New Obsession

Your composure slumps even lower. “I’m locked out.”

The polished leather of his boots shifts. "Locked out," he repeats, “from your own house?”

“Lost my keys,” you explain, sounding as pathetic as you feel. You can feel his gaze tracking the line of your neck, kissing the field of goosebumps blooming across your skin. Leaving the house in nothing but a slip of silk suddenly seems like the worst decision of your life.

"I see," he says. "You don’t have a spare key under one of your plants?”

Your nose wrinkles in a small, self-deprecating scrunch as you glance up at him.

“Wouldn’t that be too obvious?”

“Obvious is often better than shivering in the dark.” His eyes sweep gently over your collarbone, noticing the way the thin straps of your dress dig slightly into your skin as you hunch over. “How long have you been sitting out in the cold?”

“Long enough to lose feeling in my toes.”

He frowns at the way you’ve wrapped your arms around yourself. Fragile little thing. “Come on.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to let you freeze to death on your own porch," he says, extending a hand towards you. "And I’m certainly not going to watch you turn blue from across the street while I have a perfectly good spare room.”

You stare at his large hand, contemplating whether stepping into the lair of the neighborhood’s most eligible (and most intimidating) bachelor is actually a safer bet than hypothermia.

Is it a good idea? Probably not. But the alternative is another hour of trembling in a thin slip while the wind bites harshly at your skin.

So you reach up, and under the disguise of a curiosity on what lies beyond his walls, you let his hand engulf your smaller one. His skin is a shock of warmth against your frozen fingers, and he pulls you up with an effortless strength that makes you feel momentarily weightless.

“Just for tonight,” you mumble, trying to reclaim a shred of your dignity as you wobble on your numb feet. You pointedly ignore the sharp pain in your heels as you find your balance. “I’ll call the locksmith first thing in the morning.”

“There’s no rush.” He lets go of your hand, palm sliding from your fingers to the small of your back. “The locksmith can wait until you’ve actually had a few hours of sleep.”

“I look that bad, huh?”

“Bad isn’t the word I’d use. Tired, maybe.” He gives you a once-over, looking a little bashful. “Still unfairly pretty.”

You let out a shaky breath, your legs feeling like lead as you navigate the curb. “You’re just being a good neighbor. You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not lying. The dress looks good on you.”

You look down at the soft material that clings to your damp skin, feeling suddenly very exposed. “Thanks.” Unconsciously, you find yourself leaning a fraction closer to him, seeking his body heat. “But it’s doing a terrible job of keeping me alive right now.”

And unconsciously, his palm skims around the curve of your waist. “Inclined to agree, unfortunately.”

“It was aesthetics over survival, felt like a fair trade for a celebration.”

“Yeah? What was the occasion?”

You let the silence linger a little longer before slowly answering, “My birthday.”

There’s a slight, reflexive squeeze of his hand on your waist. "Today's your birthday?"

“Yesterday, technically,” you correct him, noting that the hour has long since bled past midnight. "But yes."

"Well, happy birthday."

"Mhm."

He stops just inches from his front door, turns his head to peer down at you. You notice his brows pulling together in an observant line. "Don't sound too happy about it."

You let out a long sigh, letting your weight slump against the cold wood of the doorframe. The exhaustion is finally winning. “Birthdays are depressing,” you hum, tilting your head back to meet his eyes. “Another year of expectations you didn’t meet, another reminder that the clock is ticking. Don't you find them a bit… grim?”

He looks at you for a long beat before shaking his head, a single lock of silver falling across his left eye. "No. Not really," he says, turning the heavy brass handle and pushing the door inward. "But I’ve already had fifty-one of them to get used to the idea."

“So what you’re saying is I have to wait another twenty years to finally stop feeling like the world is ending?”

He catches your gaze, his expression softening into something dangerously close to a smile. “I’m saying that by the time you hit fifty, you realize the expectations were the only thing making it grim."

"That doesn't sound encouraging," you note as the house’s heating begins to thaw your frozen skin. "Twenty years is a long time to spend being disappointed."

His lips twitch. "It's not about the wait. It's about the perspective," he explains, guiding you further into the amber warmth of the foyer. "And you’re far too young to be this cynical."

"I wouldn't call myself young anymore."

"Fifty-one minus twenty. That makes you… what? Thirty-one?"

You try not to flinch, but a small, involuntary wince escapes you at the overestimation. "Thirty, actually."

"That’s still fairly young."

You throw him a dubious look. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes deepen. "It’s young," he insists, kicking off his shoes. You follow suit. Then he reaches out, catches your elbow, and guides you toward the living room where a long couch waits for you in the shadows.

His space is exactly as you’d imagined, steeped in warm masculine tones of deep walnut and charcoal. The walls are lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There’s the scent of old paper, expensive tobacco, and something clean like rain-washed cedar.

You also catch a faint, woody sting of bourbon, which you expected, but as you sink into the couch, you're surprised to notice a lone glass of red wine sitting on the coffee table.

"You drink wine?" You ask. "Never pegged you as a wine kind of guy."

He reaches for a heavy throw blanket draped over the back of an armchair and drapes it over your shoulder. "What do you peg me for?”

“Straight bourbon,” you admit, huddling into the wool. “Neat. Probably a double."

“I do have my few shares of bourbon.”

“Then I rest my case.”

He tilts his head in contemplation. "I suppose I've earned that reputation."

"You've earned a lot of reputation in this neighborhood."

“Don’t think I want to hear the half of it. Would you like a glass?"

You ponder if it’s a wise move. You’d spent the last four hours drowning in cocktails that were far too sweet, and the fuzzy warmth in your chest is a precarious balance against the exhaustion. Adding a glass of wine to the mix might be the final nudge your brain needs to completely shut down.

But as you look at him, standing tall and massive against the backdrop of his endless books with the fluorescent light tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the idea of a quiet glass of wine with your hot neighbor suddenly feels much more appealing than any of the neon shots you’d endured at the bar.

"I probably shouldn't… but it is my birthday.”

“Not trying to pressure you.”

“Not pressured. I’m actually curious what kind of wine a fifty-one year old bachelor drinks.”

“So I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Take it as a hell yeah.”

He disappears into what you think is a kitchen, and your bravado disappears along with him, replaced by a sudden spike of nerves. Now that he isn't standing directly over you, the reality of the situation settles over you like a heavy blanket draped over your frame.

You’re sitting on the couch of a man who is as intimidating as he is handsome, and you’re about to spend the first hours of your thirty-year drinking expensive wine in his lair.

The rug tickles your bare feet as you nervously tuck them under your thighs, trying to make yourself as small as possible in the vastness of his cushions.

“Here,” he announces himself again, and you notice that he’s pushed the long sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, revealing forearms that are corded with muscles and mapped with a faint dusting of hair.

You try not to blatantly stare at the prominent veins tracing down to his wrists as you reach out to take the glass from him. “What is it?”

“A Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon,” he says, settling into the opposite end of the long couch. He drapes one arm over the back, turns his body toward you. “From Napa. This one’s got a bit of ripeness to it. Black cherry, maybe a touch of vanilla.”

You hum, bringing the glass a little closer.

“Gets better with age too,” he continues, eyes lifting to yours. Then with the faintest hint of a smile, “Though it'd be perfect for the occasion.”

You can’t stop the flutter in your belly.

“That’s very sweet of you.”

“It does have a touch of sweetness if you let it sit.”

“No, I mean you, Leon.” You finally gather the nerve to meet his gaze, and find yourself tracing the tiny, crystalline specks of silver that radiate from his blue orbs. “Trying to make me feel better, offering me shelter when I was half-frozen on my doorstep.”

The air in the room seems to shift the moment his name leaves your lips. His shoulders visibly drop an inch. “Yeah, well, you’d do the same.”

You would. Although, as you look at the unshakable size of him, you could never imagine a man like him sitting pathetically out in the cold, mourning a nonexistent tragedy while spiraling over a birthday. Still, you’d have opened your door for him in a heartbeat, even if he weren't half-frozen—maybe especially if he weren't.

And you’re not sure what to make of that.

It’s a thought that feels a little too dangerous to hold onto while sitting this close to him, and you find yourself suddenly, helplessly distracted by the sharp curve of his lower lip.

“Here’s to saving Neighbors in Distress, then,” you offer absentmindedly.

He reaches out for his own glass on the coffee table. Hones his eyes on you with a sincerity that feels tangible as the room falls to the quiet space between his gaze and your breath. The silver specks in his irises seem to ignite in the low light, pinning you to his cushions.

“And to aging like fine wine,” he adds.

A soft burst of laughter bubbles out of you. “That is so corny.” Then angle your head to the side. “And such an old saying.”

“I’m half a century, what did you expect?”

There’s no trace of forced humor in his voice, and that lack of irony makes his delivery even more amusing. The smile on your face lingers as a warm pulse in your cheeks. It blooms as a genuine spark of comfort in your chest, prints over the rim of your glass as you take a sip.

“Wow,” you say appreciatively. “That’s really good wine.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s also incredibly dangerous, I think I need to pace myself,” you admit, placing your glass on the coffee table. “Thirty is supposed to be the age of moderation, isn't it?”

“According to who?”

“Everyone,” you answer, a little too quickly. “Social media, podcasts, people who suddenly start playing padel and structured routines.”

“I think moderation is something people reach for when they’re trying to feel safe,” he observes, rolling the stem of his glass between his fingers. “Less risk. Fewer surprises.”

You smile faintly, but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s… reality catching up?”

His gaze shifts, catching that subtle change in you. “You don’t sound convinced.”

You shrug. “I just thought by now things would feel more... settled. Or clear.” Your fingers trace the intricate, frayed embroidery at the edge of the blanket around you. “Instead it kind of feels like I’m aging out of things without ever really being part of them in the first place.”

“Aging out of what?”

You let out a small breath, almost embarrassed to say it out loud. “Being… wanted, I guess.” A quick, self-conscious laugh follows. “Or at least effortlessly so. Like there’s a point where you stop turning heads and start blending in, and you don’t even realize when the moment of being undesirable happens.”

“You really think that’s already happened to you?”

You don’t answer right away, and that probably answers enough. His glass meets the table with a soft thud. “That’s a dangerous assumption.”

“More dangerous than the wine?”

“Much. Because it’s wrong.”

You’re not sure whether to laugh it off or deny it outright.

“Desirability isn’t about being the loudest thing in the room,” he continues. “Or the youngest. It’s not about catching everyone’s attention for five seconds.”

“Then what is it about?”

The room exhales into silence. The lone lamp spills a muted glow, its light stretching into uneven shadows that breathe along the walls while somewhere deeper in the house, a clock ticks softly as each second threads itself through the sudden quiet.

“Presence,” his voice finally settles into the stillness. “About knowing yourself well enough that when someone does notice you, they don’t forget it.”

“And you think that just… gets better?”

“I know it does.”

The certainty in his voice makes your chest tighten. You look down, suddenly aware of your bare shoulders under the blanket, the thin fabric of your dress, the way you’d felt so exposed stepping into his house.

He leans forward then, just enough to close some of the distance, the sheer presence of his broad frame grounding in a way that makes it harder to retreat into your own thoughts.

“Look at me,” he urges softly.

Hesitation flickers through your posture before you finally lift your chin. There’s a quiet warmth in his gaze, something unguarded that softens the harder edges of him that turns all his intensity into something almost unbearably kind.

“You're worried about becoming invisible, but I can tell you right now, there is not a single thing about you that is easy to look away from."

Your breath shatters in your throat as he reaches out. His hand is large, the skin calloused, but his touch is incredibly light as he tucks a stray lock of hair behind your ear. Caresses your cheekbone with a thumb.

“So no,” he adds, quieter but no less certain, “I don’t think you’re becoming less desirable.”

If you weren't sure what would finally wreck you on this milestone birthday, what would be the thing to finally break the surface of your spiraling thoughts—you are now, and it’s the magnetic pull of wanting to kiss a man twenty-one years your senior.

But age is just a number, isn't it? Leon has obviously made it clear that he doesn’t view the passage of time as a problem, and looking at the way his eyes are currently tracing the shape of your mouth, you’re starting to believe him.

The gap between your ages feels like an invitation to a level of intensity you weren't prepared for at twenty-nine.

“You really think so?”

“Sweetheart, you’re the most desirable thing I’ve had the privilege of seeing in my entire life.”

You can’t believe you’ve resisted his charm for so long.

You’ve imagined similar scenarios, of course. Living right across to a man who carries himself with so much lethal grace made it entirely impossible not to.

The men you’ve dated in your twenties were mostly just boys still trying to figure themselves out. You were used to clumsy hands and rushed fumbling, to guys who barely knew how to hold a conversation.

Leon is different. Maybe it’s his age. Confidence, agility—it’s obvious he doesn't possess the frantic energy of a younger man, instead moving with an authority that commands your attention without him even having to try. As a result, countless lonely nights were spent of you lying awake wondering what it would actually feel like to have his solid weight pressing you down.

Not that you would ever dare to admit that to anyone. No, thinking it in the privacy of your own mind is already embarrassing enough.

Although the gratification of having him kissing you obliterates any sense of shame. And the way his hands are exploring every corner of your curves proves that he’s spent just as much time agonizing over the exact same thoughts.

You’re uncertain when the blanket fell off your shoulders, but you can feel the rough friction of his palms everywhere. Your arms, your knees, your thighs. You’re aware of him bunching the skirt of your dress upward until it’s gathered at your waist.

You also sense a slight desperation in his touch. A monumental inkling of need bleeding through a composure that suggests he’s been holding himself back for so long, and it is as staggering as the deceptive softness of his lips to realize the sheer force of his hunger.

It isn’t until your lips are swollen and stinging and wet from the relentless pressure of his that you finally fill your lungs with air.

And to your chagrin, he momentarily pulls away. “Maybe we should slow down.”

“Why?” you whine, a little pout hanging on your puckered lips. “Thought I was desirable.”

“You are,” he grunts. His nose grazes the high curve of your cheek. “Believe me, you are.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

He levels with your concerned gaze. “Don’t want you waking up thinking this was a mistake.”

Yeah, right. As if a few sugary cocktails could be the sole reason of a desire this potent.

Sure, there’s a sweet haze effectively numbing your usual inhibitions, but alcohol didn't carve the hollow ache in your chest every time you watched him pull into his driveway. Nor did it plant the heat that pooled in your belly whenever he caught your eye over the property line—more times than you could admit, less than what you truly craved.

In retrospect, the tension had always been there. Unconsciously. Even if you were stone-cold sober you would still be here.

The morning light couldn't possibly undo the rightness of finally having him in your vicinity.

You reach a palm towards his face. “The only mistake," you whisper, soft words against the rough scrape of his jaw, "would be making me wait another second."

He’s quiet for a moment, but your pretty eyes tip whatever restraint he’s holding onto. Has him tracing the supple skin of your breast with a newfound zeal.

“You sure?”

“Why don’t you take off my dress and find out?”

You feel his amusement radiate against your skin. “Glad your confidence is back.” Then he hooks a finger under the thin silk of your dress, slides the strap down your shoulder. “Because you are beautiful.”

The cool air hits your skin. Two sensitive peaks beg for his attention.

“So goddamn beautiful. Look at these tits.”

There’s amusement laced in your smile. “Also didn’t peg you with such an abrasive vocabulary.”

“Politeness won’t cover what I want to do to you right now.”

Soft strands of hair thread between your fingers as his mouth wraps around a nipple.

Plays with it eagerly, lapping around in circles with agonizing precision before drawing it back as if trying to make the sensitive point swell even larger in his mouth. Repeats the motion far longer than you anticipated, searing a path that sends a rush of hot blood to your core until every atom of your being is vibrating.

You’re convinced the room is spinning as he gives the same attention to your other breast, painting your areola with a slickness that is as heavy as the dampness between your thighs.

He seems to sense the change in your breathing, lets a hand travel down your hip before draping one of your legs over his lap. Bends your other knee, fingers hooking into the crook of your leg to draw you apart.

“Keep them open for me.”

You nod limply. He kisses the side of your throat.

“Undesirable,” he tuts, large hand moving to the wet patch on your panties to map the exact shape of your arousal through the silk. “Do you realize how ridiculous that is?”

You try to form a response, to make some self-deprecating excuse about the depressive weight of your birthday or the slow decay of your youth, but the air simply vanishes from your lungs. The pressure he applies over you sends an electric shockwave of sensation through your nervous system.

He watches the words die on your lips. Watches the way your hips hitch upward. Observes the shallow rhythm of your chest with every rhythmic circle he rubs into your aching little clit.

His mouth ticks up into a smile that softens the weathered lines of his devastatingly handsome face.

“Should I show you myself then?”

“Show…” The supple grain of the couch bites into your shoulder blades as your toes curl into the material. “…what?”

His fingers slip under your flimsy lace. “Exactly how desirable you are.”

“Ahh—” Your hazy mind goes into an absolute sensory overload. One second the room is a blur of amber light and red wine, the next heartbeat you are violently aware of the viscous heat of your own arousal as he gathers it on his fingertips. “Leon—”

He sweeps upward, smearing that glistening moisture across the swollen outer folds and pressing it deep into the delicate flesh of your labia, and you are acutely aware of the aching bead of your clit trapped beneath the abrasive swirl of his fingers, feeling it throb in perfect synchronization with your racing heart.

Leon feels it too. The sharp rhythm of his breathing stutters as he watches you squirm.

“Gorgeous girl.” The blunt tip of his middle finger presses against your slick opening, testing the tight ring of muscle before slowly sinking in. “Absolutely gorgeous.”

“Le…on… oh!”

