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inknopewetrust · 1 day ago

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𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚜𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗

Summary: When fate forces abilities upon you, adjustments are made to roll with the punches. It’s only when living with a lover who spontaneously combusts and yourself being an unpredictable icebox that life’s pleasures become a little bit more complicated.

Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader [wc: 4.0k]

warnings: 18+, MDNI, smut. p in v, oral (blow job + hand job), and no, no body parts are frozen or burn in this fic—that’s a different kind of story.

Quick Links: Masterlist

Someone once told you that the power you’d received was not only a gift, but an extension of something inside of you. A trait that hovered below the surface and only emerged in its truest form because of the rays.

You argued that it couldn’t have been right.

But then you thought… maybe, just maybe, you were actually a little cold. Not a stone cold bitch but close to it if a person got a little too big in their britches to make assumptions about people you loved.

Yet you didn’t feel completely like one—especially not when the warm hands of Johnny were feeling you up.

“Johnny,” you whined as the bubbling sauce on the stove fought for your attention.

His rough hands smoothed over your sides. Gently playing with the fabric of your shirt, Johnny’s fingertips slid over your skin, across your stomach to hold you tight. His lips found purchase against the column of your neck.

To breathe you in, to nip at the skin in a wish to mark you for the world. What scandal, you imagined: a beloved hero with love bites from the hot-headed heartbreaker.

“What?” He played at his innocence. “I won’t distract you.”

You huffed. “Of course not. It’s like you’re never distracting to me, at all… like ever.”

Against your neck, his smile grew wide. Johnny’s nose traced a line upwards to your ear, lingering beside it and threatening to sway you as he rocked his body from side to side.

“Never,” he whispered dramatically. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

He nipped your earlobe playfully. Your neck contracted, sending a fit of your arms trying to push him away but the effort was moot.

“Johnny,” you pressed again as the sauce’s bubble burst in the pot. The remnants of the explosion sent droplets of red across the countertop and to the spoon lodged in it.

“I’m not here remember.” His hands slowly removed themselves from your body and it was no different to you than losing a limb.

The warmth that escaped you was instant—something new and welcome upon your return to Earth. For you, the constant chill was an uphill battle when the air conditioning became too cold or the winter’s approached with warning. The frigid temperatures extenuated your problems while the heat only seemed to blossom Johnny’s.

Ying and Yang, two sides of a coin, the most obtuse of afflictions were a new river to navigate.

You didn’t think dealing with cosmic powers was what the “next step” in your relationship was going to be.

First it was setting the bed ablaze in a fit of passion. Then, it was the glass of his bedroom windows freezing over and bursting from the rapid cold. There was once an incident in the lab that left some lab coats singed and another where the sofa was defrosting for days.

A cleaner had to come into the apartment and get the wet fabric smell to disappear.

Reed and Sue didn’t have these problems. Ben… well… it was difficult to adapt to. But you and Johnny? You still tried even if it always ended in a little bit of disaster.

“I’m trying to cook here.”

Johnny moved away from you as asked and leaned up against the counter behind you. His hands spread out beside him, fingers searching for something to fiddle with as his intentions to ravish you were becoming too difficult to subdue.

“Trying, is the key word. But I appreciate the effort.”

“Hey!” You exclaimed, rightly offended by his comment. “At least I even try to cook. If it weren’t for me, we’d be starving or eating your cereal scraps when everyone is gone.”

“H.E.R.B.I.E. can also make a mean dish,” he reminded you. “And then we would have time for… other… activities.”

You looked over your shoulder at him. “Is that all you think about?”

“No.” He plastered a fake smile onto his face. “I also think of the universal hierarchy but every time I bring it up—“

“—someone always shuts you down,” you finished.

“So, yeah,” he nodded. “Right now I am thinking about how much I really, really wanna do some really, really bad things to my lovely girlfriend but she is far too busy cooking to pay attention to me.”

“Oh…” Your voice dragged out comically. Johnny’s knuckles rapped against the counter. “You’re not getting enough attention, is that it?”

He wasn’t wrong, per se, just exaggerating. Seven months ago, everyone on the Marvel-1 was suddenly struck by the most inconvenient of special abilities when Reed piloted the ship through a cosmic storm.

It didn’t take long for the two of you to find out that Johnny, being a blazing body of fire and you, a body infused with ice, were unable to figure out a way to make the intimacy of your relationship happen without something going wrong. Yet you both tried anyway—often.

Johnny blew raspberries behind you. Your hand fiddled with the temperature. The flame on the stove shrinking as the timer on the oven was set to seventeen minutes.

“I don’t need attention, I just want your attention.”

“Awe,” you fostered. “That warms my heart, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He looked down at his feet, not budging from his spot.

With the food balancing out and calming in the kitchen, you felt the moment ascend upon you. He’s here, you’re both alone, no one to burst in on you to ruin the moment.

You pivoted in your spot. Johnny’s eyes flicked up, watching your deft fingers undoing the apron around your waist. He loved the way it pinched you; shaping your figure to show off every curve and inch he sought out. You weren’t a fabulous chef, and he didn’t want to force you to show off those skills, but he adored the look of it. Domesticity, a home you’ve built alongside of him. He knew you’d feel the same if he tried to bake you a cake… even if it’d be burnt at the end of its timer.

For two scientists, it was a wonder how you were both so bad at it.

“You know,” you started conspiratorially and the blue in his eyes seemed to illuminate. The wavelength you remained on hadn’t changed in the incident. “I think we have a little bit of time.”

No faster had the words come out of your mouth and he was across the space and attached to you in an instant. His lips fell onto yours with a start; heady and bereft of contact. The sensation was panicked for time. He couldn’t waste a second, neither could you. If you did, then maybe it would all disappear again and you’d both have to start over. Johnny would wake again with the urge to tease, you’d wade in the water of accepting it or trying it out yourself.

But a part of you was done trying. Ice be damned. You loved Johnny and fuck, if you wanted to blow him or let him rail you to the goddamn moon, the powers would have to step aside.

Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, nails raking the base of his skull where his hair laid short. The thrill of your touch sent shockwaves through his system. It alerted every sense, igniting a plume of heat where he needed, missed, you the most.

The sweats he wore gave everything away. The sloppiness of your kiss paved way to distraction. Johnny’s blood rushed to his cock like a tidal wave. The cotton fabric tightened and looked to him to relieve it with a tug. With each break of your kiss, you moved closer to feel his excitement grow.

The mere thought of you wanting to feel him getting hard was enough for him to get there.

“Going well so far,” Johnny murmured between kisses.

Don’t jinx it. God, please don’t jinx it.

You glanced back at the timer. Ten minutes.

“I think we’ve got time for one thing.”

Looking back, Johnny couldn’t refuse the doe-eyed plea you gave him. He hated not pleasing you first. A part of him wanted to object out of clear morals—it wasn’t how your relationship had ever functioned, it was bordering on something new. However, everything was new now.

It had taken four months to return to Earth after the storm and now, three months of being home with the powers has been all about saving the world, brand deals, and being the perfect “hero.”

“Sweetheart,” Johnny began but you shushed him with a single finger. Those nails ran across his chest, soothing the realities of what dangers may arise between you both.

“Let me,” you begged. “I like it, I do. I want you to feel good too.”

“And you? You know I can’t leave you like that.”

“There will be other times. Just let me blow you and then we can have dinner.”

Johnny’s head tilted backwards in disbelief of your brashness. When it returned upright, his hands cupped your face carefully. He held you as if you were made of glass. The glint was unmistakable in his eyes. They shone so brightly, big and enraptured.

“What did I do to deserve you?”

“I don’t know,” you joked, smile too big to conceal. “I think it was your nerdy charm but you’re pretty cute too.”

He planted a kiss softly on your lips before the music behind your eyes changed the melody of your intent.

Your lips pursed. His eyes flickered to them as his own remained reddened and bruised from the sear of your kisses. You lifted one hand, its fingertips, to your lips and let the saliva gather into your palm. It slid quickly, rushing you to act as you cupped it expertly and brought your hand to the soft elastic band of his pants.

Fuck, Johnny thought, you’ve ruined him for anyone else.

Your wet fingers brushed the light spattering of pubic hair before molding along the curve of his dick. He was so fucking hard. With your spit, your hand glided along to the tip. Johnny was leaking and he’d barely been touched for a few moments out of sheer desire for you.

It mixed with your spit well. The pulse of your hand rocked his shaft with even strokes; both hands occasionally joining in knowledge of his preferences. Johnny didn’t mind you stroking him tightly, he enjoyed the pressure and release when your hand let go.

“You see why I can’t live without you that long?” He laughed in awkwardness.

You eyed him, watching as his cheeks grew red and the stuttering in his chest became pronounced.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ve barely made it past third base.”

With the length of him in your wetted palm, you stroked him from base to tip and over again. Your palm gave way, thumb pressing into the tip lightly as it worked over and set rhythm. His slit leaked in loose dribbles; collected by your thumb to be smeared down his shaft.

Johnny’s jaw tensed. The strain from his teeth bore down on his jaw while he held his breath in his chest for too long. He breathed out loudly, groaning when he touched his face to yours. Feeling him hot and heavy in your palm buckled your knees. A frenzied need abandoned your stoic nature and sent you to the floor in front of him.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ve barely made it past third base.”

Johnny’s hands looked for somewhere to sit and cradled the crown of your head gingerly. You pulled his pants down just enough for his cock to spring out at the tug. He was harder than he had ever been in his life. He could barely stand the pressure of his blood concentrated there. Johnny had never needed you this badly before. At the return of your hand, your hands curled around him while your lips assisted beside them.

You licked one long stripe up the base of his cock and he saw stars. Galaxies upon galaxies floating in his eyes as you orbit his pupil with a self-satisfied grin plastered into his vision. Your lips parted, taking him into your mouth far enough to make the spit that gathered there to escape the sides. And then you looked up at him.

He swore his heart stopped beating. Yours was going a million miles an hour while his was going a billion.

“Holy shit,” he moaned with a chuckle. “I love you so fucking much.”

You take him a bit deeper and the sentiment grows. Johnny doesn’t press on your head enough to guide you, allowing you to take the wheel of his pleasure and enjoy what you were providing. You pulled back from him, releasing him with a lewd “pop” before stroking him with what was left behind.

“I love you,” you replied.

“I don’t think you realize how much, sweetheart. You’ve got my heart on another planet right now.”

“Well now you know what you do to me, lover boy.”

“Lover boy,” he scoffed. “I’m not lovin’ anyone but you from here on out.”

“Good,” your lips returned to the tip of his cock so full of blood it was almost purple with a bruise. “But you’re my lover boy so I can call you that forever.”

“Sure thing, baby.”

You were smug with reward as the seconds inched further to his orgasm because it meant that you’d done it. Finally. A god-forsaken time where neither of your powers had gotten in the way of finishing in intimacy.

Johnny’s hands remained on your head, barely restraining himself from pushing you down further on his dick. His hips, however, shallowly thrust every time you’d take him back into your mouth. The sounds you made forced the blush to return to his cheeks. Each pass you’d take closed in on the back of your throat. Tongue flat, inviting his straining cock to the very last inch you could take.

You choked but didn’t let up. His hands attempted to lift you up, give you that relief but you swatted them away as you held yourself there. Your nose could smell the scent of his soap—he’d just showered for you—and the light trace of your spit. The salty traces of him on your tongue was intoxicating.

You’d all but forgotten about the food in the oven and on the stove.

“I’m not gonna last very long if you keep takin’ me that deep.”

With a start, you gagged at your will to speak. Johnny grinned from ear to ear.

“You did not just try to talk with my dick in your mouth.”

You kept up pumping him with your fist as your mouth freed itself. “Laugh about it all you want but I still have your dick in my hand.”

“And it feels great, keep it up.”

“Oh you…” your eyes narrowed, challenging him from below as his hands gently caressed your head in appreciation.

“But you know what?”

“What?”

“I really don’t want to cum down your throat.”

“Charming,” you flatlined. Your hand slowed its pace and all he could think about was getting your pants off and fucking you silly against the kitchen counter.

Everything was perfect. It was a little sloppy, unprepared, and back to the way it was. This felt normal and simple. It felt like seven months ago when you whispered sweet nothings into each others ears the night before you left Earth because of the “just in case” scenario of never returning.

Johnny’s hand tightened around yours as he helped you to your feet. You staggered, losing your footing with a laugh while he held onto you. His hands shifted along the sides of your waist to rub you up and down in comfort.

“We’ve got this,” he affirmed with a nod. His blue eyes searching your weary ones as the premise of a future finally moving forward was promising.

“Yeah,” you agreed. “We’ve got this.”

