VinylSketches

When he comes home that night, half an hour before six, you have no regrets. 

You hadn’t noticed how he was dressed when he left, but he looks lovely in just a simple t-shirt and jeans. Remarkably casual for him, you used to think he only wore t-shirts to bed, but the older he gets the better propensity he has for comfort. What makes it for you is the cardigan. 

“You look nice,” you praise, more than satisfied when the first thing he does after he takes off his shoes is lean down to hug you where you’re sitting on his couch. 

“Thank you.” He pats your back and pulls away. “You’re beautiful,” he says with ease, like he’s commenting on the weather. “Good day?” 

Your lips pucker into a twist. 

“What?” he asks. 

Unfortunately, he sounds deeply worried. 

“No, it’s nothing, I just hurt my arm. Can you have a look?” 

Spencer takes your arm. “What did you do?” he asks, pulling the sleeve of your shirt carefully up to your elbow. The Saran wrap confuses him, until it doesn’t, and he grins at your skin, before frowning again. His flickering emotions worry you, until he says, “Is that mine?” 

You hold your arm in the light. “Of course it’s yours?” 

It’s just a few words from a note he wrote you, perhaps too soon into your relationship for sweetness, and yet one you kept anyways. He told you the story of the I Love You lighthouse, or rather, the Minot Ledge lighthouse, and how the man who lived there had to live on a different island to his family while tending the lighthouse, so he would flash the light once, then four times, and then three times, one flash for every letter of each corresponding word: I love you. The note was left on your dresser. You’d slept together the night before, but he had to leave early. Nowadays he wakes you up, but  back then he’d been too shy. 

I want to be able to do that for you but I can’t find a lighthouse in D.C. that will let me in to try. I’ll keep looking. 

“I’ll keep looking,” Spencer reads. His thumb heistates just under your small font.

“It’s from that note you left me.”

“I know, I remember.” He does his awful frowny face where his eyelids lower and you're sure he’ll never smile again, he looks that upset. “You know this is permanent?”

“They do tend to be,” you say with a lovelorn sigh. 

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should kiss you, or hug you, or… I don’t know why you’d do this.”

“But it’s okay?” you ask. It could make for a very awkward conversation if he doesn't like it.

“It’s perfect.” He holds your gaze. “You’re perfect.”

He acts like your tattoo is a gaping wound as he moves in to hug you, careful of your new ink, but relentless in the tightness of his arms behind your back. You laugh, then squeal at his insistence, a giggly girly thing that nobody else should ever hear but him. He doesn’t make fun of you, just squeezes you to him, his face pressed so hard to yours you can feel his cheekbones. 

“Now I just have to say something romantic for you to get tattooed and we’ll be equal again.’

“So we aren’t equal?”

“Um, no way.” Your laugh is self-satisfied and breathless. You turn your lips to his cheek. “I love you. I’m gonna build you a lighthouse.”

“Can’t believe you kept that note.”

“I have a whole shoebox of them. I love that you write them.”

“You don’t have to come.” 

“That’s why you called me, right? I’ll be there.” 

You can’t know that he says goodbye and ducks straight back into Hotch’s office, where he’d been, to tell on you. It’s not to hurt you and it isn’t because you told him not to —it’s two parts concern, and one part self preservation. Aaron needs to know and you need him with you, and he also can’t imagine things going well for himself if he kept the news of your stay a secret. The shovel talk plays in his mind. 

Aaron’s shovel talk being, You won’t do anything to hurt her, said simply, and with an impassive expression that bordered terrifying. Not overly unaffected, just casual. 

You’re laying in your hospital bed with your hands clasped across your stomach when Spencer arrives. He frowns at you in your bed, worse when he sees your smudged makeup and the chafed inside of your wrist where you’ve picked and squeezed at your own skin. Your panic has left a physical mark, your chest aching as you force yourself to sit, and it hurts doubly so when your brother lets himself in behind your nearly-boyfriend.

You don’t have it in you to complain. 

“I’m sorry,” Spencer says, reaching down to give you a quick hug as you sit. “I had to tell him.” 

 Aaron’s hug is similarly apologetic, though much longer. “You weren’t gonna tell me?” he asks quietly, his hand settling at the place between your shoulders. “How do you feel now?” 

“I’m fine, I– I really thought I was having a heart attack.” 

“That’s common,” Spencer says, “it’s the feeling of impending doom, thousands of people mistake anxiety for medical issues every week.” 

Aaron holds you by the shoulders. “It’s okay,” he says. “Was it a doctor that checked you out, or a nurse?” 

Aaron probes the name of your nurse from you and promises to be back soon. He seems to have gleaned that the quickest way to get information today won’t be from you. 

Spencer goes in for another hug when he leaves, and then, to your delight, a very quick kiss pressed to your cheek. He ducks away after that and sits on the side of your hospital bed, his knuckles gracing the outside of your thigh. “Thank you for calling me,” he says, smiling at you, and better when you smile back.

“Thanks for coming.” 

