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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

“You,” with gritted teeth, you bit out, “motherfucker.”

It was almost annoying how good Jack Abbot was.

More infuriating was the fact that he was your father’s sworn enemy, and somehow, you’d let him slide nine inches inside you today, the day before, and the day before that—going all the way back to last Halloween.

No more than two or three weeks ever passed where you weren’t sucking, fucking, or tonguing the sick bastard, and when you did, he always gave you rounds.

Occasionally, you felt a pang of remorse.

After all, you were your father’s favorite kid.

But that didn’t change the fact that you had needs, and Jack was an easy target; he’d been living next door to your family the last several years, and for as long as you could remember, you’d had a crush on the man. You just could never act on it until now, when you were already out of college, no longer living at home, and almost wholly free of the…dicier ethical considerations.

Was it wrong? Absolutely.

Were you often in the habit of thinking about that when Jack had you bent over a table and was hammering you senselessly, in secret? Hell no.

“Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” you whimpered in a low, broken refrain. You clamped your legs tighter together.

And behind you, probably grinning from ear-to-ear, Jack squeezed your hips in either hand and chuckled.

Then, shortly, he ordered, “Get up. Now.”

The orgasm that had been growing and coiling and swelling inside you for the last five minutes—and what had very nearly come to fruition a moment ago—was stolen from you just as fast. Jack pulled out, and he turned from the old, rickety table he’d just been plowing you on. He strode in the other direction.

You were holed up in your garage. Fifteen minutes ago, you’d told your mom you would go and grab the cake—your dad’s birthday cake, for his 50th celebration. About five minutes after that, Jack had announced he was going to get more refreshments for the party.

This was meant to be a mid-event quickie, and now your neighbor was walking over to one of your family’s cars. Patting the hood affectionately and beckoning.

“No fucking shot, Abbot.” You shook your head, resolute. “We are not fucking anywhere close to that.”

The man must’ve had scrambled eggs for brains if he thought you’d even consider having sex on your dad’s 1975 Aston Martin V8. The thing was a classic in mint condition and your father’s prized possession. His baby. Frankly, aside from your mother and your siblings and you, that vehicle was his pride and joy. If someone so much as breathed too hard next to it, he’d have a meltdown. And that wasn’t an exaggeration.

Now Jack was stroking the hood underneath his palm.

Inwardly, you winced and wished you made better decisions in life. Maybe, someday soon, you would.

But that day was not today, apparently.

“Get your cute ass over here, sweetheart.”

Like clockwork, you took your cute ass over there. You only grimaced twice when your backside hit the bright, unblemished, blindingly cherry-red surface of the car and when Jack dragged you by your legs to the edge.

You spread yourself wide, let him flip the hem of your gingham dress over your hips, and shit—he felt good.

Twice as nice as when he was hitting it from the back. Now, gliding in until the firm, round globes of his balls kissed your rear, and the thatch of mostly gray hairs at the base of him tickled your skin, he felt like a dream.

Jack knew it.

He communicated as much when he planted a hand beside your hip on the hood of the car and started thrusting relentlessly. When he plunged in so deep the tip of his cock hit your cervix and you couldn’t keep a loud, shuddering cry from slipping out between your lips and he leaned in and kissed you, mouth smiling.

Between the breakneck speed of his thrusts and the wet, sloppy kissing, the man somehow managed it:

“Whose pussy is this?”

At first, you pretended not to hear him.

The arrogant prick already had an ego the size of Alaska and didn’t need any further encouragement. Plus, you were about to come, and you needed this.

So you let your head loll back a little, and you stopped kissing. You closed your eyes. Rolled your lower half furiously, feverishly in time with each maddening stroke, and you grabbed Jack’s shoulder for leverage.

In return, you felt him grip your chin abruptly.

He tilted up, forcing you to snap your gaze back open.

Your ankles had just crossed behind his back. He was canting his hips even harder than before, plunging to the furthest depths of your body and scraping your insides with an unspeakable, near-dizzying pleasure. Each thrust hit straight through to your core, and you could feel your warmth leaking out from where he stuffed you. Sweet essence trickled down his cock.

He tightened his hold on your face, “Whose is it?”