Reaching one hand to your face, his thumb traced your bottom lip in remembrance. He envisioned the night before you left—every breath and hesitant mark made to forgive any wrong doings and assurance that there was something to return to after a risky, experimental chance.

“We might be different now but we will always be the same,” he admitted honestly. “How I feel about you has never changed.”

Your eyes were glassy. “I love you so much.”

“You have no idea,” Johnny whispered.

He kissed you again with that promise. The pull of his fire, that of your ice, were nothing against the foundations of what made you stand.

Johnny guided you against the counter, peppering kisses along your shoulder blades when the counter pressed up upon your waist. It dug into you sweetly. His fingers undid the button of your pants and slid them, with your underwear, to your knees. His foot appeared between yours and guided your legs a little further apart.

“This alright?” He asked tenderly. His head came to rest on your shoulder enough for you to turn and look at him. “You ready for me or…?”

“Lover boy,” you mused. “You might miss your chance if you wait so long.”

You were more than ready for him. Always were, always would be.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He grasped his cock in his hand and rubbed his length along your slit. You were wet—far more than he thought you would be but you hadn’t lied, you did enjoy pleasing him. He used what you left and what he gathered to lubricate himself. Johnny lined himself up, breathing hard as he watched your fingers clench on the edge of the counter and your head leaned against his chest.

“That’s it, baby,” he murmured to you as he pushed the head of his cock into your pussy. “You’ve got me. I know you’ve got me.”

The tightness was rousing. You squeezed him in; expanding to take his girth and pushing back against him to accommodate his length. An arm wrapped around your waist for support while the other firmly planted itself on your hip. You missed loving each other like this.

“F-fuck,” you grunted. “Goddammit, Johnny.”

“Why’s it always me?” He quipped. “You’ve got the tightest pussy I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Charming,” you repeated as he retracted enough to keep his head inside before pushing back in. “You’re so charming.”

The stretch of his cock was delicious. Your ears caught the sound: the snap of his hips to your body, the sounds of your friction sending spasms up your spine.

“And I should say only pussy I’ll be in till the end of time.”

You nodded against his chest. “That’s more like it.”

Johnny hummed, refocusing to the motions. His cock was deep, kissing your cervix with pleasure as the simple thought of Johnny watching himself disappear from below your ass was making you wet. You started to imagine how much dirtier it could get for you.

What if there was a mirror? You could watch him rail you from behind and grope your breasts with his large palms. Dinner was almost done. Handcuffs would be a pleasant surprise. Johnny, tied to the bed and zoned in on you bouncing on his dick without an option to touch you. Dinner was done.

Johnny’s cock drove into you relentlessly. Never ceasing for a break, he hammered his hips into you against the countertop enough where you knew there would be a memory imprinted in hazy colors on your hips. But it would be a reminder of this success. You’d done it. Truly beat the powers. Dinner was really fucking done.

“Oh shit baby,” Johnny hissed as his hips started to falter. “What’d you need from me? What do you need?”

You could barely think of what you needed. Every inch you took from him was accelerating a path to the feeling you missed. It was building, stepping toward the sky in insurmountable numbers as his hips swirled.

“Clit,” you ordered succinctly.

Johnny’s finger flew to your bud in record speed. He always had the best luck with his middle finger, so he pressed down and made quick circles that left you stuttering.

“Faster.”

Your shoulders lurched but you didn’t finish. Both of you were almost there. You could see the light, feel it starting to peak around you when the sudden smell of rancid burning began to overtake your senses.

Dinner was burnt.

Dinner was on fire.

“J-Johnny,” you sputtered out his name yet his cock kept finding its way back inside of you. Your hand left the counter rapidly and slapped at his arm wrapped around you.

“Johnny, fuck,” you barely got out. “Dinner. The goddamn dinner.”

“Yeah,” he breathed heavy, “we’ll eat in a minute.”

“No,” you swore. “It’s on fucking fire. The dinner is on fucking fire!”

“Wha—“

Before either of you could come to a complete stop and figure it out, the fire alarm screeched throughout the apartment. Reed had reprogrammed it to sense a real fire after one or two inside incidents that you may or may not have been a part of.

“Shit!” Johnny spat.

As he went to pull out of you, the world seemed to freeze. Arriving at the speed of light, H.E.R.B.I.E. came flying from his sleeping place with its alert system blaring as loud as the fire alarm.

But H.E.R.B.I.E had eyes.

H.E.R.B.I.E had a soul.

“Oh my—“ you didn’t have time to form the full thought before your arm reached out into the robot’s direction and the wheels of its small body went rigid.

The fire alarm stopped.

H.E.R.B.I.E was silent.

And the smell of a burnt dinner now lingered in the background.

Johnny kept his hands on you as he tried to keep you titled sideways and out of the general direction of H.E.R.B.I.E even if your hand was outstretched. He was breathless; awestruck in the moment.

H.E.R.B.I.E was frozen like a brick of ice and the trail of a white, frosted over landscape appeared from the stove, to H.E.R.B.I.E, and across the hallway. The bots eyes were preserved in a state of shock—or perhaps that is what it always looked like.

Nevertheless, H.E.R.B.I.E was right there.

You’d have to erase its memory chip before the others arrived back home. It was staring right at the both of you: forever imprinted on that one spot, eyes locked in on the scene.

“You killed it,” Johnny spoke first. “I think you killed H.E.R.B.I.E.”

“I didn’t kill it!” You exclaimed too defensively. But your pants were at your ankles now and you were literally leaking onto your legs. Fuck.

“Is H.E.R.B.I.E looking at us?” His voice got lower, quieter as he looked at H.E.R.B.I.E suspiciously.

“I don’t know.” You didn’t. It was hard to tell.

Johnny nodded in assurance to himself before patting your bare waist. He stepped back, kneeling down to gather your underwear from where they combined with your pants before pulling them up one by one. It wasn’t ideal but he knew the options the two of you had: make a bigger mess of things or fix what’s happened.

Sex could wait another day.

You let him redress you. Johnny made an effort to turn you around, buttoning your pants for you and pulling your apron back down over the lower half of your body. He shoved himself back into his sweatpants and even if you could still see the outline of his arousal, Johnny didn’t press.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized out of disappointment.

“It’s not your fault.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and placed his lips on your forehead. You filled his embrace readily.

“But we did it… kind of?”

“Yeah,” he smiled proud. “We fucking did.”

A/N: Johnny is literally everything to me. S/O to @uzmacchiato for the beautiful animated dividers. If you’re a writer and looking for ways to make you work a little bit more flashy, check out their work!!

p.s. sorry for traumatizing herbie. took one for the team here.

p.p.s. all writers love to hear from readers and it’s the one thing I love more than anything. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

#johnny storm x reader #johnny storm x you #johnny storm x y/n #johnny storm #fantastic four x reader #the fantastic four #the fantastic 4 #fantastic four #the fantastic four first steps #joseph quinn #joseph quinn x reader #x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #x female reader #herbie I’m so sorry

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inknopewetrust · 2 days ago

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And you know what? New fic TOMORROW!

Yall I love writing for Johnny sm

He’s just such a charmer

#johnny storm x reader #johnny storm x y/n #johnny storm x you #johnny storm #fantastic four x reader

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inknopewetrust · 2 days ago

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Yall I love writing for Johnny sm

He’s just such a charmer

#Johnny Storm x reader #johnny storm x you #johnny storm x y/n #fantastic four x reader

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inknopewetrust · 3 days ago

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FLAMING HEARTS WAS SO GOOD! SUCH AMAZING QUALITY AND CHARACTERIZATION AND PLOT I LOOOOVED IT

Thank youuu!! ❤️🥰

Johnny is so much fun to write! I have some things lined up for him in the future (specifically for Kinktober) so keep on the look out for it then!

#johnny storm x reader #johnny storm #johnny storm x you #x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #the fantastic four #fantastic four #fantastic four first steps

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inknopewetrust · 5 days ago

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#x reader #fanfics #ao3 #archive of our own #fanfiction

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inknopewetrust · 5 days ago

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Flaming Hearts Fan Club

summary: you, a shit-out of luck reporter, are stuck following around the world’s most self-centered superhero for his fan club’s magazine.

Johnny Storm sees a challenge… and you just can’t help but resist him, right? You’d never kiss and tell.

[Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader] [WC: 12.3k]

Warnings: SMUT! MDNI! 18+ hesitant lovers, love at first sight, both have preconceived notions of one another, fluff, flirtation, Johnny is more than a flirt people! explicit language, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), a lil bit of edging.

Quick Links: Masterlist

“No.”

“Come on,” she begged. Her puppy eyes were glinting in the office lights. “Please. Pretty please? I’ll even say it with a cherry on top.”

“No!” You laughed at her absurdity. You interviewing Johnny Storm on behalf of that magazine? Non-heroic immolation sounded more grand at that very moment.

“What if I tell you I’ll throw in a bonus?”

Swiveling around in your chair, you looked at Lucy’s comically large black cat-eyed glasses and blinked once.

“Nothing on planet Earth could get me to step foot in the Baxter building. The goddamn sky could be falling and I would rather be crushed by the weight of gravity than spend ten minutes in heatwave’s presence.”

“He’s called The Human Torch.”

You nodded unenthused. “Wonderful.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. She laid herself dramatically atop your desk’s perched edge. Her frown deepened; eyes wallowing in self-destruction at your refusal.

“What about a big bonus?”

“Fifty dollars isn’t a “big bonus” no matter how many times you emphasize that it will cover my groceries for a month. I’d rather starve.”

“Good grief,” she wailed. “You’re a lost cause!”

“I’m the lost cause?” You feigned offense. “You are all in love with the same womanizing astronaut who spontaneously bursts into flames and cries hero when he destroys ten apartment buildings with a shallow “sorry!” You are lost causes.”

“Maybe you actually have a giant crush on him and you just don’t want all us girls to know about it.”

“Mhm,” you feigned and turned back to your work.

Materials laid askew before you in the most unorganized manner. Articles half edited remained inked in red while photographs of worthy news were plagued by post-it notes with reminders of what, where, and why.

Lucy walked around your desk. Her fingers gliding along the top of it before stretching out in observation.

“I think you actually like him,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is it the eyes? They’re so blue that they just swallow you whole like the sea. Or! Or is it that he’s a funny guy? I love men who can make me laugh.”

“Yeah, well,” you scoffed, “you laugh at everyone’s jokes so it’s not that impressive.”

“But he’s a hero! And a rich one—you see the tower? And the car… don’t even get me started on the car.”

You hummed. “Every girl just wants to be picked up in an invisible floating object.”

She narrowed her eyes accusingly. “Do you just hate fun or what?”

Shrugging, you picked up a photo and held it to the light. Lucy took you in as you distracted yourself from answering her accusatory question.

By all standards of the word, Lucy thought you fit the definition of “beautiful woman” but your beauty stumped her with your lack of social life. You had no husband, no boyfriend, no guys circling on the side. You lived alone in a decent apartment where your late nights in the office were more important than getting home at a reasonable hour to someone willing to treat you right.

You were good at your job—great, even. But you were lonely and even a single star in the farthest galaxy could see it.

Lucy wasn’t implying that Johnny Storm was going to sweep you off your feet or ride in on a golden carriage to save you from a desolate nature. You weren’t going to fall in love with him after one interview. She took your vocal objection to as a win, however. Getting you out of your comfort zone, exploring something new, and hell, he just happened to be the attractive guy at the subject of your piece.

It was different, new, and it was perfect for you.

“$300.”

You kept your eyes glued to the photograph.

“$350,” Lucy propositioned instead.

“$400?”

Your face curled up in polite decline. “I mean, I’d go through so much trouble. Not to mention the traffic and then the extra fare for the train ride home… I’m losing free time and precious seconds I could be completing other articles for Friday’s edition…”

“$500 extra, final offer.”

Dropping the photograph, you folded your arms in front of you seriously.

“There are twenty other girls who would love to be an inch away from his breathing space. Why are you asking me?”

Lucy gawked, looking around the cubicles for other reporters to share an incredulous look but no one dared look at their boundary-crossing boss. Her curly black hair whipped back around to you in seriousness.

“They don’t have a spect of talent that you do. And besides, what story is going to benefit from a fan writing about their idol or someone they wish to become their husband?”

“You think the other girls would try to… you know, sleep with him?”

“I think every person who had a mutual attraction with Johnny Storm would try and fuck him.”

“Jesus,” you muttered. “We’re at work you know.”

“I know you won’t though,” she smiled mischievously. “Even though you won’t admit he’s cute.”

“Lucy,” you sighed heavily. You put a hand to your forehead as if she was stressing you out.

“But I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I mean get it where you can.”

