

“For my shift?”

You looked up at him.

He was pressing his lips together to hold back a smile.

“No, Jack.”

“I know, I know.” His thumb moved over the side of your hand. “Yeah. I suppose I am.”

“You suppose?”

“Not really sure what to expect.”

You swung his hand again, unable to contain the excitement that had been building since they first told you the plan for your first visit back.

“Well, I’m excited. Besides, Robby will show you. It can be really fun.”

“Oh, I know it can.”

The smirk he gave you made warmth gather low in your stomach.

You bumped your shoulder against his arm. “Are you still not going to tell me who you picked?”

“Nope.” He let the word pop from his lips.

“Like I said: infuriating.”

Jack laughed, the sound carrying above the traffic for a moment before it settled back between you.

The rest of the walk toward the hospital was easy. As the building appeared closer and closer, you found yourself wishing to slow down time, to stay in this little bubble you'd created tonight. It wasn't like the second you'd step inside you wouldn't see him again for the rest of his shift, but still. You never knew when you stepped through those doors. How slammed they'd been all day, how quickly his fingers might untangle from yours because of a trauma coming in through the doors. You knew it felt selfish to think of it like that, so you didn't say anything out loud.

He held the door open for you, the temperature inside nearly as tepid as the evening outside.

“I’ll think about it,” you said, walking past him. You're not sure what made you want to say it, maybe that you wanted to soak up as much of his attention as you could before the hospital swallowed him in. “The hobby thing, I mean.”

He smiled and tipped his head. “Good.”

You made your way through the second set of doors with his hand still in yours. The waiting room was overflowing, bodies packed into the rows of vinyl chairs and standing along the walls. Jack pulled your joined hands close behind his back so the two of you could squeeze between them, keeping you tucked close as someone shifted a wheelchair out of the aisle.

The double doors leading back to triage felt more looming than they had before.

Because there was something else on your mind tonight too.

Something you didn't mention at dinner, something you didn't even want to think about because it worried you so much.

"Abbot!"

His name was called from the main desk. The charge nurses stood behind it going over shift change, charts open between them. Both pairs of eyes moved from Jack’s face to yours, then dropped to where your fingers were still interlaced.

"Hey, D." you murmured. "Hi, Lena."

“Well, hello to you too, angel girl.” Dana smirked before turning her attention back to Jack. “They need you in Trauma Two.”

Jack nodded, "Let me get changed and I'm on it."

He turned toward you, but you were already opening your mouth.

“I’m good. I’ll let you know where I end up.” You smiled, even with the disappointment already sinking into your stomach. So much for easing into the night. His fingers tightened around yours in apology.

“Go save lives,” you added, squeezing him back.

Jack smiled down at you, then lifted your hand and kissed your knuckles before releasing it. "I'll find you soon."

You nodded, and he was headed towards the lockers with a quickening pace.

When you looked back, both charge nurses were staring at you in open bewilderment.

You pressed your lips together, and tapped your fingers on the linoleum desk, eyes glancing around. “I’m… gonna go find Robby.”

“You do that,” Lena said, holding back a deeply impressed smile.

Dana chomped down on her nicotine gum, her grin widening as she shook her head. The two of them looked at each other with their brows raised, an entire conversation passing between them that you had no intention of standing there to hear.

You weren't entirely sure where Robby had gone, whether you kept passing like ships in the night from room to room, if he was upstairs checking on a patient from earlier in the day, or maybe he'd just went home early.

Though you'd would've gotten a text about that last one.

You checked your phone anyway, thumb waking the screen. There was nothing from him beyond the good morning text he sent almost every day when he left for work before you were up.

A part of you was worried he could be up on the roof. But Dana would've said something if that was the case, and she wouldn't had been so cheeky in her expression if the day had been really that bad.

Still…

You kept moving through the department, looking through the glass of each room as you passed, until you found Frank Langdon near the supply alcove.

“Frankie,” you sighed with a smile.

He looked up, and some of the tension left his face. “Hey.”

He pulled you into a hug, though it ended before you could properly settle into it. His hand pressed once between your shoulder blades before he stepped back, already glancing toward the patient board over your shoulder.

“How are you?” he asked, glancing down at you. “Feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“I know. I miss you.”

The teasing smile you gave him finally loosened the line between his brows.

“Oh, yeah?”

You nodded. "Always."

“Uh-huh.” His mouth pulled to one side. “I’m sure.”

There was usually somewhere easy for the two of you to go from there. A look held too long. A suggestion disguised as a joke. Instead, his hands disappeared into the pockets of his cotton scrub pants, his shoulders rolling back from the long day.

“Have you seen Robby?” you asked to fill the silence.

“Uh—” His eyes moved from the board to skate across the department. “Yeah. Yeah, I saw him earlier. He’s around here somewhere.”

“How was the day?” Your voice softened.

Langdon licked his dried lips, then caught the bottom one between his teeth. “It wasn’t great.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” He exhaled and planted his hands on his hips, his badge swinging against his leg. “Listen, I’ve gotta check on a liver lac before they take him upstairs, but I need to talk to you later.”

Your brows drew together, about to ask him what about, when another voice was calling you from behind.

“I’ll find you before I leave,” he said quickly. “I just—it's okay, nothing's wrong I just…I don’t want you hearing it from somebody else.”

Your stomach twisted, but he was already walking away, his eyes darkening when he saw who was approaching.

You watched him go, your brows tightening before you faced Trinity Santos.

“Hey, Trin.” you said.

“Long time no see.” She glanced past you toward Langdon’s retreating back, then returned her attention to you. “Thanks for coming over—jeez, was that the last time I saw you? Two weeks ago?”

You laughed softly, trying to get your mind to unscramble from that strange encounter. “Yeah, I uh, I think so.”

“Jesus, girl. We need to hang out more. Without the entire ED present.”

“For sure." you nodded, eyes averting to your shoes. "I’m down.”

Then you remembered why you had been nervous to come in tonight at all, and your eyes found hers again.

“Actually, Trin… can I ask you for a favor?”

She shrugged. “Course.”

“Privately.”

Her eyes moved over your face. The smile disappeared, worry flattening her expression.

“Yeah. Of course, c’mon.” she whispered. Her hand closed around your arm, and she pulled you toward an empty exam room. The curtain hooks clicked along the metal track behind you before the room went quiet.

"What's going on?" she asked.

“I, um…Okay," you sighed, "you can’t say anything.”

Her eyes only grew more worried.

“Promise me,” you added.

She nodded, folding her arms over her chest. “Fine. Yes. Obviously.”

“Even Dennis?”

Her head tilted. “You need me to promise you my firstborn too?”

“Trin…” you groaned.

“Okay, your whole Julie James routine is freaking me out. Did you hit someone with a car or what?”

“Oh my God—your brain is so weird sometimes. No.”

“Then just tell me!”

You looked toward the curtain, though there was no one standing outside it. Your fingers had begun picking at the edge of your thumbnail.

“Can you just—fuck.” You lowered your voice further. “Can you get an ultrasound machine in here without anyone noticing?”

Trinity’s eyes might as well have bulged from her head.

"Oh, fuck…"

"Trin!"

“Okay, Jesus.” She unfolded her arms, her hands swiping through the air as she squeezed her eyes shut, thinking. “Yeah. Give me a few minutes.”

“Quietly.” you added.

She took a step toward the curtain, then stopped, and looked back at you. “Fuck, seriously?”

Your stomach pulled tighter. Her eyes dropped over you for half a second before snapping back to your face.

“Whose is it?”

“For fuck’s sake, Trinity.” You covered your face with both hands.

“Okay, okay.” Her voice softened, though only slightly. “But if you’re pregnant, you have to tell me whose it is.”

You dragged your hands down your face.

“And I get to be godmother.”

You stared at her in bewilderment. “Yes. Fine. Whatever. Just go.”

She reached for the curtain.

“And don’t let Robby or Jack see you,” you added quickly. “For the love of God.”

She was gone and back within two minutes, pushing the ultrasound machine through the curtain.

“Okay,” she breathed, reaching for the bottle of gel and squeezing a thick line over the end of the transducer that she took from its holder. She then pointed it toward your stomach. “Lift the shirt.”

“Shit, is that going to get all over me?” you cursed, gathering the hem of your silk top carefully between your fingers.

“Should’ve gotten into the gown.”

“Shut up,” you muttered, rolling your eyes.

“Lift the shirt, mama,” she said again, far too brightly.

“Trinity!” you hissed.

She looked back at you with a wide smile, though the bewilderment still had not left her face. “Listen, you got us into this mess. Let me have my fun.”

You groaned, but lifted the shirt to the edge of your bra and held it there beneath your chin. The backs of your legs pressed against the exam bed behind you while Trinity stepped closer and set the probe against the center of your stomach.

You hissed when the cold gel touched your skin, your muscles pulling tight beneath it, but your eyes had already gone to the screen.

Trinity moved the probe once, then again, angling it lower while the grainy image shifted on the screen. Neither of you spoke while the machine hummed beside you, the static of the ultrasound filling the silence.

There was nothing there. Just wide open darkness, the lining of your uterus, gray and white matter and nothing else.

The breath left you first. Trinity’s followed a second later, both of you sagging at once beneath the relief.

Then the curtain rings shrieked across the metal rod.

You jumped out of your skin as you turned and saw Robby standing at the door.

“What the fuck is this?”

It was half breath, half exasperated frustration. You could see the weariness of the day all over him—the crease fixed between his brows, his eyes red at the edges, the new stress-grays stippled through his beard. Now confusion clouded all of it, his attention struggling to take in the scene in front of him.

For one long second, none of you moved.

He stood just inside the curtain, one hand still wrapped around its edge. His eyes moved from you to Trinity, then dropped to your stomach, where she still held the probe against your skin.

Trinity found her voice first.

“Just—just a, uh, quick anatomy lesson,” she stuttered unconvincingly. "We wanted to see inside her guts, ya know—"

She pulled the probe away and dropped it into its cradle, then clumsily tore a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and shoved them into your hands. You started wiping the gel from your stomach, too quickly to do anything except spread it around. The slick edge of the towel caught the hem of your silk shirt, leaving a damp smear across the fabric.

Both of you looked exceptionally guilty.

Your eyes kept moving—from your exposed stomach to Robby, back to your hands, then toward the ultrasound screen where the grainy image of your empty uterus sat waiting.

Robby followed your gaze.

You watched his expression change while the pieces fitted themselves together. The probe. Your shirt lifted to your bra. Trinity’s panic. The image left glowing on the screen.

His jaw tightened.

“Go check on your patients, Dr. Santos,” he said, his voice loud and controlled now. He stood taller, but his head was still tilted to the floor, his eyes not meeting either of you now. “Hand offs are happening in just a few minutes.”

Trinity nodded too quickly, her lips pressed together and eyes wide. “Yep. On it.”

She stopped just past Robby, looking up at him, and then to you, a pleading look in her eyes. I'm sorry.

“Now,” Robby snapped.

Trinity ducked past him and slipped through the curtain, leaving it swaying behind her.

The room went quiet again.

Robby let the curtain fall from his hand and brought both palms to his face and dragged them upward, pressing over his eyes, then down his cheeks into his beard. He did it again, harder, before hooking his hands behind his neck and staring at the floor.

You finished wiping the gel from your stomach and pulled your shirt down. The damp spot clung cold against your skin.

“I can explain—”

“Honey.” His eyes shut. “Do you really think I would make that mistake?”

Your hands stilled at the hem of your shirt.

His eyes opened— he looked exhausted more than anything, his head tipped slightly while he studied your face.

“Do you really think I would get you pregnant without talking to you first? Without knowing if you wanted that?”

Your brows threaded. “What do you mean?”

Robby looked at you for another long moment, as if weighing his words, hands still locked behind his neck.

“I track your cycle.”

You stared at him.

He dropped his arms at last, one hand landing on his hip while the other rubbed across his mouth.

“I know when you’re ovulating. I know when you’re going to have your period.” His voice lowered, some of the sharpness leaving it. “I know when we need to be careful or not do anything at all."

The paper towel crumpled tighter in your fist.

"You… track…"

He nodded.

"Without ever telling me?"

You weren’t entirely sure what to do with that. It was strange, certainly, having him know something so private without ever discussing it with you. But beneath the surprise was the unavoidable fact that he had been paying attention, quietly accounting for the risk while you hadn’t thought twice about it. That he'd been taking care of you all along, whether you realized or not.