“Of course. I know how it feels, okay? If they want to talk about medication it’s a good thing, but everyone has moments like this.” 

“I can’t believe you told Aaron,” you say, giving a weak but playful glare.

“I can’t believe you weren’t going to. He loves you, he wants to know what’s hurting you, no matter how much stuff is on his plate.” 

You bite the inside of your lip, contemplative for a few slow seconds. “You think so?” you ask finally. 

The hair flicked under his ears wobbles as he nods. “Absolutely.” 

You lean forward to readjust his collar and tie. He’s wearing one of his cutesy waistcoats, dark grey over a light blue shirt. His tie has patterns you trace with your thumb, like fish scales. “Sorry, I know you were working,” you murmur. 

“I think my boss will forgive me.” 

You let your hands fall. Spencer, perhaps picking up on a hint you hadn’t meant to give, takes them both into one of his and squeezes reassuringly. 

“It’s harder than I thought,” you confide softly. 

“It’s an adjustment period. But maybe it’s not right for you, there. That’s what started it, right? Your job.” 

“I’m not sure. I don’t know. I get panicky about all sorts of stuff, but I’ve never had one this bad before. I was a miserable kid, you can ask Aaron, but I really thought I was better.” 

He rubs over your fingers with his thumb. “I think we all have stuff that messes us up. Doesn’t mean you’re not better. You don’t even really have to be better. And I… I am here for you, I promise. I know you have no reason to trust me with it yet, but I’ll listen whenever you need me to.” 

You think about kissing him. Spencer kisses like he’s suffocating and your air, it’s cliche and undeniably true. Whenever you kiss him it’s like a shock —he steals your breath, he can’t stop himself from grabbing your face, and any other time you’d love it, but right now you just need a peck. You’re hoping he can do those kinds of kisses too. 

“Will you kiss me?” you ask tentatively.

He gets the memo on gentleness. You shouldn’t be surprised, your very first kiss was tame, his hand running up your arm as he encourages you forward. Your eyes shutter closed at the feeling of his lips on yours, and the exhausting thrumming that’s lived beneath your skin since you woke up numbs to a more manageable ache. 

Spencer breaks away. He cups your cheek quickly, dropping it immediately when the door opens. 

You shuffle backward nonchalantly. 

Aaron gives you a sarcastic look. Really? it says. I wasn't born yesterday. 

“They want to give you a prescription for Paxil, honey, what do you think?” He turns his attention to Spencer reluctantly. “What’s her best option here?” 

“Paxil could be fine. They didn’t suggest a benzodiazepine? Paxil is an SSRIs, it slows down the rate of serotonin reuptake, basically increasing the effectiveness of your bodies natural serotonin, which could decrease the risk of another attack, but taking it won’t stop her from feeling like this,” —he frowns at your location— “very quickly. Ideally she should have a medication for general anxiety and the option for quicker relief if this happens again.” He smiles at you suddenly, nearly shyly. “If that’s what you want, that is.” 

“What are you thinking, honey?” Aaron asks you. 

You have the two of them here to look after you while you decide. You take Spencer’s hand gently, desperate for reassurance. “I’m not sure.” 

“It’s okay, we’ll work it out,” your brother promises. 

“Did you lock your door?” you ask.

Your phones are off. The door is locked. Spencer promises as much in your ear as leans in closer to you, crawls that last few inches of space to have your legs tangled atop his white sheets, his hand disappearing under the open sides of your shirt. The other hand works the last few buttons, but you don’t get to watch him do it, distracted by his fingers hot on the small of your back and his lips as he pulls you in tight for another kiss.

This one’s slow. He holds you like he’s worried you’re gonna slip out of his arm where it curls behind you, cool air kissing your chest as he gets the last button by your neck and encourages either side away from you. You lean into him and shake your shirt down the lengths of your arms, finally shirtless in front of him again after days of trying. You try to keep up with his kissing, he’s intense, he’s everywhere, but you run out of breath.

“Oh,” you say uselessly, your cheek against his as he kisses your jaw.

“What, angel?” he asks, breath warm to your skin, “What’s up?”

“Nothing… I wore my nice bra for you.”

“You did?” He promptly pulls away. His face is pinking, but it’s so warm you can’t blame him for it. You’re sure he’d feel a furnace under your skin if he touched your forehead. Spencer’s gaze falls down to your chest, where it stays, his own rising and falling with a noticeable sharpness. “That’s pretty. You’re pretty.” He swallows as he looks up. “Your nice bra? Just one?”

You cover a breast with your hand and push it up ever so slightly. “This is the one I thought you’d like most. You like blue.”

“I love blue. I love you, I love you,” he says, leaning around you to move your discarded shirt to the floor. “Can I take it off?”

You nod with a stupid smile. Fond and too eager. “Please.”

“How many tries do I get?” he asks, grabbing your sides in two gentle hands, pulling you forward into a hug as he reaches behind you for the clasp.

“You can do it one,” you promise, voice a murmur now he’s close to you.