The addition of a second finger pulls a high keening from your throat.

Two fingers and you feel impossibly full. You can barely fathom the weight of taking his actual cock, and your walls pulsate at the thought. He groans, pulls his hand back almost to the entrance before driving his knuckles deep inside you again.

In and out, back and forth, turning your entire world into a blur of pleasure and the heady scent of him. Incredibly, unapologetically male.

The only thing consuming your mind right now, rightfully so. The pleasure-induced haze that clouds your brain parts just enough for you to breathe in his musk, to watch the absolute concentration on his face as he dedicates himself to your pleasure. At the quiet lines carved beside his eyes. The faint crease at the corner of his mouth. The hard flex of his chiseled jaw, dusted with fine hints of gray.

Maybe aging isn’t so bad after all. You’re suddenly grateful for every single year that carved him into the man who’s currently dismantling you with his bare hands.

Because you feel it. The ongoing swell of an orgasm gathering at the base of your spine. Your breath fractures into a wordless sob and Leon feels your undoing the second it begins. Helps you through it. Massages the deep, aching knot of tension inside your cunt, using the volume of your own wetness to press the base of his palm against your puffy clit.

Your mouth opens wide to gulp in air but all that comes out is a groan that shocks your bones.

Legs parted instinctively wide, it is one of the strongest orgasms you have experienced in a very long time. You’d argue it might be the strongest one ever, but the thought of cumming onto his cock seemed like the only thing that could possibly top the rank.

Your satiated limbs melt into the cushions as he kisses the sweat dripping down your hairline. “Lift your arms up for me.”

You obey wordlessly, and he starts to undress you. Slips off the once delicate lace down the length of your legs. You’re still drifting in a post-orgasmic haze, but your focus snaps back the second he peels his shirt over his head. The flex of his thick biceps and broad shoulders completely rewires your sluggish brain that you find yourself leaning forward as he makes quick work of his pants.

And then it’s genuinely hard to believe that the Leon Kennedy—intimidating, sweet Leon who lives right across your house—is sitting spread out with a raging hard-on that demands your attention.

Which, obviously, you give to him without needing to be asked. The second your fingers fully encircle and squeeze his impressive size, his head falls back against the couch, exposing the strained column of his neck.

You also give your attention to the erratic pulse at his throat. Pressing your lips against a scattering of sun-faded freckles beneath his jaw, swallowing the deep vibration of another groan.

Leon, you’ve come to realize, is not ashamed of being loud. A delightful knowledge that this formidable man is perfectly willing to let his voice gravel with each motion along his shaft. You experimentally tighten your grip and drag a thumb across the weeping slit of his cock, and feel your heart swell with giddiness the moment he comes to cradle your cheeks and groans straight into your mouth.

The power you hold over him is intoxicating. Addicting. Very, very dangerous. Whatever excuse you initially gave yourself about tonight as a symptom of being touch-deprived and horny on your birthday is rapidly dissolving. You can already see yourself easily basking in the undivided attention he's so far given you.

Granted, it is nearly impossible to worry about the long-term consequences when he’s panting directly into your open mouth, failing bid to keep his control intact.

You decide to offer him some grace, slowly loosening your grip. Let your nails graze the soft hair at his base, trace the dark trail up the firm ridge of his stomach until your hand settles on the hard plane of his chest.

He pulls back and pins your hand over his heart. “We should move to the bedroom.”

The heat of his skin is too comforting for you to even consider the effort of standing up.

“Why?”

“Condoms," he huffs. "Don't have any on me."

Your nose curls. It really is hard to worry about the long-term consequences when all you can think about is the desperate need to feel him raw. Surprising, considering safe sex is a practice you've always adhered to.

But Leon really does have a habit of pulling completely new things out of you. Effortlessly dismantles your depressed thoughts, unravels your usual guarded boundaries, and is now rewiring your entire view on intimacy.

There’s a tiny lull of silence before you gather the courage to ask, “How much can I trust you without using one?”

His heartbeat kicks under your palm, and you watch as his brows draw together before the harsh lines on his face soften. “As much as you’re willing to give.” His thumb drags over the back of your hand. “You sure ‘bout that?”

It surprises you how easy the words slip past your lips, devoid of the usual overthinking that has haunted this day so far.

For the first time in a long time, the air in your lungs feels clear.

“I want you to go without,” you confirm.

“C’mere.”

He tugs you closer and sits you right on top of his lap, back firmly flushed against his chest.

“Lift your hips a little.”

You brace your hands against his thick thighs, let him guide the blunt tip of his cock right to your slick hole. The keening sound you make vibrates in the room as gravity slowly takes over, allowing your wet muscles to swallow the first few inches of him.

It doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t any less intense. He fills you with a burning heat.

“Ah—ngh… Leon…”

“Breathe,” he drawls. You feel his lips on the crook of your neck, gooseflesh rising up when you feel the tip of his tongue. “A little more, yeah?”

Your head bobs in a nod. Lungs expanding, lungs deflating—diaphragm relaxed. You count to three and let your body melt against his chest.

It takes him a full minute, filled with soft whines that rumble in the back of your throat and little strokes coming from his hips. Your eyes are unfocused when he gives a final jerk, feeling the coarseness of his hair grind against the slope of your ass.

“Oh, fuck.”

“So fucking warm,” he grunts, pulling open your thighs wide across his lap, knees hooked over his sides with your bare feet dangling in the air. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” you slur. There’s no pain to speak of but the strain of him pressing against your sensitive flesh. “Just… full.”

At least, full is the only word your overstimulated brain can offer.

No amount of previous longing could have prepared you for the way his pulse drums in tandem with your own, thudding so violently against your internal nerves. Perfectly snug inside you, as if your very anatomy is fundamentally shifting—melting, molding. Making room to seamlessly map every thick ridge of his shape until there's no space left between your bodies.

But sitting perfectly still is its own kind of torture. The throb in your cunt is spiraling into a desperate itch, and simply having him seated to the hilt is no longer enough.

Friction is what you seek, and friction is what you ask, rolling your hips in a needy grind, doing your best to wiggle against his lap just to coax out even a fraction.

"Christ." The sound he makes vibrates through your entire back, dragged out with sluggish words you have trouble making sense. "...embarrassing this old man.”

You tilt your head back in confusion, try to parse his meaning through the thick haze of pleasure.

“Won’t last long tonight," he explains, slowly rolling his hips that draws another groan. “Not even a good ten minutes.”

A giggle interrupts your keening whine. You let your head fall to the side, resting your temple against the sweaty curve of his throat.

“It’s okay... you can fuck me again in the morning.”

The breathless laugh he wheezes sounds partly wicked.

“You’re goddamn right I will. Take you in my bed.” He drags his hips backward. “The shower.” Then languidly thrusts forward. “Even the kitchen.”

He takes the full weight of your breasts in eager hands.

“Fuck you in the back of my car like rabid teenagers.”

You choke on a moan and reach behind, fingers finding the damp hair at the nape of his neck. “Don’t think our bones can handle the lack of legroom.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it work.”

You feebly smile at the confidence in his voice.

Somehow, you don’t doubt him. Anyone with a conscious mind would agree that Leon is a man of absolute competence. You might not know the secret he keeps behind closed doors, or the full depth of his life, but you know the way he commands the space he occupies. And you'd expect nothing less from him when the space he's currently residing in is yours.

Physically, sure. He's sheathed impossibly deep within your cunt.

Metaphorically, too, when he’s been threading in your thoughts with a steady persistence. Lingers between looks, between breaths. Settles deep into the unspoken gaps of your everyday life, anticipating your needs long before you do by offering things without excess.

A roof over your head. A glass of wine in your hand without expectation. Heartfelt words that reach you even when you hadn’t realized you needed to hear them.

You wonder if you asked for more for the sake of your own comfort, he would give that too.

For your pleasure, at least. The stretch of him fucking you in slow ceremony is already delicious as it is, but a fierce hunger still gnaws at your neglected clit. You try to guide the hand on your right tit down to the slope of your stomach, drawing it directly toward the spot where your bodies meet.

Fortunately, Leon is more than happy to oblige.

“Right here?"

You nod silently, let your body do the talking. And talking it does in a language of erratic breaths and arching hips. Pliant to his touch, yet greedy for his fingertips. The sheer volume of slick, overheated syrup that instantly coats his skin has him inhaling sharply.

"Fucking drenched,” he grunts, feeling the rigid length of his cock disappear completely between your glistening folds. "Gonna eat this pussy next time."

Crude and abrasive. You like this version of him. So much so that your internal muscles respond before your voice can, milking him with a series of desperate clenches that has his jaw locking tight.

“Next time, sweetheart,” he promises, rubbing circles over the hard knot of your clit. “Taste how sweet this pussy is.”

That seems to do it. Your entire frame tenses, toes curling in anticipation of the sensation climbing up in your leg. Even breathing seems like a secondary concern, a distant chore your lungs are struggling to remember how to perform when you’ve succumbed so completely to the intensity.

"That’s it. You gon' give me another?”

You hiccup through a frantic chorus of “Fuckfuckfuckfuck” and wail helplessly.

“Go on. Let me feel it."

“Shit,” you heave, right before you shatter, squeezing your eyes shut.

You collapse with a satisfied smile, reveling in the ecstasy seeping deep into your bones. But that quiet hum is cut abruptly short when his hands suddenly hook under the backs of your knees, hoisting your legs up and peeling you open.

Starts fucking you for the sake of his pleasure.

You find no mercy in his rhythm, pistoning force that has your breasts bouncing with every jarring strike. Limbs shaking, bones rattling. The room shuddering with echoes of wet, heavy slaps.

It’s nothing you can’t take when you seem to be enjoying it yourself. You realize, staring down at the clotted, white fluid foaming around his cock, that you would gladly give him anything he so much as looked at. He’s already given you plenty of attention that you’ll let him take whatever he needs in the name of gratitude.

A token of appreciation, if you will. A thank you for being the perfect neighbor—the perfect man, capable of melting your resolve with kind gestures before proceeding to rearrange your guts.

Although thinking this is solely for his benefit seems foolish when he's ruining you oh-so-good. Fast and precise, hitting right where you love it, touching exactly where you're tight. 

A harsh jerk of his cock has you blubbering incoherent words, "HolyfuckLe—Leon!"

You're answered with a row of grunts, of squelching noises that increase the more he thrusts in. You feel like a carved pretzel as he pins your legs to your chest, locking you firmly in place. Drilling hard, erratic, pushing all the strength he possesses into your pliant body.

There’s a hot tension in your lower belly. The muscles slacken in your neck—throat closing in as your mouth opens in a scream that doesn't quite make it through.

The silence punched out of you is finally rewarded.

Your third orgasm is gut-wrenching when it happens. It twists your insides, wringing you dry. You’re a mess of tears and drool and Leon makes sure you aren't left completely empty. With two final strong thrusts, he pumps a flood deep into your cunt in exchange for every drop of liquid he’s drained from your pores.

Overstimulated and exhausted, you slowly let your heartbeat settle. So does Leon. His breath tickles the crook of your neck, and there’s a thick, gravelly edge in his voice as he drawls, “I should’ve pulled out.”

Not exactly regret, but an acknowledgment of his complete loss of control. Not that you particularly care.

Lifting a lazy hand, you gently stroke the corded muscle of his arm, soothing down the dusting of silvered hair.

“You don't see me complaining," you whisper, voice utterly sated.

“Yeah? Let me see you.”

The smell of sex is so pungent and sweet as he slips you off his thighs. Lays you gently on the empty space of the couch beside him. Parts your legs for the many times tonight, and marvels at the sight of his cum making its way down to your puckered hole.

He spreads your spent, swollen folds with his thumb. “Gorgeous girl.”

You offer him a tired smile.

Surprisingly, you do believe him.

In a physical sense, yes, that’s true. The way he’s imprinted himself inside your body is proof enough of exactly how fiercely he desires you. But the weight of his words carries a gravity that pulls at something far deeper than your skin. Past the pulse at your throat and the ache in your thighs, settling heavy in the hollow of your chest.

Society has a way of making you feel like you’re meant to diminish with time. Expected to survive in barren soil, pouring yourself out while trying to bloom from roots that wouldn't even bother to water you. Grown accustomed to a slow drought from an environment that convinced you were fading out of focus as the years ticked by.

The way he looks at you defies that logic. The blue in his eyes suggests time has only made your harvest sweeter.

Any insecurities you harbored evaporate under the pads of his fingers as he maps the rise of your belly. All the self-criticism and nagging fear of becoming invisible dissolve the same way he smoothly glides through the valley of your breasts.

The frantic noise of the world goes completely silent when he palms your cheek. His body is hot atop yours, and his gaze holds genuine comfort of being truly, unconditionally seen.

For the first time tonight, you discern the affection decorating his eyes.

And it’s certainly not for the last.

His smile is warm and tender as his breath kisses your lips. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

he watches as ser lyonel leans forward now, whispering something in your ear and it earns another honest laugh from you. he turns then, sending a wink towards duncan's way.

and dunk freezes, his whole body going still, because what in the seven hells was that supposed to mean?

but he tried to be calm, tries to remain still cause what right does he have over you.

but when he see's ser lyonel reach forward, brushing a strand of hair from your eyes and tucking it behind your ear, and he sees that shy smile. the one thats supposed to be reserved for him, the one only for his eyes.

and before raymun could reason with him, dunk stands to his full height, towering over everyone in the damn tent, and makes his way toward you with long strides.

ser lyonel leans back in his chair then, a satisfied smirk plastered on his face, and glances over, winking once more as he mouths the words, i told you so.

because truth be told, you had come into this tent with one mission. one mission only.

and it was to sit and speak with ser lyonel about how dunk doesn’t take a hint, doesn’t seem to understand what he’s doing to you, and how you don’t even know if he likes you back.

because one day he looks at you like you’ve hung the moon itself just for him, all soft-eyed and quiet, like there is no one else in the world worth seeing.

and then the next, he goes back to being duncan the lunk, all big shoulders and fumbled silences, acting as though the way his hand lingers at your waist or the way his eyes follow you means nothing at all.

it is enough to drive any anyone mad.

ser lyonel, for all his dramatics and ridiculous antlers, had at least listened. he had sat across from you with that knowing look in his eye, nodding along as you spoke, occasionally lifting his cup to his mouth to hide what was very clearly amusement.

and when you had confessed, in a voice far smaller than you liked, that perhaps you had made a fool of yourself entirely, that perhaps dunk was only kind because that was the sort of man he was, ser lyonel had leaned forward and laughed.

not cruelly.

never cruelly.

but like a man who had seen this sort of thing before.

“my lady,” he had said, still smiling into his cup, “that man looks at you as if he’s half a breath away from drawing steel on anyone who dares stand too close.”

you had rolled your eyes at that, waving him off, but ser lyonel only shook his head.

“i am serious. the poor fool is gone for you.”

you had not believed him, not fully.

how could you, when dunk never said it? never did anything but stare and hover and touch you as though he couldn’t help himself, only to turn around and act like none of it meant a thing.

so ser lyonel, being far too entertained by it all, had leaned back in his chair and made you a promise.

“watch,” he had said. “give me five minutes and i’ll have your giant hedge knight storming across this tent like a man marching off to war.”

and you had laughed. truly laughed. because there was no way.

no way at all.

until now.

you pretend not to see the way dunk is making his way toward you, and you struggle to hold back a laugh when ser lyonel winks at you.

“ah, ser duncan!” ser lyonel says, raising his cup toward dunk, leaning back more casually in his chair, his knee knocking against yours.

“ah, my apologies, my lady,” ser lyonel says, reaching over to gently pat at your knee, against your skin.

and behind you, dunk releases a breath, low and heavy, near like a dragon.

and you have to bite the inside of your cheek not to laugh.

because you can feel him there now. big and looming at your back, all heat and broad shoulders and barely restrained temper.

“ser lyonel,” dunk says.

just that.

just his name, low and rough and carrying far more meaning than it ought to.

ser lyonel, the menace that he is, only smiles wider into his cup. “ser duncan.”

you finally tilt your head back enough to glance up at dunk, and gods, he looks ready to split something in half.

his jaw is tight. his mouth set. his eyes dark as they settle first on ser lyonel’s hand still far too near your knee, then on you.

“is somethin’ wrong?” you ask, all soft innocence.

dunk’s eyes narrow at once, because he knows that look. knows full well you are not nearly so innocent as you pretend.

“no,” he mutters.

ser lyonel hums. “then perhaps you have come to join us?”

“perhaps he has,” you say sweetly, finally looking back to ser lyonel.

dunk shifts behind you then, and the bench creaks as one of his hands comes down against the back of your chair. the other rests near your shoulder, caging you in without quite touching.

“you’ve had enough of his stories,” dunk says.

ser lyonel raises a brow. “have i now?”

“aye.”

you can hear the grin in ser lyonel’s voice before you even look at him. “and who says so?”

there is a beat.

then dunk says, low and certain, “me.”

ser lyonel’s grin only widens.

and you, for all your efforts, cannot hold back your smile now.

“well then, you heard the hedge knight,” ser lyonel says, taking a sip from his cup and sending another wink your way, tipping it toward you and dunk in goodbye.

but with a sudden surge of wickedness you stand. you glance up at dunk, who’s breathing low, his eyes dilated and maddening.

then you turn back to ser lyonel, a knowing smile grows on your face as you lean forward, just slightly, resting your hand against the wooden table as you bend closer. ser lyonel reacts in an instant, leaning forward too, and you press the softest part of your cheek against his.

“thank you, my lord,” you whisper against his ear, and ser lyonel’s mouth stretches into a wide grin. he glances up at dunk, who is now fuming.