“I just didn't think it needed announcing,” he sighed. His shoulders sagged beneath his black hoodie, and he blinked several times without managing to clear the fatigue from his eyes. “We can’t leave that sort of thing to chance.”

You shifted your weight, the damp patch on your shirt sticking cold against your stomach.

“So… did you know I was late?”

“I did notice the new pack of tampons hadn't been touched in the drawer at home.” He looked back at you. “I also knew that didn’t mean you needed to steal an ultrasound machine and drag Santos into some kind of covert operation.”

You sighed, the corner of your mouth lifting as you tossed the paper towel into the trash. “I’m sorry. I panicked. I didn't realize…"

“I know.” A small smile pulled at his mouth too. His eyes lightened as he held his arms out. “C’mere.”

You did as he bid, the last of the adrenaline beginning to drain from your body as his arms closed around you. He pulled you against his chest and released a long breath, resting his cheek on the crown of your head. His scrubs smelled faintly of antiseptic and the coffee he had probably reheated twice without finishing.

"I always got you," he murmured into your hair. "You know that, right?"

You nodded, hands tightening around his middle.

“You get worried about something like this, you come to me.” His palm moved once over your back. “You don’t have to sneak around the department stealing my residents."

A quiet laugh caught against his chest. “Okay.”

“I mean it, honey.” His voice softened. “This. Anything.”

“I know,” you whispered.

You felt his lips press to the top of your head, lingering there as he breathed you in, the room settling around you with only the sounds of the outside chaos muffled behind the door.

“Long day?” you murmured into his chest after a moment.

“The longest.”

You lifted your eyes to his, and just watched him for a long while, both of your eyes just looking at each other. You unlatched your fingers from where they'd been hooked around each other behind his back and slid them up his chest and around his neck, thumbs by his jaw, his prickly beard ticklish against your skin. His eyes were softening, his jaw unclenching, those tired lines on his face still dug deeper, but gentler now.

A thought flitted across your mind, then. The nervousness of the night, of what it would mean if you'd accidentally gotten pregnant… but… you'd never thought of whether or not either of you would ever want something like that.

You wondered if he had ever pictured it. Whether the careful tracking and the certainty in his voice came only from wanting to prevent it, or from knowing it was a conversation he meant to have with you someday.

Your brows pulled together.

"Have… you ever thought about—"

Behind him, movement crossed the narrow window in the exam-room door. A familiar face stopped on the other side.

Jack looked in through the glass, his brows drawn with curious concern as his eyes moved over the two of you.

Robby turned with you still held against him, glancing over his shoulder toward the other attending. Then he looked back down at you, expression still soft and gentle, but with a knew sort of mischief in his eyes you hadn't seen in the past few minutes.

“Guess he’s ready.” he said, his voice cracking with amusement.

You nodded. “Guess so.”

Your question could wait. It would wait.

Robby leaned down then, taking your lips between his for a long moment, and it felt like his entire day drained from him in one long, tired kiss. His beard brushed over your chin and tickled under your nose, his breath warm between you while his arms held you close. His lips were a little dry, his mouth lingering against yours before he finally pulled away.

You slipped from his hold and followed him toward the door, though it took a second for your feet to cooperate. Your body felt light, your thoughts reduced to a low static beneath the sudden rush of anticipation.

The thought of a pregnancy scare left your mind as you walked down the hall with Robby's arm still snug around you, Jack's back broad and shifting beneath his Figs scrubs top ahead of you.

It had been a while since you'd been shared again, here again, in what had been your old version of normalcy. And not knowing who it was—not being able to choose like you used to get away with… it felt exciting, it felt different. A start to a new normal. You wondered what this would look like— Jack taking the reins sometimes. What kind of choices he would make for you, how he would grow into this relationship, into this version of himself, and how you and Robby would make that room for him.

The last two weeks between Jack's first dinner with you and tonight had been slow moving and gentle. At first, the three of you had agreed that anything beyond heavy petting and kissing should happen with all of you under the same roof.

It hadn’t taken long to realize how difficult that would be to maintain.

So the rule had an amendment.

If one of them wasn’t there, there needed to be a text or a conversation first. Some acknowledgment that the third person was still part of what was happening, even from somewhere else.

Jack came to Robby’s often, keeping you company during the day before his shifts. Sometimes it was lunch followed by long naps on the couch. Sometimes you ended up straddling his lap at the kitchen table, kissing until his hands had worked beneath your shirt and the crumbs from lunch sat forgotten beside you. Other days, he only came by to walk through the neighborhood with you, the two of you circling the same few blocks before he had to leave again.

The waiting also created its own kind of denial.

Kissing was allowed when you were alone. So were hands beneath clothes, grinding against Jack’s thigh until your underwear was damp, Robby pinning you against the kitchen counter while Jack was working. But sex belonged to all three of you unless the other man knew what was happening and agreed to be left out of it.

A few days after that first night, Jack had been over while Robby was mid-shift, and he had sent a text.

It wasn’t exactly asking permission.

The photo had showed you in the bed, your cheek resting against the top of Jack’s clothed thigh while he lay back against the pillows. Your eyes were lifted toward the camera, wide and pleading, and your arms wrapped around his leg.

Robby’s reply had come less than a minute later.

Only if I get a video of your cock down her throat.

Which, of course, you and Jack had obliged.

Another night, Robby had been home with you while Jack was working. Robby stripped you down to your bra and underwear, tied your wrists and ankles to the bedposts, then called the attending anyway via Facetime.

The flash from the camera had burst white across your eyes, blinding you from the cocky grin on Robby's face.

“Aren’t you two supposed to be asleep?” you heard Jack ask through the phone, making you squirm.

“But look at her, brother.” Robby chuckled. “Can’t bear to leave her like this. She's fucking soaked through her panties over some grinding on my stomach. Look.”

The words had made humiliation and desperate, wanton need flush through you while Jack had gone quiet for a moment.

And then, his voice low, the sound of a door closing behind him, he said:

“Show me.”

Heat had swept across your skin while Robby moved the phone between your legs, bringing the camera close up, a shard of light spotlighted on your panties. He pulled them aside and played with you while Jack watched the slide of your soaked folds being touched by his deft fingers. Robby kept you balanced at the edge until your thighs shook and your pleas broke apart beneath the sound of both their voices.

Jack gave permission eventually.

Robby ended the call and fucked you deep into the mattress, each thrust driving the headboard into the wall until you thought the wood might split.

So walking toward this now—toward something that had once been normal between you and Robby, reshaped to hold Jack too—made anticipation buzz beneath your skin.

It was familiar enough that your body remembered what came next. Different enough that it didn’t know what to prepare for.

South Thirteen came into view at the end of the hall.

Jack stopped, holding the door open, and you smiled widely at him, your skin feeling more jittery with every bouncing step inside.

“Someone’s a little excited,” he teased as you passed.

You could only nod, a giggle slipping out when his eyes narrowed and his cheeks tightened around a closed smile.

Robby followed you inside. Once Jack shut the door and drew the curtains across the windows, the room settled into a muted quiet. The department still moved beyond the walls—voices carrying past the door, the squeak of rubber wheels over tile, a monitor beeping steadily close by—but all of it sounded farther away now.

You stood beside the bed, your fingers worrying the fabric of your skirt while you waited.

"Remember what we talked about?" Robby asked, his arms folded across his chest.

Jack was making his way to the rolling stool, hooking up the stirrups of the hospital bed, nodding.

“Have a look. Get her warmed up. Then go collect our guest.”

"You're forgetting something." Robby said.

Jack looked up at him, then over at you, still standing beside the bed and waiting to be told what to do.

“How…” Your mouth had gone dry. “How would you like me, Dr. Abbot?”

Heat spread across your face the moment the words left you.

Jack’s expression changed, his attention settled fully on you now, the amusement tightening into something more focused.

“Would you get me my gloves, sweetheart?” he asked. “Size seven and a half.”

You hurried toward the wall where Robby stood beside the glove dispensers. His smile had already turned fond, touched with amusement as he watched you become more embarrassed beneath both their stares.

You bit your lip. “S’cuse me.”

Robby moved so he was more in the way than not, only to make it worse, placing himself directly beneath the box you needed.

You gave him a narrow look.

His smile widened.

“Pretend I’m not even here,” he said cheekily.

You rose onto your toes and reached around him, your breasts brushing over his folded arms while you fought to pull the gloves free without dropping them. Robby’s eyes stayed on your face the entire time.

When you turned around, Jack was smiling too.

Cocky. Pleased with himself already.

They were going to be the death of you.

You knew better than to say anything petulant. Not wanting any sort of reprimand or punishment, you simply crossed the room and held the pair of blue gloves out to Jack instead.

"Good girl." he said with a smile, chin tilted up at you, then jerking to the hospital bed. "Up, please."

You made a show of squeezing between his knees and the raised stirrups, letting your knees brush against him on the way past. Jack’s gaze dropped for only a second before returning to your face, mischief sitting bright in his eyes.

Finally, you pushed yourself up onto the edge of the bed, and let your legs dangle over the edge.

"Lay back, shoes off and feet in the rests for me, sweetheart." he said. He sounded so clinical, so calm—just like the hot doctor fantasy you'd always had.

You kicked your shoes off, and Jack's hand found the delicate arch of your foot to help you into the rests.

"Scooch down, there you go, good girl, that's it." he said sweetly as you moved to be in front of him.

"She really dressed nice for you tonight, huh, Abbot?" Robby said from the other side of the room. You looked around your legs at him as Jack began pushing your skirt up, bunching it over your hips.

"Oh, yes she did." Jack said when he took a look under the pretty skirt you'd chosen. "And look at that."

You let your head fall back onto the mattress, embarrassment making you squirm a little in the bed.

Robby let out a low whistle, coming to stand next to the other attending.

“Oh, honey…” He shook his head slowly. “You’re gonna be the death of us one of these days.”

You didn't mention how you'd had that exact thought only a few minutes ago as Jack’s thumb pressed into the inside of your thigh.

“Not if she keeps following directions this well.”

You covered your face with both hands and shook your head. “Please don't."

The snap of Jack’s gloves had your knees falling farther apart before he even asked. The reaction came so quickly that both men noticed, like it was pavlovian, instinctual.

A single gloved finger slid down the center of your slick, bare pussy.

Robby’s voice lowered.

“Did he ask you to do this, honey?” His hand settled against your bent knee. “Were you such a good listener that you left your panties at home?”

You shook your head.

"No?" Robby chuckled.

“Told her to give them to me at the restaurant,” Jack answered for you.

You peered through the gaps between your fingers. He was looking down at you with his lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Fuck,” Robby muttered from beside him.

Jack hummed, the sound low in his throat, and slid two gloved fingers through your wet folds. They moved easily, parting you with a slick drag from your entrance to your clit and back again, gathering everything you had made him through the evening. The room caught every obscene pass of his hand, and both men groaned at the sound of the shlick arousal as his gloved fingers pushed just barely inside of you.

Your hands fell from your face and slapped down against the mattress when Jack pushed in to his first joints. The stretch came slowly, two thick fingers held together inside your entrance while your body tightened around them.

“Oh, yeah,” Jack sighed, watching you take him. “There we go.”

“Curl your fingers—”

Jack looked over his shoulder, one brow raised. “Sorry, who’s doing this assessment right now?”

Robby lifted both hands and stepped back from the bed. “You’re right, you’re right. Got carried away.” The laugh beneath his words did nothing to hide how closely he was watching.

“Thank you.” Jack returned his attention to the place between your legs, his fingers still resting inside you. “Gotta get you nice and ready, sweetheart.”

Your hips jumped beneath his hand when his thumb brushed your clit. The contact was light, barely more than the pad of his thumb finding the swollen point of you, but it sent a jolt through your stomach.

“Oh—right there, Jackie—”

His eyes lifted to yours. “You’re not usually so demanding, sweetheart.”

“M’sorry,” you mewled, already trying to tilt yourself harder into his hand. “Just—just feels so nice. I want more.”

“I’m sure you do.” He cooed, sweet enough to make the reprimand tingle through your skin, then eased his fingers deeper. The second joint pushed through with a thick pull of your walls, your thighs tensing and your toes curling in the stirrups. He drew them back until only the tips remained, then pressed them in again, slower this time, letting your body stretch around each inch.