You let your hands rest on his hips as he pinches the clasp and pushes it together. Like magic, it comes apart. Spencer holds the unclasped sides to your naked back for a few seconds, his breath loud in your ear, before he sits back to look at you.

You push the straps of your bra down, let the support of your bra fall away. You ball it up in your lap, sitting there bare-chested and smiling, waiting, hoping you’re as beautiful to him as he’s always made you feel.

His hand climbs your arm. “You’re beautiful,” he says, “can I–”

“Yeah, please. Please.”

His thumb rubs a short line from your navel to the skin just below your breast. Your chest feels suddenly heavy, the half-lidded set of his eyes on you like a weight, but it’s one you realise you like as he rubs the indent of your bra. “You’re so pretty,” he says, his thumb pressing into the underside of your breast, kind but undeniably there, and your body reacts to his touch, which is another thing. He doesn’t coo, but it’s close. “How does that feel?” he asks quietly, drawing under your nipple with his thumb.

“Can you kiss me some more?” you ask, breathless in a way that’s almost painful.

Spencer clutches you by your sides, unafraid to play with you, pressing you down into the bed as his hands traverse up. You shuffle back into the pillows and let your eyes shutter closed, his nose pressing hard into yours as your lips meet again. He kisses hungrily. He’s treated you to a few heavy kisses in the past, nothing compares now to the open crescent of his lips and the feeling of his hands. His tongue is hot where it touches your lips, wading in. You sigh into his mouth and feel his own sigh in return as he breaks it.

“Fuck,” he says, his breath coloured by pleasure. He’s practically moaning in your ear as a big hand squeezes your chest.

You can’t take this. You lift your hips and graze against him, rushing to reach down and slip your skirt over the curve of your ass and over stocking clad thighs. You try to push them along at the same time, breathing hard.

Spencer notices what you’re doing and reaches to help.

“Your shirt,” you argue, faces close, his confusion an inch away, as are his pinked lips, “take your shirt off, Spencer, I can do this myself.”

“But why should you have to?” he says, though he listens, making quick work of his button up.

You kick your stockings off of your feet and lay there, warm, overwhelmed but desperate at once, watching him on his knees as he manages his last button and peels out of his shirt. You cross your legs tightly against the achy heat blooming in your cunt, uncharacteristically shy.

His chest is pale, without a freckle nor beauty mark, but he’s shapely. You've kissed him so much these last few months, traced the hills and rigid muscle of his front with an adoring hand under his clothes, but the two of you being similarly bared is different.

It’s worse when he reaches for the button of his slacks.

You bite your lip. “Spencer, can I do it?”

“Yeah.” He swallows again. “Of course you can. Don’t ask me.”

He’s getting warm, curls of his hair falling into his eyes, his breath a constant huff. The bulge of him through his slacks draws your attention. You crawl toward him where he’s kneeling, checking his face. When he nods, you rub the very pad of your thumb against the line of his cock, feel it jump at your touch. Your heart jumps in a similar place.

“This okay?” you whisper, your touch light enough that you’re surprised he can feel it.

“Please.” He says your name like you’ve hurt him. “Please. Take them off.”

“I can’t believe you’re like that just from kissing me,” you say sincerely, a mumble as you pop the button and dig your fingertip under the zipper, which you pull down in one smooth line. There’s an immediate release of pressure against his cock. You blink. It’s so warm in here. “Spence, can I–”

“Please.”

You nod to yourself and shift onto one elbow, shocked and even warmer when Spencer plumps a pillow behind you. Your anticipation is an ache that won’t ebb, hands trembling again as you pull the band of his pants down his hips and expose a pair of white and blue boxer briefs. A darkened patch of material rests against the tip of his cock, the curve of him ever harder as you touch him.

He sucks in air through his teeth.

“Aw, Spence,” you say, pressing the length of your thumb to his cock and breathing out as you ride the curve of him up to that wet spot. “Sweetheart… Does that feel good?”

He closes his hand on top of yours and holds you there. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.

“I think I gotta kiss you first,” you say, eyes on his straining boxers. “Think you might need one.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I’ll ruin everything before we’ve even started, you can’t kiss me like that.”

“Are you sure? I can make sure you’re ready.”

You’d never force him into anything. You’re letting him know it’s alright. You’re not gonna push him over the edge before he’s done, you just wanna do all the stuff with him that you’ve been dreaming about for a while now. You have a feeling he might enjoy it.

“You can tell me to stop whenever you need me to,” you say softly, feeling his cock twitch in your hand at the mere sound of your voice. “I wanna see you.”

He laughs infectiously, almost drunkenly, the two of you giggling as he shifts your hands. He doesn’t say anything more, only moves your hands down over the softer base of his cock to encourage his pants out of the way, and then his boxers.

His cock is pretty like he is as he pulls it out. You knew it would be. A little taller than your hand, he tugs it toward his stomach and you watch in delight as a string of precum catches the light, wetting his palm.