“I’m a professional,” you reminded her.

“Exactly.” Her eyes told you a million reasons to take the job against your better judgement.

Do it: there was plenty of money involved. Do it: imagine the publicity your writing would gain if you did. Do it: it may be published in a fan club publication but it will fly off the shelves and will bring money into the organization.

Do it: it’s only one, fifteen-hour session following around Johnny Storm for a “Day in the Life” feature that would be the first of its kind for any of the Fantastic Four.

Why couldn’t it have been Ben? Or Reed? You thought. At least with them you fathomed you’d be treated like an actual reporter, not just a set of eyes, boobs, and ass with two legs and a mouth that smiled pretty.

“$800.”

Shit.

Your eyes flicked up immediately, locking onto Lucy’s with a determination you didn’t have ten minutes ago. Now that was a bonus.

“Alright,” you sighed and nodded your head in agreement. “You’ve got a deal.”

The Baxter Building was a towering shadow in the center of the city. Scaling into the sky with reflective glass, the world bounced back from it like a mirror. Anyone could spot it from the edge of the river—the spaceship docked in its back lawn didn’t help hide it from view.

The four residents were something of a spectacle. In your opinion, they were the center of the universe when it came to politics, space exploration, and the general news. They brokered deals and were looked to by actual leaders to just about anything regarding the world’s most serious problems.

And they were handed that because they once rode through a cosmic storm and were transformed with abilities that brought forth a more dangerous era of life on Earth. You didn’t know how to reconcile the fame they achieved when dangers now lurked everywhere. You wished Earth would go back to the way it was. Boring news stories, a few interesting STEM articles, and an entertainment section that didn’t make the front page everyday.

It was easier. Simpler.

But there you were: standing anxiously outside of the Fantastic Four’s home to write an entertainment feature for the front page.

You adjusted your bag’s strap on your shoulder, straightening your spine and titling your chin higher in faux confidence. Finger lifting to the call button, you breathed out, breathed in, and pressed.

“This is the Baxter Building. Please state your name and matter of business at the tone,” a robotic voice responded.

As instructed, you relayed the information necessary. You tried to focus in on the glass before you but nothing of its contents inside appeared. Just you, your reflection, and the city still bustling behind you. The faint whizz of a police ship passed by above.

“Mr. Storm has been informed. Please wait patiently at door number 2.”

You stepped back to eye the numbers above the doors. You were at door number six and in your purview, another police ship flew by in the sky. Was it always this noisy for them?

Nevertheless, you positioned yourself outside of door two with space left for it to swing open and not hit your toes. Your heels were shiny, catching the light of day in polish while the woolen fabric of your dress beneath your coat caught the February chill.

How long would he make you wait? You fathomed he would take his time. Slowly descending from his golden palace, swiping at his hair to land in a perfect Ivy League wave, he’d wink at the few building employees he’d cross paths with along the way and send their body’s into nothing but a puddle of wooed soup to step over.

He was a hothead—that much you knew, or heard, rather. Boisterous, self-centered, and expectant. It was the why of Lucy’s ask of you. You wouldn’t melt into a puddle. Johnny would surely sense your displeasure of being there and give an honest, professional interview… at least, you imagined that was her “why.”

A minute ticked by and then two. You shifted again on your feet before giving up at standing straight and relaxing with a slouched hip. Three. Four. Five. A third police vehicle soared by and in a flash, a searing heat erupted from the middle of the building and poured down onto the street below. Your head whipped up so fast it gave you whiplash as the brightness of Johnny Storm’s body consumed by a fiery blaze flew off the side of the building.

You’d never been in the presence of any of the Four in their element, but it was magnificent, if not inconvenient. The heat melted snow around you and you realized that no one ever talked about it. He couldn’t touch anyone with the flames even if he wanted to. There was no way he wouldn’t seriously injury someone while fully lit.

However, for as quickly as he followed after the police, you knew the clock was ticking again. Service over duty, a little reporter isn’t going to halt the saving of those in danger. You looked around the courtyard and set at its center was an art piece depicting the powers of the family. It sat elevated enough for you to sit and you did: for fifty-three minutes while Johnny Storm saved the city.

Goodness was it cold outside.

Your feet had lost feeling long ago and your hands were locked together frozen. Your shoulder’s shook, legs bouncing to keep the blood flow alive.

At fifty-five minutes, the door to the Baxter Building opened with a start.

And by the heavens were you irritated by the tiny sliver of relief the intrusion offered. A small white and blue robot with eyes made of film reels appeared in the doorway.

It beeped at you from afar. You looked around. You were alone and the sole focus of the robot. With a finger, you pointed to yourself.

It sounded a robotic cheer and pointed a metal finger back.

“Hello,” it said loudly.

Alright then.

The robot had a four at the center of its chest and as you approached another decal became clear. In zigzagged letters it spelled out H.E.R.B.I.E.—its name.

“H.E.R.B.I.E.?” You inquired. It beeped. You were familiar with its design and its features. H.E.R.B.I.E. had been featured in a recent edition of Good Housekeeping and the “Four Favorite Meals” of the team were entombed into the social strata.

“I’m here to interview Mr. Storm. It was supposed to have begun an hour ago but—“

H.E.R.B.I.E. sounded again in acknowledgement.

“Johnny,” it said clearly. “Follow.”

H.E.R.B.I.E. led you through the doorway and into the spacious lobby you recognized from press conferences aired on the nightly news. The room was empty sans another lone robot watering a potted tree near a set of steps.

H.E.R.B.I.E led you to a bank of elevators and pressed the button labeled “up”.

“Upstairs,” H.E.R.B.I.E.’s static voice relayed.

“Upstairs,” you repeated. “Is Mr. Storm in now? I would rather wait—“

“Saving people,” H.E.R.B.I.E. answered. “Helping people.”

You nodded and it must have registered it as the end of the conversation because the bot wheeled itself to the panel, stuck its hand in a slot, and pressed floor twenty.

When the doors reopened, they opened up to a home.

The floor was magnificently built with floor to ceiling windows stealing the most treasured views of New York City. It was furnished and colored in aesthetic perfection. A central television, a sunken living space, the art of science hanging on the walls. It was gorgeous.

You logged a mental note at the lived-in nature of the vicinity. It didn’t feel unapproachable. This space and the rooms that flocked it were a true home. It wasn’t flaunting wealth or power, just a space to live and build the strange life they walked.

And it wasn’t what you had expected.

As someone without pomp and circumstance or a penny to spread far, you’d only seen the Fantastic Four as “heroes” and not “people.” That was a hard admission to swallow when the familiar heat met the side of your face again and the man of the hour landed softly on the balcony just outside of the tall living room windows.

When his flames extinguished, your breath caught in your throat.

Johnny Storm was handsome. He was the kind of handsome that the word seemed too light to apply—beautiful was more apt. His blond hair was perfectly molded in a suave, stylistic groom that left his face framed for viewing. Beneath the high swoop of his gelled bangs, his blue eyes shined brightly. The winter did nothing to dull them. The flames only ignited them to glow orange until he showed his true self and back to blue they went.

They seemed to go right through your skin and into your bones. Blue meeting the red blood inside of you only to make your heart jolt and pick up its pace.

As your eyes trailed his figure now landed and walking inside, his lips curled into a small, barely there smirk before attempting to play at professionalism. His tongue wet his lips; catching your eyes and pinpointing exactly what shape they took when pulled back and forming into soft curves again.

My. Your palms grew sweaty, back taut in sudden speechlessness. Johnny entered the living room and jogged up the small set of stairs to meet you. Jogged. He rushed up knowing his duty prevented you from doing your job.

“Hi,” his voice was out of breath.

Johnny held out his hand for you to shake. You glanced down at it, registering its purpose before wiping your palm on your coat discretely and filling the space between you.

A singe of heat lingered from his power.

“Hello,” you introduced yourself. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

“It’s not a problem,” he waved off but his eyes, God… his eyes… they seemed to keep your feet planted to the floor. They gleamed further, crinkling at the sides. “I wanted to apologize for… that,” he jabbed his thumb toward the window. “We never know what it is they need us for.”

“I see.”

“You’ve met H.E.R.B.I.E. I take it?”

Johnny motioned to the robot beside you and put his hands on his hips. H.E.R.B.I.E.’s head looked from Johnny, to you, and back to Johnny.

“I think he saw me freezing to death outside and felt a little bad about it,” you admitted and bristled at the thought of being left outside for so long. “Are any other members of the team around today?”

Johnny gave a click of his tongue and walked around you to the kitchen just off the living room. H.E.R.B.I.E. followed after him obediently with a whirl.

“Reed’s in his lab today and Sue and Ben are off… somewhere. I’m afraid it’s just you and me today, sweetheart.” He shrugged in normalcy.

He didn’t comment on leaving you outside for an hour in the cold. You didn’t want to make it a problem but your toes were icicles even inside and your coat still burrowed the chill.

And sweetheart. He didn’t even know you! You were there for work and only work. Even if addressing your question, sweetheart wasn’t going to cut it.

You repeated your name. “It’s not sweetheart.”

Johnny pulled a box of cereal from a shelf and turned back around. “Force of habit. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” It wasn’t. But you wondered, unprofessionally, if you’d be alright with him saying that off the clock.

“What paper do you write for?”

“For the New York Chronicle,” you replied and putzed with the strap of your bag to keep your hands busy. “We own the Flaming Hearts magazine.”

“I was expecting…” he didn’t finish the sentence.

“An adoring fan?”

He nodded and pulled a bowl out from a top shelf. As he reached, his shirt pulled on the muscles of his arms and your eyes attached to them like magnets.

Get a grip, you thought.

Johnny was handsome, you knew it—you got it. You weren’t blind and your body registered it in the way that the world already knew, you were just catching up. It just took you until this very moment to admit that Johnny Storm was perhaps the most beautiful man you’d ever laid eyes on.

That realization was distracting.

It didn’t stop you from thinking of your purpose here or the fact that superheroes weren’t really your trademark of writing, however.

“I’m here to write about you truthfully. My editor didn’t think a fan could write without bias.”

“That’s nice,” he said sarcastically while pouring himself a bowl. Did you sour it? By not admitting you’re a fan of his? “I guess you’ve got a list of questions for me then?”

“I do,” you joined him the counter with ease as he settled on the other side by the sink.

His eyes tracked you like a foreign object. A woman, a pretty woman, here for him with a very different intent than he was familiar with. You hadn’t even bothered to take off your coat as you sat on a stool and unearthed a pad of paper and a pen from your bag.

The muted colors of your clothes differed from the space around you. You looked like a journalist, he thought. Yet you were pretty and the way you straightened out your back and brushed at your forehead with a manicured nail captured his attention more than he was expecting.

Gorgeous. He wasn’t sure of any other word.

“My editor said that this is supposed to be a… informal, formal interview. I will ask you questions that are casual and people want to know, make you seem like an everyday guy, and then write it as a feature piece of the magazine.”

“I think I’m an everyday guy,” he quirked his head to the side.

You looked up from your paper and gazed at him seriously. Johnny was eating a bowl of cereal after igniting into flames and saving a small part of the city. That was not normal. It didn’t make him an “everyday guy” and maybe he, like you, also has some grappling to do.

“Yeah,” you lightly snickered. “I think we have different ideas of what makes someone normal.”

You didn’t mean to call him abnormal. But it came out and he took it that way.

Shit.

“What I meant was—“ you attempted to clarify yet his face already merged into one of abject offense. The interview hadn’t even started, you only met not five minutes ago, and you already know your name was at the bottom of the Do Not Let These Reporters In List.

“I know what you meant,” Johnny said chewing. “I’ve heard it before just not from someone cute.”

“Mr. Storm—“

“Johnny,” he clarified.

“Mr. Storm,” you insisted, “I didn’t mean offense. I think it’s clear that we lead two very different lives and I am just here to get a story.”

It didn’t even register to you that he called you cute.

His spoon clattered to the edge of the bowl. You wanted to do nothing more than climb into Sub-Terrania and hide forever. Why did you take this job? Why did Lucy have to offer that much money?

“You’d think a reporter from my own magazine would at least like me a little bit,” he said and you furrowed your brows.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you don’t exactly look like you want to be here right now.” He gestured to your coat and rigid body.

“I told you,” you reminded him, “I work for the Chronicle, not your magazine. And it’s not yours, per se. It’s just about you. And what does my dress have anything to do about wanting to be here? I am here, aren’t I? I waited outside in the cold for an hour just to do this job.”

“Take off your coat,” he ordered passively and walked back around the corner. From your sitting position, he leaned up against the chair beside you. He was so close now.

His body heat radiated. It was natural now, the warmth he gave off absentmindedly.