At the same time, a knot constricted in your stomach. Your toes curled, your breath hitched, and by the feeling that had started up from the base of your spine, you sensed your climax was as near as it ever was.

Fuck it.

With your eyes locked on his, you parted your lips.

Still bouncing on his cock, now reaching for his other shoulder with your free hand and then lifting yourself slightly off of the car, you held tighter onto Jack, too.

And you couldn’t help it: you had to smile a little when you said it, body all but bursting at the seams with your pleasure, “It’s yours, Jack. This pussy is yours.”

“All mine?”

“All yours.”

“Then let me come inside her.”

Fuck, if that didn’t take you by surprise.

Leave it to Jack to propose the most batshit thing.

You’d never let any man inside you without a condom. Never wanted to take that risk. It would be incredibly stupid for you to do it now, with your next door neighbor who was as old as your father—and was hated by your father, only invited to this party because your mother had made you ask—between your legs.

Again, you didn’t think. You made the bad decision.

You mumbled, ‘OK, whatever’ and then watched Jack Abbott withdraw, take off the condom, sling it somewhere over your shoulder, and push back in.

Your body welcomed him gratefully. Shaking when his cock made contact with your velvety walls and there was nothing in between you but the warmth and your own shared, sticky fluids, you almost couldn’t breathe.

He sawed in and out, again and again. Went mindless with it, apparently, as his brows drew in closer, and his whole expression tightened. The next groan strained.

“Aw, baby,” Jack said, almost mournfully. “Pussy’s fuckin’…chokin’ me. I’m gonna lose it in a second.”

You were, too.

You didn’t give him—or yourself—the chance to second-guess this braindead move and simply let him rut deeper inside. Kissed him messily and moaned.

Strokes went quicker, harder, wet and loud and frantic.

You felt him twitch; that was when you hit your end.

Your climax landed with a force you didn’t expect, and half your body seized at once. You shrieked. Your cunt spasmed around Jack, effectively milking his own release from his now-throbbing cock, and you felt every rope spit thick and heavy and warm through your walls. He coated your insides with his seed, and then he kept right on fucking you like the only awareness he might have possessed was in the tip of his member.

Jack grunted, and he fucked his spend deeper.

“That’s my girl,” he said softly. Kissed your forehead.

Still floating somewhere in the ether, you nodded back.

It went without saying another word that you were his.

“You ever let one of them…stuck-up, dick-for-brain boys your own age blow a load inside you like this…” And as if to emphasize his point, he pulled out and let a little white trail of semen spill out from where he’d been. “You and me are gonna have a talk, young lady.”

You wanted to roll your eyes, but you were too tired.

When Jack told you to push more of it out, you did.

Five, six, seven slow pulses of your walls, and his seed came oozing out, trickling from a spent and sated hole.

Straight onto the fresh red paint of your father’s car.

You knew you had every reason to be humiliated at that, so you moved to stand, shortly. Tried to shake the thought out of your head. Smoothed the skirt of your dress down, then looked around, momentarily forgetting where the refrigerator in the garage was at.

Right.

There.

“You know,” Jack called as you started the other way. Yanking his jeans and his boxers back up, the buckle of his belt jingling as he did. “This car’s just as old as me.”

Mid-stride, you had to fight to keep from wrinkling your nose. You stopped in front of the fridge, swung it open, and grabbed the cake. Kicked the door shut.

“1975,” Jack stretched the sound of the number, grinning when he met your gaze and you drew closer.

Don’t make me kick your teeth in, Abbot.

You’d barely made it within spitting distance of the vehicle again before the man was pulling you to him, arm looping around your waist. You held back the cake.

“You’re gonna make me drop it,” you warned him.

Jack’s grin stretched wider. “Hate to see that.”

Just like your father would surely despise knowing what you and his archnemesis had done to sully his car. The look on his face, the raw, unmitigated ang—

“Hey.”

You meant to stop Jack with that word.

It didn’t work—he was already prying the lid off the cake’s container. Taking it off and flinging it sideways.

“Jack, that’s Dad’s fucking birthday cake!”

“Just taking a little off the top, OK? Relax.”