You’re patient. He lets it stand without help and you curl your hand where his had been at the base, his cock shining in lines, that welling of precum spread messily around and worse when you give a soft pump. “Oh my god,” he mumbles, shuffling closer to you on his knees, his hand leaping to your shoulder. “Oh, god.”

You tilt your head. “How’s that, baby?”

“Please, angel.”

You lean in for a kiss.

Just a kiss, but your lips part, your spit ready on your tongue and slick in a heavy line up the side of his cock. All you can think of in that moment is how much you want him, how gentle his hand is on your shoulder despite the wounded little breath he lets out, and the stickying feeling of wetness that grows between your thighs, your underwear damp at the very centre and clinging to you as you crawl as close to his front as you can get. You kiss and kiss up the side of him, not silly enough to love on his most sensitive skin at the head, not after his warning, though the idea of his cock shuddering against your lips and tongue makes you squeeze your eyes closed.

You kiss shy of his tip and tilt your head back to look at him. He’s already watching you, squinting with a palpable agony.

“Are you okay? Is that alright?” you ask, loosening your grip on his cock to draw a loving, sweet line down, and down.

He catches your wrist. “You can’t do that again,” he warns gently, hint of a smile in his eyes. You beam at him adoringly. “Lay back? There’s something in my way.”

“In your way,” you murmur through a smile, laying back in the pillows as he’s asked you.

Spencer sheds his slacks and boxers. You pull your legs up to give him room to kneel on the bed by your legs, pulse like a constant humming ache against your cunt as he takes your calves into his hands and presses your knees together. “You’re not gonna say please like I did, are you?” he asks.

“Do you need me to?” you ask, teasing him with your own hand, letting it travel from the base of your throat and over a tightened breast to your stomach, then your underwear. You flick the waistband. His eyelashes flare. “I can say please, Spence, I’d love to say please for you. Is that what you want me to do?”

“I don’t ever want you to say please, you know that.” He encourages one leg flat to the bed. The other, he pushes up, fabric of your underwear tight to your warm cunt and heartbeat surely taking up station in your throat. “Maybe I can say please.” His hand coasts down your thigh. “Would you like that?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t say please, or don’t touch you?” he asks, stopping his squeezing.

“Spencer!” you laugh, moving your hips ever so slightly, raising them in hopes of his understanding. “This is cruel, I didn’t tease you.”

“You’re nice,” he says, again pressing your leg up toward your stomach, eyes on the bump of your cunt as he begins to lean down. “You’re perfect,” he murmurs, pressing a surprising kiss to your soft inner thigh. “So perfect.” Closer now, nose skirting toward the elastic of your underwear. “Please, can I?”

You press your shaky hand to your lips, palm out. “Please,” you say into your skin. “Yeah. Yes, you can. Can you?”

A kiss to the skin beside your cunt, his free hand riding up to squeeze the bump of it, his thumb pressing against wet heat, your breath caught. He rubs a line up from the wet to your clit, and he smiles when he finds it, though that smile is swiftly overtaken by parting lips as he kisses a mixture of skin and fabric and starts to suck. You hiccup at the feeling.

“You sound cute when you’re happy,” he says into your thigh. He turns his head slowly, looking up at you, his thumb rubbing almost absentmindedly at the sensitive little hood of your clit, your nerves all over the place. He’s giving you the puppy eyes, big and brown and in sickly love with you.

“Happy’s not the right word,” you breathe out.

“I should fix that, right?”

Your stomach does a hard flip. “Yeah.”

Spencer isn’t as timid about it as you’d imagined he’d be, his reality better than any fantasy, his hands kind but quick where twists his fingers into the waistband of your underwear as he begins pulling them down.

He lets out a long breath as the air kisses your cunt, his eyes trained obviously on one spot in particular as he takes your panties all the way to your feet. He rolls one leg off, leaves the other hanging at your ankle as he grabs the soft underside of your knee and encourages your leg up.

You can feel your cunt spread, feel the wetness that had been growing dribble from you. “Ah,” you say, more breath than word while he holds your leg in place. “Spencer–”

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, no, I just need you to touch me, please, I–”

He says your name, says, “Hey, don’t talk like that, I’ve got you, I’m gonna touch you, just needed to know you’re okay–”

“Spencer–” you squirm with wanting.

“I know,” he says, the tip of his cock turned impossibly red where it’s resting against the heaving of his abs, “trust me.”

He reaches for your abdomen, his palm resting lovingly on the pudge of your tummy. You squirm for it lower. “If you think I’m not gonna give you everything you want, you're crazy. When don’t you get your way?” He leans down, and to your relief, your little gasp of breath, he kisses your naked cunt. “When don’t I want to give it to you?” he asks into your skin.

Every word he says is heat and movement against the nerves that make up your clit. You practically shiver as he lets his lips part against you and kisses all over, unafraid to feel every little bit of you, his tongue pressed wet and flat your softest parts. You spread your legs in anticipation of him, his thank you a kiss that lights up every nerve ending you have that stems from your hips, the breath racing out of you and moans not far behind. He rubs the length of your leg, his fingers trailing towards his kissing. The hand that isn’t up to something just loves on your skin. The hand that is pauses shy of your cunt’s wet hole —you can’t help letting out a choked moan as he sucks on your clit and the skin around it, sudden, the feeling of hot slick dripping from you worse as he pulls away with a quiet pop.