“I like my coat,” you answered as the frigidness melted away.

“You’re going to be here all day and I would rather you not snag it on any of our projects while we take a tour.”

“A tour?” He was being considerate—not something you considered about him at all.

“What better way to figure out who I am?” He looked down at you. He wasn’t towering as he stood beside you but he wasn’t short either.

Your eyes met. Both meeting a challenge of what this day was going to be like.

A girl who doesn’t like heroes or abnormal attractive guys with flirtatious banter battling a boy who doesn’t like being underestimated and thinks said girl is the most attractive reporter he’s ever seen.

“All the secrets that make Johnny Storm brilliant are hidden here,” his gave small smile and leaned in close. “Aren’t you the least bit curious how the magic happens?”

“I’m a bit afraid of what magic you’re implying.”

His mouth shifted into a truthful grin. It was the kind that pulled at the edges of a person and cracked them open wide for the world to see.

“And I thought I was the one with the dirty mind. I guess trait belongs to you, sweetheart.”

That name again. You sucked in a fast breath.

“That’s not my name.”

Johnny tapped the back of the stool he stood at in a melodic pattern. H.E.R.B.I.E. rolled up beside him like a dog beside its owner.

“I know.” He tilted his head toward the staircase to the left. “Come on. Leave the coat. I promise it’s warmer here.”

The only thing you knew for certain was the warmth didn’t spread from the outside in. It was felt in your cheeks and your face, burning at his comfortable commands that would certainly be replayed in a different manner once this interview was done.

You had to keep reminding yourself that Johnny Storm was not a man who you wanted to woo you. This was all work and no play. None.

You just had to promise yourself that this was it all it was going to be.

“Out of all of the rooms in the building, this one is my least favorite.”

Johnny paused before a door labeled “Do Not Enter” about an hour into the tour.

Every room that you had passed thus far had been accompanied by a lengthy description of what was beyond the door and if you were lucky, Johnny would open it for a tiny peak. You were informed that three weeks ago, the apartment had been deep cleaned for an interview that Reed and Sue had done which featured the home.

It seemed everyone and their mother wanted to know where the family ate, slept, and spent all their free time.

You’d asked how he felt about being at the center of the universe but he just smiled at you and neglected to answer—only leaving the door open for you to follow through to the gym on the seventh floor.

Reed’s office was closed off when you went by but you could hear the static going off behind the door.

“Any reason why?”

Johnny wiggled the handle. It didn’t budge.

“My brother-in-law loves to keep me out when the experiments get too… involved.”

“Aren’t you a scientist too?” You asked and he turned his head with a surprised amusement.

“Scientist?”

“Well you did go to space so I assumed.”

“Mechanic,” he clarified. “Or I guess an engineer of sorts. I shoot pretty good too. And I can fly a spacecraft, if asked.”

You wrote down his reply and he waited silently as you carefully worded the response. H.E.R.B.I.E. rolled up to his legs, knocking into him slightly with the loud beep.

“I swore I read you have a degree somewhere,” you mumbled.

“I do,” Johnny’s eyes widened in surprise. “A couple years back, before… you know, everything, I studied in California.”

“Stanford.”

“That’s the school,” he replied lightly. He was impressed to say the least. You knew something about him and remembered it enough to bring it up.

“Question,” H.E.R.B.I.E. output to Johnny.

H.E.R.B.I.E. was the most intelligent of robots but neglected to understand that this was an interview. H.E.R.B.I.E. nudged Johnny again expecting him to ask you questions in return.

“What about you?” Johnny asked uncertainly as he looked down at the robot and motioned in confusion at the question he posed.

“What about me?” You replied still writing.

“Are… you? A…” again, he looked down at H.E.R.B.I.E., “scientist?”

H.E.R.B.I.E. groaned and you laughed. You laughed. For the entirety of the interview he’d come to expect you to never give in to his jokes and while his question was worded poorly and he didn’t actually mean to say scientist, he felt his world relax at the sound.

The melody of your laughter laid softly inside of his mind like a lullaby. It was natural and free and completely you—something you’d yet to show him during the short time you’ve spent together.

You’d been professional and kept your kindness at an arms length. You were curt and serious, not playful nor buying into his comments that bordered on suggestive.

“If you consider writing a science, sure. Most people would consider it an art. So, I’m an artist.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat and patted H.E.R.B.I.E.’s head as he stepped past.

“But about the mechanic thing,” you looked up from your paper and Johnny forgot what he said before.

Every time you looked at him, he felt himself grow fonder of the way it made him feel. The silly feeling of love at first sight being marred as ridiculous in his perspective yet he swore that’s what it was.

He could listen to you talk all day.

“Do you have a shop or anything here? Or is it more isolated to here,” you motioned to the lab door. “Does he let you in to work?”

“I have a room,” Johnny said quickly. His excitement poured through his speech. “It’s not here. It’s a shop just off 4th and Wash Square—“

“I know of it.” Your eyes lit up in recognition. “I take the train from there to work everyday.”

Small world.

“Really?” He said honestly.

“That’s a far way from here,” you added. “Any reason why?”

“I guess because it’s my own little place.” He put his hand on the door handle again casually. His grip was strong.

Your eyes caught sight of his hand as it strained on the handle nervously, like he was admitting something for the first time. Had he never talked about this before? You knew he had talked about vehicles and that he’d love to race cars one day but that was Q & A session on the back of an entertainment rag at the grocery store.

“There’s nothing but me and the car and it’s kind of peaceful. It’s peaceful here but it’s a fishbowl, you know? Everyone feels like they know us when we are here but when I go there, it makes me feel like they don’t really know me. They just know The Human Torch, not Johnny. The shop makes me feel like me.”

“I’m not going to write that.”

His face dropped.

“Why? Didn’t you say you wanted this to be human? Or that you’re trying to make me sound more personable?” Johnny grew defensive.

“I’m not going to write that because once they,” you tipped your head to the windows, “know about that little shop, you won’t have one day of peace for the rest of your life.”

Oh. Oh. He hadn’t thought about that.

“That’s…” he tried to find the words.

The shop was his little slice of paradise. He could tinker away and no one would come looking because they knew that not only was he safe, he was alone.

Sue let him have his space there because it made him happy. It was the most happy she’d seen him since they were kids and while you might not have known that, it meant more to him that your integrity wasn’t going to jeopardize his peace.

He’d given you a part of his humanity and you’d shown him mercy. A trade off of the hour.

“That’s real nice of you.”

“It’s what a decent person would do,” you brushed it off casually and held the pad of paper to your chest.

“You’d be surprised by how few of those exist.”

You smiled at him softly. A blush bloomed on his cheeks and he looked off towards the city outside his home. H.E.R.B.I.E. whirled by toward the direction you were heading next.

Breathing in deep, you took the first step and barely brushed Johnny’s shoulder as you walked by.

“Can’t keep H.E.R.B.I.E. waiting, can we?”

Johnny shook his head and bit back his smile, peaking down at his shoes to hold it in. He played with the handle of Reed’s lab once more before turning on his heel and walking a step behind you.

“Did you always want to be a reporter?” He felt his confidence return in bounds.

You hummed. “Since I was a little kid.”

“Why the news and not books?”

“I’m not that creative,” you admitted. “And aren’t I supposed to be asking you these questions?”

“Just curious.” Johnny pulled his hands together behind his back. “Besides, this isn’t going to be fun if I don’t learn about you too.”

“But that’s not the purpose of this.”

“Are you always a rule follower or only when interviewing superheroes?”

You stopped walking and turned around. He caught himself before crashing into you.

“I’m not a rule follower,” you told him. Johnny wasn’t convinced. “I’m on the clock.”

“I’m always on the clock but I have a good time too,” he skirted around you and began his walk backwards.

You huffed and followed.

“It’s inappropriate.”

“It’s prudish,” he countered, hands still bound behind his back.

“It’s a boundary,” you challenged.

“It’s an imprisonment.”

“That’s a strong word.”

It was Johnny’s turn to shrug. “I don’t take it back, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“I didn’t ask you to take it back. That’s your opinion, not mine.”

“So you’re making this a challenge for me?”

“A challenge?” Your brows shot up and then came together.

“For you to admit you had a good time hanging out with the one and only Johnny Storm by the end of the today.” He referred to himself in third person and you weren’t sure if that was inducing a wince in response or a short track to the answer.

You already knew what your response would be.

Your heart hadn’t stopped thumping, hands still sweaty. Your stomach grew with butterflies every time he looked in your direction and no matter if you sat in silence the rest of the day, today would be the most entertaining experience you’d ever had.

But Johnny didn’t need an ego boost right now.

“We are already a couple hours in,” you checked the small golden watch at your wrist. “You have twelve hours to change my mind it appears.”

“I could have sworn I had gotten a smile out of you earlier.” Johnny’s teeth grazed over his bottom lip. “And maybe even a laugh too. Those are pretty good signs to me that I’m winning this.”

“I don’t recall—“

“Yes you do.” His voice grew louder in amusement. You peered away from him, not willing to gaze into those blue beacons because you knew that he’d see a liar.

You did smile and laugh with him. That was a sign of enjoyment if there ever was one.

“You smiled and laughed and you don’t want to admit it because it means you’ve already lost and I’ve won.”

“You didn’t win anything. I don’t even know what we’re playing for!”

“To prove that you—“

“No,” you let a breathless chuckle escape your lips as his misunderstanding and his eyes pinned you in the hallway laughing again.

Point: Johnny.

“I meant the prize. What’s the prize if you win or if I win?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I didn’t think that far out yet.”

“Oh,” you played disappointment. “So, I guess that means the smarts only extend to engineering then?”

Johnny’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Did you just make an attempt at a borderline offensive joke that he would totally love to hear?

You did.

“You’re going to wish you never said that,” he teased.

Were you really doing this?

“Well you didn’t name your price, Mr. Storm.”

“Mr. Storm,” he muttered like he’d never been called that before. “You’re obedient, you know that?”

“Like a dog.”

“Fine,” he put his hands on his hips. “You wanna know my price?”

“Name it.”

“If you enjoyed yourself by the end of today—really, truly enjoyed yourself—you gotta let me take you out on a date.”

“A date?” You confirmed.

Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d have the gall to banter with Johnny. If Lucy could see you now she’d be asking to collect her winnings in the office betting pool. You were emotionally weak to Johnny’s charm and you hadn’t expected that.

“That’s all? Just a date?”

Both of your minds raced to that appetizing place. It stirred with from within, billowing into full blown fantasies of the dark. Imaginations painted a lustful affair; the tugging of lips and the grasping of skin. Polished nails digging into heated flesh and the sounds of two bodies combining rung deeply in echos of the hallway.

“I mean,” his face turned pink and his right hand rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Too late.

There was far more interest in the fantasy than either of you let on. You let the blushes fall apart and dared your minds to venture into that place again.

“Fine,” you agreed. “But if I have a terrible time… a really, horribly agonizing time, you have to… be my assistant for a day. Like come to the office and everything. Get my coffee, make my copies, all of it.”

Amused, Johnny dropped his hand. “That’s it?”

“What?”

“Your assistant? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“Well… yeah,” you replied. “I don’t have time to think of something worse.”

“Either way I think I win, though,” Johnny stepped forward again but this time with his hand extended similar to how he had greet you two hours before.

Yet his hand was offered with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. Every time he reached for it, the purpose was different.

“And why’s that?” You accepted his hand and relished the way it perfectly encapsulated your own. His hand was soft and cooler than it was prior.

You wondered if he could still feel the sweat the settled in your palm.

“Because no matter what I get to spend more time with you and I think that’s a win.”

You didn’t know what to say to that but your heart surely responded with a thump.

Johnny’s bedroom is not where you thought you’d end up after imagining what it would be like to fuck him.

He had lingered by the door at the end of the hall with his own curiosity threatening to change the atmosphere. It wasn’t like being in his bedroom was automatically leading you to a rumble in the sheets.

His room was the essence of him. If Johnny really wanted the world to see a normal guy, his bedroom is where he surely showed it.

It was clean and shared the same views overlooking the city as the rest of the apartment. Amidst the wooden paneling and the filled shelves, a round bed sat centered and an elevated seating area with the nicest record player you’d ever seen was placed adjacent.

It was well used based on Johnny’s collection of vinyls that bathed the room on either side.

He offered you the chair overlooking the city and made himself comfortable on the floor across from you. Having taken off his shoes, his socked white feet were constantly moving from side to side like he couldn’t sit still with every question you asked.

The clock ticked away.

“Sports team?”

“I’d say the Mets but I don’t want to make anyone mad, so Yankees.”

“If you could have any other job in the world, what would it be?”