Before you could try and stop him, it was too late. The man dragged his middle finger through a big, thick, ivory-colored corner of the buttercream-frosted cake. Thankfully, the whole thing was so large, and the icing’s pattern so ornately, crazily drawn, that you really couldn’t tell where Jack had snagged from.

Still, you shot him a look that could kill.

“Are you crazy?!” you hissed. “Trying to get us cau—”

“Open.”

At Jack’s voice, your eyes widened a bit.

You didn’t notice it at first, but now you saw it plain as anything: your neighbor had lowered his hand to the hood of your father’s car. Swiped the finger loaded with icing through the mess of his cum still sitting on it, then lifted that hand again. Up toward your mouth.

“Ew, Jack, get the fuck out—”

You wanted to be grossed out by it.

“Open wide, sweetheart.”

You really, really, did.

“C’mon. That’s it.”

Your lips parted.

“Right there.”

You let it in.

“Good girl.” Jack grinned, seeing your mouth close around his finger coated with frosting and his come.

You swallowed and swore you’d start making smarter choices tomorrow. Seriously, no more fucking around.

The two of you started back for the party.

Right before you made it out, Jack pivoted.

“Shit. Almost forgot.” Jogging back to the car.

And, as if this afternoon couldn’t get any more depraved and disgusting, you watched your neighbor peel the condom you and him had used off the windshield of your father’s car. He waved it a second, taunting, before resuming his path back to you.

Out of habit, you jumped a little.

“Don’t even think about it, Abbot.”

But, luckily for you, Jack stopped short.

Instead of offering you another coital-flavored refreshment, the man paused at the car’s gas cap.

You groaned as soon as you saw him do it.

Smirking, Jack flipped open the metal door, and, without hesitating a second, he threw the used rubber in the place where a gas pump was supposed to go.

He shut it again.

You called him a lunatic.

As you strolled outside, back into the party and all of the noise, Jack took the cake so you wouldn’t have to carry it. Ever the gentleman and a strictly platonic friend who was trying his damndest to hide the fact that he’d just come inside his enemy’s daughter and had her eat it, he wrapped a casual arm around you.

He squeezed your shoulder. Leaned in close, once. And, as quietly as he could manage it, he whispered:

“Between you and that precious car of your dad’s, it looks like I’ve popped both of his cherries now, huh?”

You're annoyed at first. "Dude. Why do you keep repeating everything I say?"

Dex doesn't answer, but a week later, you catch him calling another agent "dude" over the phone after they screw something up.

And just like that. Your words? Being stolen again.

After a while, the annoyance turns into fondness, and you start teaching him what to say and when to say it.

Honestly, it's kinda cute.

Dex has social media, but he hasn't been keeping up with trends. He's there only because you're there. So when he comes home one day and casually drops a slang you've never taught him, it makes you pause.

"Where did you learn that?"

"What?"

"What you just said. Who taught you that?"

You swear his head grows bigger when he straightens up next to you on the couch. "I can be hip, you know."

You burst out laughing, head falling back against the couch, hair brushing his arm. Dex narrows his eyes at you, heat creeping up his neck, but he doesn't move away. He likes being in your space. "What's so funny?"

"Hip," you wheeze, wiping tears from your eyes. "Nobody says that anymore."

Turns out he's been secretly looking up "Slang terms and how to use them like a pro" because he thought you'd like it. You always say things he's never heard before.

The tips of his ears turn pink, and it only makes you laugh harder. You grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer. He automatically shifts so you can sit in his lap, your hands looped behind his neck.

"Hip," you repeat and peck a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth, where a smile is threatening to appear despite his fluster. "You're hip. The hippest person in the world."