His lips shine in the lamplight. “I’m gonna start getting you ready, okay?” he asks, a small smile somewhere in the midst of a gaze that’s otherwise laden with lust. His fingertips tease your entrance. “What do you think, angel, can I do that?”

You might need a kiss to get through it. You can’t decide whether you want him to keep eating you out like that, like you’re water to the famished, like he’s worried he’s not quick enough to get every bit of you where he wants it, but you’re so desperate to be fucked by him that you can feel it in the pit of your stomach. “Spencer, you need to kiss me,” you decide.

“I am–”

“No, come here. Need you on top of me. You can get me ready,” you agree, eyes peculiarly damp, “but I really wanna kiss you right now, baby, please, please–”

He’s on top of you by your second please. You gasp at the rigidity of his cock pressing to your cunt and find it lost in his mouth, his fingertips wet with sex pressed to the side of your face. He remembers himself, kisses all the same but hand moving down again, turning his weight onto the bed and off of you as he feels at your cunt. His fingers slide through hair and wetness alike to tease at your cunt. You can feel wet on his fingers as he pushes in just a centimetre, again on his thumb when he circles your heat carefully, and all the while he’s kissing you like he’s been starved of you. He’s saying angel and so pretty against your stinging mouth.

It’s strange when he pushes two fingers in, but not bad. You’ve never done this with one another, and it takes him a few careful thrusts of his fingers to figure out where he should be directing his motion, and what to do to make you happy. You nod into his mouth as he finds a sweet spot and presses into it, quirked fingers quick to the very last knuckle, his pinky and index fingers sliding without resistance against the wet mess on either side of your cunt. “There?” he asks.

“Yes,” you say, pulling his face closer to yours, your hands twined deep in his hair.

He digs around against your walls, to your abject joy and something else, some emotion you can’t name, the want to be touched everywhere by him, to be the kind of full of him where you can’t breathe.

He presses his fingers inside you, undulating against the gum of your walls, and groans into your lips as you pull in a shivery breath. His hips jerk hard, his cock sliding against your stomach hot as a brand.

Spencer pulls up. You’re in the throes of one another, but his eyes are clear. “How do you want it?” he asks tenderly. “Can I stay here, or should I move back?”

“Just to start, it’s always tight–” You catch your breath now he’s paused, stroking curls away from his flushed cheeks. “I’ll sit up a little and you can still hold my hand,” —he doesn’t question this even for a second— “just so you can see what you’re doing, and then–”

“It’s okay, we can work it out,” he interrupts. “I’m not gonna rush and hurt you.”

“I didn’t think you would,” you whisper, cupping his face in your hand.

He ducks in for a slow, chaste kiss.

“I know you didn’t,” Spencer says. He takes another kiss, pressing one to the top of your chin.

Then he’s shuffling backwards and off of you, and he’s grabbing your hips, lifting you up as he positions himself at your cunt. You shuffle back in the opposite direction to wedge yourself firmly in his pillows, knees up and heels either side of his lap as he moves in. His cock rubs against your cunt by accident, then quickly again with a deliberateness, like he’d felt you and couldn’t help himself.

“God, you’re so pretty,” he says. His eyebrows pinch together in a glare, his thumb pressing to your clit. There’s no purchase there anymore, your wetness having made its way up, but he rubs it nonetheless. “You’re the most beautiful girl in the world.”

You grab his hand. Twine your fingers into his. “I love you, Spence,” you say easily. “Don’t be shy.”

He’s giving you that Can’t believe I’m with you look that he often does. It reminds you of the first time you met when you’d called him beautiful without knowing he’d mean this much to you one day, because he really was gorgeous, everything you’d ever want in a guy and lovelier after. You flirted your way into being his friend, and one day your hand-holding was hugging, your friendly cheek kissing turned to lazy hickeys, and he’s still giving you that look. Like he doesn’t deserve you. Like you’re gonna disappear.

You reach between your centre and his to nudge his hand down, guiding him into place. “Say you love me,” you request in a murmur.

“I love you,” he says, head of his cock against your opening. He abandons your clit, to your disappointment, but he’s grabbing the rump of your ass and hip to hold you in place.

He is achingly, achingly slow. He’s so gentle with his thrusts that you feel like you could love him twice as much as when you started, his wrinkled brow, his eyes flitting between your face and the stretch of your cunt to check on you as he goes. He reaches a natural resistance, nothing he couldn’t push past if he didn’t want to, but he doesn’t have to —he’s not fully sheathed and yet you’re aflame with pleasure. He’s at just the right angle. All he needs to do is move.

“There?” he asks softly,

“Please, right there.”