“Race—“

“—car driver,” you finished his words for him. “I should have known that one.”

“Yes.” Johnny’s fingers traced the edges of his lips as he fought a grin. “You know me so well.”

His lips pulled and you thought about how nice they’d be to kiss. They appeared soft and pink, just plush enough to leave a lingering tingle in the spots he’d lay delicate memories to your skin.

Someone once said that the beauty marks on a person’s body were the remnants of places their lovers had once kissed.

Maybe in another lifetime the ones on your own were lives lived with Johnny. You shook away the thought when reality snapped back in. You were rushing and only fools did that.

You read through question after question to get a full extent of who Johnny was. These questions, the mediocre ones, were the kind that people wanted to read about.

“First love?”

“Oh.” His tone dropped an octave. “Look who’s trying to learn about my exes now.”

“It’s not me,” you reminded him, again. “It’s the readers, remember?”

“I don’t think they’re the ones coming up with them.”

“Then it’s my editor. She’s obsessed, move along. First love?” You asked again.

“Ramona Mitchell—second grade. She shared her animals crackers with me and broke up with me at the water fountain.”

“Tragic,” you fought the indulgence chuckle.

“Favorite food?”

“Anything Ben makes.”

“That’s not a food,” you countered.

“He makes a mean pasta,” he thought on it. “But I’m from Long Island and you can’t beat some restaurants there.”

“I’ve never been to Long Island.”

You said it passively. Solely focused on writing his response down, your face inclined toward the paper and not to him. Watching him sit there casually was making this feel more and more like a choice rather than a job.

He sat up straighter on the floor.

“What do you mean you’ve never been to Long Island? It’s like… right there!?”

You put the pad of paper down on the table beside you. Crossing your legs, Johnny’s eyes followed them as you settled into the new position.

“I’ve been to Brooklyn before.”

“That’s not Long Island,” he said as if he was a geography expert.

“It’s on Long Island so maybe it counts a little.”

You leaned back into the chair and folded your arms across your chest. This was comfortable. Johnny was surprisingly easy to talk to and you’d be remiss if you said you weren’t loose to the idea of someone to talk to. He listened, he asked, and he looked like he was interested in anything and everything you had to say.

“But you wouldn’t say that Manhattan is the same as Brooklyn as to Queens or as to the Bronx.”

“No,” you agreed. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“And I’m talkin’ deep Long Island,” he emphasized his words with an extension of his hand. “Like the kind where your favorite deli is owned by the cousin of the ex-boyfriend of your mother’s best friend and they know you by name kind of deep.”

“That sounds like it’s from experience, not a universal trait.”

“I guess we’ll have to go see and ask them then,” he smirked as though he knew he’d prove you right.

“Time isn’t on our side today.” You glanced down at the watch on your wrist. You’d been talking in his room for nearly five hours—seven hours to go.

“Another day then.” Johnny crossed his feet at his ankles. “I’ll show you our old stomping ground and take you to one of those delis.”

You laughed not out of amusement but out of nerves. It sounded a hell of a lot like a date.

“Is this the part where I ask you what you think is the perfect date? According to the survey, our readers really want to know how Johnny Storm would make them fall in love.”

“What’s your ideal perfect date?”

“I’m not the one being interviewed here.”

“Amuse me,” Johnny bartered. “And then I’ll ask H.E.R.B.I.E. to make us some lunch.”

You sighed, gazing out the window in thought at the question. What constituted the “perfect date?” You weren’t entirely sure there was one concrete answer because everyone had a different opinion.

However, if Johnny could be open and honest for the sake of a magazine, you could be honest for him.

“I guess it would be doing something that interested me.”

“Go on,” he urged. Those interested blue eyes bore into you.

“I don’t know… I would hope that before I am asked out on a date that a guy would listen to me. Ask me about my interests and discover things I like so that when we go, they choose a place that I would like to go to. Someone says they like art and they go to a museum; someone likes music, they go to a show—that kind of stuff.”

“But what about you? Not someone else, you.”

“I like going to the pictures. Museums and the city zoo is nice too. But sometimes I don’t want to make a big fuss about it all and a diner is nice. Just a little hole-in-the-wall place where the coffee is stale but the food is good and the company doesn’t care that it’s not a five star establishment.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” he nodded his head in agreement.

“Dating doesn’t have to be flashy. I see the kinds of things that are written about your sister and her husband. I couldn’t imagine being under that microscope.”

“It’s a choice they made—to be open about everything. I’m not sure they like the constant guessing of what the baby is going to be, but they don’t mind the interest in their lives.”

“What about you?” You asked him. “The perfect date? Being in the public eye?”

“I don’t mind it,” Johnny said with little thought. “It’s just part of the job and people have been pretty nice about it all. It’s not everyday you have to trust someone like me to help out.”

“So you admit it,” a small, rewarding grin played at your lips. You saw his gaze flick to them and back to your eyes. “You’re not normal then?”

His eyes narrowed playfully. “Was that a trick question?”

“No. Just an honest one. Date?”

He sat with his response for a minute, falling back against the record player’s built-in. Johnny liked having you here. It felt normal and easy and not like anyone else he’d ever known.

“Mr. Storm?” You pressed.

“You don’t give a guy any time to think, do you, sweetheart? And it’s Johnny.”

“I don’t have forever,” you reminded him. He wished you did.

“What you said.”

“Excuse me?”

Johnny’s smug face was rewarded with your surprise. His head tilted up as he rephrased, “you described my perfect date.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes,” he dug in further, “you did.”

“But that’s my perfect date. We are two very different people.”

“Opposites attract and all,” he commented. “I want her to feel comfortable and safe. If I take her race car driving on the first date, she might never speak to me again or if she’s someone I really, really like, then I want her to feel like I’m making an effort to get to know her. Getting to know me can come later. Preferably here, in this room, with a record on and very little taking.”

You felt that warmth invade your body once more.

Your band of resistance was starting to snap.

“Mr. Storm,” you started.

“Johnny.”

“You know I can’t write that down.”

“It wasn’t for you to write down,” he said seriously. “It was for you to know.”

“Why would I need to know that?”

The space inside of his room shrunk. The only thing that existed was the small, elevated section you both sat upon: you in the chair, he on the floor.

Your comment sat heavy in the hair. Hanging there above your heads, it twirled into a storm of those savory thoughts from a few hours ago. Neither of you had forgotten about it—how your minds automatically raced to imagine what it would be like to sit just a little closer, inch your hands toward the other.

He knew what your palm felt like in his and it was perfect. Slotted to a perfect puzzle piece and he knew this feeling was the ultimate one that Sue told him about. It was the universe opening portals to emotions he didn’t know existed and stretching him in directions he didn’t anticipate going.

“I know we don’t know each other well,” Johnny started slowly as he broached the topic.

“We don’t know each other at all,” you clarified.

“People have done a lot more knowing a lot less.”

“I feel like I’ve had to remind you that I’m working several times,” you uncrossed your legs and moved to stand.

Johnny scrambled to his feet and that line had been crossed. He didn’t know how to return to the other side and wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

All that talk of a perfect date and he just wished someone would give him a real chance to show off. You listened and maybe right that second you didn’t feel like you knew him, but you did.

Johnny had given you more answers in seven entire hours than he’d allowed anyone else to hear in his life besides his family. You cracked a part of him open without waving the slightest finger in attempting to do so.

“I’m sorry if I gave you an impression that it wasn’t professional.” You gathered your paper and pen from the table and aimed for the door.

He rushed toward you frantically. Johnny cut off the path to the door by standing in front of it. The look on your face immediately sent him into orbit. He was spiraling.

“Sorry!” He said quickly. “I’m sorry if I crossed a line. I just… I just thought that, well, I don’t know! I felt something, okay?”

“Mr. Storm, please—“

“You gotta stop with that Mr. Storm shit.” He let out a stressed groan, a hand wiping over his face in duress. “You’re tellin’ me that you haven’t felt it too?”

God did you feel it. You felt the pull so strong that it was sending your own synapses into overdrive. You couldn’t be here any longer. He pushed open the flood gates and allowed those feelings to spur deeper, rising into that forbidden territory you couldn’t come back from.

This was what all those other reporters wanted and the one thing that you weren’t expecting. You were attracted to Johnny. Immensely. He was charming and sweet—far more interesting and curious than you realized. He was the one guy that was as engaged with your own answers as he was with his own and it was a drug. A highly addictive drug that wouldn’t last because he was a hero and you were a journalist.

Those two things didn’t mix.

They couldn’t mix.

It was wrong. It was inappropriate. But fuck, did it sound so, so good.

“It’s not appropriate. I don’t sleep with my clients.”

“Then end the interview,” he said like it was easy. “I’m not a client anymore.”

“Is this just for you to get your rocks off?” Your eyes narrowed and he held up his hands defensively.

“No! No!” He exclaimed. Maybe you were being too harsh. “If you want to leave, go ahead.” Johnny backed away from the door and settled at its side.

There was a pathway out now.

“I’m not trying to make you break any rules,” he said softly. “That wasn’t my intention. But tell me you don’t feel it too. It feels like you stuck dynamite in my chest and it’s ready to explode.”

You knew the sentiment well. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t be what Lucy and all the rest of them wanted to be.

“I can’t, Johnny.” He melted at the sound of his name falling from your lips. “I’m not trying to be like those other girls.”

“So you’re not like the rest of them, huh?” He joked.

“No,” you replied painfully. “Unfortunately I’m just like them it seems because I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss you.”

You threw your hands up in defeat and paced around his room in circles. He just stood by the door and watched amused as you worked through what he already figured out.

“I guess that means you won, right? It’s not even the goddamn end of the day and I’m already throwing in the towel because I don’t have a little more self control.” You let out a rueful snicker. “And to think I was so certain that I could do this!? I mean, it’s not like you’re my type or anything.”

“And that is…?”

“Nice!” You answered loudly. “And not one to say crude things all the time.”

“They weren’t crude, they were suggestive. For a writer I would hope you would know the difference.”

You stopped pacing and looked at him with your mouth agape. “Why you—“

“Careful,” he held up a finger, “your name calling game isn’t that strong. Might I suggest ‘most handsome man on the planet’ or ‘hero of my heart’ instead?”

“Oh my god,” you wailed. “I can’t believe I am even the slightest bit attracted to you!”

“I think it’s a little more than slight, sweetheart. You were ready to burn this building to the ground at the mere thought of sleeping with me and I think that means you’ve at least thought about it before.”

“I have not!”

“You’ve thought about kissing me.”

“That’s different,” you emphasized. Of course you thought about fucking him too. He’s Johnny fucking Storm and he’s been giving you “fuck me” eyes for the last five hours.

“It all leads to somewhere else in the end.”

“So you were implying that. I’m not crazy.” Your eyes widened like you were.

“I didn’t say you were. And you’re not, by the way.”

Johnny just settled against the wall and crossed his arms against his chest. The muscles of his biceps strained at the short sleeves of his white tee and invited you in.

“Having a little bit of fun doesn’t make you less of a journalist,” he said your name for the first time. Not sweetheart or any other pet name.

Johnny. You. It was personal now.

“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not that kind of guy and I hope you didn’t get the idea that I would be that kind of guy. You’re nice, real nice, and I really enjoy talking to you. There aren’t many people who are willing to listen and take things with an open mind.”

God. He needed to stop talking.

“Plus I think H.E.R.B.I.E likes you. He felt real bad about leaving you out in the cold like that.”

Stop talking, Johnny.

“And I do too. Sorry about that, by the way,” he laughed slightly at the predicament. “I’m not used to putting people that aren’t my family first but I’m open to the idea…”

His blue eyes beat you down. Stop fucking talking.

“If we had more time I would have—“

You couldn’t take it anymore. Dropping your pad of paper and pen to the ground, you closed the distance between the two of you in a few long strides and grasped his face between your hands, planting your lips onto his in a heartbeat.

His words halted.

Fusing together like atoms, the electricity of your mouths falling into sync quieted both minds. It was tranquil. His face cupped between your hands tilted, angling to the side and opening up further. Johnny’s tongue begged for mercy between your lips, melding together with yours in tune to the beating of your hearts.

Something sprouted inside of you. Building from your toes to your mind, it tingled your limbs into numbness where nothing else but Johnny’s hands weaving around your waist and cradling the back of your head mattered.

This is what it felt like—attraction.

It was all consuming and all knowing. It recognized parts of you that had been sleeping and awoken to a giant tower ready to climb. His smooth face fell from your hands as they dropped to his neck; trailing the edges of the scoop of his shirt and feeling the molds of his chest before settling there. One hand turned into a fist to gather his shirt with a tug, drawing him closer and leaving no space between you.