A crooked smile finally tugs at his mouth as he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck to avoid your gaze. The embarrassment lingers, but your laugh and sweet kiss quickly melt it away.

dex is a stalker. your stalker (he wouldn’t waste his time learning so much about just any person, thank you very much…). not that he would have labelled himself as such, dex himself would have rather called himself your protector. protector who watches you in your tiny, little flat, miles away on another building’s rooftop, spying through the window. a friendly watcher, a concerned… someone. that is what he settles on because right now, you don’t even know him.

the first time he inserts himself in your life, you immediately like him. of course you do, he had carefully assembled himself a mask in order to be the kind of person you like, would talk to. be friends with. in his mind, he makes a disapproving, little tsk sound. if only you knew how easy it was to hack your phone, look up internet searches, break into your home while you were away… but that would change, eventually. he would make you a safe home. he would protect you. he would provide for you. he would take care of you. he would shield you from the world, burn it down if he had to. that’s the thing about dex, he loves in radical extremes and catastrophes; there is no such thing as “casual” or “low-key” with him.

privacy is also a foreign concept to him. privacy? we’ve never even heard of her. jokes aside, dex genuinely thinks there are no secrets between the two of you. of course, there are… darker things, disturbing things, in his mind that he doesn’t tell you. but really, it’s for your own good. he doesn’t want to scare you away, give you a reason to run, knowing that if you did, he would run right after you. it was an instinct, the same way a cat couldn’t help but chase a little mouse. but you were his. as much as dex was yours. leave? you weren’t allowed to leave. or leave him out of anything—he wanted to know everything about you, every single thing there was. dex was overwhelming like that, all-consuming and intense in his loving, but you couldn’t help but fall for him anyway. it was hard to ignore that sort of loyal, undying devotion, that sort of… worship.

when you two started dating, he offered you himself wholly, his heart, his life, every breath he took; he would die for you, he would kill for you, he would do anything for you—take him. keep him. but don’t leave him. never leave him. his separation anxiety is severe like that. sometimes, dex gets anxious simply when you’re in a different room than him, even when he’s at your apartment.

he is a little ocd about… everything. he likes being in control, getting to call the shots, making the decisions. it’s not a masculinity thing, it’s just that dex prefers knowing where to go, getting to plan ahead and assess everything. he’s like a german shepherd that way—it’s ingrained into him, a habit more than a conscious want. but he needs it. and by god, do you love it. you yourself were incredibly indecisive, preferring to hang back and chill out rather than take the lead, which made the dynamic between dex and you pretty much perfect.

and because he is obsessive as hell, he always knows what you like and dislike. how, you have no idea. but dex is incredibly observant, very serious about getting to know you. he always knows things about you. like a clairvoyant, in a way.

dex puts your needs above his. usually, it means that he’ll do whatever you want him to do. his frantic, anxious heart tells him that if he does it, he’ll endear himself to you, earn your love, make him worthy of you not leaving him. because dex thinks he does not deserve you. you are a good person, in the purest, most literal sense of the word. overflowing kindness and a radiant sort of sweetness that attracted all kinds of lesser men, and an innocence that has dex hooked and addicted to you. you draw him in like a moth to a flame, and it’s inevitable, he thinks, that you’ll leave him. you’ll find a better man, a man who doesn’t need a north star to tell him how to be a good person, a man who is perfect and just as good as you.

but he’s selfish. he’s selfish, and he’s not even sorry for it. he wants you. needs you. has to have you. so, he endears himself to you. making it harder for you to leave. and if he is a little suffocating in his love, you don’t complain about it. after all, he showers you with affection and sheer love, and oh, if only you knew how far it went…

dex gets crazy possessive. he needs to be with you at all times, partly out of separation anxiety and partly because he doesn’t like the way some men look at you. hungry, greedy—disgusting. he hates it. but dex behaves, because normal men don’t kill the sleazy, creepy men sitting across the bar, winking at their girlfriend, with a vodka shot glass. it takes every muscle in him tensing and keeping his eyes trained on you to hold back. he knows you wouldn’t approve. he thinks he could get away with it without you knowing. but then you turn around, flash that wonderful, captivating smile at him, and he is… calm. calm in a way his thoughts have never let him be. and there is a hungry, starved urge in him to be closer to you, skin to skin, soul to soul, no, closer even, he needs to be closer than that, has to be, he would fold himself into you—

jealousy. a huge, huge everyday thought that dex carried with himself. for a man so composed and reserved, you can, surprisingly, tell quite easily when he is. he clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth against each other in a motion that flexes the sharpness of his face, and he begins to tense. which is, in its own way, a beautiful thing to witness: his biceps swells, back muscles becoming more and more defining as he tensed, veins popping in his huge, calloused hands and the spot around his strong, firm neck, and you swear he becomes even taller and bigger and larger… it’s s mouthwatering sight. or intimidating, for the ones he directs his dark, murderous glares at. you love it, love the way he automatically placed his palms on your shoulders as he guides you to a place more far away in the bar, taking the lead every step of course, tall frame willing any man stepping close to take an instinctive step back because that deadly stare has mine, mine, mine written all over it.