He pushes forward and a breath leaves his lips like you stole it. “You’re tight,” he says, “I knew you would be at first, but I didn’t expect– do I need to stop?”

“No, no, that’s the best part…” You close your eyes. If he weren’t holding your hand you’d cover your face. “Spence, it’s supposed to feel like this, baby. You just find the way you like it and I’ll tell you if it’s not right.”

“Promise?”

“Promise– oh.”

The fronts of his thighs press to yours, his cock flush to your walls and digging into something sweet and sensitive enough to make your thighs shake. Good luck, you think, for the two of you to fit together like this, for his cock to fill you without hurting or leaving you wanting, even though he’s just a little over half inside. He goes slow, almost repetitive, his thumb drawing dedicated half circles into the back of your hand where he’s securing it to your hip. Breathe, you think, I have to breathe. There’s nobody here but Spencer. You can show him exactly how this is making you feel.

“Fuck,” you say, letting out a little moan, worried it won’t be something he likes.

“Fuck,” he echoes emphatically, “does that feel good, angel?”

“Uh-huh,” you say. His chest shines with sweat, his cock driving in, all his touching and adoring drawing a litany of your most vulnerable sounds, hiccups and whimpers, beggy breaths that plead for him to do exactly what he’s doing until he can’t.

“Can you keep your leg up?” he asks.

“What?”

“Can you lift your leg, angel? I need my hand.”

You nod hurriedly and hold your leg aloft as he’d been, not pretzeled but giving him the room he needs to drive forward. He’s swift in his intention, pressing his free hand to your cunt, unabashed, marriage and middle finger slippery against the head of your clit and drawing precise circles. After a few timid thrusts of his hips, he matches speed. Every thrust met with a circle of your clit, his face dipping down to kiss your leg.

“There,” he says to your knee, “I got you, I’ll get you there.”

“I don’t wanna cum yet,” you confess.

“No, I know, but you have to feel good, I need to touch my girl.”

You don’t want to argue with that. He’s never said something like that.

He goes on. “You’re so pretty, I don’t know– I don’t–” He gives a tight smile, “don’t think you know how beautiful you are, you feel–” He moans, then, like he’s pleading.

You don’t expect to be close this soon. It had to be the way he’s talking to you, or his lazy mouthing at your cunt before you’d started. “Wait! Wait, Spence, don’t,” —you grab his hand to stop him from drawing anymore circles— “I have to do it, or I’m gonna cum already.”

He says fuck, thrusts in just a little deeper than he had been, head of his cock kissing just the right place, “Show me how to do it the way you need it.”

You play on the edge of your orgasm for long, long minutes, your hand over Spencer’s drawing the smallest of circles, your nerves aching, the pressure of it like his hands pressed to your tummy. Spencer fucks you, fucks into you, ruts into you when you give him a flirty smile, angling his hips a touch to the side.

You usher him down to you, craning your head up to his. “Can I have a kiss?” you ask with a voice stretched to gossamer. You’re in love with him and you could cry for it as he fucks you, but you try not to. Not yet.

Spencer licks his lips. “You can have everything.”

He slows his thrusts to a drag. Slow drag out, full push in. His hips press to yours and you squeak as he fills you with every inch he has, his hands vying for your clammy face.

He can only thrust slowly from there, though it feels like it’s hitting somewhere new, if not deeper. Shifts of his hips against yours, a mess of slick between you and the friction of his skin. You kiss and pant into each others mouths, spit stretching like a string from his lip to yours that he promptly kisses away. It’s everything you needed it to be, and you can’t hold off much longer. “Wanna cum,” you tell him, stroking the skin under his eye, his gaze aligned with yours.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Can you– like before–”

Spencer understands. He sits back, drags you by the hips onto his cock, and set about fucking that dedicated pace, three fingers pressed to your clit. He goes as slowly as you showed him at first, and that in time with his thrusts sends a pleasure through you that makes you gasp. He speeds his hips at the same time as his fingers, your skin so wet that it requires dedication to wind the coil, but he does wind it, over and over and over again until your walls are rigid tight and your hips are working desperately to chase the feeling. He’s pushing you to the edge.

You cum, and your breath gets caught. You force out a breath and you keen in the feeling, covering your face with both hands as Spencer pushes you through it with a few last teasing circles and a couple of quick thrusts.

Spencer knows without asking to slow as you come down. You laugh into your hands.

He doesn’t quibble when you let your legs fall flat around him, only strokes your thigh, paused half inside of you to offer you one of his shy smiles. “You even sound pretty,” he says.

“You think so?”

“Of course I do.”

He takes a measured thrust. He’s not not confident these days, but you can see the man you adore now between your legs, in love with you but not sure what to do. “You can keep going, baby.”

“You sure?” he asks.

It’s gonna be intense, but you want that. “Come back,” you say, angling your tired legs around him. “Come lay on top of me… Please.”

It’ll be nice to hug him now. You whine as his cock slips out of you and again as he lays atop you and slides it back in, your cunt waiting for him and slick as anything as he settles.