“for what, my lady?” he asks as you lean back, settling instead against the strong, warm man behind you.

“for your stories. for your company,” you continue.

you feel dunk’s hand rest against your waist with a firm squeeze, almost like a warning.

and his fingers tighten at once. just enough to catch your breath.

behind you, he's all heat and fury, broad and silent and burning so fiercely ou swear the whole tent must feel it by now. ser lyonel certainly does, if the pleased look on his face is anything to go by.

"my stories?" he repeats, like he means to draw this out for as long as he can.

you nod, all sweetness. "they were very entertaining."

ser lyonel smiles wider. "were they now?"

"yes, very much so." you say, leaning further back against dunk.

and dunk makes a low sound in his chest not quite a word. not quite a warning.

something far more dangerous.

your smile threatens to break then, but tto keep it together, even as dunk's hand slides a little more firmly at your waist, keeping you tucked againsth im as though he means to remind the whole world exactly where you belong.

ser lyonel notices that too, of course he does.

"i'm glad i could be of service, my lady." he says, dipping his head towards you though his eyes flicker towards dunk with far too much satisfaction.

before you could reply, dunk is answering.

"we're leavin'" he says. voice low and rough above your head and it sends something warm down your spine.

"are you now?" ser lyonel continues and there's that look in his eyes.

"aye." dunk says fastly.

you look up at dunk, eyes wide and mouth agape.

his eyes drop to yours, dark and stormy and altogether too intense.

and gods. you had to look away before you do something foolish.

ser lyonel, the wicked man that he is, only leans back in his chair once more and lifts his cup towards you both. "then i shall not keep you."

his grin turns boyish, smug and unbearable.

and before dunk is turning you, before he is turning his foot and carrying you out of this tent.

ser lyonel finally says, whispers actually. "see, five minutes my lady."

and you freeze and dunk's hands stills on your waist.

before tugging you along. and as you both leave, ser lyonel is laughing, laughing loud enough for everyone to hear.

outside of the tent, dunk is fuming. his grip strong against your forearm, his entire hand circling around it.

"dunk—" you say, he's walking too fast for you to keep up causing you to trip over your own feet and dunk catches you with swift movements. throwing you over his shoulder, arm tucked against the back of your knees.

"dunk!" you exclaim, already too weak to fight him.

and with long strides, dunk makes it to camp. throwing you gently onto your bedroll and you fall with a soft whump.

and he stands in front of you jaw tight, muscles flexing, and eyes dark and dilated.

for a moment, he says nothing.

only standing there, chest rising and falling, staring at you like the cannot decide whether to scold you or kiss you or shake some sense into himself.

you push yourself up on your elbows, your hair mussed, and dress crooked from being hauled over his shoulder, and try very hard to not smile.

which only makes his expression darken more.

"what," he says at last, voice low. "was that?"

you blink up at him, all false innocence. "what was what?"

dunk lets out a breath through his nose, sharp and heated. he's not good with words, not good with expressing his feelings.

"don't play wit' me." he leans forward now.

"that in there. wit' lyonel". he continued.

you sit up straighten then and your heart beating faster though you refuse to let him see it. "i was only thanking him."

dunk laughs, but there is nothing amused in the sound.

"aye," he mutters. "looked a lot like thankin." he continued as he folds his arms against his chest.

and you tilt your head watching him, "were you jealous?" you finally asked.

and that stops him.

just for a moment.

a flicker across his face, soething caught and raw and far too honest before he turns his head away with a muttered curse.

"dunk," you say softer now.

his jaw works.

"he touched you."

and you roll your eyes, "so did you." you state.

and his eyes snap toward you, not expecting to find you already looking at him, but you hold his gaze with your own.

and now there is nowhere for either of you to hide.

because his hand had been at your waist. his chest at your back, his grip firm and possessive and burning through the layers of your dress like he had forgotten himself entirely.

you rise from your bedroll, and even then he is still bigger, broader, filling the whole of your sight as you step close enough to feel the heat coming off him.

“you cannot storm into a tent, drag me out over your shoulder, and then glower at me as if i am the one behaving strangely,” you murmur.

dunk stares down at you, breathing low.

“i ain’t glowerin’.”

you raise a brow.

his mouth twitches, just barely, before it hardens again.

“he was smilin’ at you,” dunk says, like that explains everything. like that alone is reason enough for war.

you hold his gaze. “and?”

and for the first time since he dragged you from the tent, duncan looks almost unsure.

like the answer matters. like you matter. his voice drops when he finally speaks.

"didn't like it."

gods help you.

dunks ears had turn pink with the realization of the words that had came out of his mouth. and for the first time since he had dragged you out of the ten like some great storm with boot, all that fury in him seems to falter.

just a little, enough for you to see it.

the uncertainty beneath it. its rawness. the way his throat works as if he would sooner face a line of armed men that stand here and explain himself to you.

you stare at him. eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

and then, despite everything, despite the heat in your face and the way your heart is beating so hard it nearly aches, your mouth twitches.

because its duncan.

big, impossible duncan, who could carry you over his shoulder as if you weighed nothing, who could glower a hole through a man across a crowded tent, who could storm in like a jealous husband with some song.

and now stands before you with pink ears and no idea what do with himself.

"you didn't like it," you repeat softly.

dunk grimaces at once, as if hearing the words back from your mouth is somehow worse. “don’t.”

“don’t what?”

“that.” he replies.

you tilt your head. “repeat what you said?”

he mutters something beneath his breath, too low and too rough for you to catch, and drags a hand down his face.

“dunk,” you say again, quieter this time.

he looks at you then. really looks.

and gods, it near undoes you.

because there is no missing it now. not with the way his chest is still rising too fast, not with the way his hand keeps opening and closing at his side like he is holding himself back from reaching for you again.

“you didn’t like ser lyonel touchin’ me,” you say.

“no.” he replies a half second after.

“you didn’t like him makin’ me laugh.” you continue.

his jaw tightens. “no.”

“you didn’t like him lookin’ at me.”

“no,” he says again, and this time the word comes out firmer. rougher. truer.

you take a small step closer.

dunk watches you do it, like even that is enough to steal the air from his lungs.

“why?” you ask.

and there it is.

the question hanging between you, far heavier than it ought to be.

dunk says nothing at first.

his eyes drop, just for a moment, to your mouth before climbing back to your face, and the look in them is so open, so helplessly honest, that it makes your stomach twist.

“you know why,” he says at last.

but you shake your head.

because perhaps you do.

perhaps you have for some time now.

but you need to hear it. need him to say it in whatever clumsy, rough-edged way he can manage, because you have spent far too long living on looks and touches and almosts.

“say it,” you whisper.

and dunk goes still.

so still.

his whole face tightens, like the words pain him somehow, like dragging them up from his chest is harder than any wound he has ever borne.

“i…” he starts, then stops.

you wait.

and he swallows hard.

“i don’t like it,” he says again, lower now, eyes fixed on yours, “when it’s someone else.”

your breath catches.

dunk seems to realize, too late, that he has said something perhaps worse than before, because the pink in his ears deepens and he looks half ready to bolt straight into the woods and never return.

but then your hand lifts.

slowly.

carefully.

and you place it against the center of his chest.

the muscles beneath your palm jump at once.

“someone else?” you murmur.

dunk looks down at your hand like it is the most dangerous thing in the world.

then back at you.

“aye,” he says.

his voice is barely more than a rasp.

“because…” he tries again, and this time when his hand finally comes up, it settles over yours where it rests on his chest, big and warm and trembling far more than you would have thought possible. “because i want—”

he stops.

shuts his eyes for half a breath.

starts again.

“because i want it to be me.”

and gods.

that does it.

you move your free hand to grab his, lifting it and placing it against your own stammering heart, and he feels it, feels the soft pounding of it beneath his palm.

and his eyes go wide, a sudden look of realization washing over his features.

because it is not only his heart beating wild in his chest.

it is yours too.

beneath his palm, your heart stammers and pounds so hard he can feel it through the thin fabric of your dress, quick and restless and altogether impossible to mistake. and for perhaps the first time since he had dragged you from that tent, all that heat and fury in him softens into something else.

something quieter.

something far more dangerous.

his hand spreads instinctively against your chest, careful despite its size, as though he cannot quite believe you have put it there. as though he is afraid to move it in case this is some dream he has stumbled into and any wrong breath might wake him from it.

“you feel it now?” you whisper.

dunk says nothing at first.

he only stares at you, eyes dark and wide and almost dazed, his ears still pink, his mouth parted as if words might come if only he knew how to shape them.

but duncan never was a man of easy words.

so instead his thumb twitches beneath your hand.

just once.

and the touch of it sends a shiver straight through you.

“gods,” he says at last, so low it is nearly a breath. “is that cause o’ me?”

you let out the smallest laugh then, shaky and warm and tender in a way that makes something in his face shift.

“who else would it be for?” you say

that seems to strike him harder than anything else has.

his jaw tightens, but not with anger now. with feeling. with something too large for him to hold neatly inside himself. his eyes drop to your mouth again, and this time he does not even try to hide it.

“you’ll undo me,” he mutters.

and though the words are rough, though they come out like something dragged from him against his will, they settle in the space between you with a kind of reverence.

and you feel the tug, a force so powerful that you step forward, your eyes still locked on dunk.

and he leans in too, his free palm is so large now against your cheek,

warm and rough and trembling just slightly, as though even now he cannot quite believe he is allowed this.

you lean into it without thinking.

and dunk lets out the softest breath at that, like the feeling of you giving in so easily has gone straight to his head.

his eyes drop to your mouth once more.

then back to your eyes.

asking.

always asking, even now.

you answer by stepping closer, until there is hardly any space left between you at all.

and then dunk kisses you.

it is not smooth. not practiced. not anything like ser lyonel’s teasing stories or the sort of kiss sung about by minstrels.

it is duncan.

warm and careful and a little desperate.

his mouth presses to yours like he has wanted to do this for far too long and had never once believed he truly could.

for one stunned second, neither of you move.

and then your hand tightens over his, still pressed to your heart, and dunk makes a low sound in his throat that nearly undoes you where you stand.

he kisses you again, deeper this time, gentler too, as though he is learning you with every breath. his thumb strokes once against your cheek, and the touch is so soft, so at odds with the size and strength of him, that it makes your knees weaken.

you rise onto your toes without meaning to, and dunk reacts at once, his hand sliding from your cheek to the back of your head, holding you there as if he cannot bear the thought of losing even an inch of you now.

the kiss turns slow.

unhurried.

like he is tasting something sweet and precious and still does not quite trust it to be real.

when you finally part, it is only by a breath.

dunk stays close, forehead nearly touching yours, his chest rising hard, his eyes dark and dazed and fixed wholly on you.

and when he speaks, his voice is little more than a rasp.

“should’ve done that sooner.”

before he can grow shy. before he can start thinking too much, before he can pull away and convince himself he has overstepped some line that had long since been crossed.

so you do.

you rise onto your toes once more and pull him down by the front of his tunic, and the little sound dunk makes at that — startled, deep, wanting — goes straight through you.

this kiss is different.

less careful.

or perhaps not less careful, but less uncertain.

because now he knows.

now he knows your heart stammers for him too, knows you are leaning into him just as eagerly, knows the ache in his chest is not his alone to bear.

his hand leaves your cheek only to find your waist again, gripping you there, firm and warm, drawing you closer until there is no space left between your bodies at all.

you melt into him.

and gods, for so long you had thought duncan all rough edges and broad strength and heavy silence, but here — here he is something else entirely.

something tender.

something starved.

he kisses you like a man who has been parched for years and has only just found water.

his mouth moves against yours with growing confidence, slow and deep and still tinged with that quiet reverence that makes your chest ache. and when your fingers curl tighter in his tunic, dunk makes that sound again, low in his throat, almost helpless with it.

the hand at your waist slides around, holding you more fully, as if he cannot quite stop himself now that he has begun. as if every touch he had swallowed down these long months has come flooding back all at once.

you pull back only enough to breathe.

dunk does not let you go far.

his forehead drops against yours, his breath warm and uneven against your lips, his nose brushing yours in a way so unguardedly soft that it nearly undoes you more than the kiss itself.

“gods,” he mutters, voice rough and wrecked. “gods.”

you cannot help but smile, your lips brushing his as you do. “what?”

his hand tightens at your waist.

“don’t laugh at me.”

but there is no real warning in it. only embarrassment. only that pink beginning to creep back over the tips of his ears, and the sight of it makes something warm and fond bloom through you.

“i’m not laughin’ at you,” you whisper.

dunk opens his eyes then, looking at you from far too close, and whatever he sees on your face seems to steal what little sense he had left, because he kisses you again before you can say another word.

this time there is no hesitation at all.

only heat.

only want.

only duncan, big hands and rough palms and a heart far softer than he knows what to do with, kissing you as though he has finally laid claim to something he had long feared was never his to have.

and when he finally draws back, your lips swollen and your breath gone and your whole body warm with him, he stares at you with that same dazed, disbelieving look.

like he cannot quite believe you are real.

like he cannot quite believe this is.

then, very quietly, almost gruff with how much it costs him, he says,

“ain’t lettin’ lyonel near you again.”

and that

more than anything

Additional tags: fem!read; no use of Y/N; +18; MDNI

A/N: and here it is, anon! i hope you love it! 💜

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The royal apartments are dim, lit only by the dying fire and a single candelabrum on the bedside table. The sheets are already twisted, damp with sweat and need. Baelor — Hand of the King, heir to the Iron Throne, the man the realm calls “Your Grace,” “my prince,” “Lord Hand” — is between your thighs, naked and trembling with restraint.

He’s been worshipping you for what feels like hours.

His mouth on your cunt, slow, deliberate licks, sucking your clit until your hips buck, then pulling back just when you’re about to shatter. His fingers inside you — three now — curling, stretching, stroking that spot that makes your vision white. His free hand pinning your hip to the bed so you can’t chase the pleasure.

He’s hard against your thigh, leaking, but he hasn’t asked for anything. He never does until you’re sobbing.

You’re close again, thighs shaking, breath hitching, and he stops. Again. You whine, high, desperate, fingers twisting in his dark hair. “Please—”

He lifts his head, lips glistening, eyes blown black.

“Please what, sweetling?” he murmurs, voice wrecked. “Tell me.”

You arch, trying to grind against his hand, but he holds you still.

“I need—I need more—” you gasp. “I need you inside me. Please, Baelor.”

The name slips out, soft, intimate, unguarded. His whole body locks. He surges up, mouth crashing into yours, and kisses you like he’s trying to devour your soul. His tongue is everywhere, claiming and tasting, while his hands yank your thighs wider.

“Say it again,” he growls against your lips. “Say my name.”

“Baelor—”

He groans, raw, animal, and thrusts into you in one brutal stroke. You scream, your back bowing and your nails raking down his shoulders. He doesn’t pause — he fucks you hard, hips snapping, cock slamming deep, hitting every spot that makes you see stars.

“Again,” he snarls. “Say it again.”

“Baelor—”

He bites your neck hard enough to mark, then soothes it with his tongue. “Fuck—yes—my name—only my name—”

You’re sobbing now, overwhelmed and overstimulated, cunt clenching around him like a fist. He pins your wrists above your head with one hand, the other grips your throat — not choking, just holding, making you feel owned.

“Look at me,” he demands. “Look at your husband while he fucks you like you deserve.”

You do, eyes locked on his, and he slows just enough to torture, rolling his hips, grinding against your clit with every thrust.

“You feel that?” he rasps. “Feel how deep I am? Feel how I stretch this perfect little cunt? This is mine. You’re mine. Say it.”

“I’m yours,” you whimper. “Baelor—please—”

He groans, hips stuttering, then picks up the pace again, pounding into you so hard the headboard slams against the wall.

“Come for me,” he growls. “Come on your husband’s cock. Come while you say my name.”

“Baelor—Baelor—Baelor—”

You shatter, screaming his name, walls fluttering, clamping, milking him. He follows, burying himself deep, roaring your name, cock pulsing, spilling hot and thick inside you, filling you until it leaks out around him.

He stays inside, still hard, and lowers himself over you, forehead pressed to yours. “Again,” he whispers, voice wrecked. “Say it again.”

“Baelor,” you breathe, soft, reverent.

He shudders, kisses you slow, deep, and starts moving again.

The night is long. He takes you in every position — gentle, then rough, then gentle again — always talking you through it.

“Look at me.”

“Feel that?”

“You’re so beautiful.”

“Come for me, love.”

“Say my name.”

And every time you do — soft, broken, and needy — he loses control a little more. By dawn you’re both trembling, tangled in the sheets, his hand resting protectively over your lower belly. He kisses your temple, voice hoarse.

“I love when you say my name,” he murmurs. “No titles. Just me. Just yours.”

You smile, sleepy, sated, and whisper against his lips: “Baelor.”

He groans, soft, wrecked, and pulls you closer.

It started at 0530- thirty minutes before your alarm- when the fire alarm went off because Private Jenkins had tried to make toast. Toast. The most basic form of cooking known to mankind. Bread. Heat. That’s it. But somehow, somehow, Jenkins had managed to not only burn the toast but actually catch the toaster on fire. You’d stood in the predawn cold in your pajamas for forty five minutes while the fire department cleared the building.

When you’d asked Jenkins, trying to understand the thought process on how he’d managed it, he’d said, “I dunno, ma’am, I just pushed it down and walked away.”

Walked away.

From a toaster.

This was a man was trusted with a firearm.