you actually find yourself finding your jealous boyfriend quite adorable. to everyone else, he is this unbelievably large mass of pure muscle, power and strength, a man you would very much not want to cross, but to you, that’s… dex. simply dex. your sweet, awkward, adorable unit of a boyfriend. who is so, so good at sex.

his favourite position is missionary. he likes you right where he can see you, observe every facial expression you make, every oh so little sound, gasp, whimper, whine… he likes it when you’re like this. unguarded. lost in the pleasure he’s giving you, hair flowing and framing you freely. he loves it when you cling to him, legs wrapping around his waist, giving him the sweetest sounds as you grab his arm helplessly for support. it makes him feel needed, appreciated, loved.

another position dex quite likes is burying himself into you from behind, because he gets to hold you. it’s pathetic, and depressingly romantic, he knows. but he can’t help it, he likes having you in his arms. where you can’t escape him. where you’re his willing prisoner. he likes pressing the weight of his body against your back, marking your neck in places you can’t see, it almost makes up for the fact he can’t see your face. but your body tells him everything he has to know. most times, he overstimulates you on accident, he has a high sex drive, he can’t help it, and after he tears orgasm after orgasm out of you, your legs usually tend to get all wobbly and weak. and your arms become so useless of all that overwhelming pleasure that you can’t even hold yourself up right, becoming entirely dependent on dex holding you up. arm hooked under your waist, he can do it effortlessly with just one arm. you can just stay there, look pretty, and let him do all the work. he doesn’t mind. in fact, he finds it sort of cute when you get all docile and pliant like this, because when you’re this out he can easily make you forget that he said he was going to pull out before he came. which… he usually does. but something in him, something vile and evil and selfish and dark, secretly loves the thought of knocking you up. just the thought of your belly all swollen, pregnant with his child, makes him go feral.

it’s not baby trapping. you don’t get it, dex loves you—it’s just that, well… he likes having you right where he can see you. by his side, in other words. which you of course would be, if you were pregnant. and would that be such a bad thing? he would… love that child, that baby growing in your womb. he would, he knows he would. and dex doesn’t make promises, but he would be a good father. he knows he would be. and he desperately, pathetically needs you to want him to be by your side.

dex needs affirmation more than anything. his separation anxiety is already the worst, but the paranoia… oh, the paranoia eats him up. this would solve it—a child. a child created by the little, good parts of him and the entirety of you. all of you. won’t you just give him a baby? please, pretty please?

the third position he loved getting you into is kneeling between his legs. when he sits on a couch, cradling your bobbing head between his impossibly large hands as you try to take all of him, that’s when he is at his happiest. that is when that serene feeling washes all over him, washing away all the paranoid voices screaming, when he looks down and just sees his girl. his sweet, darling girl, trying to please him, accommodating for him in your mouth, trying to make room for all of him. dex loves it when your eyes go a little glassy, when your gaze becomes a little bit dazed. that’s when he knows you’re in that sub space, where he knows your thoughts quiet down, too. and if he is honest, he may just be very attracted to you crying. a bit. he is not a pervert, he swears. after all, he’s one of the good guys now!

author’s note: i have SO fallen for the benjamin poindexter propaganda. curse wilson bethel and his enchanting face. um, i also have a confession to make: i have not watched daredevil… i’ve just been influenced by the tiktok edits… i’m sorry… have some pity for a fellow victim of the wilson bethel face card yeah? so if there are any canonical divergences—just ignore it lol. or pretend it’s part of the au. if it even can be called an au, as our darling dex is clearly very capable of being insane on his own?

anyways, enjoy my lovelies! lmk if you want a part two.