Your palms struck the bed again, and you whined.

A sharp click of teeth came from the corner. “Behave yourself,” Robby hissed a warning.

You pouted, but forced yourself still.

Jack’s thumb pressed harder against your clit, pushing the hood back until the small bundle sat exposed beneath the slick surface of his glove. The air against it felt cool after the heat of his hand, enough to make your legs shiver where they rested open.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Breathe.” His fingers stayed buried while his thumb moved in a tight stroke over you. “I know my fingers are a lot, huh? How do they feel?”

Your breath caught in a small hiccup when he pushed all the way until you sat fully on his knuckles, the meat of his palm pressed close. The fullness was more than you expected, even though it wasn't the first time, it always felt like it. They were thick enough that your muscles clamped down around him before slowly giving way.

“Fuck,” you squealed. “So—so thick.”

“Yeah?” His voice softened further. “They feel good, don't they?”

“Yes.” you whimpered.

“How about this?”

He curled both fingers.

The pressure caught inside you so sharply that your head lifted from the mattress. Before you could brace, he began working them in earnest, quick drags over the same tender place with each firm motion. His wrist flexed between your thighs, the heel of his hand knocking lightly against you while his other palm came down across your lower stomach, holding your pelvis flat to the bed.

You squealed like a cat, mewling and crying out. He picked up in speed, yanking his fingers— and the position left you nowhere to move. Every attempt to buck only pressed you harder into his fingers, the hooked tips pulling against you while the weight of his hand kept your hips pinned. Your feet shook against the stirrups. Your stomach tightened beneath his palm.

"Sh, sh, sh," Robby said from the corner, "Don't make me come over there and put something in your mouth to quiet you."

You almost wished he would, but you couldn't answer, because your orgasm was quick approaching—

"Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, Jack!" you cried.

"That's it, that's it, your pussy is so perfect, sweetheart, squeezing my fingers so good. Ellis isn't gonna know what hit her—"

Your moans caught, your eyes snapping open.

Jack smiled when he saw the recognition cross your face. He tilted his head without slowing his hand, then rose from the stool and leaned over you, pushing more weight into your hips while keeping his fingers buried and moving.

“Oh?” he murmured. “Did I forget to mention who your first resident back is?”

“Jaaack—”

Your hands came up around his forearm, gripping the tight muscle where he held your hips down. His wrist kept flexing between your legs, each movement yanking another helpless sound from you.

“Oh, I know, sweetheart.” His mouth pulled into a mocking pout. “I know.”

He pushed deeper and curled again.

“She’s gonna fucking love you. She’s gonna love this pussy just like we do.”

Your eyes stayed fixed on his face while the heat climbed through your stomach. Your legs had begun to tremble hard enough that the stirrups shifted against their hinges. You glanced toward Robby, catching the dark focus in his eyes.

“Can I—” Your voice broke. “Can I please come? Oh, God, please.”

“Eyes on me, sweetheart,” Jack demanded.

Your eyes returned to his.

“Want you to come all over my fingers.” His thumb pressed down harder while his fingers hooked inside you, wrenching them back and forth with force. “Want you to fucking soak them. Your pretty pussy wants it so bad, doesn’t she? I can feel how bad.”

Your breath left you in short cries just as he pushed his thumb harder into your sensitive clit.

“Oh, yes. Yeah, right there, huh?” His hand kept the same punishing rhythm. “That’s the spot. C’mon now, come for Jackie.”

Your back arched from the mattress. Your eyes rolled shut, and the sound that tore out of you was loud enough to carry through the curtains and into the hall.

Robby was beside the bed in seconds.

His hand covered your mouth, so broad it covered the entire lower half across your lips and cheeks, catching the next cry against his palm while your orgasm broke through you. Your body clenched hard around Jack’s fingers, hips jerking beneath the hand pinning you down. Spit slipped warm from the corner of your mouth and tracked along Robby’s thumb while the two of them held you through it—Jack working every pulse from your body, Robby keeping your cries muffled against his skin.

As your breathing slowed and your mewling cries softened into dreamy sighs, Robby’s hand eased from your face. His palm moved over your cheek instead, brushing back the hair stuck damply to your forehead before he leaned down to kiss your temple.

"Little loud, honey," he chuckled in your ear. You pushed your shoulder up into the side of your head, giggling breathlessly as his mustache tickled your earlobe.

“Not used to having to keep her quiet,” Jack laughed.

He pulled his fingers from you, the latex dragging slickly through the last tight clench of your body. Your feet twitched in the stirrups, a soft whine leaving you at the sudden emptiness.

“C'mon, sweetheart. Up you go.”

He helped your feet out of the rests, your muscles weak and shaking when one of his hands closed around your forearm and helped pull you upright. The room tipped for half a second as you rose, your muscles still loose from your orgasm, and Jack steadied you until you were seated at the edge of the bed.

His other hand was already waiting—the two gloved fingers pushing between your parted lips, the latex made slippery with your arousal. You closed your mouth around them eagerly, licking into the space between his digits and gathering the taste from each crease. The tips pressed against the back of your tongue, drawing a gag and a small whine from your throat.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jack groaned.

His eyes stayed fixed on your open mouth, watching your tongue slide in and out between his fingers.

“You really just do this and go about your shift?”

“Most of the time, yeah,” Robby chuckled. “We’ll have our fun later.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will.” Jack’s mouth twisted. “I have to wait a whole twelve hours, apparently.”

The put-upon edge to his voice made you smile around his fingers.

You wrapped your hand around the thick joint of his wrist, keeping him where he was while you drew his fingers from your mouth. Then you flattened your tongue against them, licking long stripes from the base of his knuckles to the tips.

“When you get home…” You paused to lap between his fingers. “You and I can have fun.”

You turned your head toward Robby, leaving Jack’s hand suspended beside your mouth.

“Right, Robby?”

“Sure, honey.” he said, his eyes darkening.

Robby’s gaze stayed on you while Jack latched his wet fingers around your jaw, turning you back toward him. His thumb pressed into one cheek, the other fingers slick against the opposite side, and then his mouth was on yours.

The kiss was hungry from the start. His lips parted yours, his tongue pushing in to taste what remained on your mouth. One hand stayed fixed around your face while the other settled heavily against your thigh.

“Patience is a virtue, Abbot.” Robby shook his head and started toward the door.

Jack broke away from you, listening to the other attending but still looking at you intensely.

“One that pays off especially well in this dynamic,” Robby added reaching for the curtain at the windows. “I promise.”

That was enough to make Jack step away from you, though reluctantly. He licked his lips, his pupils blown wide, the front of his pants pulled tight enough that Robby’s eyes dropped toward it.

“You may want to…” Robby dipped his chin, a laugh catching low in his chest. “Take a moment.”

“Could take care of it right here.”

“Jack.” The warning sat plainly in Robby’s voice.

Jack’s smug grin only widened. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.”

“Poor choice of words.” the other attending chortled.

Jack glanced back at him with a smile, then turned toward you one last time.

“I’ll send Ellis in, sweetheart.” His eyes moved slowly over your bare legs and the skirt still bunched around your hips where you sat waiting. “Don’t forget to come say goodbye before you leave.”

“Yes, Jack,” you murmured.

You swung your feet as they hung over the side of the bed, your heels knocking against the metal frame in steady clunks.

Both men paused at the doorway to look back at you.

The matching satisfaction on their faces made heat collect beneath your skin all over again.

And then they were gone.

You’d righted your clothes and leaned back against the hospital bed while you waited, the noise of the department swelling and lulling around the little bubble of South Thirteen. Voices passed the door, wheels rattled over the floor, then faded again.

Sitting still proved impossible. You kept smoothing at nonexistent wrinkles in your chiffon skirt, picking at the edge of one nail, shifting until the paper beneath you crackled. Nothing felt comfortable for more than a few seconds.

By the time the door opened, you were already halfway to your feet, ready to go find Robby and ask whether it was time to call the whole thing and go home.

"Hey, I'm so sorry—"

Ellis slipped inside breathless, one hand still on the door behind her. Her braids had been gathered into a high knot, and she wore black scrubs over a lavender shirt, the sleeves pushed partway up her forearms. Her almond-shaped eyes looked heavier than the last time you’d seen her, the lids lowered with exhaustion, but they found you immediately.

“Hi—oh, it’s okay.” You sat straighter on the edge of the bed. “I was just worried something happened.”

She walked straight toward you without hesitation, the easy sway of her body loosening some of the tension wound through yours.

“There’s a guy in North Five I’ve been tryna discharge for hours, but he keeps thinking of new things wrong with him.” Her mouth pulled to one side, those pillowy lips trying and failing to hold a flat expression. “Like he wants to stay in this hellhole.”

You smiled, watching her hop onto the bed beside you before she let out a long breath.

“Tell him he’s gotta start paying rent soon.” You laughed, then looked her over again, taking in the fatigue settled around her eyes. “Wait, were you on days today?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Pulling a double.”

“You’re insane.”

“Possibly.”

Ellis tipped her head back toward the ceiling and closed her eyes, letting her head lull side to side with a stretch. The movement exposed the clean line of her throat above the collar of her undershirt, her cheekbones catching beneath the fluorescent light, and then she turned her face toward you again.

“Can we lie down?” she asked, looking at the mattress. “Don’t think I’m gonna get another chance.”

"Oh!" you said, too busy staring at her, "Yeah, yeah."

The two of you moved until you were lying side by side. You folded your hands over your stomach, but the stiffness in your arms gave you away, your elbows held close to your sides.

She was so near that you could feel her arm brushing against yours, could smell the shea butter that clung faintly to her skin beneath the sharper smells of the hospital. There was coconut too, maybe from her body wash, softened now by antiseptic and the hours she’d spent moving between patients.

“I won’t bite, you know,” she murmured. "I mean, unless you ask me to."

When you looked over, she was smiling. The exhaustion still sat in the heavy hood of her eyes, but amusement warmed them, catching there the same way it had beneath the colored lights the last time you’d gone out together.

You sighed, letting your mouth pull into a little bashful grin, looking away. “I know.”

You gathered your courage and turned onto your side to face her, propping your head in one hand, your elbow sinking into the pillow beside her head.

“I only have a few minutes,” she whispered, her gaze lowering to your mouth.

You caught your bottom lip between your teeth, nerves fluttering through your stomach and down into your hands. “Okay.”

“You look really pretty today,” she said, even quieter.

Your smile widened before you could stop it. Heat crept up your neck, and you glanced down at your silk shirt where it had twisted across your chest when you rolled toward her. From where Ellis lay, the neckline had shifted enough to give her a generous view.

“Yeah?” Your voice barely carried between you.

She nodded.

Her eyes moved over your face once more, slower now. You noticed how soft hers became when she wasn’t trying to hide behind that deadpan look, how the corners tipped downward in a way that made her seem thoughtful even while she stared openly at your lips.

The two of you stayed like that for another moment, close enough that either one of you could have closed the distance.

“Can I touch you?” she asked.

You nodded.

Ellis brought her hand up, hesitating only for a moment before letting it settle against your face. The soft pads of her fingers touched your brow first, then drifted lower along your cheekbone. She tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and traced the line of your jaw, her touch so light that you found yourself leaning into it without meaning to.

You watched her pretty almond eyes study you. Watched her tongue slip out to wet her lips when her fingers moved over your bottom one, then traced the cupid’s bow of the top. You pursed your mouth enough to kiss the tip of her finger and held her gaze while you did it, catching the way her pupils widened, the way her next breath came a little deeper.

"I've never been with a girl before," you whispered.

"S'okay," Ellis said back, shaking her head a little, "You don't have to do anything today, just let me take care of you."

You nodded, the last little bit of nerves leaving your body at her words. With all the unease finally drained from you, you leaned in, and took her lips in yours.

She was so fucking soft.

Her lips were every bit as pillowy as you had imagined, moisturized and easy beneath yours, so different from what you were used to. There was no scrape of beard against your chin, no five o’clock shadow catching beneath your nose. Only the smooth press of her mouth, the soft give of it when you kissed her deeper.