By 0615, you’d discovered that no one had bothered to replace the fire extinguishers after last week’s “incident” (someone had tried to deep fry something in the common room and had nearly burned down the building). The Fire Chief had shown up during the Toast Incident and had lost his absolute mind. You’d spent forty five minutes getting screamed at- actually screamed at, with the vein in his forehead pulsing and everything- about negligence and fire code violations and “what kind of chickenshit operation are you running here?”

You weren’t even in charge of fire safety. That was Morrison’s job. Morrison, who was conspicuously absent. Morrison, who’d somehow had a “dentist appointment” at 6 AM. But Captain Price had looked at you and said, “Handle it,” and then walked away, leaving you to take the fall for someone else’s incompetence. Again.

The Fire Chief had threatened to report the base. You’d had to grovel and promise it would never happen again and personally saw to it that they were all replaced.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

0700: Someone- you has suspects but couldn’t prove it- had made you the next victim in the base wide prank war that had been ongoing for weeks and replaced your shampoo with Nair. No doubt they thought they were pranking someone else and hadn’t bothered to confirm they had the right locker first. You’d caught it just in time, but only because you’d been paranoid enough to smell it first. You’d had to use dish soap to wash your hair. Dish soap.

0730: You’d found out that the weekly intelligence reports you’d specifically asked Corporal Davis to file were not, in fact, filed. When you’d asked why, he’d said- and you could not make this up even if you tried- “Oh, I thought you said you’d do it.” You’d literally watched him write it down in his little notebook. You’d watched him underline it. The reports were now late. Your ass was on the line. But sure, Davis thought you were doing it.

0800 briefing: You’d watched Lieutenant Riley drink tea through his mask. Not lift it. Not move it. Straight through the fabric like some kind of logic defying cryptid. When you’d stared at him in horrified confusion, he’d just stared back with those dead eyes. You’d had to continue the briefing while experiencing what could only be described as a dissociative episode. No one else seemed to think this was weird. You were surrounded by lunatics.

0845: The visiting Lieutenant Colonel called you “sweetheart” and asked if you’d “mind terribly” grabbing coffee for the room. You were running the briefing. You were running it. He’d then spent the next fifteen minutes explaining your own intelligence report back to you, incorrectly, while nodding like he was doing you a favor.

0900: You’d discovered that your meticulously prepared presentation for the brass- six hours of work- had been deleted. Just gone. You’d asked the IT specialist what happened. He’d said, “Oh yeah, I was cleaning up the shared drive and it looked like old stuff, so I deleted it.” It was dated from yesterday. It was very clearly labeled “BRIEF FOR VISITING BRASS - DO NOT DELETE.” He’d apparently not read that part. You’d recreated it from memory in forty five minutes while having what you were pretty sure was an aneurysm.

1000: Sergeant Garrick had crashed a drone- your personal drone, the one you’d bought with your own money- into the side of the barracks because he “wanted to see if he could do a barrel roll.” When you’d asked him why he’d used your drone instead of one of the fifty military grade drones on base, he’d said, “Yours was closer.” It was now in seven pieces. He’d apologized with those big sincere eyes like that somehow unsmashed your $800 drone.

1030: You’d had to break up a fight between two privates who were arguing about whether a hot dog was a sandwich. It had escalated to shoving. Grown men. Pushing each other. Over a hot dog. You’d had to file an incident report. You’d had to waste official military paperwork on the hot dog sandwich debate.

1100: The intelligence reports you needed for the 1300 meeting were being held up because the courier had accepted a dare to eat a carolina reaper and was now in medical “experiencing profound regret.” Your reports were locked in his bag. In his locked office. He was too busy “contemplating his mortality” to tell anyone the code. You’d had to get maintenance to literally drill the lock off.

1200: You’d confiscated a makeshift flamethrower that two privates had constructed from an aerosol can and a lighter because they “wanted to see if they could cook lunch faster.” There were scorch marks on the ceiling. When you’d asked them what they thought was going to happen, they’d both shrugged. No thoughts. Heads empty. Just vibes and arson.

1300 meeting: You’d had to present your recreated brief to the brass while the Lieutenant Colonel interrupted you every thirty seconds to add “valuable input” that was just… wrong. Factually incorrect. But you couldn’t correct him because he outranked you, despite being dumber than a bag of rocks.

1400: You’d returned to your office to find the door locked. Your office. Locked from the inside. You’d knocked. No answer. You’d used your key. It didn’t work- someone had engaged the interior lock. You’d had to get maintenance. Again. When they finally opened the door, you’d found Captain Price in there with Susan from admin. Susan’s lipstick was smeared. Captain Price’s hat was on your desk. They’d been using your office- your office- to fuck. On your desk. Your desk. Captain Price had the audacity to wink at you and say, “Thanks for the space, love,” as he walked out, adjusting his belt.

1430: You’d had to clean lipstick off your desk. And other things. You didn’t want to think about the other things. You’d used an entire container of disinfecting wipes. You were going to need therapy.

1445: Sergeant MacTavish had set off a smoke grenade in the women’s bathroom. You’d been in there. You’d been in a stall. He’d just opened the door, tossed it in without looking- because why would you look, apparently that’s too much to ask- and shut the door. You’d had to evacuate through a window. Second floor. You’d twisted your ankle. MacTavish had found you limping across the parking lot and had the absolute balls to ask if you were okay. You’d nearly murdered him with your bare hands.

1500: You’d discovered that someone had used your car- your personal vehicle- to make a beer run. Your car. They’d taken your keys from your desk (the desk that had been defiled) while you were in the building. There was a dent in the bumper now. No one would admit to it. When you’d asked around, everyone suddenly had amnesia. Thirty grown men and not one of them saw anything.

1530: Jenkins- fucking Jenkins- had been promoted to armory supervisor. The man who’d nearly burned down the building making toast. The man who’d assembled a rifle backwards last month. That Jenkins. You’d asked Captain Price if he was serious. He’d said, “He’s got initiative.” Initiative. Jenkins had initiative. You’d laughed. It was not a sane laugh.

1600: Someone had started a rumor that you and Ghost were dating. Three people had congratulated you. One had asked when the wedding was. Another had asked if Ghost was “good in bed” because “he seems like he’d be intense.” You’d had to stand there and explain that you were not, in fact, romantically involved with the base’s human shadow demon.

1630: The coffee maker in the officers’ lounge had finally, completely died. You’d gone to use the backup coffee maker. Also broken. The vending machine? Out of order. There was no coffee anywhere on this godforsaken base except for the instant coffee in the supply closet, which tasted like it had been brewed in the fires of hell using Satan’s bathwater.

1700: You’d found Garrick in the medical bay doing parkour. Parkour. Off the examination tables. There were muddy footprints on the ceiling. The ceiling. When you’d asked him what the hell he was doing, he’d said with a straight face “Conditioning, ma’am.” The medic had just shrugged like this was normal.

1745: You’d finally made it back to your office to find Ghost sitting at your desk. In the dark. When you’d turned on the light, he’d said, “You left these on the printer,” and held up a pack of paper like that explained any of this while you tried to make your heart rate return to a normal rate and rhythm. It did not explain why he was in the dark. It did not explain how he’d gotten into your office. It did not explain anything.

1800: You’d made it to the mess hall. You were running on four hours of sleep, no coffee, crunchy hair, a twisted ankle, and your will to live that was hanging on by a thread made of spite and denial.

And then you’d seen it.

The last piece of chocolate lava cake.

Your light. Your beacon. Your reason for continuing to exist.

You’d made it through the line in a daze. Mystery meat. Suspicious vegetables. Powdered mashed potatoes that had the consistency of paste.

But you had the cake.

You’d had the cake.

Past tense.

Because MacTavish, the man who’d already made your day a living hell, had come barreling through the mess hall like a drunk moose and knocked it out of your hands.

You’d watched it flip through the air.

Watched it land.

Face down.

And now you were here.

“Do you know- ” you snarled shaking MacTavish like a maraca, “- what kind of day I’ve had?”

The mess hall was dead silent except for your voice, which had gone somewhere between a scream and a primal roar.

“You’re supposed to be elite. Special forces. The best of the best. Do you know what that’s supposed to mean, MacTavish?”

MacTavish’s feet were dangling. You’d been holding him for a full minute now. Your arm wasn’t even shaking.

“It’s supposed to mean competence. Basic. Fucking. Competence.”

You shook him again.

“But you, all of you- you’re the stupidest bastards I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve worked with Marines. I’ve worked with Rangers. I’ve worked with private security contractors who showed more common sense than this entire unit combined.”

Your voice was rising, getting more unhinged with every word.

“You can’t make toast- ” you glanced at Jenkins, who’d gone pale, “- without committing arson. You can’t file a simple report. You can’t read a file name that says ‘do not delete’ in clear fucking English. You can’t look before you throw explosives into enclosed spaces.”

You turned your attention back to MacTavish.

“You threw a smoke grenade into the women’s bathroom. While I was in it. Didn’t check. Didn’t look. Just tossed it in like you were feeding ducks at a pond.”

“I didnae ken- ”

“You didn’t think!” Your voice cracked. “None of you think! That’s the problem! You just do things! Stupid, destructive, idiotic things! And then you look surprised when there are consequences!”

You started pacing, still holding MacTavish like he weighed nothing.

“I have a master’s degree. I speak four languages. I have eight years of experience and a spotless record. And what do I do with all that training and education?”

You looked around at the crowd.

“I clean up after you. I fix your mistakes. I file your paperwork. I take the fall for your incompetence because apparently I’m the only person on this base who can be trusted to actually do their fucking job.”

Your hands were shaking now. MacTavish had gone very still.

“Price- ” you found him in the crowd, “- you promoted Jenkins to the armory. Jenkins. The man who set a toaster on fire this morning is now in charge of weapons. Do you understand how insane that is? Do you?”

Price opened his mouth.

“That’s rhetorical, Captain. I don’t actually want to hear you try to justify it.”

Someone in the back made a nervous sound.

“And the rest of you- ” you looked around at the crowd, “- you’re no better. You fight about whether hot dogs are sandwiches. You make flamethrowers in your spare time. You use my car without permission. You put Nair in people’s shampoo bottles. You act like this is summer camp instead of a military base.”

Your voice had reached a pitch that was probably only audible to dogs.

“How- ” you could feel your face getting hot, “- how do they trust you with missions? With classified intelligence? With guns? You can’t even walk through a mess hall without destroying someone’s property!”

You stopped. Looked down at MacTavish, still dangling from your hand.

“All I wanted was one piece of cake. One. After spending the entire day keeping this operation from falling apart. After playing mother to a bunch of grown men who can’t be trusted with basic tasks. After being the only competent person in a building full of idiots who are supposed to be elite soldiers.”

Your voice dropped. Went quiet. Dangerous.

“And you took that from me.”

The silence was deafening.

You looked around at all of them. “You don’t even understand what you do. You don’t see it. You bumblefuck your way through every single day causing chaos and destruction and you think it’s fine because someone- because me- is always there to fix it. To smooth it over. To make excuses. To take the blame.”

You could feel something breaking. Some final thread of professionalism snapping.

You looked at MacTavish one more time.

Then you dropped him.

He hit the ground hard, stumbled backward, gasping.

“Outside,” you said quietly. Too quietly.

No one moved.

You looked at them. Your expression had gone completely flat. Empty.

“Get outside. By the count of zero.”

“Ma’am- “Price started, taking a step forward, hands up in that universal ‘let’s all calm down’ gesture. “Let’s just take a breath and- ”

You started taking off your earrings.

Price stopped talking.

You placed them carefully on the nearest table. Started on your watch.

“Ten,” you said calmly.

“Now hang on- ” Morrison tried.

“Nine.”

You unclasped your watch. Set it down next to the earrings.

“Ma’am, I really think we should all just- ” Garrick attempted.

“Eight.”

You shrugged off your jacket. Folded it. Placed it neatly on the table.

The mess hall had gone dead silent. Everyone was watching you with increasing horror.

“Seven.”

You bent down. Slipped off one heel. Then the other. Lined them up neatly.

“Listen, we can talk about this- ” Price tried again, but his voice had gone uncertain.

“Six.”

You rolled up your sleeves. Methodically. First the right. Then the left.

Ghost’s hand was definitely on his sidearm now.

“Please- ” someone in the back squeaked.

“Five.”

You tied your hair back. Smooth, practiced movements.

“Okay, everyone just stay calm- ” The visiting Lieutenant Colonel was backing toward the door.

“Four.”

You looked at the nearest table. Four people were sitting at it, frozen like deer in headlights.

“Ma’am- ” MacTavish’s voice was strangled.

“Three.”

You walked over to the table. Calmly. Slowly.

The four people scrambled away from it.

You grabbed the edge.

“Wait- ” Price started forward.

You ripped the table out of the floor.

The sound was catastrophic. Metal shrieking. Bolts shearing. Floor tiles cracking. The table came up like you were pulling a weed from soft earth. Several people shouted.

You held it above your head.

The mess hall had gone beyond silent into some kind of vacuum where sound didn’t exist anymore. Everyone had gone pale. Actually pale. Like they’d seen a ghost.

Someone whispered, “Aren’t those bolted to the ground?”

“…Yeah,” someone else breathed.

You looked at them. Made eye contact with as many as possible while holding a table over your head.

“Two.”

That broke the spell.

They moved.

Chairs screeched. Trays went flying. Someone definitely trampled someone else. There was shouting. Pushing. A full on stampede for the exits.

“Move move move- ”

“Go go go- ”

“Out of my way- ”

You stood there, still holding the table, and watched them flee like rats from a sinking ship.

When the last person had scrambled out- Jenkins, naturally, bringing up the rear- you set the table down carefully.

Then you walked out after them.

They were clustered on the grounds outside, a hundred and fifty people pressed together like a herd of prey animals, all watching the door you’d just exited.

You looked at them.

They looked at you.

The evening air was cool. Quiet. Peaceful.

“Run,” you said. It came out as a growl. Something primal and furious.

Nobody moved.

“Run. Laps. Now.”

They started moving, but not fast enough.

“I said run.”

They ran.

“How long, ma’am?” someone called out.

You smiled. It was not a kind smile.

John can’t help the chuckle, cheeks growing more read as he simply looks at you. He manages to take your hand that was on the counter. “It’s good to finally meet over different circumstances.” He gives your knuckles a kiss, letting his thumb rub over the spot as if to rub it in.

“I’m John Price, ‘nd I intend on makin you mine. Seriously this time.”

And fuck, maybe you were Cinderella and this man was Prince Charming.

And you were tripping and falling in love with him before you even got the chance to properly deny him.

Mississippi Delta, 1938

The heat hadn’t broken in days.

Not even after sunset, when the sky turned the color of old bruises and the crickets started singing like they were being paid to. It was the kind of heat that soaked into the floorboards, that crept beneath your thin cotton slip and clung to your back like sweat-slicked hands. The air was syrupy, heavy with magnolia and something murkier—soil, maybe. River water. Something that made you itch beneath your skin.

Your cottage sat just outside the edge of town, past the schoolhouse where you spent your days sorting through ledgers and lesson plans that no one but you ever really seemed to care about. It was modest—two rooms and a porch, set back behind a crumbling white-picket fence and swallowed by trees that whispered in the dark. A little sanctuary tucked into the Delta, surrounded by cornfields, creeks, and ghosts.

The kind of place a person could disappear if they wanted to. The kind of place someone could find you…if they were patient enough.

You stood in front of the sink, rinsing out a chipped enamel cup, your hands moving automatically. The oil lamp on the kitchen table flickered with each breath of wind slipping through the cracks in the warped window frame. A cicada screamed in the distance, then another, and then the whole world was humming in chorus.

And beneath it—beneath the cicadas, and the wind, and the nightbirds—you felt something shift.

A quiet. Too quiet.

You turned your head. Listened harder.

Nothing.

Not even the frogs.

Your hand paused in the dishwater. Fingers trembling just a little. It wasn’t like you to be spooked by the dark. You’d grown up in it. Learned to make friends with shadows. Learned not to flinch when things moved just out of sight.

But this?

This was different.

It was as if the night was holding its breath.

And then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not loud. Not frantic. But final.

Your body went stiff. The cup slipped beneath the water and bumped the side of the basin with a hollow clink.

No one ever came this far out after sundown. No one but—

You shook your head, almost hard enough to rattle something loose.

No.

He was gone. That part of your life was buried.

You made sure of it.

Still, your bare feet moved toward the door like they weren’t yours. Soft against the creaky wood. Slow. You reached for the small revolver you kept in the drawer beside the door frame, thumbed the hammer back.

Your hand rested on the knob.

Another knock. This time, softer.

Almost...polite.

The porch light had been dead for weeks, so you couldn’t see who was waiting on the other side. But the air—something in the air—told you.

It was him.

You didn’t answer. Not right away.

You stood there with your palm flat against the rough wood, your forehead nearly touching it too—eyes shut, breath shallow. The air on the other side didn’t stir like it should’ve. No footfalls creaking the porch. No shuffle of boots on sun-bleached planks. Just stillness. Waiting.

And underneath your ribs, something began to ache. Something you hadn’t let yourself feel in years.

You didn’t know his name, not back then. You only knew his eyes—gold in the shadows. Red when caught in the light. Like a firelight in the dark. Like a blood red moon through stained-glass windows.

And his voice. Low. Dragging vowels like syrup. A Southern accent that didn’t come from any map you’d ever seen—older than towns, older than state lines. A voice that had told you, seven years ago, with impossible calm:

"You’ll know when it’s time."

You knew. Your hands trembled against your sides. But you didn’t back away. Some part of you knew how useless running would be.

The knob beneath your hand felt cold. Too cold for Mississippi in August.

You turned it.