His lips were as you imagined: soft and inviting. There were no words needed to accept the fact that you were holding everything back for nothing. This was as it should be. He was kind. He was considerate.

He was charming, funny, nervous, clumsy, confident, handsome, smart, entertaining, and didn’t force you into this.

It fell into place. As two objects in motion collided, the motions continued on.

Johnny’s hands groped you tightly, barely allowing you time to breathe as your lips parted. His hands paved a path down your body and tested the waters with bated breath. You didn’t stop him. You craved the feeling of his hands on your body.

You pulled back from his lips but he chased after them, drunk on the feeling. You knocked your nose gently into his as you breathed in deep breaths.

“You can touch me,” you reassured him. His eyes stayed focused on your mouth.

“As long as you’re sure.”

“More than sure.”

Johnny’s hands slid down to your ass and cupped you roughly. His grip pulled you flush against him and with a groan, your lips caught his chin and dotted kisses along the column of his neck.

He thought he was dreaming. Five minutes ago he was certain you were going to flee the apartment and speak his name into forbidden existence because of his brash assessment. Here you were, kissing him mad and he was imprinting a picture of your body forever in his mind. You were luxurious and finite. There was only ever going to be one of you and he was never going to forget what this moment caused.

The rapture within him was cemented.

“You know,” he murmured against your kisses when your lips returned to his. “I did really want to take you out on a date before all this.”

“I told you that I don’t follow the rules,” you nipped at his chin playfully.

“You surprise me.”

“Good,” you smiled. You backed away from him and his hands fell to his sides loosely. “And I’m not going to write an article about you anymore either.”

“No?”

You hummed and shook your head. “Can’t now. I’m too biased in my storytelling to be truthful.”

Johnny took a step forward and you took one back.

“And the honest truth is what, sweetheart?”

“That Johnny Storm isn’t the man everyone thinks he is.” Another step forward, another back. “He’s a good man with a good family and similar morals. He likes to have a fun time but within the bounds of his duty and he’s a romantic at heart—not a womanizer.”

“I would really like to womanize you, however.”

Johnny bit down on his bottom lip. You extended your hand and he gladly took it, leaping into your space again and tumbling with you onto his bed at the center of the room. You fell back with a thud and his body weighed heavy on top of yours.

“Johnny Storm defies the expectations we have of him,” you continued on.

The hand not entwined with his own came back to his face and brushed stray blond bangs from his forehead.

“And the lucky few who get to know the real Johnny will always know his true heroism lies within.”

Johnny’s smile widened. “That’s real cheesy—you know that, right?”

You grinned back and returned your hand to the back of his head where the shortened hairs weaved between your fingertips. Johnny pulled your intertwined hands up above your head.

“I think it’s a perfect story.”

His story or this one playing out now, he wasn’t sure which was better.

“Yeah,” he placed a soft kiss on your lips. “Me too.”

“You’d sacrifice the world for your family and I admire that.”

“Now you’re getting sappy on me,” he laughed. He laid a peck beside your ear. “You don’t need to butter me up to make something happen.”

“I’m not buttering you up.”

You titled your head to the side to give him access to the side of your face, neck, and when his hand tugged at the top of your dress, the bit of clavicle he was able to reach.

His touch set you ablaze. Burning from the sensations his gentle lips left behind, Johnny knew how to touch a woman and make her feel good. It was something he’d perfected in his thirty years on Earth.

“You remember what I said about my perfect date?” His voice was muffled by the wool of your dress.

“Oh,” you gave an awe inspired sigh. “Was that you buttering me up? How you got me here?”

“You did that all on your own.”

Johnny’s head turned back up to face you and he rested his chin at the curve of your breasts. You hadn’t realized he had moved down that far on your body. He slowly slipped his lean frame to the edge of the bed, kneeling at its base and letting his hands fall to the backs of your knees. They glided down your calves and to your ankles, playing with the straps of your shoes.

“Tell me that you don’t want this and I’ll stop.”

You sat up on your elbows. His hands grasped your right foot. Slowly pulling at the buckle of your heel and undoing the strap to where you shoe fell off your foot with a small clunk when it hit the floor.

Johnny’s gaze didn’t escape yours. He waited for you to change your mind. The anticipation of your soft rejection pounding at his ribcage.

His hands moved to your left leg and when the second shoe dropped, Johnny’s hands caressed the skin of your shin.

“I wouldn’t have let you do that if I didn’t,” you told him.

“When I said that your perfect date is how I see my perfect date, I also should have said that I want her to be satisfied when it’s all over.”

You swallowed a lump that had formed in your through from the promise. God. You couldn’t believe you ended up here.

“I’m not asking you to give out to me,” he nodded at you. Johnny asked you to give him the confirmation he needed. “So if it’s not today, it will be another time.”

The ghosting of his fingertips on the backs of your knees sent a chill up your body.

“Don’t you think that’s a little presumptuous?”

“I mean…” he smirked, lips placing peppered kissed along your kneecap. “I think I may have won the bet.”

He did. He knows he fucking did.

Johnny’s hands roamed to the end of your dress. His thumbs pushed the fabric that had grown far too warm on your body upwards, watching you in permission that every inch higher was not crossing the boundary of what you were willing to give to him.

His position between your legs prevented them from closing in bashfulness. His tongue wet his lips as the curve of your hips forced his hands harder to give him access. Johnny paused again.

“You’re sure?” He asked quietly.

You nodded, running a hand through his short hair. The hesitancy you had yesterday seemed like a distant memory. Johnny enraptured you and while you were breaking every rule in the book, you couldn’t stop here. Not when he was kneeling for you. Not when he wanted to taste you.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Putting your free hand atop his, you guided it to the top of your panties in invitation.

“Lay down,” he ordered and you complied. Obedient. “Relax.” Came next and in a mere whisper as the fabric slipped from your body and the cool air now exposed to your body made you aware of how wet you were.

“I’m gonna take care of you.”

Kissing the inside of your thigh, you stared at the ceiling in disbelief. You felt his piercing gaze upon you; he measured your body in the way it folded and it heaved.

And he kept a promise of taking care of you—not himself. As much as the sight of you, bare and wanting before him made his soul burn, he knew this wouldn’t be your last meeting.

His kisses drew closer. Johnny’s hot breath met the crux between your legs before any other part of him did. His lips barely grazed you and your thighs trembled with his head stuck between them.

Johnny didn’t miss the sharp intake of your breath when he finally lowered his mouth to you. And my, he had never tasted someone as sweet as you. His tongue glided along the wetness that had already gathered and focused his attention to your clit. He gave in to a merciless pace; circling and sucking—your toes curled to hold you back.

Your hand wrapped into his hair and tugged at the strands. His arms held onto your sides and tracked the curve of your body as he pulled you closer. The response he was receiving was Pavlovian. Forever he’d bend at the sounds of your sighs, of the feel of your nails raking against the base of his skull. He’d dream of the flesh he devoured and sing songs of the pleasures he took.

Johnny Storm hadn’t believed in love at first sight until today.

And you hadn’t imagined giving him a chance until he had greeted you that morning.

His tongue increased its pressure on your bud. Pressing down as he lapped the wetness of his saliva and your arousal into his method and used it to lower himself smoothly.

A whine escaped your lips when his fingers left your side and helped open you up to him. Splitting you open and allowing his tongue to pin you to the bed. Your knees shook, legs coming to bend beside his head as his shoulders lurched to catch them. Johnny’s opposite hand held you down, settling at the base of your stomach.

“Holy mother of—“

He hummed and it sent a vibration through you.

As he had kissed you before, his tongue flicked inside of you in a passionate rhythm. His eyes closed to relish in the sounds of your neediness. Johnny didn’t tell you to be quiet because he didn’t want you to be. You could shout, scream, or cry out and he’d ask you for more. Give him everything, he wanted to imply, but he couldn’t ask for everything at that very moment.

You were taking everything he was giving like it was made for you. Hell, maybe he was.

The fingers he had used to help open you up remained rubbing up and down the sides of your pussy while his tongue explored the horizons beyond it. You felt one move, his middle finger, and it joined his tongue, curling into you gently.

“Oh god,” you groaned. His mouth curved into a smirk, backing away centimeters.

“Johnny is fine,” his voice had turned gravely. “But I’ll take being a god any day.”

And that laughter. It filled him so deeply that not even the strain in his jeans could distract him from the innate pleasure of hearing you respond to him. He continued on, letting his finger work against your plush walls and master the craft of you.

His mouth refocused to your clit which he did not abandon on purpose. Johnny quickened his pace, unrelenting and fixed on assisting you to the end. It built, like a flame kindling from a spark and tingling every cell in your body.

Your shoulders tensed, anticipating a release but infatuated with the way his ministrations only pulled back when he knew you were getting too close. He was keeping you on your toes. Johnny let you feel and experience the pleasure outside of simply working toward an orgasm.

Earn it. You had to earn it.

“You gonna keep teasing me like that or what?” You whined.

“I’m just not done with you yet.” His finger left you empty before coming back with its neighbor. “We’ve got time.”

“I don’t think we have time today,” you seemed to always remind him that you had a deadline. “Maybe another day.”

“Now who’s asking for a second date?”

“This isn’t a date.” His fingers reached lengths you were unable to do yourself. Your back arched in his grasp and his grasp tightened.

“Then our first date will be amazing.” Cocky son-of-a-bitch.

“Jesus,” you couldn’t help the spattering of words that flew from your lips as the precipice gained on you again.

“Johnny,” he repeated.

“Johnny,” you cried back. “I—“

“I can feel you, sweetheart.”

The familiarity of your orgasm climbed the mountain of your thrill rapidly approached. Recalling the minutes he spent prior being agonizingly slow, then picking up his pace, your ears captured the most bawdy sounds of excitement. His fingers were coated in your slick, chin glistening in the slightest with remnants of what he’d take as a prize.

You turned your head to watch his fingers disappear inside of you and your chest nearly caved.

“Come here,” you breathed in heavy. Johnny’s brow furrowed.

“Wha—“

“Just kiss me.”

With his fingers still pumping frantically inside of you, Johnny pushed up from the ground and let your hands pull his face toward yours. You had never tasted yourself on the lips of a lover before and you cherished the intimacy of the notion.

He felt your shoulders stutter, your body shaking in need. His mouth opened to allow you in.

One. Two. Three additional thrusts of his fingers and he felt you tighten around him. A wave of immense pleasure washed over your body in bliss. Arching into him, Johnny held onto you tightly, never once letting you fall apart without him.

You could hear him whisper words of praise in your ear except nothing but a kaleidoscope of colors seemed to match the tremors of your lower body. Legs shaking, toes curled as one leg wrapped around his own waist and laid lax once the shaking subsided.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. He retracted the two fingers. Resting them on your thigh, he patted the skin there. “You’re fine, sweetheart.”

Johnny laid his forehead against yours and let you breathe before his mouth couldn’t help but run again.

“I would have called you a good girl but I think sweetheart is the only nickname you can take right now.”

You opened your eyes and met his glinting with amusement. Did you want to take back everything u out said? Pretend this never happened and go find someone who can keep a moment serious for longer than a minute?

“You are—“ the words couldn’t form. There were too many words to describe Johnny Storm and even a journalist as great as yourself couldn’t come up with one.

The next morning you were at the office bright and early. No article had been prepared, no pictures of Johnny in his space, and nothing to report to Lucy.

Your mind was racing, however.

When you unlocked the door to your apartment later that night, you did so with a smile plastered to your face. You felt like a school girl with her first crush. Johnny enamored you and left you feeling like jell-o and your limbs acting on their own accord was proof of it.

But you had to keep a lid on it. So, when you sat down at your desk and flipped on the light to wait for the inevitable, you pretended you weren’t hopelessly crushing on the hot-headed hero.

An hour after you settled in, Lucy rushed to your desk to gossip. Her eyes were wide, expectant for you to spill all of the details of what makes Johnny tick. Every secret you gathered from the contents of his bathroom cabinet to the food he liked to eat, she wanted to know.

“So?” She said incredibly fast. “How was it? Where is it?” The draft.

“I don’t have it.” You preoccupied yourself by typing out a different article. The keys on your typewriter filled the space of her mouth hanging wide open in confusion.

“What do you mean you don’t have it?”

“I didn’t it write it,” you clarified. “It’s not happening.”

“We—“ she started and stopped in a stutter. “What, well… what happened? Did you even go??”

“Of course I went.” The page reached its end with a ring and you shot it back to the opposite side. “I just don’t have the story for you. I’m not going to write it so ask someone else.”

Lucy watched you carefully. “Please tell me you didn’t make our paper look bad.”

“Oh just awful,” you drawled. “I think we’re banned from ever covering them.”