She breathed you in, and the hand that had been tracing your face slid behind your head, her fingers settling into your hair to keep you close while her mouth moved against yours. Her nails grazed your scalp before she gave the strands a light pull, tipping your head back enough to pull a gasp from you. Ellis took it from your mouth, her tongue slipping beneath your top lip to trace the tender skin. Your tongue dipped to meet hers, slick and tentative at first, then pressing closer until both of you let out quiet moans.

Your body had begun to squirm beside her, your knees shifting against the sheet while heat gathered low in your stomach. Every soft drag of her lips felt sharper for the lack of roughness, her cheek smooth where it pressed against yours, her fingers firm in your hair.

“Why don’t you go ahead and use my thigh, baby girl?” she murmured against your mouth. “Can tell you’re already all worked up, hm?”

She eased her thigh between your legs, the pressure making your breath catch. You lifted the hem of your skirt with one hand and shifted your knee over hers, the fabric gathering high around your hips.

“M’not—” you gasped when Ellis kissed the corner of your mouth.

She hummed and continued along your jaw, each kiss wet enough to cool against your skin once her lips moved on. Her mouth found the side of your neck, lingering there while you tried again.

“I don’t want to ruin your scrubs.”

Ellis pulled back just enough to look at you. “What do you mean?”

You reached for the wrist still braced behind your head and guided her hand down. Her fingers slid beneath the bunched chiffon, over the warm skin of your inner thigh, until her palm found your bare center.

She went still.

“Shit.” Her breath drew in sharply, her head pulling back so she could look at your face. Her hand remained cupped against you, close enough that the smallest shift of your hips made your slick folds drag over the pads of her fingertips. “I never knew you were such a bad girl.”

"Not bad," you pouted, kissing her lips as if asking for forgiveness, "Jack took them."

"Aw," she cooed, kissing you back, "It's okay, here, let me take these off."

You nodded, and she worked her scrub pants down over her hips, the fabric catching briefly against her thighs before she shoved it lower. She wore simple black panties beneath, cheeky and comfortable looking, the skin of her thick thighs so pretty in the light. “Don’t need you gettin’ any germs from my day on you anyway, baby girl.”

The mattress shifted beneath both of you when she settled back onto her side. She looked down between your bodies, then guided her knee higher.

“Okay,” she murmured. “Go on.”

Her thigh pressed into the crux of your legs, soft skin meeting your already swollen folds. The contact made you gasp. You were still tender from Jack’s fingers, every nerve left close to the surface, and the warmth of her skin spread through you where you opened around her.

Your hips moved before you thought about it. The first drag was slow, your arousal smearing across the smooth plane of her thigh while your clit caught against the muscle beneath. You shuddered and did it again, pressing down harder this time. The movement pulled at your stomach, a thick stroke of pressure that made your toes curl on the mattress.

“You really are a good listener,” she murmured.

Ellis took your face between both hands and kissed you harder. Her thumbs pressed near the hinges of your jaw while her tongue pushed into your mouth, keeping you there as your hips found a rhythm against her thigh. Each roll left you wetter, the slick friction spreading warm between you, your breath breaking into her mouth whenever the pressure landed exactly where you needed it.

You whined and moaned, and soon she was bringing her hands down to the hem of your shirt, lifting it above your head.

"Don't know the next time I'll be able to see these beautiful tits, baby girl, let me see 'em," she muttered, her palms immediately finding your bare breasts the moment they hit the air, warm against the cool room.

"Let me touch you—wanna make you feel good," you panted between moans, reaching for her scrubs.

"You are making me feel good," she teased her fingers pinching and rolling your nipples, making your back arch into her, "Gonna be thinking about this for weeks."

Her thigh flexed beneath you, and your breath caught.

“If only I had my fucking strap right now.”

The words made your skin rise in gooseflesh, your eyes rolling back when the firm ridge of muscle caught your clit, the words and pressure mixing together in a delicious way. Your rhythm faltered, then turned rougher, your hips grinding down with less control as slick heat dragged over her skin.

“You wanna come on my thigh, baby girl?” she murmured, catching your bottom lip between her teeth. Her one hand was back in your hair against the pillows where you'd laid back down, and the other squeezed the globe of your breast, thumb brushing over the nipple again. “That what you need?”

"Oh, god, please," you moaned, "feels so gooood, Parker."

“Fuck.” Her breathing hitched, “Love hearing you say my name like that. Ask me again.”

“Parkerrr,” you whined, the syllables stretching when she tensed her thigh beneath you. “Please let me come.”

“Just from riding my thigh?” She clicked her tongue. “Needy little thing.”

You nodded quickly, mouth open, every breath coming thinner.

“Go on, then.” Her hand slid to your hip and pulled you harder across her. “Wanna feel your pussy take what she needs. Come for me, baby girl.”

Your mouth fell open before the cry tore out of you. The tight coil in your belly snapped, your whole body freezing against hers while pleasure pulsed through your clit in sharp waves. Your pussy clenched around nothing, thighs tightening around Parker’s leg as your muscles locked up. She kept moving you anyway, hand firmly on your hip, rocking you through the orgasm.

Her mouth hung open with yours, both of you breathing the same air as she watched every shudder move through you.

When the tension finally left your muscles, you sagged against her. Your breathing came back in small pulls, and Parker kissed you softly, her tongue brushing over your parted lips before she drew away.

You smiled, a little dazed. “That was… very fast. I’m sorry.”

Her smile widened. “Could’ve made you come even faster with my strap, I bet.”

“Cocky,” you chastised.

You started to sit up, but her hand that was in your hair held you where you were.

“Ah, ah—”

You stopped.

“Who’s gonna clean up your mess?”

Your eyes widened. When you shifted your leg away and looked down, you saw what she meant.

Your arousal had smeared along the length of her thigh, shining against her skin. Parker dragged one finger slowly through it, that you watched the slick gather over the pad before she brought it to her mouth. She moaned around the digit, and then her hand in your hair guided you down to her thigh.

You didn’t hesitate, your tongue flattening against her skin, licking up the wet trail you had left there. The salt of her skin mixed with the musk of your own arousal, warm against your mouth while her fingers tightened lightly at the back of your head.

Even after you had cleaned her skin, you kept going. You pressed kisses higher and higher, following the line of her thigh up to the edge of her black panties. Your eyes lifted to her face, taking in her expression: lips parted, heavy eyes on you while her chest rose beneath her scrubs.

“Will you show me?” you whispered, your mouth close to the fabric. “Next time?”

A knock landed against the door. Shit.

"Ellis!"

It was Dana.

“Patient in North Five is askin’ for ya.”

Parker groaned and threw her head back. The arousal dropped out of her expression in an instant, replaced by a deep furrow between her brows and a pout pulling at her lips. "Ughhhhh…"

You giggled and kissed over the edge of her underwear, then higher, skipping the fabric of her scrubs until your mouth found her neck. You nipped beneath her jaw before reaching her lips again.

She kissed you back, both hands cupping your face now, gentler than before.

“To—be—” You kissed her between words. “Continued.”

Parker let out a real laugh that crinkled her eyes and softened her face, kissing you again, slower this time around her smile, taking what little was left before the hospital pulled her back out of the room.

It wasn't long that the two of you were dressed again, and she was saying her farewells. As she turned to leave the room, Robby had opened the door, looking between the two of you with his Carhartt jacket on, his backpack over his shoulders and two helmets in his hands, his eyes flitting between the two of you.

“Have a good night, doc,” Ellis chirped as she slipped past him.

“You… too,” he said, a little amused, watching her go.

Then his eyes came back to you, a knowing smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.

“Ready, honey?”

You nodded and crossed the room to him, still trying to school your face into something less obvious.

He didn’t comment. He only shifted the helmets into one hand, slid his other arm around you, and guided you out of the ED.

tysm for reading! im sorry for keeping it pretty tame - I don't want every chapter to be the same (in terms of smut) and I've only ever been with a girl one time so was just trying to keep it in my lane of knowledge 😅

You had no ill intentions when you sought Jack out on the beach. Truly. None whatsoever.

Your conscience was pristine. Clean enough to eat off of, if a person were inclined toward that sort of thing. And Jack would more than likely be inclined toward that sort of thing.

Which is neither here nor there and definitely not the point.

The point is that he happened to be the first available person you spotted who wasn’t elbow-deep in the cooler, manning the grill, hauling folding chairs closer to the water or otherwise occupied in some way that would’ve made your request an imposition.

He happened to be seated in the shade, sand-dusted calves stretched out and both hands conveniently free. You happened to wander over with your sunscreen and your very normal, very defensible need for help reaching the center of your back. 

Never mind that your eyes tend to find him first everywhere.

Your first choice, always. In the hospital, in crowded rooms, in Friday-night bars, and now here, on a stretch of beach sand full of towels, melting ice cubes and boozy coworkers.

If Jack is there the geometry of the universe settles. 

Noise levels drop. Potential catastrophe politely steps back in line. Statistically, things improve by, what, twenty percent when he’s within arms reach?

The only time Jack’s presence ever seems to tip from reassurance into danger is when Robby is nearby.

Your brother, his best friend, currently planted beside the grill with a pair of tongs in one hand and a beer sweating in the other, wholly unaware of just how intimately you know the man sitting a few yards away from you reading a book. 

No idea that you even know Jack beyond hospital stories and holiday small talk. No idea that you’ve counted the freckles on Jack’s torso the way other people count blessings. No idea you know the small mole just above Jack’s hip because you’ve watched it disappear beneath the push of his own thigh when he’s folded you open beneath him. No idea you know how his forearm looks when it flexes beside your head, that raised vein appearing when your heels hook into his back and he grunts your name into his mouth. No fucking idea you know the pale scar on his ribs that becomes your personal tactical obsession whenever he cages you against a doorframe and breathes against your ear, quiet, sweetheart, unless you want your brother to ask questions. 

You slip into the little wedge of shade cast by Jack’s umbrella, hip brushing the arm of his chair. 

It takes half a second for Jack’s gaze to lift. First to your face, because he is decent, or because he has spent forty-nine years perfecting the performance of decency and can probably do it under sedation.

Then his eyes dip lower, catching on your chest and the heroic and doomed labor of your bikini top, the poor thing doing its absolute best with limited resources and no meaningful administrative support, and for one brief, gorgeous second, Jack Abbot’s whole face goes blank. 

You unscrew the sunscreen cap with the patience of a saint and the moral character of someone much worse, pretending you don’t see a thing. It’s easy. You’ve been playing dumb your whole life, and Jack happens to make it especially rewarding. 

“Hi, Jack.”

He blinks as though dragged out of a dream he has no intention of describing in mixed company. 

The paperback folds around one finger; he swallows civility into a single neutral “Hey,” though his ears are flaming traitors. 

You bounce once on your toes just to watch his eyes track the up-and-down movement. “Mind helping me with my back?”

A phantom movement ripples down his arm, the muscle memory that usually ends with his thumb sliding up the tender inside of your knee.

Half-second later he remembers the clause you made him swear to the night before you left, the one you recited while sitting on the edge of his bed in nothing but your earrings and a very serious expression: no contact during this trip. Not in front of Robby. Not in private. Not even the little absent-minded touches Jack was so fond of giving and so terrible at pretending were accidental. 

He had listened with the patient, faintly amused face — oh, of course, let’s discuss boundaries — all while his hands were already easing your thighs apart, palm spanning half your quads. “That’s smart, sweetheart,” he had murmured, barely out of his mouth before he fucked you so hard you spent the first two days of this trip remembering him every time you sat down, crossed your legs, climbed stairs, breathed wrong, existed.

Day one started with Robby squinting at the careful, not-at-all-in-pain way you eased into the passenger seat. 

“Pull something?” he asked, suspicion crinkling the corners of his eyes. 

Jack, loading your suitcase into the trunk, had only said, “She’s fine — just overdid the beach volleyball warm-up.”

Now, beneath the umbrella, he eyes the bottle in your hand.

“You’re asking me to put sunscreen on you while I’m currently under express orders not to touch you,” he clarifies, mouth twitching. “Little contradictory, don’t you think?”

“It’s medicinal, Jack. Doctor-ordered sun safety. That puts it squarely under the ‘acts of basic care’ exemption we definitely agreed on.” 

There is, of course, no exemption. But you say it with such polished confidence, such gorgeous little liar convocation, and Jack’s eyes keep distractedly slipping to your cleavage, you figure you might be able to gaslight him into believing otherwise.