“Is this too much?” he asks, cupping your cheek.

He rolls his hips demonstratively. You didn’t know there was anything left there to give him, but he can have it.

You wrap your arms around him, your forearms to the line of sweat on his back, and give him a hard hug. “You can have everything,” you utter, repeating his earlier promise to him with the same encapsulating love as you cling. “Fuck me however you want.”

When it starts again, chills ride up your spine. Spencer finds a place you didn’t know you had and fucks against it with love, so deep you feel like you can’t breathe, his nose rubbing harshly into your cheek. He squeezes your shoulders tight in his arms and you’re sure you’ll never catch your breath again, and you don’t want him to stop. You’ve never felt this close to him.

Your naked chest rises uselessly beneath him as you fall into the whining, pleading bit of sex, your moans half gasp and lost in his hair as he burrows his face into the pillow by your head to hide his same desperation.

“There you are,” he mumbles, hips grinding into yours. He must say your name ten times in a row, each one more frayed than the last, until he’s lost it completely.

“Go faster, sweetheart,” you suggest, squeezing his hips between your thighs.

Spencer begins again in earnest, nipping crescent moons into the curve of your neck, thrusting fast until he can’t. You hear him trip into cumming like it’s an accident, his thighs go all tense and his cock throbs as he presses you flat, flat to the bed.

He gives a last few greedy thrusts before he calms, though he doesn’t stop moving. Spencer rolls his hips for a slow, languishing minute.

His hand finds your shoulder. His face turns to yours as you turn yours to his, two halves of a good kiss.

“I love you,” you whisper.

He’s panting, but his reciprocation is immediate. “I love you more.”

“No, you don’t.”

Spencer lifts himself up enough to wrap his arms behind your head, almost framing your head where you’re laid underneath him. “Trust me, I do.” His eyes shutter. You close your own in wait of another kiss, but he’s sliding the tip of his nose down the bridge of your own. He draws a circle, draws soft lines over your cheek in zigzags.

“Tell me what to do now,” he murmurs.

You scratch his back lightly. “Aw, Spencer, just keep doing this.”

—

Spencer cleans you up and you finally cry, a couple of tears you’re hoping he won’t notice as he drops the towel on your leg. He holds you with his hand behind your back and murmurs words too nice for such silly tears into your cheek, before asking, scared, if he’d hurt you.

“No, no, it’s like the most intense relief in the world!” you tell him, selfishly basking in the muscle of arms where they’re wrapped around you, and his silky hair whispering over your ear. “I feel amazing.”

“I didn’t think you’d be one of the women who cry afterward,” he says. He’s not judging you, simply sharing an observation. It makes sense. You’re not usually emotional in such an unconstrained way.

“I’m really happy.” You pinch his chin mildly.

“Your legs are hurting.”

You let him go. “Yeah, a bit. It’s a nice hurting. Like we went for a really long walk.”

He takes your face into both hands and tips your head back. You’re slouched forward, he’s straight-backed, and he’s taller where he’s grinning at you. His hand comes to rest against one of your breasts, giving it a little cup before he presses it flat over your heart. “I thought you were never gonna calm down.”

“You have that effect on people.”

“Maybe that’s true for you,” he says, tapping your nose with his, encouraging you to lift your chin. “But only one person’s ever made me lose my breath like that,” he adds, your lips touching, not kissing.

You could keep him forever. “Think we should turn our phones back on?” you ask.

“When I’ve made you something to drink, sure. And found you something to wear, right? It’s too cold.”

You’re still hot enough to cook an egg, but you let him take care of you. It’s as good as being fucked, being adored when it’s done. He gives you underwear first, a soft tank top and a pair of panties you’d left here before and he’d washed and pressed, your sweetheart. You’re surprised he doesn’t help you into them, but you notice with fond bemusement that he’s cringing as he steps into a fresh pair of boxers.

“You okay, handsome? Did you tweak something?”

He’s in pants before you realise, standing shirtless with sex-tousled hair. You could ask him back to bed if you weren’t exhausted. “I’m not in shape.”

“I could say otherwise.”

Spencer’s on top of you again in an instant. He sits on your naked leg and pulls down your rising tank top before twinging your hands in his. He’s practically in your lap as he kisses your chin. It’s that earnest you end up giggling, lovestruck, two idiots holding hands. He steals a couple of lazy kisses. You can’t remember how many you’ve had anymore.

“You’re contrary,” he says as he pulls away.

“Can’t you be nice to me? You were acting so nice.”

He slides off of your leg. “You’re my best friend. I hope we’re this happy for the rest of our lives.”

You fist your hand in the rumpled sheets behind you. He’s apparently unaware he’s said the most special thing he could’ve, opening his closet door to retrieve your pyjamas from the shelf he dedicated to you the first time you slept over. You are best friends, is the best part. He’s not exaggerating.

Before he’d ever kissed you, you were in love. You’ve been in love for years.

Spencer drops your pyjamas next to you on the bed. “You want me to help you put them on?”