She didn’t catch the tone. Lucy had been so preoccupied with wanting a big, newsworthy feature that she didn’t think of anything else. She joked about you falling into bed with him but figured you were too much of a straightened arrow to try it.

You didn’t have a hickey, you weren’t sweating at the temple, or drinking the largest coffee. In fact, you didn’t even have a coffee.

“Did you…” she trailed off, neck jutting out in curiosity.

Before you could look her in the eyes and lie, a delivery man with a bouquet of flowers was making a b-line to your desk caught your eye.

Shit. So much for discreet.

He said your name aloud and held up the flowers as if you didn’t see them. They were magnificent. A collection of winter favorites perfectly curated in a massive bouquet.

“I have a delivery.”

“From?” Lucy asked bewildered.

“There’s a card,” he informed. The man set the flowers on your desk and you stood, straightening out your blouse as you plucked the card from the small spokes elevating it above the petals.

“Who’s it from?” Lucy pressed.

“Geez,” you mumbled. “Care to give me a minute or would you rather just read it yourself?”

“Go ahead,” she motioned.

You slipped the card from the envelope and slid it out. In personal handwriting, a short message relayed a simple message without a signature.

You couldn’t fight the grin this time. It filled your face with a joyous, girlish glow and Lucy smacked her hand on the surface of the desk.

“Holy shit!”

And holy, flaming fucking shit indeed.

Saturday, 9 AM. My shop. Wear something nice, it’s a date.

And you knew right where to go.

A/N: a Joe Quinn character breaking me out of a writing slump? 2022 me is not surprised. His Johnny is *chef’s kiss* and I love him, your honor.

P.S. all writers love to hear from readers and it’s the one thing I love more than anything. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Liked this one? Here’s another Johnny fic!

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inknopewetrust · 5 days ago

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the writing gods have given me a small, week long period of inspiration.

new Johnny Storm fic out TOONNNIGGGHHHTTTT

yes it’s smut, yes it’s long, and yes it took me a whole gd week

#Johnny Storm x reader #fantastic four #fantastic four x reader #joesph quinn #joseph quinn x reader #Johnny Storm x you #johnny storm x y/n #x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #fantastic four fanfiction #the fantastic four: first steps #fantastic four: first steps #x female reader

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inknopewetrust · 8 days ago

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Me now that the Johnny Storm x reader is starting to get some good content bc fantastic four: first steps

#mcu #marvel #johnny storm #johnny storm x reader #fantastic four: first steps #the fantastic four: first steps #fantastic 4 #fantastic four #x reader #fanfic

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inknopewetrust · 15 days ago

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Happy one year of twisters!! To celebrate year one, I’d like to give an anecdote about this fic:

I was on vacation in Memphis with my family trying to finish this in secret and I don’t know how many of you have tried to write fanfiction, let alone smut, when sharing a hotel room with your family but it was an ADVENTURE.

Anyway—thanks for all the love you’ve given this fic and the notice you’ve given it recently. It means a lot as someone who is going through a big writing slump right now and I really appreciate it. ❤️

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐰 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬

Summary: In the volatile nature of tornado hunting, you crossed paths with Scott on more than one occasion–each time resulting in a piece of yourself being left behind with the man larger than the storms you chased. [Scott x Fem!Reader; Twisters] [wc: 15.7k]

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, smut, pinv, oral (f receiving), angsty-romance, Scott is… a complicated asshole who reader can totally fix… right? Right!?

Quick Links: Masterlist

You weren’t sure where it ended or began, but you could feel it coming in your bones. Not the whirring of a drone or the rumbles of thunder—the fast, blistering speed of tires rolling toward the funnel that made your heart beat twice as fast as it did before.

It was tornado season after all… it never surprised you.

The skies of Oklahoma rose into a gloomy beige on a Friday afternoon. Heat lingered in the air, heavy and unyielding. It was dense outside of the small gas station that sat alongside the fork in the road.

Everyone could smell it: the anticipation of a storm. They broke earlier every year and this season appeared to be no different at first glance. The radios were filled with the familiar constant chatter, the computer screens you shared with Dexter in the lot were running the same radar’s the morning predicted.

Not everyday was as exciting as the next, however.

“Shit,” Dexter mumbled, running a hand over his eyes in frustration as the storms weren’t breaking that evening. His glasses perched on his fingers before he brought his hand back down to his computer.

It was just rain. In an era of record tornados, tonight would be quiet sans the few sparks of lightning and the thunder that followed.

“Nothin’” he flicked the laptop screen closed before him, knocking you on the shoulder as your own screen took all your attention.

Your eyes were entranced by the Doppler's movements. The back and forth of the projections coming and going in shades of green and yellow but no red. No purples or the darkest blues to send the lot of you running toward danger.

Dexter bumped you again with a focused effort.

“What?” You mumbled, clicking the refresh button on the radar’s program. Nothing changed.

“I think we’re done for the day.”

“It’s like six-thirty, Dex” you shrugged, turning to face him with a squint as the half-set sun was in your line of vision. “Somethin’ might pop up.”

“Omega says not,” he put a finger on his closed computer. “It dissipates before it can get out of bed.”

“Yeah,” you sighed as he did before. “Shit.”

Breathing in deeply, you could still smell it. Those storms were on the horizon and just waiting for the perfect moment to grow but you all have waited around these parts of Oklahoma begging for something that was not going to appear a hundred times.

Today was just one of those days.

You shut your own computer with the thud. Rolling your shoulders, Dexter clapped a hand on your back and chuckled at the prospect of another day without a tornado.

“Tomorrow’s chances are just as good,” he reassured.

“I know,” you nodded. The buzzing of Lily’s drone overhead swished by slowly as it came to land.

“Why don’t you go tell ‘em and I’ll clean up before we move out, hm? Get dinner and relax.”

Dexter didn’t allow the chance for you to argue back and made for the computers immediately. You groaned, standing up from the milk crate Boone scoured from the side of the road for “portable seating.” They were a bitch to your back and after sitting and watching the screen for what felt like hours, your body was screaming for help.

You stretched your arms high above your shoulders to rest them interlocked on your head and closed your eyes.

Maybe it was a sign. No storms, good sleep, and a hot meal from a wayside diner in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. It was comfort, it was home and it was a relief for an instant that the skies were tame. No one would die from nature tonight in the vicinity of your chasing—an adjustment from the last month.

So you envisioned in your closed eyes the peace the evening would bring. How the sheets of the motel’s bed would feel against your legs; the sound of air conditioning fanning and sending you into a deep slumber.

The imagination of an evening molded into scenes under your eyelids.

Like the thunder everyone wished to hear, you could practically feel the rumblings of his fingertips as you imagined them on your skin. A lingering hope of days gone by without seeing him and his team of assholes started to stir in your mind every time it had a second to not think of the weather.

You hated the way it made you feel.

Like a goddamn school girl who couldn’t control a crush but it was more than that. It wasn’t a fatal fantasy you’d imagined every time your paths crossed but one cemented in your memory to hold you off until the next time he caught you in the same place.

And you saw him in your idea of a decent night.

In the distance, Dani and Lily called your name from outside of the RV. You cracked an eye open to see the two of them waving, pointing toward the diner attached to the station.

Your arms fell, turning to Dexter who passed it off.

“Go,” he shook his head, “I’ll join you when I’m done.”

You’d be lying if the sound of food didn’t sound wonderful that very second. The day had been nothing but driving and sitting. Every bit of food was junk besides the apple Boone threw your way at noon. He had been the first one to run into the diner an hour before with Tyler hot on his tail.

They were gluttons for greasy homemade meals.

“Come on!” Dani yelled as she held open the door and you broke off from Dexter to join the two for dinner.

The diner was like any other hole in the wall establishment in middle America. Sparse hangings on the wall, chairs and booths made from cheap leather that had burns and slashes through them, and menus that haven’t been updated for twenty years.

They were the best places. They were what made the small towns in between the big ones staples. No one could pinpoint this town on a map but the second the tea is sipped and the spuds are downed, it’s something you couldn’t forget.

“We’re gonna shack up in Perry tonight,” Dani spoke with her mouth half full. “‘Bout a half hour from here.”

“Tyler alright with that?” Lily asked, glancing out the diner window. “I thought he wanted to stay ahead of them?”

Them.

You sipped on your iced tea casually.

“We will be heading in that direction anyway.”

“Ain’t there a lake down in Perry?” Lily inquired, racking her mind in hopes she could remember. Dani nodded and picked up her own glass.

“Mhm,” she hummed. “And I do plan on jumpin’ in it before we leave tomorrow.”

Lily smiled as she turned her attention to you. She wasn’t oblivious to your absence from the conversation. You were quiet and reserved. Maybe it was that time of the month or you had a bad day—but it was strange and she furrowed her brows, kicking at your foot with hers from under the table.

“Don’t got anything to say?” She asked, causing Dani to look over the glass at you.

“No,” you dismissed. “Just tired, that’s all.”

“I’ve got Advil if you need it,” Lily went to dig in her bag but you stopped her.

“No, no,” you shook your head. “Really. Just feels like a long day is all. Finding nothin' is frustrating and this heat..."

“I get you,” Dani scoffed and put her cup down. “This heat is awful. I think Boone’s music is starting to get to me.”

You laughed knowingly. “It’s better than listening to him scream into the camera for twenty minutes."

The two snickered at the thought. Anything was better than the sound of his screeching. You pushed around the remnants of your meal around your plate when the waitress came back to fill up the glasses, leaving the check. A chorus of 'thank you's' were followed by the bell ringing above the diner's rickety door.

"Oh Lord," Lily muttered and went back to looking out the window. She crossed her arms like a pouting child. Out the window, Boone was yelling inaudible jests at the white shirts making their way into the establishment.

"What?" You asked her, turning over in your seat to see the crew of Storm Par filing in one by one.

In their uniforms of slacks and white shirts, they gave their most polite smiles to the staff that ate out of the palms of their hands. Dani let out a groan of frustration. Rich men, educated men. Men.

"Just the fraternity, Doc," Dani replied as though your eyes couldn't see that. You shot her a judgmental scowl before glancing at the group again.

"I thought I told you not to call me that."

It was the PhD in physics that earned you the affectionate, but infuriating title.

"Eh," Dani popped a piece of ice between her teeth. "You ain't like them though. They're all assholes and you're only an asshole when we can't get the signal to work and you wanna watch Love Island."

You laughed, chucking your napkin across the table which she dodged gracefully.

"Don't act like you're not obsessed with it too," Dani narrowed her eyes in faux offense.

The check at the end of the table blew in the wind generated by a few of Storm Par's team walking past. None of them spared a glance in the direction of the three of you. Out of spite or hatred, you wouldn't know but it was always the same way with most of them. It wasn't unwarranted, however. Your squad from Arkansas were known to give them as much grief as they gave you all.

You reached out to slap the check back down on the table. A glance up toward the retreating Storm Par members told you that their leaders hadn't joined the bunch at the table. You hadn't seen him enter the diner when you looked before.

But you knew the second the bell rang above the door again that it was him and likely Javi beside him. You could feel it in the air just as you did the storms. Everything shifted. The pace of your heart, the rigidness of your back, and you had done all you could in your power to keep it as quiet as possible.

You painted yourself a fake in front of the friends you adored because of Scott. He didn't ask you to, yet there was nothing more solid than agreeing to never speak of what you'd do for a second alone with him.

And you weren't sure what they'd say if they knew you were sleeping with the enemy.

With the check in your hands, you grabbed your bag from the seat and dismissed Lily and Dani's movements to split the check.

"I've got this one," you assured them. "My treat."

Lily protested and continued to shuffle through her bag. "At least lemme get the tip. How much?" Her wallet was filled with receipts and loose change.

"No," you shook your head. "Go on to the truck and I'll pay and we can head out."

Dani crunched the ice loudly. "You sure?"

"Positive," you nodded, giving them both a smile that could have read tense. You didn't mean it to be but it did. "Go on," you tipped your head. “Dex didn’t eat so I’ll order and run out when it’s ready.”

Dani eyed you as Lily put away her wallet. "I don't want to leave you alone with them in here," she knocked her head in the direction of Scott and Javi who settled along the lunch counter beside the register.

Dani watched them carefully whenever it was only the three of you. She trusted the men on your team like brothers but the others, Storm Par or any of the other groups that followed in the same direction, she held at a distance. Not only had they been somewhat competitors in the field, they were jerks and Dani could not help but be repulsed by it.

Scott looked in the direction of the small booth you all sat in, making contact with Dani's harsh stare. His face was blank—as Dani had come to realize was its factory setting. He was stoic, a wooden board of a man who was a head taller than his companion even as they sat. Dani always thought he looked miserable.