The door opened slow, hinges whining like they were trying to warn you. You stepped back instinctively—just one step—and then he was there.

Remmick.

Still tall, still lean in that devastating way—like his body was carved from something hard and mean, but shaped to tempt. He wore a crisp white shirt rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loose from his hips, and trousers that looked far too clean for a man who walked through the dirt. His hair was messy in that intentional way, brown and swept back like he’d been running hands through it all night. Stubble lined his sharp jaw, catching the lamplight just so.

But it was his face that rooted you to the floor. That hollowed out your breath.

Still young. Still wrong.

Not a wrinkle, not a scar. Not a mark of time. He hadn’t aged a day.

And his eyes—oh, God, his eyes.

They caught the lamp behind you and lit up red, bright and glinting, like the embers of a dying fire. Not human. Not even pretending.

"Hello, dove."

His voice curled into your bones like cigarette smoke. You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

You hated how your body reacted.

Hated that you could still feel it—like something old and molten stirring between your thighs, a flicker of the same heat you’d felt that night in the alley, back when you were too desperate to care what kind of creature answered your prayer.

He looked you over once. Not with hunger. With certainty. Like he already knew how this would end. Like he already owned you.

"You remember, don’t you?" he asked.

"I came to collect."

And your voice—when it finally came—was little more than a whisper.

"You can’t be real."

That smile. That slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. Wolfish. Slow.

"You promised."

You wanted to shut the door. Slam it. Deadbolt it. But your hand didn’t move.

Remmick didn’t step forward, not yet. He stood just outside the threshold, framed by night and cypress trees and the distant flicker of heat lightning beyond the fields. The air around him pulsed with something old—older than the land, older than you, older than anything you could name.

He tilted his head the way animals do, watching you, letting the silence thicken like molasses between you.

"Still living out here all on your own," he murmured, gaze drifting over your shoulders, into the small, tidy kitchen behind you. "Hung your laundry on the line this morning. Blue dress, lace hem. Favorite one, ain’t it?"

Your stomach clenched. That dress hadn’t seen a neighbor’s eye all week.

"You've been watching me," you said, your voice low, unsure if it was accusation or realization.

"I’ve been waiting," he said. "Not the same thing."

You swallowed hard. Your breath caught in your throat like a thorn. The wind shifted, and you caught the faintest trace of something—dried tobacco, smoke, rain-soaked dirt, and beneath it, the iron-sweet tinge of blood.

Not fresh. Not violent. Just…present. Like it lived in him.

"I paid my debt," you whispered.

"No, you survived it," he said, stepping up onto the first board of the porch. The wood didn’t creak beneath his weight. "And that’s only half the bargain."

He still hadn’t crossed the threshold.

The stories came back to you, the ones whispered by old women with trembling hands and ash crosses pressed to their doorways—vampires couldn’t enter unless invited. But you hadn’t invited him, not this time.

"You don’t have permission," you said.

He smiled, eyes flashing red again.

"You gave it, seven years ago."

Your breath hitched.

"I was a girl," you said.

"You were desperate," he corrected. "And honest. Desperation makes people honest in ways they can’t be twice. You knew what you were offering me, even if you didn’t understand it. Your promise had teeth."

The wind pushed against your back, as if urging you forward.

Remmick stepped closer, just enough for the shadows to kiss the line of his throat, the hollow of his collarbone. His voice dropped, intimate now—dragging across your skin like a fingertip behind the ear.

"You asked for a miracle. I gave it to you. And now I’m here for what’s mine."

Your heart thudded violently in your chest.

"I didn’t think you’d come."

"That’s the thing about monsters, dove." He leaned down, lips almost grazing the curve of your jaw. "We always do."

And then—

He stepped back.

The wind stopped.

The night fell quiet again, like the world had paused just to watch what you’d do next.

"I’ll wait out here till you’re ready," he said, turning toward the swing on your porch and settling into it like he had all the time in the world. "But don’t make me knock twice. Wouldn’t be polite."

The swing groaned beneath him as it rocked gently, back and forth.

You stood there frozen in the doorway, one bare foot still inside the house, the other brushing the edge of the porch.

You’d made a promise.

And he was here to keep it.

The door stayed open. Just enough for the night to reach inside.

You didn’t move.

Your body stood still but your mind wandered—back to that night in the alley, to the smell of blood and piss and riverwater, your knees soaked in your brother’s lifeblood as you screamed for help that never came. Except it did. It came in the shape of a man who didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t make promises the way mortals did.

It came in the shape of him.

You thought time would wash it away. That the years would smooth the edges of his voice in your memory, dull the sharpness of his presence. But now, with him just outside your door, it all returned like a fever dream—hot, all-consuming, too real to outrun.

You turned away from the threshold, slowly, carefully, as if the floor might cave in under you. Your hands trembled as you reached for the oil lamp on the table, adjusting the flame lower until it flickered like a dying heartbeat.

The silence behind you dragged, deep and waiting. He didn’t speak again. Didn’t call for you.

He didn’t have to.

You moved through the house in slow circles. Touching things. Straightening them. Folding a dishcloth. Setting a book back on the shelf, even though you’d already read it twice. You tried to pretend you weren’t thinking about the man on your porch. But the heat of him pressed against the back of your mind like a hand.

You could feel him out there. Not just physically—but in you, somehow. Like the air had shifted around his shape, and the longer he lingered, the more your body remembered what it had felt like to stand in front of something not quite human and still want.

You passed the mirror in the hallway and paused.

Your reflection looked undone. Not in the way your hair had fallen from its pin, or the flush across your cheeks, but deeper—like something inside you had been cracked open. You touched your own throat, right where you imagined his mouth might go.

No bite.

Not yet.

But you swore you could feel phantom teeth.

You went back to the door, holding your breath, and looked at him through the screen.

He hadn’t moved. He sat on the swing, one leg stretched out, the other bent lazily beneath him, arms slung across the backrest like he’d always belonged there. A cigarette burned between two fingers, the tip flaring orange as he dragged from it. The scent of it hit you—rich, earthy, and somehow foreign, like something imported from a place no longer on the map.

He didn’t look at you right away.

Then, slowly, he did.

Red eyes caught yours.

He smiled, small and slow, like he was reading a page of you he’d already memorized.

"Thought you’d shut the door by now," he said.

"I should have," you answered.

"But you didn’t."

His voice curled into the quiet.

You stepped out onto the porch, barefoot, the boards warm beneath your soles. He didn’t move to greet you. He didn’t rise. He just watched you walk toward him like he’d been watching in dreams you never remembered having.

The swing groaned as you sat down beside him, a careful space between you.

His shoulder brushed yours.

You stared straight ahead, out into the night. A mist was beginning to rise off the distant fields. The moon hung low and orange like a wound in the sky.

Somewhere in the bayou, a whippoorwill called, long and mournful.

"How long have you been watching me?" you asked.

"Since before you knew to look."

"Why now?"

He turned toward you. His voice was velvet-wrapped iron.

"Because now…you’re ripe for the pickin’.”

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment you were on the porch beside him, listening to the slow groan of the swing and the way the crickets held their breath when he exhaled, the next you were waking in your bed, the sheets tangled around your legs like they were trying to hold you down.

The house was too quiet.

No birdsong. No creak of the windmill out back. No rustle of the sycamores that scraped against your bedroom window on stormy nights.

Just stillness.

And scent.

It clung to the cotton of your nightdress. Tobacco smoke, sweat, rain. Him.

You sat up slowly, pressing your hand to your chest. Your heart thudded like it was trying to remember who it belonged to. The lamp beside your bed had burned down to a stub. A trickle of wax curled like a vein down the side of the glass.

Your mouth tasted like smoke and guilt. Your thighs ached in that low, humming way—though you couldn’t say why. Nothing had happened. Not really.

But something had changed.

You felt it under your skin, in the place where blood meets breath.

The floor was cool under your feet as you moved. You didn’t dress. Just pulled a robe over your slip and stepped into the hallway. The house felt heavier than usual, thick with the ghost of his presence. Every corner held a whisper. Every shadow a shape.

You opened the front door.

The porch was empty.

The swing still rocked gently, as if someone had only just stood up from it.

A folded piece of paper lay on the top step, weighted down by a smooth river stone.

You picked it up with trembling hands.

Come.

That was all it said. One word. But it rang through your bones like gospel. Like a vow.

You looked out across the field. A narrow dirt road stretched beyond the tree line, overgrown but clear. You’d never dared follow it. That road didn’t belong to you.

It belonged to him.

And now…so did you.

You didn’t bring anything with you.

Not a suitcase. Not a shawl. Not a Bible tucked under your arm for comfort.

Just yourself.

And the road.

The hem of your slip was already damp by the time you reached the edge of the field. Dew clung to your ankles like cold fingers, and the earth was soft beneath your feet—fresh from last night’s storm, the kind that never really breaks the heat, only deepens it. The moon had gone down, but the sky was beginning to bruise with that blue-black ink that comes before sunrise. Everything smelled like wet grass, magnolia, and the faint rot of old wood.

The path curved, narrowing as it passed through trees that leaned in too close. Their branches kissed above you like they were whispering secrets into each other’s leaves. Spanish moss hung like veils from the oaks, dripping silver in the fading dark. It made the world feel smaller. Quieter. As if you were walking into something sacred—or something doomed.

A crow cawed once in the distance. Sharp. Hollow. You didn’t flinch.

There was no sound of wheels. No car waiting. Just the road and the fog and the promise you'd made.

And then you saw it.

The house.

Tucked deep in the grove, half-swallowed by vines and time, it rose like a memory from the earth. A decaying plantation, left to rot in the wet belly of the Delta. Its bones were still beautiful—white columns streaked with black mildew, a grand porch that sagged like a mouth missing teeth, shuttered windows with iron latches rusted shut. Ivy grew up the sides like it was trying to strangle the place. Or maybe protect it.

You stood there at the edge of the clearing, breath caught in your throat.

He’d brought you here.

Or maybe he’d always been here. Waiting. Dreaming of the moment you’d return to him without even knowing it.

A shape moved behind one of the upstairs curtains. Quick. Barely there.

You didn’t run.

Your bare foot found the first step.

It groaned like it recognized you.

The door was already open.

Not wide—just enough for you to know it had been waiting.

And you stepped inside.

The air inside was colder.

Not the kind of cold that came from breeze or shade—but from stillness, from the absence of sun and time. A hush so thick it felt like you were walking underwater. Like the house had held its breath for decades and only now began to exhale.

Dust spiraled in the faint light seeping through fractured windows, casting soft halos through the dark. The wooden floor beneath your feet was warped and groaning, but clean. Not in any natural sense—there was no broom that had touched these boards. No polish or soap.

But it had been kept.

The air didn’t smell like rot or mildew. It smelled like cedar. Like old leather. And deeper beneath that, like him.

He hadn’t lit any lamps.

Just the fireplace, burning low, glowing embers pulsing orange-red at the back of a cavernous hearth. The flame danced shadows across the faded wallpaper, peeling in long strips like dead skin. A high-backed chair faced the fire, velvet blackened from age, its silhouette looming like something alive.

You swallowed, lips dry, and stepped further in.

Your voice didn’t carry. It didn’t even try.

Remmick was nowhere in sight.

But he was here.

You could feel him in the walls, in the way the house seemed to lean closer with every step you took.

You passed through the parlor, past a dusty grand piano with one ivory key cracked down the middle. Past oil portraits too old to make out, their eyes blurred with time. Past a single vase of dried wildflowers, colorless now, but carefully arranged.

You paused in the doorway to the drawing room, your hand resting lightly on the frame.

A whisper of air moved behind you.

Then—

A hand.

Not grabbing. Not harsh. Just the light press of fingers against the small of your back, palm flat and warm through the thin cotton of your slip.

You froze.

He was behind you.

So close you could feel his breath at your neck. Not warm, not cold—just present. Like wind through a crack in the door. Like the memory of a touch before it lands.

His voice was low, close to your ear.

"You came."

You didn’t answer.

"You always would have."

You wanted to say no. Wanted to deny it. But you stood there trembling under his hand, your heartbeat so loud you were sure he could hear it.

Maybe that was why he smiled.

He stepped around you slowly, letting his fingers graze the side of your waist as he moved. His eyes glinted red in the firelight, catching on you like a flame drawn to dry kindling.

He looked at you like he was already undressing you.

Not your clothes—your will.

And it was already unraveling.

You’d suspected he wasn’t born of this soil.

Not just because of the way he moved—like he didn’t quite belong to gravity—but because of the way he spoke. Like time hadn’t worn the edges off his words the way it had with everyone else. His voice curled around vowels like smoke curling through keyholes. Rich and low, but laced with something older. Something foreign. Something that made the hair at the nape of your neck rise when he spoke too softly, too close.

He didn’t speak like a man from the Delta.

He spoke like something older than it.

Older than the country. Maybe older than God.

Remmick stopped in front of you, lit only by firelight.

His eyes had dulled from red to something deeper—like old garnet held to a candle. His shirt was open at the collar now, suspenders hanging slack, the buttons on his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms were dusted with faint scars that looked like they had stories. His skin was pale in the glow, but not lifeless. He looked like marble warmed by touch.

He studied you for a long time.

You weren’t sure if it was your face he was reading, or something beneath it. Something you couldn’t hide.

"You look just like your mother," he said finally.

Your breath caught.

"You knew her?"

A soft smirk curled at the corner of his mouth.

"I’ve known a lot of people, dove. I just never forget the ones with your blood."

You didn’t ask what he meant. Not yet.

There was something heavy in his tone—something laced with memory that stretched back far further than it should. You had guessed, years ago, in the sleepless weeks after that alleyway miracle, that he was not new to this world. That his youth was a trick of the skin. A lie worn like a mask.

You’d read every folklore book you could get your hands on. Every whisper of vampire lore scratched into the margins of ledgers, stuffed between church hymnals, scribbled on the backs of newspapers.

Some said they aged. Slowly. Elegantly.

Others said they didn’t age at all. That they existed outside time. Beyond it.

You didn’t know how old Remmick was.

But something in your bones told you the truth.

Five hundred. Six hundred, maybe more.

A man who remembered empires. A man who had watched cities rise and burn. Who had danced in plague-slick ballrooms and kissed queens before they were beheaded. A man who had lived so long that names no longer mattered. Only debts. And blood.

And you’d given him both.

He stepped closer now, slow and deliberate.

"Yer heart’s gallopin’ like it thinks I’m here to take it."

You flinched. Not because he was wrong. But because he was right.

"You said you didn’t want my blood," you whispered.

"I don’t." He tilted his head. "Not yet."

"Then what do you want?"

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You."

He said it like it was a simple thing. Like the rain wanting the river. Like the grave wanting the body.

You swallowed hard.

"Why me?"

His gaze dragged down your frame, unhurried, like a man admiring a painting he’d stolen once and hidden from the world.

"Because you belong to me. You gave yourself freely. No bargain’s ever tasted so sweet."

Your throat tightened.

"I didn’t know what I was agreeing to."

"You did," he said, softly now, stepping close enough that his chest nearly brushed yours. "You knew. Your soul knew. Even if your head didn’t catch up."

You opened your mouth to protest, to say something, anything that would push back this slow suffocation of certainty—

But his hand came up to your jaw. Fingers feather-light. Not forcing. Just holding. Just there.

"And you’ve been thinkin’ about me ever since," he said.

Not a question. A statement.

You didn’t answer.

He leaned in, his breath ghosting over your cheek, his voice a rasp against your ear.

"You dream of me, don’t you?"

Your hands trembled at your sides.

"I don’t—"

"You wake wet. Ache in your belly. You don’t know why. But I do."

You let your eyes fall shut, shame burning behind them like fire.

"Fuckin’ knew it," he murmured, almost reverent. "You smell like want, dove. You always have.”

His hand didn’t move. It just stayed there at your jaw, thumb ghosting slow along the hollow beneath your cheekbone. A touch so gentle it made your knees ache. Because it wasn’t the roughness that undid you—it was the restraint.

He could’ve taken.

He didn’t.

Not yet.

His gaze held yours, slow and unblinking, red still smoldering in the center of his irises like the dying core of a flame that refused to go out.

"Say it," he murmured.

Your lips parted, but nothing came.

"I can smell it," he said, voice low, rich as molasses. "Your shame. Your want. You’ve been livin’ like a nun with a beast inside her, and no one knows but me."

You hated how your breath stuttered. Hated more that your thighs pressed together when he said it.

"Why do you talk like that," you whispered, barely able to get the words out, "like you already know what I’m feeling?"

His fingers slid down, grazing the side of your neck, stopping just before the pulse thudding there.

"Because I do."

"That’s not fair."

He smiled, slow and crooked, nothing kind in it.

"No, dove. It ain’t."

You hated him.

You hated how beautiful he was in this light, sleeves rolled, veins prominent in his arms, shirt hanging open just enough to show the faint line of a scar that trailed beneath his collarbone. A body shaped by time, not by vanity. Not perfect. Just true. Like someone carved him for a purpose and let the flaws stay because they made him real.

He looked like sin and the sermon that came after.

Remmick moved closer. You didn’t retreat.

His hand flattened over your sternum now, right above your heartbeat, the warmth of him pressing through the cotton of your slip like it meant to seep in. He leaned down, mouth near yours, not kissing, just breathing.

"You gave yourself to me once," he said. "I’m only here to collect the rest."

"You saved my brother."

"I saved you. You just didn’t know it yet."

A shiver rippled down your spine.

His hand moved lower, skimming the curve of your ribs, hovering just at the soft flare of your waist. You could feel the heat rolling off him like smoke from a coalbed. His body didn’t radiate warmth the way a man’s should—but something older. Wilder. Like the earth’s own breath in summer. Like the hush of a storm right before it split the sky.