Jack tilts in, voice dropping to bedside-manner dark. “Preventive exams are also acts of basic care, sweetheart. I offered to give you one last night. Head to toe. Very thorough. You didn’t seem to keen on the idea. Funny how selective you are with these exemptions.”

He knows perfectly well keenness was never the issue.

Keenness had been present and accounted for, actually, sitting upright in bed with a racing pulse while Jack spent nearly forty minutes vibrating your phone off the nightstand at one in the morning, apparently deciding the no-contact was less a boundary and more a diagnostic puzzle he could brute-force with persistence, semantics, and an irresponsible number of filthy hypotheticals. 

How firm is the rule?

You had answered, Very.

Define very.

Jack.

I’m serious. Are we talking legally blinding or more of a strong suggestion? 

I can’t sleep knowing you’re down the hall.

I keep thinking about your ass in that tiny fucking bikini.

And your mouth.

And the noise you make when I’m tasting your pretty pussy.

So if "very" has any flexibility, now would be an excellent time to disclose it.

You had flushed at that, instinct dragging your hand south, fingertips tucking beneath the elastic of your pajama shorts, privately checking how much trouble you were in.

Spoiler: a lot. Still, you forced your breathing steady and tapped out the grown-up response you promised yourself you’d give him.

Too risky. Robby’s awake. 

Riskier to ignore symptoms.

You seemed flushed at dinner, baby. Could be heat exhaustion.

Standard protocol is immediate evaluation. Full tactical assessment of any sensitive areas.

Better I handle it now than you collapse tomorrow, right? 

“The walls here are paper thin. I just didn’t want everyone to hear you,” you murmur, eyes flicking toward the grill where Robby still holds court. 

Jack’s gaze drags over your face, patience fraying.

His head cants. “Me?”

An accusation rather than a question.

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from grinning too hard.

It’s bullshit.

Jack makes sounds in bed, sure, these low rough little things he tries to swallow down into silence, but you are, historically, the problem. You are the one who forgets walls even exist, who gets whiny and breathless, saying his name too sweet and loud.

Still, riling him up is half the fun.

“Mhm. All those grunts you do? Very compromising. You really should work on that. I was just protecting your reputation.” 

His mouth tugs into that bare-bones smile, parched and cutting, like a fence post bleached under Georgia sun. 

“That’s interesting, doll, because I seem to remember you nearly getting us thrown out of that hotel in Atlanta.” He pauses, eyes steady on yours. “Had to clamp a palm over your mouth halfway through just so the folks next door would quit pounding on the wall.” 

You make a thoughtful, entirely disingenuous sound. “I don’t recall.”

Liar, you think, but only to yourself, because the scene is seared onto the backs of your eyelids: big palm, slick with sweat; your own pulse popping under his thumb.

“Convenient,” he says. “Concerning, too. Memory loss at your age.”

The urge to fire back — your age, grandpa — sparks under your tongue, but you swallow it, knowing you’ve already won.

He’s picturing that night, too. You can see it in the way his jaw resets, in the way his fingers flex like they’re aching to reprise the role of impromptu gag. 

“Memory loss and melanoma.” Your fingers skim your collarbone, then your shoulder, making a tiny show of your poor exposed skin. “That’ll be on your conscience, and you have so many sins already, Jack.” 

Jack’s glare fractures, concern muscling past amusement. 

“Turn around,” he orders.

His palm resignedly lands on your back and the first sweep of cool lotion is an instant balm, a hush in every raw, sun-tight cell that’s been screaming since day one of this self-inflicted separation.

Water to a dying flower. Oxygen after a held breath.

The peppermint chill kisses the nape of your neck, then fans outward in broad strokes, each pass ironing the ache right out of your skin. 

Three whole days without his hands, seventy-two hours of pretending you didn’t need this, and now his thumbs slip beneath your bikini straps like they own the territory, tracing the warmed skin that’s been begging for him with every salty breeze. 

“Missed you,” you murmur under your breath, words a little wobbly and petulant.

He huffs a soft laugh and bends to brush his mouth against your shoulder blade. “Yeah, missed you, too, angel.”

He smooths another cool ribbon down your spine.

You angle yourself towards the grill to allow him better access only to see Robby nudging the spatula at Mateo like a relay baton. Take over, man.

Mateo blinks, grabs the grill tools, and Robby wipes his palms on a dish towel as he starts striding across the sand.

Panic sparks hot in your belly. Abort, abort —

Jack’s fingers press reassuringly at the base of your neck. “Easy.”

Robby arrives, squinting against the glare. 

Jack doesn’t miss a beat, straightening just enough to greet him over your head, palms still settling the lotion. “Need a second set of tongs, man? You were talking about that pineapple glaze.” 

“Yeah, figured you could baste while I flip,” Robby says, oblivious.

“Sure thing.” Jack rubs the last of the lotion on your shoulder before flicking the cap back on the bottle. 

Robby tips his chin at you, hooks an arm around Jack’s neck like a big brother claiming turf. “And watch it, man. Give her an inch and she’ll have you painting her toes next.”

Jack shoots you a wink. “Wouldn’t put it past her, bit on the spoiled side, isn’t she?”

You don’t get to be alone with Jack again until later that evening.

After a twelve-hour gauntlet of being herded from one little duty to the next, karmic punishment apparently being less fire-and-brimstone and more Robby glued to your elbow, Samira asking about plates, Dana hunting for towels.

The house had stayed swollen with noise, doors opening, voices carrying, bodies constantly moving through every room, leaving nowhere private enough to breathe, let alone get a second with your secret boyfriend. 

And you would find some sort of humor in it all if it didn’t feel like torture, spending the whole day brushing past Jack close enough to catch bits and pieces of him but never close enough to keep it, catching his stare across the deck and breaking first because if you hold it too long, even for one more second, your face will say everything your mouth has forbidden to.

By the time you get into the shower, you’re wound so tight you feel one wrong move might split you straight down the middle. Steam flattens the bathroom, fogging the mirror in milky layers while condensation beads along the floor beneath your heels. 

The water comes down nearly scalding over skin still balmy from the sun, rinsing the day off you in slow, glittering streams. Salt, sunscreen, sweat, sexual frustration, little crescents of sand, all of it spiraling together toward the drain. 

You brace both palms against the wall and hiss when the spray finds the tender knot tucked between your shoulder blade and spine.

You don’t have time to decide whether the sting is pleasure or pain because suddenly the door latch is clicking.

You spin, palms crossing over your breasts, ready to apologize for… something (what, exactly? You’re not sure, because last time you checked you weren’t the person barging into an occupied bathroom.) 

But then the silhouette resolves into Jack and the apology dies on your tongue.

He shuts and locks the door with a soft snick, arching a brow through the haze.

You hiss under your breath, “What — Jack, what are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks. His gaze drags leisurely, like a hand down your body, over your breasts, the water-glossed dip of your waist, the slick shimmer on your thighs, then hovering at your bare pussy before climbing back to your face. 

He looks utterly unhurried. A man content to feast with his eyes first and speak when the hunger becomes unbearable. 

Fire pools low in your belly and you shift, thighs pressing together in a useless bid for modesty. “Seriously, what if someone saw you come in?”

He closes the distance until your breath clouds a small circle on the glass pane between you.

“Just grabbing my razor,” he says, offhand, like you’re the one overreacting as he tips his head toward the shelf behind you. “Promise I’ll be two seconds. In, out.”

You give him a long, squinting once-over, as though you can spot the lie on his skin. He just wiggles his fingers — see? Harmless — so you huff a tiny laugh and shift aside. 

“Fine. Two seconds,” you mutter, watching him carefully.

You pull the slider door open.

The instant rush of cooler air leaves gooseflesh in its wake, and Jack’s shoulders seem suddenly much broader than you remember as he steps through. 

“Appreciate it, honey.”

He ducks under the spray, and the stall feels two sizes too small.

Jack plants himself in front of you, torso filling your peripheral vision, trunks plastered to powerful thighs.

He doesn’t touch you, but the warmth radiating from his body seems to crowd every spare inch of space.

When his chest rises you feel the ripple in each breath through yours.

“You okay?” His tone drips false innocence as he reaches around you for the razor, the damp fabric of his trunks gliding over the sensitive swell of nerves between your legs in a feather-light pass.

You suck in a harsh breath.

He straightens as if nothing happened, twirling the razor between his fingers, eyes glinting with pleased mischief.

Dick-Face.

Your vision goes momentarily starry, the lost friction leaving you empty.

You rally with a shaky grin. “‘M fine.”

“Mind if I shave in here, then? Better water pressure and keeps the sink hair-free. Know you hate that.”

You squint up at him, water streaking your lashes. 

“Jack…” One elongated syllable loaded with I know exactly what you’re doing. 

“Relax, angel. Two seconds,” he reminds, though the slight tilt of his hips say otherwise. 

He angles the razor at his jaw, drawing the first careful stroke. You watch the silver path he leaves on skin, the way tiny beads of water race after the blade. His face, stripped of stubble in increments, is almost too handsome. Straight nose, freckles you could count, lips made for kissing yours. 

He catches you gawking and smirks. “Gonna nick myself if you keep staring like that.”

You tilt your chin, droplets collecting at the curve of your collarbone, mustering your usual sparkle, “Then focus, doctor. I won’t be held responsible for self-inflicted injuries.”

He lets the razor dangle forgotten at his side as he studies you a beat longer. His hand slides forward, knuckles skimming the silky bloom of your hip, then dipping inward to follow the hollow where muscle meets bone.

A shiver flutters through you. He feels it and grins, this slow, predatory spread of lips.

“Focus is a tall order,” he says, thumb brushing a streak of water off your stomach. “Pretty as you are.”

Your breath stutters as his thumb skims lower, and you grab his wrist. “Uh-uh. Hands to yourself, remember?”

“Don’t make me beg, sweetheart.” The husk in his voice slips through you from head to toe. “Because I will, if that’s what you want — say please a thousand times, just to prove how badly I need you.”

Before you can answer, he sinks to his knees.

Once again he doesn’t touch, free hand splayed on the grout, but his mouth hovers near the crease of your hip, close enough that every exhale fans liquid fire over your pussy. 

His eyes flick to yours, desperate, waiting for the single syllable that will break every rule you set.

“I can keep my hands to myself, if that’s the rule. Just let me use my mouth, please. Need to taste you, angel.”

“I — Jack, we said —” 

Your grip on his wrist feels fragile, ceremonial.

“That a yes, baby? Gotta hear the word.”

Steam curls between your bodies and it’s almost suffocating now, filling up your throat and nose and ears until you start to feel a little dizzy.

Rules clang in your skull — not here, not now — but the week-long ache in your belly chants louder: need, need, need.

You bite your lip hard enough to taste copper, eyes slipping shut.

When they open again, the answer is already there, shining in resignation. “Yes. Please — yes.”

He doesn’t waste another second.

He dives in like a man reprieved from drought. Three days and three nights and water turned to wine in his tongue. He presses it flat, dragging through your folds until your knees threaten to buckle.

The first targeted flick to your clit punches a helpless cry out of your throat and the second has you clawing for purchase on the handlebar to your left.

Jack mumbles something that feels like so sweet against you, vibration sparkling up your spine, then seals his lips and sucks hard, alternating pressure in prodding intervals.

You don’t think you’ve ever gotten to that blissful edge so fast before, seconds away from splintering, vision tunneling as pink and blue stars flare behind your lids.

It all comes crashing down when a brisk tap-tap-tap cuts through your near-climax.

Jack freezes, mouth still full of you and hot on your cunt but now motionless, eyes snapping up to meets yours. Beautiful eyes with pupils blown.

Santos’s voice filters through: “Whoever’s in there, hurry up!” 

The pulse that was about to break erupts into silent, aching stasis instead. You bite your fist, whole body trembling on the cliff-edge he’s left you hanging from. 

You choke back a whimper and call, “Be out in a sec!” 

And like you said, you would find some sort of humor in it all if it didn’t feel like pure fucking torture.

Jack tries to remind himself that he has, by every measurable standard, survived worse things than this.

War, for one. Heat that cooked straight through the soles of his boots, nights sawn open by rotor blades and gunfire. The terror of deciding who needed his hands first when everyone needed them at once.