You have no reason to need help tonight, but you want it. “Yes, please. Can you rub my back after?”

“Yesss. I’d love to rub your back. If we maintain our physical connection after sex, it enhances the relaxing factor but it also prolongs the effect of the oxytocin and dopamine your brain would’ve released when we were–” He picks up your sleep shirt and shakes it out. “Well, you know.”

“Any more sex facts for me?”

Spencer has the nerve to blush, considering the way he’d spoken to you only ten minutes ago. “An orgasm as a woman can lower your risk of heart disease, breast cancer, and depression.”

You smile at him sweetly. “No kidding. How much to get that risk down to zero?”

He kisses your cheek. “You know that’s not how it works.”

“We can still try.”

“Um. Can I have a banana first?”

“I’m kidding!”

“Oh.” He gestures for you to put your arms into the sleep shirt. “Well, maybe you can have a banana too and we’ll see how we feel.”

˗ˋˏ ʚ♡ɞ ˎˊ˗

"She's a big girl, Joel," Tess says, sipping her drink. She winces at the taste but isn't deterred. "She can take care of herself." 

And if you can't, who cares? You shouldn't be anybody else's problem, and to your credit you aren't. You take care of yourself. You take care of Joel, too, whenever you can, which is why you've brought him the book you found. 

"Here, handsome," you say, holding it out with little ceremony. 

Joel stands up to take it. He stares at the cover in silence. 

"It's a shame they can't include a snippet on every page," you lament. "Like when they used to put perfume samples straight on the paper. I don't know what half of those songs sound like. Which is weird, right? The biggest Billboard hits and I can't remember them." 

"And this is for…" 

"Your codes. Your radio codes?" Your beaming smile starts to shutter. Maybe it isn't useful after all.

Joel knows better than to ask what you want for it. You never ask for anything, ever. You give and you give and at first he'd thought you were stupid, just plain dumb. Generosity is a myth and everybody has their motives. He'd been suspicious of your angle, rejecting you, talking down on you, practically spitting at you to get lost. And you'd listened, for the most part, but then he'd see you in line after shifts for cards, around dark corners talking to dirty FEDRA officers, and you'd always impossibly feel his gaze and pin him with a smile. You've eroded his reluctance over time, and now you're here, sprightly and pretty in his too-big apartment filling every inch with light. 

He reaches across the gap and takes your hand. He squeezes, savouring the warmth of your smaller hand. You have delicate fingers compared to his, and they look smaller still enveloped in his grasp. 

"I'll make you something to eat," he says. 

You nod once, a pop of movement. "Thank you." 

You're not the one who should be saying it but you're the only one who's willing to. Thank you has become synonymous with I owe you. 

Tess lets her gaze flick between your two bodies, clearly startled. Joel drops your hand and it's too late, far too late, she's already gearing up to make fun. 

"Is this how it's gonna be now?" she asks. 

Joel huffs quietly. Tess talks with a brittle kind of love, the familiarity of knowing someone for a long time softening what would otherwise be ridicule. She thinks, without malice, that you and Joel are a bad idea.  

"Hasn't it been like this for a while?" you ask, turning to face her, your usual sunshine attitude worsened by Joel's affection. 

"You're fucking up my guy." 

"Don't get stiffed so often and you won't need a bodyguard," you say lightly. 

Joel snorts, tossing your catalogue of songs on the counter. He doesn't know if they have anything worth eating here, but he's gonna damn well try and find something. 

"You're soft," Tess says to Joel, quick and quipping as she dumps what's left of her drink into the sink. "I'm going out." 

Not much changes when she goes. You come to stand beside him at the counter, your elbow brushing his arm. He doesn't move away. 

Joel doesn't understand why you stick around. Doesn't know what it is that makes you so sweet on him. The first time you met, outside the old meat market on the edge of curfew, he'd been standing watch as Tess made a deal. You'd slunk up on him from the right, and said, "You look unhappy," with your usual softness. 

He'd turned to you in wonder. Wonder in the very worst sense of the word; what could possibly possess you to approach him? Agitation struck like the powdery head of a match against its box, fuck off on the tip of his tongue, and you'd said, "You ever hear that Bill Withers song? 'Ain't no sunshine without rain?'" 

He'd thought you were a wannabe member of the resistance, and that fuck off had rolled right out of his mouth with ease. Your smile hardly wavered. 

"It's 'when she's gone,'" he says now.

You look up at him, he looks down at you. His thick brows relax, and his brown eyes calm. It suits him, and you'd tell him, but you're confused. 

"Huh?" 

"That Bill Withers song. It's 'ain't no sunshine when she's gone,'" he corrects you, the you from the past. He's trying to tell you something without saying it out loud. 

"Oh," you say. Your eyelashes kiss in the corners as you smile. "Right. What am I thinking of?" 

"How should I know?" He doesn't sound mad, smiling at you very briefly.

"I don't know, I thought you knew everything." 

That's not true. He can't know everything, because he doesn't have a clue in the world what he did to deserve meeting you. 

—