"And if I tell you no?" you asked, barely more than a breath.

His eyes flicked to yours, unreadable.

"I’ll wait."

You weren’t expecting that.

He smiled again, this time softer, almost cruel in its patience.

"I’ve waited centuries for sweeter things than you. But that don’t mean I won’t keep my hands on you ‘til you change your mind."

"You think I will?"

"You already have."

Your chest rose sharply, breath stung with heat.

"You think this is love?"

He laughed, low and dangerous, the sound curling around your ribs.

"No," he said. "This is hunger. Love comes later."

Then his mouth brushed your jaw—not a kiss, just the graze of lips against skin—and every nerve in your body arched to meet it.

Your knees buckled, barely.

He caught your waist in one hand, steadying you with maddening ease.

"I’m gonna ruin you," he whispered against your throat, his nose dragging lightly along your skin. "But I’ll be so gentle the first time you’ll beg me to do it again."

And God help you—

You wanted him to.

The house didn’t sleep.

Not the way houses were meant to.

It breathed.

The walls exhaled heat and memory, the floors creaked even when no one stepped, and somewhere in the rafters above your room, something paced slowly back and forth, back and forth, like a beast too restless to settle. The kind of place built with its own pulse.

You’d spent the rest of the night—if you could call it that—in a room that wasn’t yours, wearing nothing but a cotton shift and your silence. You hadn’t asked for anything. He hadn’t offered.

The room was spare but not cruel. A basin with a water pitcher. A four-poster bed draped in a netting veil to keep out the bugs—or the ghosts. The mattress was soft. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar, firewood, and something else you didn’t recognize.

Him.

You didn’t undress. You lay on top of the blanket, fingers threaded together over your belly, the thrum of your heartbeat like a second mouth behind your ribs.

Your door had no lock. Just a handle that squeaked if turned. And you hated how many times your eyes flicked toward it. Waiting. Wanting.

But he never came.

And somehow, that was worse.

Morning broke soft and gray through the slatted shutters. The sun didn’t quite reach the corners of the room, and the light that filtered in was the color of dust and river fog.

When you finally stepped out barefoot into the hall, the house was already awake.

There was a scent in the air—coffee. Burned sugar. The faintest curl of cinnamon. Something sizzling in a skillet somewhere.

You followed it.

The kitchen was enormous, all brick hearth and cast iron and a long scarred table in the center with mismatched chairs pushed in unevenly. A window hung open, letting in a breath of swamp air that rustled the lace curtain and kissed your ankles.

Remmick stood at the stove with his back to you, sleeves still rolled to the elbow, suspenders crossed low over his back. His shirt was half-unbuttoned and clung to his sides with the cling of heat and skin. He moved like he didn’t hear you enter.

You knew he had.

He reached for the pan with a towel over his palm and flipped something in the cast iron with a deft flick of the wrist.

"Hope you like sweet," he said, voice thick with morning. "Ain’t got much else."

You didn’t speak. Just stood there in the doorway like a ghost he’d conjured and forgotten about.

He turned.

God help you.

Even like this, barefoot, collar open, hair mussed from sleep or maybe just time—he looked unreal. Like a sin someone had tried to scrub out of scripture but couldn’t quite forget.

"Sleep alright?" he asked.

You gave a small nod.

He looked at you a moment longer. Then—

"Sit down, dove."

You moved toward the table.

His voice followed you, lazy but pointed.

"That’s the wrong chair."

You paused.

He nodded to one at the head of the table—old, high-backed, carved with curling vines and symbols you didn’t recognize.

"That one’s yours now."

You hesitated, then lowered yourself into it slowly. The wood groaned under your weight. The air in the kitchen felt thicker now, tighter.

He brought the plate to you himself.

Two slices of skillet cornbread, golden and glistening with syrup. A few wild strawberries sliced and sugared. A smear of butter melting slow at the center like a pulse.

He set the plate in front of you with a quiet care that felt almost obscene.

"You ain’t gotta eat," he said, leaning against the table beside your chair. "But I like watchin’ you do it."

You picked up the fork.

His eyes stayed on your mouth.

The cornbread was still warm.

Steam curled from it like breath from parted lips. The syrup pooled thick at the edges, dripping off the edge of your fork in slow, amber ribbons. It stuck to your fingers when you touched it. Sweet. Sticky. Sensual.

You brought the first bite to your mouth, slow.

Remmick didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His eyes tracked the motion like a starving man watching someone else’s feast.

The bite landed soft on your tongue—golden crisp on the outside, warm and tender in the middle, butter melting into every pore. It was perfect. Unreasonably so. And somehow you hated that even more. Because nothing about this should’ve tasted good. Not with him watching you like that. Not with your body still humming from the memory of his voice against your skin.

But you swallowed.

And he smiled.

"Good girl," he murmured.

You froze. The fork paused just above the plate.

"You don’t get to say things like that," you whispered.

"Why not?"

Your fingers tightened around the handle.

"Because it sounds like you earned it."

He chuckled, low and easy. A slow roll of thunder in his chest.

"Think I did. Think I earned every fuckin’ word after draggin’ you out that night and lettin’ you walk away without layin’ a hand on you."

You looked up sharply, heat crawling up your neck.

"You shouldn’t have touched me."

"I didn’t," he said. "But I wanted to. Still do."

Your breath caught.

His knuckles brushed the edge of your plate, slow, casual, like he had all the time in the world to make you squirm.

"And I know you want me to," he added, voice low enough that it coiled under your ribs and settled somewhere molten in your belly.

You pushed the plate away.

He didn’t flinch. Just reached forward and dragged it back in front of you like you hadn’t moved it at all.

"You eat," he said, gentler now. "You need it. House takes more from you than it gives."

You glanced around the kitchen, suddenly uneasy.

"You talk about it like it’s alive."

He gave a slow nod.

"It is. In a way."

"How?"

He looked down at your plate, then back at you.

"You’ll see."

You pushed another bite past your lips, slower this time, aware of the weight of his gaze with every chew, every swallow. You didn’t know why you obeyed. Maybe it was easier than defying him. Maybe it was because some part of you wanted him to keep watching.

When the plate was clean, he reached out and caught your wrist before you could stand.

Not hard. Not even firm. Just…inevitable.

"You full?" he asked, his voice all smoke and sin.

You nodded.

His eyes darkened.

"Then I’ll have my taste next."

Your breath lodged sharp in your throat.

He said it like it meant nothing. Like asking for your pulse was no more intimate than asking for your hand. But there was a glint in his eye—red barely flickering now, but still there—and it told you everything.

He was done pretending.

You didn’t move. Not right away.

His fingers were still wrapped around your wrist, light but unyielding, the pad of his thumb grazing the fragile skin where your pulse drummed loud and frantic. Like it wanted to leap out of your veins and spill into his mouth.

You swallowed hard.

"You said you didn’t want blood."

"I don’t."

"Then what do you want?"

"You."

You watched him now, trying to make sense of what you wanted.

And what terrified you was this—

You didn’t want to run.

You wanted to know how it would feel.

To give something he couldn’t take without permission.

To see if your body could handle the worship of a mouth like his.

Remmick’s other hand came up slow, brushing hair from your cheek, his knuckles rough and reverent.

"You said I smelled like want," you whispered.

"You do."

"What do you smell like?"

He leaned in, mouth near your throat again, his nose dragging along your skin, slow, as if he were drawing in the scent of your soul.

"Rot. Hunger. Regret," he said. "Old things that don’t die right."

You shivered.

"And still I want you," you breathed.

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes.

"That’s the worst part, ain’t it?"

You didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

His hand slid down to your elbow, then lower, tracing the curve of your waist through the thin fabric. His touch was warm now, or maybe your body had just given up trying to tell the difference between threat and thrill.

He guided you up from the chair.

Didn’t yank. Didn’t drag.

Just stood and took your hand like a dance was beginning.

"Come with me," he said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere I can kneel."

Your heart stuttered.

He led you through the house, down the long hallway past doorways that watched like eyes. The floor groaned underfoot, the air thickening around your shoulders as he brought you deeper into the home’s belly. You passed portraits whose paint had faded to shadows, velvet drapes drawn tight, mirrors that refused to hold your reflection quite right.

The door at the end of the hall was already open.

Inside, the room was dark.

Just one candle lit, flickering low in a glass jar, its light catching the edges of something silver beside the bed. An old bowl. A cloth. A pair of gloves, yellowed from time.

A ritual.

Not violent.

Intimate.

Remmick turned toward you, his face bare in the soft light. He looked younger. More human. And somehow more dangerous for it.

"Sit," he said.

You sat.

He knelt.

And then his hands found your knees.

His hands rested on your knees like they belonged there. Not demanding. Not prying. Just there. Anchored. Reverent.

The candlelight licked up his jaw, catching in the hollows of his cheeks, the deep shadow beneath his throat. He didn’t look like a man. He looked like a story told by firelight—half-worshipped, half-feared. A sinner in the shape of a saint. Or maybe the other way around.

His thumbs made a slow pass over the inside of your thighs, just above the knee. Barely pressure. Barely touch. The kind of contact that made your breath feel too loud in your chest.

"Yer too quiet," he murmured.

"I don’t know what to say," you whispered back.

His gaze lifted, locking with yours, and in that moment the whole room seemed to still.

"Ya ain’t gotta say a damn thing," he said. "You just need to stay right there and let me show ya what I mean when I say I don’t want yer blood."

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

He leaned in, slow as honey in the heat, until his mouth hovered just above your knee. Then lower. His breath ghosted over your skin, warm and maddening.

You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until he pressed a single kiss just above the bone.

Your lungs stuttered.

His lips trailed higher.

Another kiss.

Then another.

Each one higher than the last, until your legs opened on instinct, until you felt the hem of your slip being eased upward by hands that moved with worshipful patience. Like he wasn’t just undressing you—he was peeling back a veil. Unwrapping something sacred.

"You ever had someone kneel for ya?" he asked, voice rough now. Thicker.

You shook your head.

He smiled like he already knew the answer.

"Good. Let me be the first."

He kissed the inside of your thigh like it meant something. Like you meant something. Like your skin wasn’t just skin, but a prayer he intended to answer with his mouth.

The air was too hot. Your thoughts slid loose from the edges of your mind. All you could do was breathe and feel.

He looked up at you once more, red eyes burning low, and said—

"You gave yerself to me. Let me taste what I already own."

And then he bowed his head, mouth meeting the softest part of you, and the rest of the world disappeared.

His mouth touched you like he’d been dreaming of it for years. Like he’d earned it.

No rush. No hunger. Just that first velvet press of his lips against the tender center of you, reverent and slow, like a kiss to a wound or a confession. He moaned, low and guttural, into your skin—and the sound of it vibrated up through your spine.

He parted you with his thumbs, just enough to taste you deeper. His tongue slipped between folds already slick and aching, and he groaned again, this time with something like gratitude.

"Sweet as I fuckin’ knew you’d be," he rasped, voice hot against your core.

Your hands gripped the edge of the chair. Wood bit into your palms. Your head tipped back, eyes fluttering shut as your thighs trembled around his shoulders.

He didn’t stop.

He licked you with patience, with purpose, like he was reading scripture written between your legs—each flick of his tongue slow and deliberate, every pass perfectly placed, building pressure inside you with maddening precision.

And all the while, he watched you.

When your head dropped forward, you found him staring up at you. Red eyes glowing low, heavy-lidded, mouth glistening, jaw tense with restraint. He looked ruined by the taste of you.

"Look at me," he said. "Wanna see you fall apart on my tongue."

Your breath hitched, hips rocking forward on instinct, chasing his mouth. He growled low and deep in his chest, gripping your thighs tighter.

"That’s it, dove," he murmured. "Don’t run from it. Give it to me."

He flattened his tongue and dragged it slow, then circled the swollen peak of your clit with the tip, teasing you to the edge and pulling back just before it broke.

You whined. Desperate.

He smirked against your cunt.

"You want it?" he asked, voice thick. "Say it."

Your lips barely formed the word—"Please."

He hummed in approval.

Then he devoured you.

No more teasing. No more pacing. Just his mouth fully locked on you, tongue relentless now, lips sealing around your clit while two fingers slid into you with that obscene, perfect pressure that made your body jolt.

You cried out, gasping, your thighs tightening around his head as the world tipped sideways.

"That’s it," he groaned, curling his fingers just right. "Cum f’r me, girl. Let me taste what’s mine."

And when it hit—

It hit like a fever. Like lightning. Like your soul cracked in half and bled straight into his mouth.

You broke with a cry, hips bucking, your fingers tangled in his hair as wave after wave crashed through you.

He didn’t stop. Not until your thighs twitched and your breath came in ragged little sobs, not until your body went limp in his hands.

Then, finally—finally—he pulled back.

His lips were wet. His eyes were feral. And he looked at you like a man who’d just fed.

"You’re fuckin’ divine," he whispered. "And I ain’t even started ruinin’ you yet."

The room pulsed with quiet. The candle flickered low, flame swaying as if it too had held its breath through your unraveling.

Your body felt boneless. Glazed in sweat. Your pulse echoed everywhere—in your wrists, your throat, between your legs where he’d buried his mouth like a man sent to worship. You weren’t sure how long it had been since you’d spoken. Since you’d breathed without shaking.

Remmick still knelt.

His hands were on your thighs, thumbs drawing idle circles into your skin like he couldn’t bear to stop touching you. His head was bowed slightly, but his eyes were on you—watchful, reverent, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with the softness between your legs and everything to do with something older. Something darker.

He looked drunk on you.

You opened your mouth to speak, but your voice caught on the edge of a sigh.

He beat you to it.

"Reckon you know what’s comin’ next," he murmured.

You didn’t answer.

He rose from his knees in one slow, unhurried motion. There was a heaviness to him now, a tension rolling just beneath his skin, like a dam about to split. He reached up with one hand and wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of it—then licked the taste from his thumb like it was honey off the comb.

You watched, breath held tight in your chest.

He stepped closer. You stayed seated, knees still parted, your slip pushed up indecently high, but you didn’t fix it. Didn’t move at all. The heat between your legs hadn’t faded. If anything, it curled deeper now, thicker, laced with something close to fear but not quite.

He stopped in front of you.

Tilted his head slightly.

"How’s yer heart?"

You blinked.

"It’s…fast," you whispered.

He smiled slow. Not mocking. Not soft either.

"Good. I want it fast."

Your throat tightened.

"Why?"

He leaned in, hands bracing on either side of your chair, body boxing you in without touching.

"‘Cause I want yer blood screamin’ for me when I take it."

Your breath caught somewhere between your ribs.

He didn’t touch you yet—didn’t need to. The weight of his body, caging you in without a single finger laid, made your skin flush from your chest to your knees. Every inch of you throbbed with awareness. Of him. Of your own pulse. Of the air cooling the places he’d worshiped with his mouth not moments before.

You swallowed.

"You said you’d wait," you whispered.

He nodded once, slowly, his eyes never leaving yours.

"I did. And I have. But yer body’s already beggin’ for me. Ain’t it?"

You hated that he was right. That he could feel it somehow. Not just see the tremble in your thighs or the way your lips parted when he leaned closer—but that he could feel it in the air, like scent, like vibration.

You lifted your chin, barely.

"I’m not scared."

He chuckled low, and it rumbled through your bones.

"Good. But I don’t need ya scared, dove. I need ya open."

He raised one hand then, slow as scripture, and brushed his knuckles along the column of your throat. Just a whisper of contact, a ghost’s touch. Your head tilted for him without thinking, baring your neck.

"Right here," he murmured. "Right where it beats loudest. That’s where I wanna taste ya."

You shivered.

He bent down, mouth near your pulse. His breath was warm, slow, drawn in like he was savoring you already.

"I ain’t gonna hurt ya," he said. "Not unless you want it."

Your fingers twisted in your lap.

"Will it—" you started, but the question got tangled.

He smiled against your skin.

"Will it feel good?"

You said nothing.

"You already know."

You did.

Because everything with him did. Every word. Every look. Every touch. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t holy. But it was real. It lived under your skin like rot and root and ruin.

You nodded once.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

And then his lips pressed to your throat. Not with hunger. With reverence. Like a blessing.

"That’s my girl," he breathed.

And then he bit.

It wasn’t pain.

It was pressure, first.

A deep, aching pull that bloomed just beneath the skin, right where his mouth latched onto you. His lips sealed tight around your throat, and then—sharpness. Two points sinking in like teeth through silk. Like sin through flesh.

You gasped.

Not from fear. Not even from the sting. But from the rush.

Heat burst behind your eyes, white and sudden and dizzying. Your hands flew to his shoulders, clinging, grounding, anchoring you to something real while your mind drifted into something else—something otherworldly.

The pull came next.

A steady rhythm, slow and patient, like he was sipping you instead of drinking. Like he had all the time in the world. You could feel it, the way your blood left you in waves, not violent, not greedy—just…intimate. Like giving. Like surrender.

He groaned low against your neck, the sound vibrating through your bones.

"Fuck, you taste like sunlight," he rasped against your skin, voice thick with hunger and awe. "Like everythin’ warm I thought I’d forgotten."

Your head tipped further, offering him more.

You didn’t know when your legs opened wider, or when your hips rocked forward just to feel more of him. But his body shifted instinctively, meeting yours with a growl, his hand gripping your thigh now, possessive and unrelenting.

Your pulse faltered. Not from weakness, but from pleasure. From the unbearable knowing that he was inside you now, in the most ancient way. That your body had opened to him, and your blood had welcomed him.