He lost a leg and learned how to walk again, then somehow went back to medicine because apparently nearly dying had not cured him of the instinct to run toward other people’s emergencies. He has cracked chests, led resuscitations, talked shaking interns through their first patient death, spent his free time embedded with SWAT because golf had always seemed both dull and something he wouldn’t thrive at. 

He knows pressure. He understands discipline. He has built an entire life around refusing to be governed by fear, pain, adrenaline, or lesser impulses. 

None of those facts seem to feel reassuring right now as he watches you from across the bar.

You’re burrowed into the center of a brand-new constellation of people you just met, telling one of your well-worn stories with the same sparkling conviction you gave it the first time, chin tipped up, bracelets chiming as your hands sketch the scene into the air.

Jack knows every beat.

Knows when your eyes will widen, when your mouth will pull into that scandalized little O, when you will pause just long enough to make everyone lean closer before delivering the line that sends the table into laughter.

And they do lean closer. Even the bartender’s polishing rag pauses mid-swipe.

That is the thing about you. You make strangers feel chosen. Make a whole room feel handpicked, lit from within, as if you opened the door just for them and meant it. Then you’ll drift away, leaving them there in the aftershocks, still facing the space you occupied like worshippers after the god has already one.

Jack knows exactly how dangerous that is because he has made that mistake himself.

More than once.

Sat across from you and read too much into every smile, every soft little lock of your focus, every gooey, honey-thick stretch of your attention. Mistook being seen by you for being chosen.

And then life, perverse as ever, let him be chosen after all. Let him earn the real thing. 

Which only makes watching other men bask in the counterfeit version feel worse.

The feeling metastasizes when one of the men catches the opening after your final line and moves into it, all expensive veneer-looking teeth and effortless posture, bending toward you as though the room has naturally made space for him there.

He says something Jack cannot hear over the bass, punctuates it with a small, self-satisfied shrug, and wears the expression of a person who thinks being near you is already a kind of accomplishment.

Jack studies him. 

Young. Smooth. Unscarred, at least where the world can see. A body that has probably never needed to be negotiated with before something as simple as walking barefoot across a beach. No prosthetic to strap on before dawn, no phantom pain flaring where flesh ends, no inventory of what still works and what must be accommodated. 

He looks right beside you. No one would glance twice, no one would do the math. Robby could clap him on the shoulder, laugh at his jokes, maybe even approve.

Certainly wouldn’t have to excavate a grave under the rental deck. 

Jack counts that as strike three.

“Jack.” Robby’s voice breaks across the table, dragging him back by the collar. “Tell ‘em I’m not making this up.”

Jack blinks, wrestles his gaze off you, and pretends he’s been part of the conversation all along. Dana and Baran blink back at him.

“You’re usually making something up,” he says and it earns Victoria’s laugh, though he hasn’t the faintest idea what improbable tale he’s just failed to corroborate.

It seems to be enough of an answer for Robby though, because he laughs too, his hand thumping Jack’s shoulder hard enough to slosh the liquor.

Jack drinks anyway, holds the bourbon like a tongue depressor to his worst instincts. Swallows. The burn chars every jittery nerve that wants to turn around and see if Mr. Linen Shirt is still siphoning oxygen out of your orbit.

But he wants to know. Wants to know whether the man has moved closer, whether you’re still smiling, whether Jack is about to make a decision that leaves the bastard sipping his own drink through a wired jaw. 

He shouldn’t go that far. Healing hands and all. But he can make exceptions.

He lets boredom rasp across his tongue as he clears his throat. “Your sister know those guys?”

Robby looks over on reflex. Jack doesn’t move. Doesn’t need to. Robby’s face will tell him everything. “What guys?”

“Dunno. Thought one of ‘em looked familiar.”

Robby squints past the crowd.

“Nope. Don’t think I recognize any of them.” Robby decides, pushing a tired breath through his teeth, knuckles rasping over two-day stubble. “She does this everywhere she goes. Draws attention like wildfire. I swear, half my blood pressure medication is because of her.”

Jack’s arteries would corroborate that, but he lets the confession smolder unheard behind the rim of his glass. 

“Well, can you blame ‘em? She looks like that.”

And Dana’s comment is the invitation he’s been waiting for. Lets him gorge on the sight without raising suspicion.

The little dress, the glossed-up lips, the endless stretch of your legs under the bar light. Your hair falling loose around your shoulders, your face animated as you talk, every feature sharpened by laughter into something almost indecently alive.

A cherry-red straw clacks against your teeth when you sip your rum punch, each drag leaving a perfect lipstick crescent on the plastic rim.

You are beautiful in every standard category and several highly specific ones Jack suspects may exist solely to inconvenience him. 

“Don’t mean she needs a swarm,” Robby grumbles, waving his bottle at the cluster around you. “She treats everybody like they’ve known her ten years, then acts shocked when half the room starts trailing after her. And somehow I’m the prick when I tell ’em to give her some space.”

“I don’t mind being the asshole,” Jack pipes up. Across the table, Dana’s attention narrows, and Jack realizes, half a beat too late, that he may have sounded a little too willing. So he adds, “If you’re tired of the job, I mean.”

Robby snorts. “You’d scare the hell of ‘em.”

“That’s generally the point.”

He lifts his bourbon before the thought can show on his face, lets the rim conceal the faint tightening at the corner of his mouth.

Robby, thankfully, is already smiling, visibly seduced by the prospect of outsourcing his least charming brotherly obligation. 

“Be my guest,” he says. “Tell her I sent you.” 

Jack tips his glass, drains what remains, then taps the rim against the tabletop.

Signal received. Assignment accepted. He doesn’t need to be told twice.

By the time he is halfway across the room, you’ve already noticed him.

Your eyes flare with a brightness he can feel from here, and whatever polished little nothing Mr. Smooth is feeding you dies unattended between one word and the next. 

He keeps talking anyway, poor guy, unaware that you’ve left the conversation without moving an inch. By the time Jack reaches the bar rail, your attention has funneled to one point, him, and nothing else.

It stirs something dormant in him, the same dark pull he felt in the shower, his pants suddenly tighter, less cooperative. He sees exactly what he would do without the table of coworkers and one eagle-eyed best friend behind him. 

He would hook a hand around the back of your neck, pull you flush to his chest, and kiss every little thought clean out of your head. Kiss you until the gloss smeared, until your lipstick feathered over his mouth, until your lips went swollen and every polished stranger nearby understood, without needing it explained, who had put that dazed look in your eyes. 

Instead, he leans one forearm against the bar and says, pleasantly, “You drinking enough water, sweetheart?”

“I could be persuaded to drink more.” Your lips curl around the straw again, eyes fixed on Jack with a private little shine.

The younger man follows your attention to Jack and gives him an affable nod. “Man, your dad’s on top of it. Mine would’ve let me dehydrate out of spite.”

Jack nearly coughs up his previously swallowed drink.

He can feel every one of his years arrange themselves in descending order between you. The gray at his temples. The scars. The apparently paternal concern over your fluid intake. 

Fuck’s sake.

He parts his lips to correct the record, a dry little execution already waiting on his tongue, but you beat him to the trigger. 

“Oh, he’s the best,” you gush, peering at him sideways. “Always checking on me. Sunscreen, hydration, curfew. Super over-protective.”

Jack gives you a long, level look, one that says he knows exactly what you’re doing and plans to deal with it later.

“She keeps me busy. Full time job, most days,” he finally says, playing along.

And it is a full-time job.

Just not remotely in the way this poor kid is imagining. You are a twenty-four-hour on-call position with no protected sleep and an astonishingly generous benefits package.

You need to be kissed before he leaves the room, touched whenever he passes within arm’s reach, listened to with grave concentration while you explain some internet drama involving some show he’s never watched and a man named Sincere he will never meet.

Then there is the other hunger, the one that wakes beside him already stretching toward his body, that has you squirming into his lap after dinner or whispering again against his mouth when any reasonable person would be asleep.

Jack is always on his toes with you, anticipating needs you have not articulated yet, figuring out whether a pout means hungry, horny, tired, or all three braided together.

It is exhausting in the way a life worth living is exhausting.

He has never minded work when the work matters, and taking care of you has become the most selfish labor he has ever loved.

The younger guy clears his throat, trying to recapture the momentum. “Anyway, like I was saying about the jet-ski tomorrow —”

“Actually,” Jack interrupts, “we’ve got to get back. Curfew, you know.” He aims a polite nod at the man, who now looks decidedly dejected, then drapes a guiding hand along the back of your stool in perfect over-protective-father form. “Appreciate you keeping her company.”

Your mouth twitches around the straw. Jack can already tell you’re going to make him suffer for this. The prospect improves his mood considerably. 

He starts to walk you back to the table, when he spots Robby, who’s laughing much too loudly at something the new intern just whispered in his ear.

The girl is angled toward him, smiling with that shy, pleased little tilt people get when they think they’ve successfully surprised him, and Robby, miracle of miracles, looks genuinely interested. 

That is information worth preserving. Worth interrogating later, too.

But for now he takes that opportunity for what it is and herds you into a corner out of view.

As soon as you’re tucked between a stack of surfboards and the dim EXIT sign, his fingers close over the curve of your backside, giving a quick pinch.

A startled “hey!” pops out, alcohol-loose and breathy, and you bat at his knuckles.

He catches your wrist, holding it against his chest as amusement darkens his gaze. “You’re testing me, angel. Missed me so much you had to start getting other men’s attention just to see if I’d come take you back?”

“Missed who? The pervert or the overprotective dad?”

Jack clicks his tongue and leans in until the tips of your noses nearly touch, crowding the joke right back into your mouth. 

“Hated every damn second of that. Couldn’t lay a finger on you while that kid flirted his ass off. And you knew exactly what you were doing. Wanted to see how fast you could make your old man lose his cool?”

“Thought you liked being challenged?” You tilt your chin, lashes dipping. “Besides, you’d been ignoring me all night. What was I supposed to do, sit there looking pretty for no one?”

“You know that isn’t how it is. I’ve been following the rules you set, angel. Your rules.”

“Yeah, well, last night kind of blew those up, don’t you think?” You lean closer. “The line’s already smudged. Seems silly to keep pretending we can still see it.”

“Trust me, sweetheart, I’ve got no attachment to that line. I’ve wanted my hands on you from the second I saw that dress.” He leans closer, voice dropping into something meant only for you. “But you’d better mean it. You don’t get to rile me up all night and then act surprised when I collect.”

Your eyes flick toward the neon Restrooms sign, then back to him, lashes heavy. “Meet me by the bathroom in sixty seconds. If you’re late, I’m starting without you.”

One quick sweep confirms the coast is clear.

“Bought and paid for, angel. Be there in fifty-nine.”

You giggle, turning on your heel with a bounce that sets your dress fluttering. He tracks every inch as you stroll off, head cocked like you know he’s staring; the last thing he sees is the curve of your ass rounding the corner.

He waits just long enough not to make it obvious, then starts toward the hall, pulse already ticking off the seconds.

Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven.

“Jack.”

Shit.

Dana catches him mid-stride. When he turns, she is watching him over one lifted brow, empty glass raised loosely in her hand. “You getting another round?”

His gaze flicks toward the corridor before he can stop it. Mistake. Dana follows it, then looks back at him.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he says.

“Could’ve fooled me. You look like you’re on a mission.”

And what can he say to that?

Yeah, Dana, good eye. I am on a mission to follow my girlfriend into a seedy beach-bar bathroom and fuck the living daylights out of her before Robby notices either of us are gone. By the way, she is his little sister and young enough that, from a distance, strangers apparently assume I helped raise her.

So Jack does what any sensible man would do under pressure.

He lies. 

“Just gotta take a leak.”

Dana lets out a low hum, the kind that says she believes exactly none of him. “Sure.” And Jack thinks that’s it, but suddenly she shakes her head. “Just do yourself a favor and be careful.”

“Careful about what, exactly?” Irritation flicks hot across his scalp, mostly because it coats the thin, unfamiliar ache of fear. 

She tips her chin, eyes dull with shift-long exhaustion, offering him nothing but that tired little smile that says You already know. 

“Don’t make me say it out loud.” Her gaze dips toward the restroom sign, subtle enough that anyone else would miss it. Jack doesn’t. “I don’t care about the sordid details. But secrets like this don’t stay contained forever. People get hurt when they come out.” Her expression softens by a fraction. “And she has more to lose than you do.”

He doesn’t get the chance to answer before Dana slips past him, already lifting two fingers toward the bartender and calling for another round. 

She has more to lose than you do.

Jack knows that. Or at least, he should’ve.

He is established. Difficult to shame in any lasting way. People already know who he is, have decided what sort of man he is, and most days he can live with that. 

You, meanwhile, are still being decided. Every room you enter is another jury, every mistake fresh evidence for peers and others alike. 

And men tend to survive a scandal differently.

Jack might lose Robby, take a hit to his reputation, become the subject of a few whispered conversations at work. Then the weeks would pass, another crisis would arrive, and people would remember he was useful. 

The world permits men to outlive their mistakes.

It does not extend women the same courtesy.

You would be remembered through it, reduced to it. People would search backward through every bright smile and short skirt as if the proof had always been there, call you foolish where they called him weak, promiscuous where they called him lonely.

Even the people defending you would talk as though you needed defending from your own decision.

Jack suddenly feels sick because Dana is right, and because somewhere along the way he let himself pretend the risk belonged equally to both of you.

Half his, half yours. Fair.

It never had.

Jack lets the sixty seconds expire and stays exactly where he is, rooted with his hands by his sides and the first honest understanding of what protecting you might actually require.

Tonight, when you go looking for Jack, your intentions are not merely ill.

They are terminal. Premeditated. Your conscience is nowhere to be found, certainly not sparkling, certainly not clean enough to eat off.

Whatever small moral voice usually lives in you has been smothered beneath a white-hot blend of anger and a bruised ego, two things currently holding hands and skipping merrily through your bloodstream. 

The house has only just begun to settle after several hours of drunk postmortems, everyone still riding the bar’s momentum and apparently determined to delay sleep through sheer noise pollution alone. Somebody had thrown up in the upstairs toilet, although nobody was admitting to it and Whitaker had somehow staggered into Jack’s room and passed out starfished across his bed, fully clothed, one shoe still on, leaving Jack exiled to the downstairs couch.

It’s almost completely dark when you creep down the stairs.

A small lamp glows beside the sofa, casting a little island over Jack and the book open in his hands.

The rest of the room dissolves into shadow, cluttered with the aftermath of everyone else’s good time: cups lined along the coffee table, half-empty glasses, plates abandoned with crusts and smears of dip.

You ghost past him without a glance, feet soundless on the hardwood.

Only when he murmurs, “Can we talk?” do you pause, but only long enough to throw a breezy, “Later — busy,” over your shoulder.

Jack pushes off the sofa, trailing you a step. “Busy with what, exactly?”

Busy making your life a living hell, you think, scrubbing dried food from a plate. Busy returning the favor. Busy ensuring he experiences even a fraction of the private humiliation you swallowed in that bar bathroom, standing beneath a flickering light panel while sixty seconds stretched into two minutes, then five, your invitation curdled into foolishness.

And when you had finally emerged, Jack was back at the table with the others, but every stiff line of him betrayed where his attention really was. Fresh drink in hand, barely touched. Shoulders set. Gaze locked on the corridor.

He had chosen not to come, but he had not stopped watching.

Jack would sooner lose his other leg than abandon you tipsy in a strange bar, and even furious, you knew that. He had been keeping vigil over the door, tracking who went in, who came out, waiting for your face to appear. But that garnered no brownie points from you.

When you approached, confused and annoyed and still stupidly hopeful, he had only leaned close enough to breathe, “Later,” against your ear.

As if it were of no significance. You were of no significance.

You snatch up another abandoned cup and tip its watery remains into the sink.

“This,” you say. “Some of us respect shared spaces.”

“Mm. At two in the morning?” Jack leans one hip against the counter, arms folding over his chest. When you dont stop, he adds, “All right. Scoot over. I’ll help.”

Jack has never encountered a mess, emotional or otherwise, that he did not believe could be improved by putting his hands on it. A wound, a crisis, a woman mad enough to scrub ceramic like she means to erase the glaze. Same instinct. Reach. Steady. Fix.

You turn before he can.

Dishwater slips from your fingers in clear little tracks, the oversized sleep shirt grazing high over your thighs as you square yourself toward him. 

“No, thank you.” Your gaze stays fixed on his. “I’ve learned I can manage without help.” 

He comes closer, and closer still, until your damp fingers have nowhere sensible to go except flat against the edge of the sink. 

“That’s very independent of you, honey,” he says. “Always loved that about you.” His hand lands beside your hip, bracketing you in. His gaze searches your face, lightening at the edges. “But I don’t think we’re talking about dishes anymore, are we?”

You tip your chin up, refusing to let the gentling in his eyes sand down your irritation. “No, we’re not. We’re talking about you saying one thing and doing another. Apparently promises are more of a loose suggestion when they’re coming from you.” 

“Give me a chance to explain, sweetheart.” The words slip out on a breath, softer than the rattle of the faucet.  “You can be mad after. Hell, you probably still will be. Just hear me out first.” 

You do not want to hear him out.

Explanations are unpredictable things, doors that open both ways, and you already have the sickening suspicion that whatever is waiting on the other side will hurt worse than not knowing. 

Because yes, objectively, Jack failing to follow you into a bathroom means very little.

No fidelity breached, no grand betrayal, no concrete proof of anything beyond bad timing and worse communication.

But the small flutter in your stomach does not care about what your mind tries to litigate away. 

It knows this feeling. Knows this small retreat before someone leaves, the subtle cooling, the moment affection starts becoming obligation. 

Maybe he has simply had his fill of you. Maybe the novelty wore off and now you are no longer the bright, entertaining little thing he wanted to sneak around with, only a woman who talks too much and needs too much and has begun expecting permanence from something built in shadows.

And maybe now he has seen enough of the real thing to know he cannot imagine building a life around it. 

So you do not give him the chance. 

“Nothing to explain,” you say, seizing the sponge and escaping the cage of his arms for the opposite counter.

You start cleaning with theatrical diligence, collecting bottles, stacking plates, wiping crumbs into your palm as though the fate of the rental deposit rests entirely on you. 

But you did not come downstairs to rescue countertops. You came because you need proof that Jack still wants you.

Any kind of proof. Emotional, physical, desperate, selfish. You would take whatever he gives you.

And if you cannot bring yourself to ask whether he still sees a future with you, then you can at least find out whether he still wants to put his hands on you.

So when you bend to retrieve a fallen fork from the ground, you let the hem of your sleep shirt climb unchecked over the backs of your legs until it bares you completely, exposes that you are wearing no underwear, your thighs parted just enough for Jack to see every soft, private inch you left uncovered for him. 

Cool air brushes your pussy.

His stare burns hotter.

“Jesus Christ, honey.” The words leave him rough and disbelieving, dragged up from the well below his throat. Behind you, the counter creaks faintly beneath the sudden weight of his hands. “What the hell are you doing?” 

You count to one before straightening. 

You turn with the fork still balanced between two fingers, arranging your face into its sweetest approximation of confusion.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Right,” he murmurs. “Must’ve imagined the whole thing.” 

You drop the fork into the sink with an accusing clatter. “Probably. Memory goes with age, remember?”

He steps in behind you before you can turn away, chest brushing your back, one palm flattening over your stomach while the other slides beneath your shirt.

His knuckles skim the soft inside of your thigh, then settle exactly where you’re naked. 

“Yeah,” he growls against your ear. “Didn’t imagine a damn thing.”

A whimper threatens and you bite it back so hard your jaw aches. In that stilled heartbeat the fight drains out of your muscles and your body answers him first, arching back, begging in the only language it trusts. 

But the panic bubbles back up in fiery waves.

“Please don’t,” you say, and the plea is not the one he expects.

Jack’s hand freezes.

You close your eyes. 

“If you’ve changed your mind about me, just say it.” Every word hurts your throat. You turn your face just enough for him to see what the anger has been hiding all night. Fear. “If you don’t want me anymore, then don’t touch me like you do. Don’t make it harder than it already is.” 

Jack’s hand vanishes so abruptly from beneath your shirt, your knees dip with the loss.

Then he’s turning you, big palms framing your cheeks, thumbs parked just under your cheekbones. Your own slick glosses his knuckles. He tips your chin up so you can’t look anywhere but straight into the brown storm of his.

“What the fuck are you talkin’ about, baby?”

Your mouth opens, but what escapes first is a wet, hitching breath.

The tears rise fast, flood-waters breaching the levee before you can blink them back, Jack’s outline smearing into watercolor.

“I don’t know,” you hiccup, which is not true at all. You know too much. “You left me there. And then you acted like I was being dramatic for expecting you to show up when you said you would.” Your fingers curl around his wrists, not pushing him away, just holding on. “And maybe it’s not about that. Maybe it’s about how easy it would be for you to wake up and realize I’m not… serious-person material. I’m fun, I know that. I’m pretty and I make you laugh and I’m good in bed, but that’s not the same as being someone you actually want a life with.” Your lips tremble. “People always like me better at first.” 

Immediately his face caves, all the structure in it imploding: brows hitching, mouth parting, a stricken slackness that makes him look ten years younger and infinitely more breakable.

“Don’t say that,” he says, too sharp at first, then immediately dampens. “No, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Say whatever you need to say. I’m just…” He shakes his head, jaw tight, eyes shining with something close to a fear that matches yours. “I hate that I made you feel like that.” 

His hands slide from your face to your shoulders, holding you there as if he needs you to understand this with your whole body. 

“You are serious to me. More serious than anything I’ve let myself have in a long time.” He exhales shakily. “You think I don’t picture a life with you? I picture it constantly.” 

You just stare, lungs cinched tight, tears marooned mid-cheek as though gravity’s on pause. The room narrows to the pulse thudding in your ears. 

“You’re… you’re serious about me?”

Jack makes a quiet, wounded sound. His hands come back to your face, thumbs stroking the wet tracks beneath your eyes. 

“Christ, baby. Yes. Of course I am.” He bends closer, as though proximity might help drive the truth into you. “I don’t know how I let you believe otherwise… I didn’t follow after you tonight because I got scared for you, not of you. I should have told you. I should have found you, explained, apologized. Instead I left you alone with your worst thoughts. That was cruel, even if I didn’t mean it to be. Please let me fix it.”

Another hiccup rattles through you as you try to process the words at face-value. “Scared for me how?” 

“Because if this blew up, I didn’t want you caught in it.” He says it simply, like there is no question which of you matters more. “I don’t give a damn what people think of me, baby. I care what it does to you.” 

You shake your head inside the cradle of his hands.

“I don’t care what people think either. I don’t care about any of it.” Your voice snags, but you push through. “I love you, Jack. That matters more.” 

His eyes close for half a second, like the words are almost too much to take standing up.

When they open again, he kisses you senselessly soft, both hands still holding your face as though you might vanish.

He kisses you once, twice, a third time, each one a little messier than the last.

“Love you too, baby,” he whispers, lips brushing yours. “Love you so much it scares the hell out of me.”

The brine of your tears slick the seam of your mouth. Jack doesn’t flinch, drinks it in like proof of living.

You surface for one ragged sip of air, barely enough, your lips still grazing his, fists knotted in his shirt like ballast against weightlessness. 

“You mean it? You’re really serious about me?” you whisper again, softer this time, almost shy with it. 

Jack lets out a low, guttural sound and grazes the corner of your mouth. 

“So serious, honey.” Another kiss, deeper now, his hands sliding from your face to your waist, pulling you flush. “Want to put a ring on that pretty little hand. Want a house with your clothes everywhere and your shoes in places I’m gonna trip over.” His mouth finds yours again, swallowing your gasp before he adds, rougher, “Want a kid, if you want one. You want a baby with me, angel?” 

“Yes, please, Jack.”

The words are still warm in the air when he fits his mouth to yours, a groan vibrating through both of you.

His palms squeeze your waist, then lift, your stomach swooping as he sets you on the cleared stretch of counter. Cool laminate kisses the backs of your thighs, shocking against the furnace heat of him stepping between your legs.

Your sleep-shirt scrunches between his hands, creeping, creeping, until the hem gathers at your hips and you’re bared to him again.

“Yeah?” he murmurs against your lips. “You’d give me that?”

You nod so eagerly the room tilts, fists in his collar, yanking him closer. “Anything.”