Your moan was breathless.

"Remmick—"

He shushed you, mouth never leaving your throat.

"Don’t speak, dove. Just feel."

And you did.

You felt every lick. Every pull. Every sacred claim. You felt his tongue soothe where his fangs pierced, his hand slide higher along your thigh, his knee pushing between your legs until your breath stuttered out of you in something like a sob.

It was too much. It was not enough.

And when he finally pulled back, slow and reluctant, your blood on his lips like a mark, like a vow, he stared at you like you were holy.

Like he hadn’t fed on you.

Like he’d prayed.

The room was quiet, but your body wasn’t.

You felt every beat of your heart echo in the hollow where his mouth had been. A slow, reverent throb that pulsed through your neck, your chest, your thighs. It was like something had been lit beneath your skin, and now it smoldered there—glowing, aching, changed.

Remmick’s breath was uneven. His lips were stained red, parted just slightly, his jaw slack with something like awe. The burn of your blood still shimmered in his eyes, brighter now. Alive.

He looked undone.

And yet his hands were steady as he reached up, cupped your jaw in both palms, and tilted your face toward him. His thumb swept across your cheekbone like you might vanish if he didn’t touch you just right.

"You alright?" he asked, voice quieter now, roughened at the edges like a match just struck.

You nodded, though your limbs still trembled.

"I feel…" you swallowed, the word too small for what bloomed in your chest, "…warm."

He laughed, soft and almost bitter, and leaned his forehead against yours.

"You should. You’re inside me now. Every drop of you."

The words rooted somewhere deep. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. You could still feel the heat of his mouth, the bite, the pleasure that followed. It wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just surrender. It was something older. Something binding.

"Does it hurt?" you asked, your fingers brushing the side of his neck, the line of his collarbone slick with sweat.

He looked at you like you’d asked the wrong question.

"Hurt?" he echoed. "Dove, it’s ecstasy."

You stared at him.

"You mean for you?"

He shook his head once.

"For us."

Then he pulled back just enough to look at you—really look. His gaze swept your features like he was committing them to memory. As if this moment, this very breath, was something sacred. His fingers moved to your throat again, this time to the place just above the bite, and he pressed lightly.

"You’ll bruise here," he said. "Won’t fade for a while."

"Will it heal?"

"Eventually."

"Do you want it to?"

His mouth curved, slow and wicked.

"No," he said. "I want the world to see what’s mine."

And before you could reply—before the heat in your belly could cool or your mind could gather itself—he kissed you.

Not soft.

Not careful.

His mouth claimed you like he’d already been inside you a thousand times and wanted to do it a thousand more. He kissed you like a man starving. Like a creature who’d gone too long without flesh, and now that he had it, he wasn’t letting go.

You tasted your own blood on his tongue.

And it tasted like forever.

The house knew.

It breathed deeper now. Its wood swelled, its walls sighed, its floorboards creaked in time with your heartbeat—as though it had taken you in too, accepted your offering, and now it wanted to keep you just like he did. Not as a guest. Not as a lover.

As a belonging.

Remmick hadn’t let you go.

Not when the kiss ended. Not when your blood slowed in his mouth. Not when your knees gave and your body folded forward into him. His arms had caught you like he knew the shape of your collapse. Like he’d been waiting for it. Like he’d never let you fall anywhere but into him.

He carried you now, one arm beneath your legs, the other braced around your back, his chest solid against yours.

"Don’t reckon you’re walkin’ after all that," he muttered, gaze fixed ahead, voice gone syrup-slow and thick with something possessive.

You didn’t argue. You couldn’t.

Your head rested against the place where his heart should’ve beat. But it was quiet there. Not lifeless—just other.

He carried you past rooms you hadn’t seen. A library, long abandoned, lined with crooked books and a grandfather clock that had no hands. A parlor soaked in velvet and silence. A door nailed shut from the outside, something heavy breathing behind it.

You didn’t ask.

He didn’t explain.

The room he took you to was nothing like the others.

It wasn’t grand.

It was personal.

The windows here were narrow and high, soft light slanting through the dusty glass in thin gold ribbons. The bed was simple but large, the sheets dark, the frame iron-wrought and worn smooth by time. A single cross hung above the headboard—but it had been turned upside down.

He set you down like you were breakable. Sat you on the edge of the bed, knelt once more to remove the slip still clinging to your body, inch by inch, as if undressing you were a sacrament.

"Y’ever wonder why I picked you?" he asked, voice low as the hush between thunderclaps.

Your breath stilled.

"I thought it was the blood."

He shook his head, his hands pausing at your hips.

"Nah, dove. Blood’s blood. Yours sings, sure. But it ain’t why I chose."

He looked up then, red eyes gleaming in the half-light.

"You remind me of the last thing I ever loved before I died."

The words landed like a stone in still water.

They rippled outward. Slow. Wide. Deep.

You stared at him, breath shallow, your skin bare under his hands, your throat still warm from where he’d fed. The room held its silence like breath behind gritted teeth. Outside, somewhere beyond the high windows, something moved through the trees—branches bending, wind pushing low and humid across the land—but in here, it was only the two of you.

Only his voice.

Only your blood between his teeth.

"What…what was she like?" you asked.

His thumbs drew circles at your hips, but his eyes drifted, not unfocused—just distant. Remembering.

"She had a mouth like yours. Sharp. Didn’t know when to shut it. Always speakin’ when she should’ve stayed quiet." A smile ghosted across his lips. "God, I loved that. I loved that she ain’t feared me even when she should’ve."

He exhaled through his nose, slow.

"But she didn’t get to finish bein’ mine."

Your brows pulled.

"What happened to her?"

He looked back at you then, and the heat in his gaze returned—not hunger, not even desire, but something deeper. Possessive. Terrifying in its tenderness.

"They tore her from me. Burned her in a chapel. Said she was a witch on account’a what I’d given her."

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

"Remmick—"

"She didn’t scream," he said, voice rough. "Didn’t cry. Just looked at me like she knew I’d find her again. And I have."

You froze.

His hands slid higher, up your ribs, his palms reverent.

"I don’t believe in fate. Not really. But you—" he leaned in, lips brushing your jaw, voice low like a spell, "you make me wanna believe in things I ain’t allowed to have."

You whispered against the curl of his mouth.

"And what do you think I am?"

He kissed the hinge of your jaw.

"My penance," he said. "And my reward."

You shivered.

"You said you saved me."

He nodded.

"I did."

"Why?"

He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, and his voice dropped to a near whisper.

"‘Cause I ain’t lettin’ another thing I love burn."

You didn’t realize you were crying until he touched your face.

Not with hunger, not with heat, but with the kind of softness that had no business living in a man like him. His thumb caught a tear on your cheek like he’d been waiting for it, like it meant something sacred.

"You ain’t her," he murmured. "But you feel like the same song in a different key."

His voice cracked a little at the edges, not enough to ruin the shape of it, just enough to prove that something in him still bled.

You reached up, fingers trembling, and cupped the side of his neck. The skin there was warmer now. Still inhuman, still not quite alive, but it held your heat like it didn’t want to give it back. You felt the ridges of old scars beneath your palm. The echo of stories not told.

"I don’t know what I’m becoming," you said.

He leaned into your hand, eyes half-lidded.

"You’re becomin’ mine."

Then he kissed you again—not like before. Not full of fire. But slow, like he had all the time in the world to learn the shape of your mouth. His lips moved over yours with a kind of tenderness that made your bones ache. A kind of reverence that said this is where I end and begin again.

When he pulled back, your breath followed him.

The room shifted.

You felt it. Like the house had exhaled too.

"Lie down," he said, voice softer than it had ever been. "Let me hold what I almost lost."

You obeyed.

You lay back against the sheets that smelled like him, like dust and dark and something unnameable. The iron bed creaked softly beneath you, and the candlelight trembled with the movement. He undressed with quiet purpose, shirt sliding from his shoulders, buttons undone by slow fingers, trousers falling away to bare the sharp planes of his body.

And when he climbed over you, it wasn’t to take.

It was to be taken.

Remmick hovered above you, breath warm at your lips, hands braced on either side of your head. He looked down at you like he was staring through time. Like you were something he'd pulled from the fire and decided to keep even if it burned him too.

You’re mine, he whispered, but didn’t say it aloud.

He didn’t have to.

His body said it.

His mouth said it.

And when he finally eased inside you, slow and steady, filling you inch by trembling inch—your soul said it too.

His body hovered just above yours, every inch of him trembling with a control you didn’t quite understand—until you looked into his eyes.

That red glow was dimmer now. No less powerful, but softened by something raw. Something reverent.

Not hunger.

Not lust.

Not even possession.

Devotion.

The kind that didn’t speak. The kind that buried itself in the bones and never left.

His hand slid down the side of your face, tracing the curve of your cheek, then the line of your jaw, calloused fingers lingering in the hollow of your throat where your heartbeat thudded wild and uneven.

"Still fast," he murmured, half to himself.

"You’re heavy," you whispered, not in protest, but in awe. Every breath you took was filled with him.

He smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching in that crooked, wicked way of his.

"Ain’t even layin’ on you yet."

You didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. Your body was stretched too tight, strung out with anticipation and need. Every inch of you burned.

He leaned down then, not to kiss you, but to breathe you in. His nose skimmed your cheek, the edge of your ear, the curve of your throat already marked by his bite. His hands traced your ribs, the sides of your waist, slow and steady, like he was trying to learn you by touch alone.

"You’re shakin'," he whispered, voice low, thick with something close to worship.

"So are you."

A pause.

Then softer—truthfully,

"Yeah."

He kissed the inside of your wrist, then the space between your breasts, then lower still—his lips reverent as they moved over your belly, your hipbone, the softest parts of you.

"You ever had someone take their time with you?" he asked, mouth against your skin.

You didn’t speak.

"Didn’t think so," he muttered. "Shame."

His hand slid between your thighs, spreading you again—not rushed, not greedy, just gentle. Like he knew he’d already had the taste of you and now he wanted the feel.

"Tell me if it’s too much," he said.

"It already is."

He looked up at you then, his face half-shadowed, half-lit, and something flickered in his eyes.

"Good."

His cock brushed against your entrance, hot and heavy, and you nearly arched off the bed at the first contact. Not even inside. Just there. Teasing. Pressed to the slick mess he'd made of you earlier with his mouth.

He groaned deep.

"Fuck, you feel like sin."

You reached for him, pulled him down by the back of his neck until your mouths were inches apart.

"Then sin with me."

He didn’t hesitate.

He began to press in—slow. Devastatingly slow. The head of his cock stretching you open with a care that felt like madness. His hands gripped your hips as if holding himself back took more strength than killing ever had.

He moved in inch by inch, his breath hitched, jaw tight, sweat beginning to bead at his temple.

"Shit—ya takin’ me so good, dove. Just like that."

You moaned. Your fingers dug into his back. You were full of him and not even halfway there.

"Remmick—"

"I gotcha," he whispered. "Ain’t gonna let you break."

But he was already breaking you. Gently. Thoroughly. Beautifully.

He filled you like he’d been made for the task.

No sharp thrusts. No hurried rhythm. Just the unbearable slowness of it. The stretch. The burn. The drag of his cock as he sank deeper, deeper, deeper into you until there was nothing left untouched. Until your body stopped bracing and started opening.

You clung to him—hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt that still clung to his back, damp with sweat. He hadn’t even undressed all the way. There was something obscene about it, something holy, too—the way he kept his shirt on like this wasn’t about bareness, it was about belonging.

"That’s it," he rasped against your throat. "There she is."

Your moan was caught between breath and prayer.

He buried himself to the hilt.

And still—he didn’t move.

His hips pressed flush to yours, his breath shaky against your skin as he held himself there, nestled so deep inside you it felt like you’d never known emptiness before now. Like everything that came before this moment had just been the ache of waiting to be filled.

"You feel that?" he whispered, voice thick, almost reverent. "Where I am inside ya?"

You nodded. Couldn’t find your voice.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear.

"Ain’t no leavin’ now. I’ll always be in ya. Even when I ain’t."

You whimpered.

Not from pain. From how true it felt.

He moved then—barely. Just a slow roll of his hips, a gentle retreat and return. It was enough to make your breath hitch, your body arch, your legs wrap tighter around him without thinking.

"That’s right, dove. Let me in. Let me have it."

You didn’t even know what it was anymore.

Your body?

Your blood?

Your soul?

You’d already given them all.

And still, he took more.

But not cruelly.

Like a man kissing the mouth of a well after years of thirst. Like a thief who knew how to make you feel grateful for the stealing.

He found a rhythm that made the air vanish from your lungs.

Slow. Deep. Measured. His hips grinding just right, dragging his cock against every place inside you that had never known such touch. Every stroke sang with heat. Every breath he took turned your name into something more than a sound.

"Fuck, I could stay in you forever," he groaned. "Like this. Warm. Tight. Mine."

You dug your nails into his shoulders, legs trembling.

"Please," you whispered, though you didn’t know what you were asking for.

He did.

"Beg me," he said, dragging his mouth down your neck, over the bite he’d left. "Beg me to make you come with my cock in you."

"Remmick—"

"Say it."

You were already gone. Already shaking. Already his.

"Make me come," you breathed. "Please—God, please—"

His smile was sinful.

And then he fucked you.

His rhythm shifted—no longer slow, no longer sacred.

It was worship in the way fire worships a forest. The kind that devours. The kind that remakes.

Remmick braced a hand behind your thigh, hitching your leg higher as he thrust harder, deeper, dragging guttural sounds from his chest that you felt before you heard. The bed groaned beneath you, iron frame clanging soft against the wall in time with his hips. But it was your body that made the noise that filled the room—the gasps, the breaking sighs, the high whimper of his name torn raw from your throat.

He kissed your jaw, your collarbone, your shoulder, not like he was trying to be sweet but like he needed to taste every inch he claimed.

"You feel me in your belly yet?" he growled, words hot against your skin.

You nodded frantically, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from the sheer force of sensation.

"Say it," he panted, each thrust brutal and beautiful.

"Yes—yes, I feel you, Remmick, I—"

"You gonna come f’r me like a good girl?"

"Yes."

"Say my fuckin’ name when you do."

His hand slid between your bodies, finding your clit like he’d owned it in another life, and the moment his fingers circled that aching bundle of nerves, your vision went white.

Your body seized around him.

The sound you made was raw, wrecked, something no one but him should ever hear.

He kept fucking you through it, hissing curses through his teeth, chasing his own high with the rhythm of a man who’d waited centuries for the perfect fit.

And then he broke.

With your name groaned low and reverent in your ear, he came deep inside you, hips stuttering, breath ragged, body shuddering with the force of it. You felt every throb of his cock inside you, every spill of heat, every ounce of him taking root.

For a long, suspended moment, he didn’t move.

Only the sound of your breaths tangled together.

Your sweat mixing.

Your bodies still joined.

"That’s it," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his forehead to yours. "That’s how I know you’re mine."

The house exhaled around you.

The candle sputtered in its jar, flame dancing low and crooked, like even it had been made breathless by what it had witnessed. Somewhere in the walls, the wood groaned—settling. Sighing. Accepting.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Your body was a temple razed and rebuilt in a single night, still pulsing with the memory of his mouth, his weight, the stretch of him inside you like a secret only your bones would remember. Every nerve hummed low and soft beneath your skin, like your blood hadn’t figured out how to move without his rhythm guiding it.

Remmick stayed inside you.

His body was heavy atop yours, but not crushing. His head tucked into the curve of your neck, the same place he’d bitten, the same place he’d worshipped like it held some holy truth. His breath came slow and ragged, the rise and fall of his chest matching yours as if your lungs had struck the same pace without meaning to.

"Don’t move yet," he muttered, voice wrecked and hoarse. "Wanna stay here just a minute longer."

You let your hand drift through his hair, damp with sweat, curls sticking to his forehead. You carded through them lazily, mind blank, heart full.

He pressed a kiss to your throat. Then another, just above your collarbone.

"You still with me?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded.

"Good," he murmured. "Didn’t mean to fuck the soul outta ya. Just…couldn’t help it."

You let out the softest laugh, and he smiled into your skin.

His hand slid down your side, tracing the curve of your waist, your hip, the spot where your thigh met his. His fingers moved slowly, not with lust, but with a kind of quiet awe.

"Y’know what you feel like?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Home."

The word struck something inside you. Something tender. Something deep.

He lifted his head then, just enough to look down at you. His eyes had faded from red to something darker, something richer—garnet in low light. The kind of color only seen in blood and wine and promises too old to be remembered by name.

"You still think this is just hunger?" he asked.

You blinked at him, dazed.

"It was never just hunger," he said. "Not with you."

The silence between you was warm now.

Not empty. Not tense. Just quiet, the kind that comes after thunder, when the storm’s rolled through and the trees are still deciding whether to stand or kneel.

You felt it in your limbs—heavy, humming, holy. The afterglow of something you didn’t have language for.

Remmick hadn’t moved far.

He still blanketed your body like a second skin, one arm braced beneath your shoulders, the other tracing idle shapes across your hip as if he were still mapping the terrain of you. His cock, softening but still nestled inside, pulsed faintly with the last of what he’d given you.

And he had given you something. Not just release. Not just blood. Something older. Something that whispered now in the place between your ribs.

You turned your head to look at him.

His gaze was already on you.

"What happens now?" you asked, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he ran the back of his fingers along your cheekbone, down the side of your neck, pausing over the place where his mark had already begun to bruise.

"You askin’ what happens tonight," he murmured, "or what happens after?"

You blinked slowly. "Both."