“My perfect girl,” he breathes, kissing you again, softer now, as if the tenderness makes what follows any less filthy. 

His hand slips beneath the gathered cotton at your waist, fingers gliding south until one settles between your folds. He drags the wetness up in a lazy sweep, humming appreciation that burns brighter than the touch itself.

“And what’s all this, hm?” he asks, studying your face while his finger toys idly with your clit. His eyes darken, attention dropping to where his hand disappears between your legs. “You sittin’ here imagining me filling you up with a baby, sweetheart?” 

Your hips lift helplessly into his hand, chasing pressure he has no intention of giving you yet. 

“No teasing,” you whimper, breath breaking around the words. “Please, Jack. I need you inside me.” 

Jack swears under his breath, hand leaving your clit only long enough to undo his pants. The zipper drops. Fabric loosens. Then he is back between your thighs, dragging the thick head of his cock through your folds once, twice, gathering the wetness you have made for him.

The sight of him nearly makes you stupid.

It has only been a few days, which is nothing, really, barely enough time for a normal person to miss anything, but your body has become accustomed to him, used to the heavy stretch of his cock at least once a day, sometimes twice when neither of you has somewhere to be. 

You’re practically drooling, inner muscles fluttering around emptiness while he takes his sweet, sweet time wetting himself in what you’ve made for him. 

You shift on the counter, thighs widening of their own accord, a needy sound slipping free when the head catches against your entrance and pulls away again. 

“I know, honey. I know.” His voice roughens as he traces the head up your inner thigh. “Should’ve given you what you needed hours ago.” 

Then he finally does. 

He braces one hand at your hip and pushes forward in one long, steady stroke, the thick head breaching you first, then every heavy inch following.

Your cunt flutters, welcoming, molding around him until there’s no space left unexplored. 

The counter shudders with the low sound that tears out of both of you. 

The inexorable pressure sutures the empty ache that’s haunted you, stuffing it full until there’s no room for jealousy, no space for worst-case scenarios.

There is only Jack.

Your thighs cinch hard around his waist, heels gouging into the backs of his legs like spurs demanding more.

He doesn’t stop until pelvis meets pelvis, forehead thunking against yours while both of you gasp as if you’ve sprinted a mile in the sand. 

He retreats a heartbeat’s width and your walls seize around him, possessive. He curses under his breath.

“This tight little cunt missed me, didn’t it?” he asks, already driving back in.

He starts pumping into you at a saint’s tempo, each drag of his cock thick and thorough, his hips grinding flush against you at the end of every thrust.

Your arms lock around his shoulders as your body rocks with him, bare thighs trembling against his sides. 

Pleasure gathers everywhere at once, starting at your pussy and climbing until your whole body feels tuned to the rhythm of his hips.

You try to tell him that. Try to say yes, missed you, feels so good, but what comes out is a breathless spill of syllables, half his name and half a sound you would be embarrassed by if your brain were still capable of embarrassment. 

His hand slips between your bodies, two fingers finding your clit. 

“You’re mine, aren’t you? All mine,” he growls, cock still working inside you. “And I’m yours. Never gonna be anybody else’s, you hear me?”

Your answer is a helpless chain of nods and breathy mewls, but he isn’t satisfied with that.

He catches your jaw, thumb pressing your cheek until your eyes snap to his. 

“Look at me. Hear me.” 

“Y-yes, Jack… yours — love you, love you s’much,” you babble.

“Love you, angel.” He presses a kiss to your trembling lips. “Want me to fill this pretty pussy up? Want me to leave every drop inside where it belongs?” 

“Yes, please. Need it — need you — m’so close.”

The first warning licks up your spine. A trembling in your calves, nipples pebbling hard against your shirt.

Pleasure stacks in breath-stealing layers, so heavy it feels like quicksand pulling you under. 

Jack’s tells flare with yours. His hips snapping hard, hands tightening on your waist until his knuckles blanch.

Sweat beads at his hairline, drops down to your skin, and your walls clamp down in greedy pulses, each flex beginning for the flood he’s a second away from letting go.

“Keep looking at me,” Jack pants, curling a hand from your waist to the back of your neck. “Need to watch you fall apart.”

“Can’t — can’t hold it,” you whimper, thighs shaking.

“Don’t hold a damn thing,” he growls. “Give it to me, come on, baby.”

The quicksand finally liquefies and the world folds to white noise.

Jack breaks with you, a strangled — fuck — on your lips, thrusts turning short as he empties himself in thick bursts.

You cling to one another, quake for heartbeat after heartbeat, until the tremors fade into breathless, boneless warmth. 

When Jack’s breathing finally steadies, his mouth roams in slow increments. First your collarbones, up the column of your throat, over the quiver of your lips. 

He eases back only to reach for a paper towel, thumb already swiping at the mess seeping down your thighs. 

“Don’t,” you plead, catching his wrist. “Wanna keep it.”

Jack huffs a low laugh before moving to kiss away your protest. “Sweetheart, you’re not making it five steps up those stairs with that sliding down your legs.” 

Even as he says it, he dabs gently between them.

The light friction has your hips ticking forward, little whimpers breaking free. 

“Sensitive, huh?” he tuts. 

“Thought you wanted to put a baby in me?” you argue.

Jack’s thumb circles your thigh. “Oh, I plan on it — but not until there’s some extra hardware shining on your hand. One thing at a time, yeah?”

Old-fashioned as he is, you probably should’ve expected that.

Jack Abbot is the kind of man who still opens doors, calls restaurants instead of booking online, and apparently requires jewelry before intentional procreation. There is probably a proper sequence filed away in that stubborn head of his: ring, vows, house, baby. 

You find, to your own surprise, that you do not mind the order at all. 

You tap his chest with a teasing finger and dopey smile. “I can live with that. I do love shiny things, after all.”

What he does not tell you is that the shiny thing already exists, hidden in his sock drawer, waiting for the right moment. 

You won’t find that out for another two months, until after the two of you finally sit Robby down and tell him everything, until after Jack takes one clean punch to the face without even trying to dodge it, because fair is fair, and until after Robby’s anger burns itself down into something survivable. 

By the time Jack slips the ring onto your finger, his lip is healed, your brother is calling him Jack instead of Dick-Face (you can’t be sure where he learned that insult from), and the future no longer feels like something borrowed.

It is yours. 

MARIA NOTE this lowkey was supposed to be like 1k words and the ideas just kept flowing and it turned into a full psychological case study on why making ur brother's best friend jealous is both a terrible idea and, unfortunately, very effective. also jack saying ring first, baby later made me briefly black out. hope u enjoyed!! <3

he lets you do your best, his hand quickly becoming more than than simply guidance as he maneuvers you himself, a pretty little doll for him to use.

you'll try to get yourself off for hours if he'd let you, but he never does. he only indulges you up until your moans turn to whimpers and then to straight up whines. cause jack knows you'll never be able to give yourself what you need. he's just too big for you. so deep inside, filling you up so full that you can't move fast enough, never able to make it feel as good as he can.

but it's okay, because that's what he's here for. he smiles up at you all sweet like and ask, "you getting tired, pretty girl?"

and the moment you nod he's turning you over, hand splayed wide on the small of your back to keep his length fully inside you. jack situates himself so he's right between your spread legs, his hips grinding against yours. he lays his whole body weight on top of you, making you feel all warm and small and smothered in the very best ways.

jack abbot who laughs when he wraps those big, strong biceps around your head and smushes you between them, delighting in the excited little squeal you give in response. he fucks you just like that, holding you in his embrace, so close he can feel your heart beating fast against his sternum. 

his belly is soft, pressing into yours as he ruts his cock into your syrupy heat. you can feel and smell and see nothing but him, engulfed in all his safety. the graying curls at the base of his cock grow slick with your arousal, providing just enough friction against your clit that it only takes minutes before your walls clench around him.

jack abbot who talks you through it each and every time. who presses tender kisses against your cheeks and nose and forehead and whispers, "yeah, that feel good, baby? there you go. that's better, hm? just needed a little help. s'okay. i've got you. feel how deep i am? squeezin' me so tight." 

he pumps you full of cum and stays inside of you until his cock softens in the mess he's made, giving a last few slow, deep strokes before he finally pulls out.

jack abbot who holds you in his arms and smiles to himself when you lay your head on his chest and start snoring a few short minutes later, sleepy and sated and satisfied.

crashing your lips against his in fever, your hands pawing at his pecs. “well good afternoon to you too baby” he chuckles into the kiss as he drops his shoulder letting his camo sack fall at the front door. “you look s’ good daddy m’sorry” you whine out against his mouth as his large arms wrap around your torso. “thank you baby” he hums.

“missed you so much sweetheart you were asleep when i left” groaning as he holds you tighter to his body while you lick into his mouth.

lifting you off the floor a tad he’s walking the two of you over to the couch, falling back with a small hmpf from the pain in his injured shoulder before pulling you to straddle his lap. “missed you more, are you sureee you havveeee to work tonight” you whine, dragging your words as your nails run up the back of his neck through his silver curls.

“yup still gotta work, sorry sweetheart” he smiles against your lips when you huff. “s’ okay baby daddy has some time before then” he coos, rubbing a hand down your back as you pull away from the kiss finally.

your spit slick swollen lips form a pout. “nuh-uh don’t gimme that, pouty girls don’t get daddy’s cock” he tsks watching as your quickly wipe the facial expression away, “sorry daddy” you grumble out.

“it’s okay baby, c’mere” he grabs at your cheeks, squishing your face to peck your lips softly. “gonna be my good girl?” he prompts, holding your face inches from his as your hands tug his tucked shirt out of his pants. you nod eagerly making the older man smirk, “there’s my girl”

jack lets you pull off his t-shirt, him yanking your sweat shorts off your legs before his hands returning to holding you on his lap. grabbing onto your hips and thumbs rubbing back and forth at your waist.

“you know was wondering where this shirt went” he comments referring to you wearing an over sized band shirt of his. it’s your favorite to lounge around the house in, you liked being in jack’s colthes and smelling like him when he’s out. all you give him is a shy smile before his hands slink up your body pushing the shirt up to strip it off you.

his eyes catch on your bra, its a regular t-shirt bra but instead of a solid color it’s camouflage print that’s cupping your tits.

“well look at that sweetheart, we match” he teases as your hips rut your aching soaked pussy against the camo covered bulge in his cargos.

You do your best, but every lungful drags you further down his length, your body desperate for the heavy fill it’s already trembling to accommodate. A needy whimper slips out, fists knotting the sheets, and he soothes you with a gentle kiss against your smile line. 

“That’s it,” he praises, hips rocking in a rich, molasses-slow circle that lets you savor every thick inch. “Such a good girl, taking it all — see how beautifully you fit me?”

Tiny wildfires flower through you everywhere at once, heating your cheeks, spilling down your throat, settling low in your belly where desire winds itself tight and shining.

Embarrassment flickers its wings right alongside it, because he’s cooing at you the same way he coaxes patients through vaccinations: gentle, forbearing, inexorable.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he says, like there exists a universe where you would ask him to stop.

His hand glides the length of your back, fingers pausing in the dip where your spine meets sacrum. 

Too much is exactly how you’d describe the feeling of his cock dragging across that spot that makes your vision strobe starbusting colors, but the tenderness in his voice knots something unsteady in your body. 

You manage a breathy, “please, don’t stop.” 

A contented rumble answers you, and he plants a feather-light kiss on your forehead, right where he’d lay cool fingers to check your temperature.

He resumes that same rhythm. Slow drive in, lingering grind, languid pull out that leaves you aching for the return. The headboard knocks a soft counterpoint, each tap punctuated by his gentle commentary.

“Doing so well,” he croons when your elbows buckle, gathering you up with one flush tug to his chest. “Hold on to me, there you go, honey.”

Jack angles your leg higher, opening you wider for him, and the change steals air from your lungs in one shattered sound. 

“Shh,” he hushes, half-smile curving, proud and adoring all at once. “I know. Feels big, doesn’t it? Let me make it better.”

His fingers dip to your clit, and your gasp dissolves into his name. “Jack — s’good.”

The room narrows to the glide of his thumb and the steady ballast of his body. 

He kisses the salt at your hairline, murmuring, “Same here, baby. My perfect girl. Let me handle the rest, yeah?”

MARIA NOTE if being babied this hard during sex is wrong, i refuse to be right <3