He let out a breath through his nose, the sound tired but not cold.

"Tonight, I’ll hold you. Long as you’ll let me. Won’t leave this bed unless you beg me to. Might even make ya cry again, if you keep lookin’ at me like that."

You flushed, and he smiled.

"As for after…"

He looked past you then, toward the ceiling, like the truth was written in the beams.

"Ain’t never planned that far. Not with anyone. Just fed. Fucked. Moved on."

"But not with me."

His eyes snapped back to yours. Serious now.

"No, dove. Not with you."

You swallowed the knot rising in your throat.

"Why?"

His jaw flexed, tongue darting briefly across his lower lip before he answered.

"‘Cause I been alone too long. Lived too long. Thought I was too far gone to want anythin’ that didn’t bleed beneath me."

He leaned closer, forehead resting against yours, his next words no louder than a ghost’s sigh.

"But you—you made me want somethin’ tender. Somethin’ breakable."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"Don’t gotta. Nothin’ about you ever has. And yet here you are."

You let your eyes drift shut, just for a moment, and whispered into the stillness between your mouths.

"So I stay?"

He didn’t hesitate.

"You stay."

The candle had burned low.

Its glow flickered long shadows across the walls—your bodies painted in gold and blood-tinged bronze, limbs tangled in sheets that still clung with sweat and want. The house had quieted again, the way an animal settles when it knows its master is content. Outside, the wind threaded through the trees in soft moans, like the Delta herself was eavesdropping.

Neither of you spoke for a while. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers traced lazy patterns across Remmick’s chest—over his scars, the slope of muscle, the faint rise and fall beneath your palm. You still half-expected no heartbeat, but it was there, slow and stubborn, like he’d stolen it back just for you.

He watched you. One arm draped across your waist, his thumb stroking your bare back like you might fade if he stopped.

"You still ain’t askin’ the question you really wanna ask," he said, voice rough from silence and sleep.

You paused.

"What question is that?"

He tipped his head toward you, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"You wanna know if I turned you."

Your heart gave a traitorous flutter.

"And did you?"

He shook his head.

"Nah. Not yet."

"Why not?"

His fingers stilled. Then resumed.

"’Cause you ain’t asked me to."

You looked up at him sharply.

"Would you?"

A long beat passed. Then he nodded once.

"If it was you askin’. If it was real."

Your breath caught.

"And if I don’t?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Then I’ll stay with you. ‘Til you’re old. ‘Til your hands shake and your bones ache and your eyes stop lookin’ at me like I’m the only thing that ever made you feel alive."

Your throat tightened.

"That sounds awful."

He smiled, slow and aching.

"It sounds human."

You looked at him for a long time. At the man who had killed, who had bled you, who had tasted every part of you—body and soul—and still asked nothing unless you gave it.

"Would it hurt?"

His hand slid up, fingers curling beneath your jaw, tilting your face to his.

"It’d hurt," he said. "But not more than bein’ without you would."

The quiet stretched long and low.

His words hung in the space between your mouths like smoke—something sweet and terrible, something tasted before it was fully breathed in.

Your chest rose and fell against his slowly, and for a long time, you said nothing. You just listened. To the house settling around you. To the wind curling past the windows. To the steady thrum of blood still echoing faintly in your ears.

And beneath it all—

You heard memory.

It came soft at first. A shape, not a sound. The slick thud of your knees hitting the alley pavement. The scream you didn’t recognize as your own. Your brother’s blood, warm and fast, pumping between your fingers like water from a broken pipe. His mouth slack. His eyes wide.

You remembered screaming to the sky. Not to God.

Just up.

Because you knew He’d stopped listening.

And then—

He came.

Out of nothing. Out of dark.

You remembered the slow scrape of his boots on the gravel. The silhouette of him under the weak yellow glow of a flickering streetlamp. You remembered the quiet way he spoke.

"You want him to live?"

You didn’t answer with words. You just nodded, crying so hard you couldn’t breathe. And he’d knelt—right there in the blood—and laid his hand flat against your brother’s chest.

You never saw what he did. Only saw your brother’s eyes flutter. Only heard his breath return, sudden and wet.

And then he looked at you.

Not your brother.

Remmick.

He looked at you like he’d already taken something.

And he had.

Now, years later, lying in the hush of his house, your body still joined to his, you could still feel that moment thrumming beneath your skin. The moment when everything shifted. When your life became borrowed.

You looked up at him now, breathing steady, lips parted like a prayer just barely forming.

"I’ve already given you everything."

He shook his head.

"Not this."

He pressed two fingers to your chest, right over your heart.

"This is still yours."

"And you want it?"

He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away.

"I want it to keep beatin’. Forever. With mine."

You stared at him.

You thought about that alley. About your brother’s eyes opening again.

About how no one else came.

And you made your choice.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

"Don’t say it unless you mean it, dove."

"I do."

His voice was barely more than a breath.

"You sure?"

You reached up, touched his face, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw.

"I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life."

His eyes shimmered—deep red now, alive with something wild and tender.

"Then I’ll make you eternal," he whispered. "And I’ll never let the world take you from me."

He didn’t rush.

Not now. Not with this.

Remmick looked at you like you were something rare—something holy—like he couldn’t believe you’d said it, even as your voice still echoed between the walls.

Then he moved.

Not with hunger. Not with heat.

With purpose.

He sat up, kneeling beside you on the bed, and pulled the sheet slowly down your body. His eyes drank you in again, but this time there was no heat in them. Just reverence. As if you were the altar, and he the sinner who’d finally been granted absolution.

"You sure you want this?" he asked one last time, voice soft, like the hush of water in a cathedral.

You nodded, throat tight.

"I want forever."

His jaw clenched. A tremble passed through him like he’d heard those words in another life and lost them before they were ever his.

He leaned down.

His hand cupped the back of your head, the other settled flat on your chest, palm over your heart.

"Close your eyes, dove."

You did.

And then—

You felt him.

His breath. His lips. The soft, cool press of his mouth against your neck. But he didn’t bite.

Not yet.

He kissed the mark he’d already left. Then higher. Then lower. Slow. Measured. Your body melted beneath him, your hands curling into the sheets.

And then—

A whisper against your skin.

"I’ll be gentle. But you’ll remember this forever."

And he sank his fangs in.

It wasn’t like the first time.

It wasn’t lust.

It wasn’t climax.

It was rebirth.

Pain bloomed sharp and bright—but only for a heartbeat. Then the warmth flooded in. Then the cold. Then the ache. Your pulse stuttered once, then surged. It was like drowning and being pulled to the surface at once. Like everything you’d ever been burned away and something older moved in to take its place.

He held you as it happened.

Cradled you like something delicate.

His mouth sealed over the wound, drinking slow, but not to feed. To anchor you. To tether you to him.

You felt yourself go limp. The world turned strange. Light and dark bled into each other. Your breath faded. Your heartbeat fluttered like wings against glass.

And then—

It stopped.

Silence.

Stillness.

And in the space where your heart had once beat…

You heard his.

Then—

Your eyes opened.

The world looked different.

Sharper.

Brighter.

Every shadow deeper. Every color richer. The candlelight burned gold-red and alive. The scent of the night air was so thick it choked you—smoke, soil, blood, him.

Remmick hovered above you, lips stained crimson, breathing hard like he’d just returned from war.

And when he looked at you—

You saw yourself reflected in his eyes.

He smiled.

On top of that, you were there with him through everything. You were part of the gang and stayed by him when it all fell apart. It was towards the end of that that Arthur came to you near frenzied, told you his plans, his thoughts. Confided in you and no less than begged to go with him where he ran.

You loved Arthur enough to stay, and so things ended - and you ran. There isn't much his journal could tell that you couldn't surmise on your own.

It's been years now, and you've long since left that life. You live with Arthur quietly, peaceful in the moments with a garden and kitty sweet as sugar.

It's a good life. An honest, quiet one sometimes to the point of being boring. You rarely miss the action, though occasionally you'll take up a bounty just to feel alive and make some money.

Mostly though, you live as unassuming folk. No bloodshed, no wardens, no gunslinging.

Been talk between you both about having a baby, recently. Serious talk. You've made some money between here and there, and you've got a good life. You've traveled too. But it gets a little lonely, and you don't really get your fill with just Jack when John and Abi are ways away.

Before anything like that, though - you need to clear some space. Empty out some belongings and things collecting dust. Living in one place for too long creates all sorts of mess, you find. When Arthur is home to help, he does - but he's been busy lately figuring something out with Charles. Some business venture related to ranching that you know nothing about so far. They'll tell you when its ready.

Usually when you're tidying, you keep to just your things, or your shared things - but Arthur has lived more life than you. It shows in that big closet space filled with nick-knacks he has yet to toss.

You'd mentioned it to him not too long ago and he'd given you permission to go through them.

(A kiss to your forehead from chapped lips and hands holding your waist, Arthur hums in acknowledgement as you ask his permission.

"Ain't nothing I gotta hide from you. Do whatever you need.)

But like you said - you try to keep your nose out of his business if it's not necessary for you to be in it in anyway.

You weren't trying to look through his things, really. You started cleaning, worked your way to that last box. Up on a shelf in his closet, a little too high for you to reach easily. You made a misstep and dropped the damn thing. It barely missed your head as the whole thing fell open, and out came journals and papers and photographs.

You've always known Arthur to be sentimental, so none of it has been particularly surprising. A photo of wolves and him on a horse, the picture from John and Abigail's engagement. Some other scraps of sentimental value.

And then there was a journal. Not Arthur's journal that he's always using, but another you've never seen before. You know Arthur journals, seen the thing plenty though you never look unless he shows you first.

A journal with a dark brown stained leather binding, fallen open and your name scrawled out in pencil lead at the top of it.

The curiosity got the better of you, okay? Not your damn fault.

So you're thinking on it.

The fabric of your skirt is pooled out underneath you as you hold the thing in your hands, sitting down on the ground surrounded by things. You've stowed away everything else that fell out from the box after ensuring it was intact, including Arthur's journals. Everything with the exception of the one you're holding.

Some guilt eats at you. You don't wanna upset him potentially by having looked. Even if he gave you permission, looking in the damn thing is a little different. But your name was there so clearly, and well - you didn't think he wrote about you. Apart from here and there, maybe.

You hold the book out in front of you with a sigh, looking fondly at his name ingrained in the leather. You press your forehead against it with, resigning yourself completely.

"Lord forgive my pryin'," You mumble, hoping it's enough to absolve you.

Your heart feels funny as you let your fingers trace over the hard edge of the front cover, one eye shut as you start to open it slow.

The first few pages are nothing special.

A page outlining who the journal belongs to and when it was started, and some doodles of yarrow and oleander. The pages after that filled with mundane entries. About people he met or things he saw, all endearing to you. The corners of your lips tug up slightly.

You really love this man helplessly.

You flip through a few more pages, many of them blank before writing starts to appear again. Little by little, you find passages. You look to the dates up at the corner (though not all of them have one) and trace the timeline. This is from all the way back in Horseshoe Overlook.

It feels like ages ago now.

You look at a page with no date, and reading the writing in it. There's doodles of flowers and trees along the bottom of the page. The words are easy enough to make out - because Arthur has the most unusually beautiful handwriting.

There's some entries about you. At first, they all include your name in some context. Mentioned in the same way Arthur might mention Hosea or Abigail. The further you go, the less you see it. The more you become her and she.

It's a trend. The longer you read, the less there is about anyone else. Just you and all your silly idiosyncrasies tucked between pages. Something lovestruck and foolish lights its match in you.

Saw a body hanging at the tracks at Valentine. A gruesome sight. I told her about it and she laughed. Asked me to take her to see it. A strange woman, by all accounts.

You feel yourself smile a little as you continue to flip through the pages.

She joined me riding into town today. Said she had some business to attend but would not tell me any details. After, she came with me to purchase a new gun. I engraved a snake into it's handle, per her request.

Another few pages littered with drawings of delicate berries and waterfalls before you stumble across more writing. The more you flip, the longer the passages become you.

You can't tear your eyes away.

Rained today. Nothing too terrible or worth mentioning, except that she nearly caught a cold playing in it. I brought her coffee to keep her warm, but could not scold her further upon seeing her delight.

Another passage, this time written with messier hand writing. A coffee stain splatters on the white of the page.

Your heart tugs on itself. Swells about a thousand sizes. To think he wrote so much of your time together between these pages.

You read and read and read - and each passage is a little more mundane at the last. Some pages go on in vivid detail, but others are so short you aren't sure what to make of the fact he wrote them at all. As if such little details were important enough to keep in mind.

I picked a flower for her. I thought it would suit her taste. It was white with delicate petals. I did not know the name.

She wore it in her hair this evening. I find I can't stop grinning.

One passage on the next few pages, longer than the rest, catches your eye. From later in your time together, written when you were in Leymone. Near Scarlett Meadows and before the mess in Saint Denis.

After Arthur had been kidnapped.

I have gone on and on about the business with Colm O'Driscoll in many entries before this one. Yet, I find it difficult to forget. Many times I have come close to death, and still no experience lingers on my mind quite like this one. Everyone has done their best to look after me. For that I am grateful, though I do not care for being looked after. What use am I like this, I wonder? Perhaps, I should simply be grateful to be alive and in one piece, if a little uglier than I was. Alongside Miss Grimshaw and Miss Tilly, she has been by my side while I recovered. Such a carefree woman and yet I have seen her cry and weep over me countless times in the last few weeks alone. The decent man in me is apologetic for causing sorrow. Perhaps, it is the outlaw in me that feels some strange relief or satisfaction. Her fussing does not give me any grief. If anything, I find myself all the more endeared. Such a decent woman does not belong in a place like this. I hope she is able to go somewhere far away and live peacefully. I am not so shameless to want anything more. The time together we have spent, I will make sure to cherish.

Something painful and pitiful tugs at your heart. Even when Arthur admitted his feelings for you, he had started it on a similar tangent. You tell him often that you're the one who feels out of bounds with him. That a man as decent and as honest as him often feels like too much for you to have so easily.

A tear slips from your eye and you laugh at your own sentimentality, wiping it away before it can splatter onto the pages.

The further you read, the more sporadic entries become. You find that there are pages filled with sketches of you, but many of them are scratched out or half erased - like he did not find them good enough. Of your side profile, of your hands, of you pointing at a target with a gun. You feel a strange feeling of love wash over you.

Instead of concrete thoughts, you're met with Arthur's abstract. Subtle complexities and studies. There's honest tenderness in the way he sketches you and the words he chooses to caption each with. Lighter, thinner lines. Smaller doodles like stray daydreams caught onto a page.

You've never doubted Arthur in his love for you, quiet man he is - but it proves to overwhelm when presented to you in such a way.

You get to back pages. There, you're finally met with more writing. Except, instead of journal entries, there's the start of letters. You find your name at the top of the page.

Over and over. Love letters, all unfinished or scrapped. Written over and over and over, but not completed. There's tens of them at least. You've never received a love letter from Arthur before, though it's nothing you fault him for.

Now you're almost glad. You like this much better.

My darling girl My muse The better half of me, I must find some way to tell you all of what I think of you. It seems no words do it justice, I'm afraid. Still, it is in my best interest to try.

Damn that man.

When you find yourself starting to weep, you don't fight the feeling. You merely shut the book closed and set it in your lap before crying into your hands.

Such overwhelmingly happy tears. You feel off balance. If the whole world turned on its head this very minute, you're unsure you'd notice. What a decent, honest man you've come to love. What a tender one.

In the middle of your crying, you don't hear the door open or close. Nor do you hear Arthur's heavy footfall until he's in the doorway, with a voice worried half to death.

"Sweetheart, what in the hell?"

You turn your head to look at him, watching his eyes widen at your tear stained face. You clamber to your feet hurriedly, book dropping onto the ground next to you as you throw yourself at him as soon as you can.

Arthur is a steady enough man not to stumble when you do, though you can feel his apprehension. Eventually, he circles his arms around your waist. His hugs are strong. Bout strong as him and then some. An arm wrapped around your waist, the other crossed over your back all around your shoulder. Full pressure as he squeezes you tight, patting the back of your head.

"I leave you alone for a few hours. What has gotten into you, little lady?"

You pull back and and look at him, wet lashes and all, before leaning up to kiss him. Arthur meets your lips chastely at first before making a noise of surprise as you kiss him further. You use both hands to grab his face as you do, scruff scratching against your skin. His lips are soft, welcoming. He melts into the touch, so easily - blue eyes lovestruck as you pull away.

"You know I love you, don't you Arthur? More than anyone in this crazy world we live in,"

His face softens visibly. He smiles at you, touching his head to yours.

"Somehow, I do. Though, I'm wonderin' what the hell brought this on."

You tuck your face against his chest, feeling his laughter reverb through you at the way you cling to him so fervently. You sniffle as you talk.

"Found your journal. The one about me,"

He goes stiff, then silent. When you look up again, he's blushing red. He pinches his brow.

"Lord, I'd forgotten all about it,"

You shake your head.

"Ain't nothing for you to be embarrassed about. You are so wonderful,"

He pouts at you. Your heart swells. "You ain't helping with the embarrassment."

You hold him further. Hug him so tight, worried he'll disappear if you don't.

"I love you, Arthur."

"You already told me once, didn'tcha?"

"And I'll tell you one thousand times over," You emphasize, pouting at him. "Really. I love you,"

"I love you too sweetheart," His hand cups your face, thumb brushing along your waterline. "Don't cry no more. Spoils that pretty face."

"I'll try but I don't know if it's all out of me,"

Arthur laughs, pressing a kiss against your hairline. "Guess I'll just have to wipe your tears."