In her eyes, he was generically handsome with dimples on the sides of his cheeks. She saw other storm chasers give him eyes but he never entertained it. He was boring, a dud.

Not one person could make that man crack a smile or have an ounce of joy weep from him—but she supposed it was perfect for the work they conducted.

"I can handle myself, Dani–besides, there are other people in here."

She shook her head, souring her face. "You know I don't like 'em."

"Neither do I," you laughed. Liar. "I got this. It’s okay."

Dani trusted your word and exited the diner with Lily while you made your way to the register.

Scott had taken his baseball cap off his head, sliding it into the back pocket of his pants and pushing his sunglasses into his hair. Javi made niceties with the same waitress that had assisted you upon your approach. You saddled up to lean on the counter in the empty space between Scott and the register that broke apart the counter from the other patrons. It wasn't crowded as a restaurant in the middle of a city would be. It was filed with locals that made it feel welcoming.

"I'll be with you in one second, ma'am," the woman who served, in a name-tag labeled 'Kathy', called over to you as she jotted down Javi's order.

You took the bag from your shoulder to place it on the counter in front of you. The base of it brushed Scott's shoulder, nudging him purposefully.

"Sorry," you said quietly as Javi finished up beside him. Scott looked over at you–his stormy blues baring into you and sending you into a spiral of blind faith.

“Not out wrangling tornados tonight?” He questioned in a condescending tone. His brow quirked in a challenge: play along. You could never be civil in public.

“Maybe if you were good at reading radar you’d know that already.”

He scoffed. “Wh—“

“And for you sir?” Kathy, the waitress, cut him off with a tap of her pen. Javi stifled a laugh as Scott faced her with a half-baked expression of annoyance. You turned to thumbing through your bag for your wallet.

“Ah,” Scott stuttered as he looked over the menu. “A coffee—“

“Cream or Sugar?” Kathy drawled. She must have been in her sixties but she was giving Scott the best impression of a flirt at the moment.

“Black, please.”

“Of course, honey.”

Javi turned his head away from Scott to chuckle like a little boy. You smiled to yourself as the contents of your bag were suddenly so very interesting.

“And a… turkey sandwich with fries.”

Kathy gave Scott a cheeky, wide smile with painted red lips. The thinning drugstore paint was wearing thin beyond the lining and her hay bale, yellow as corn hair was doing nothing for her.

“That’ll be right up for you boys, okay?” She gave them a wink and tore the order from her pad. “Don’t forget to order somethin’ sweet before you go—on the house.”

Kathy walked away with a sway of her hips which only worsened Javi’s laughter. The laughs spilled from his mouth without remorse as his friend tried to not turn an ugly shade of red.

“Holy,” Javi dragged out the syllables in exasperation. “You got yourself a cougar, Scott!”

You slipped your wallet to the side of your bag and looked upright waiting for her return.

“I didn’t know Mr. Storm Par had it in him,” you said, which drove Javi even deeper in laughter. Scott sighed heavily, shaking his head in disbelief. “She’ll give a napkin with a lipstick kiss… just watch.”

“Ooh man,” Javi crooned. “I ain’t missin’ that!” He got up from his stool.

“See you out there,” Javi said your name kindly—a rarity in these parts. He surely didn’t know about you and Scott but he treated you decently all the same.

He rushed off to the small hallway labeled ‘bathroom’. Small mercies for a second alone.

“Did you have to say that?” Scott commented the moment Javi was out of an earshot. He turned back to look at you so you turned to look at him with your hip digging into the counter. His legs spread wide as if to accommodate you.

“It was too good not to,” you admitted with a grin. “The old ladies love you.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, gazing at your face as his eyes darted to take you in. They trailed from your eyes to lips to chin to chest to… everywhere.

“It’s been a minute.”

“Two weeks,” you agreed.

“You been counting?”

“No,” you said quickly. “I just—“

“I was joking,” he clarified with a sly, cunning smirk.

“Ha,” you panned. “You should think about going into another career after this. I hear they’re looking for comedians.”

“Maybe I will,” he suggested. “I can mention the skeleton that tried to get with me in a diner. Though,” he thought on it, “her lipstick might find me in nightmares so probably not.”

You laughed and he smiled—also a rarity in these parts.

“Where are you off to?” He asked.

“Perry for the night. Headin’ in that direction afterwards.”

Scott hummed, tapping one of his hands on the counter as the other rested on his knee. Your eyes moved down his body in the same way he did yours.

“You?” You asked him.

“I think we’ll be makin’ our way there too.”

“Hm,” you thrummed. Kathy caught your vision as she gathered Javi’s glass and Scott’s mug in her hands. “Then I should be expecting you?”

Scott nodded his head. “Motel?”

“Right off the highway. Easy on and off.”

Scott made a noise of agreement. Kathy placed their beverages in front of them with a sweet smile. Scott glanced at the mug but returned his attention to you which she frowned at—you found it amusing. There couldn’t have been many attractive men waltzing through the diner on a weekly basis. Scott was a treat.

“Anything I can get you, hun?”

Scott shook his head. Kathy held out her hand for you to hand over the check. She wasn’t as wordy with you.

You glanced over his shoulder to the table of his crew in the back who were minding their own business. Javi had to return and put the window, your team of misfits were packing up the vehicles.

You took a chance and lifted a hand to his shirt’s collar. Taking the fabric between your fingertips, you putzed as he looked at you with a gleam in his eyes that made your stomach do summersaults.

It’s the kind of look that made your heart sink when he was so rude on the road.

“Text me when you get there, okay?” You asked him. You adjusted his collar before dropping your hand at the sight of Javi leaving the restroom.

Scott caught your eyes change and turned back around in his seat.

Kathy laid the receipt for you to sign on the counter with a bang.

“Sign, please.”

You were quick to sign and exit the space before Javi could even sit down, forgetting Dexter's order. Kathy took the receipt and while stapling it to the order, she tipped her head in the direction of you.

“She’s pretty,” was all Kathy said and left as Javi returned.

“Did she give you her number?” Javi prompted Scott who passed a confused face to his friend.

“What?”

“The waitress,” Javi chuckled. “You get ‘er number or what?”

Scott closed his eyes and swallowed the nerves that built rapidly. He thought Javi was talking about you. He may have been an ace at MIT and a dependable guy on the battlefield, but Scott nearly jumped out of the diner at the thought of Javi or anyone else finding out about his escapades with you.

It was a good secret. A great one, if he let himself think about it too long. But he’d be damned to throw everything away for the sake of a lay in the middle of Oklahoma.

And if he told himself that enough, he’d fathomed he would start believing it.

The motel was what you had dreamed about.

Soft sheets, working air conditioning, and a lovely continental breakfast in the mornings with boxes of cereal and packaged muffins. It wasn’t a five-star resort but they did the job. It was perfectly imperfect for what you were used to on the daily.

It was so much better than the floor of the RV and so unusual for the types of places Dani and Lily often chose.

When you arrived at the motel, Scott was receiving a napkin with a kiss and a number on it that went straight in the trash. Javi kept rolling with laughter and for the time being, it was something he would not live down.

But both of your minds were preoccupied with what would hold true as the sun finally set on that day.

Just like the storms, you weren’t sure where this ended or it began. You had established a routine without realizing it was happening and this game of chances was slowly evolving into a feeling difficult to hold on to.

Maybe it was everything in between the nights that made it more difficult than it needed to be.

You ached for them nonetheless.

The jolt of anticipation hit you about an hour after arriving. Showered and clean, you sat around while the news played lifelessly in the background waiting for your phone to ding but it never did. It sat there mocking you every minute that passed.

Seconds turned into minutes that turned into hours that turned into two.

You half thought about going to bed before a knock sounded at your door. Neglecting to view the visitor through the peephole, you were taken aback by the entrance.

Scott made quick work of pushing you backwards and shutting the door closed with a thud. A backpack landed in the space between the door and chair. His hands were on you immediately, immodestly cupping your face and the back of your head with a force as he kissed you—hard.

You wrapped your arms around his forearms in support of your uneasy feet. A thrill ran down your spine at the feel of his hands on you.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled between frantic kisses that took your breath away. “They,” kiss, “wouldn’t,” kiss, “stop fucking talking.”

You ran your hands down his forearms gently. “It’s okay,” you reassured him. Ignoring your doubts would manifest itself another day.

Scott nodded, his nose knocking yours before leaning back in and kissing you slowly. His mouth captured your lips softly, gently as if there was no worry of time at all. His hands trailed themselves along the sides of your neck, to your shoulders, letting yours fall from his arms in the process.

You tilted your head upwards at an angle to open up to him. His mouth moved unhurried as the sound of your heart rushed to your ears.

He broke the kiss at the feel of your hands inching toward the buckle of his jeans.

“Woah,” he chuckled lowly but didn’t pull away and didn’t tell you no. “I don’t think my old lady would appreciate you havin’ your hands all over me.”

He let you lift the tails of his dress shirt out of his pants. At a quick pace you undid the buttons.

“She was tellin’ me all about this great peach pie,” Scott kept on and on as he peppered kisses on your face. “And then,” he whispered and shrugged off his shirt. “Then she left me this nice farewell note with a kiss on it.”

Your hands stilled on his abdomen. Head pulling away rapidly with glittering amusement in your eyes, you scoffed.

“No shit… really?”

“Oh yes, really,” Scott confirmed. He stepped away from you and stripped himself of the undershirt he had on. He moved over to the bed to work on his shoes.

“Can’t go to that diner again I gather.”

Scott smiled which made his dimples stand out. He looked tired but present, and that was all you could ask for at that moment.

“Not unless I want to be scorned for never callin’ her back.”

“Eh,” you picked up the remote on the bedside table and turned up the sound. “Give it ten years.”

Scott looked over his shoulder at you as a boot dropped on the floor.

“That’s brutal.”

“Well,” you said, dropping onto the duvet. “What can I say?”

You crawled over to him and got on your knees behind him. Scott leaned his head backwards against your chest as you wrapped your arms around him. You could smell the earth in his hair. The darkness of it couldn’t shield the way a day's work remained.

Underneath your fingertips his shoulders eased up. He relaxed in your touch.

“I was counting,” you admitted. The days between.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Me too.”

You kept one hand wrapped around his shoulders but moved the other to turn his face to the side. You planted a light kiss on his cheek, resting your forehead on the spot after. You savored the small, delicate moments that were few and far on the road.

Scott patted your arm when the quiet became too much.

“Lay down,” he instructed.

You untangled yourself from him and fell backwards on the bed. Splayed on the mattress with your knees bent, he slipped his socks off and turned around with one leg perched on the bed and the other on the floor. Scott’s hand traced the lines on your bent knees formed by the lighting of the room. He watched you adjust your body for comfort in his observance.

He’d be a fool to say you weren’t igniting a fire in him.

There were nights where he’d find you angry at him, the fuck that followed heated and he’d mark you with bruising kisses to remind you of it. There were some hurried and frantic—usually following a close encounter by either of you but the ones where it was slow… they were rare.

And looked down at you with adoration he couldn’t express. His eyes were telling yet he never said words that reaffirmed he cared for you more than he looked forward to your next meeting or that he thought about you—in the shower or in passing, Scott never clarified.

Scott pushed open your legs to accommodate him. He took in the oversized tourist tee that helped cover the pair of sleep shorts of his next conquest. Without hesitation, he grabbed at the waistband of the shorts and pulled them down your legs quickly.

He ticked at you at the sight of you bare before him.

“Were you expecting someone?” He chastised jokingly. “That’s a little presumptuous.”

“Maybe,” you cooed. He grasped you by the back of your knees and pulled you down the bed before getting on his own.

“There’s always a some guy followin’ us around in these parts. Sometimes I’ll let him in.”

“Oh?” His breath was hot on your thigh. A kiss laid as he maneuvered himself to your center and you tossed your head back to stare at the ceiling.

“Mhm,” you hummed. You bit your lip to fight a smile when his familiar lips kissed at the crux of your leg and groin.

“Handsome with this cute smile no one ever sees.”

You felt your breath stagger as he moved to the most wanton part of you and licked a line through you. His eyes watched you intently; the slow rise and fall of your chest, the way your hands begged for something to grasp on. His nose bumped your clit as he got comfortable with a rhythm. Scott savored the way his tongue gathered your wetness, pushing against your plush walls.

You were trying so hard to be quiet. The walls of hotels were thin—you weren’t an idiot. It was a miracle that the man you fucked wasn’t a talker most of the time.

Scott’s tongue was warm against you. Lapping in a way that made you lose the breath inside. He was slow, soft in his movements that made you want to squirm.

You could feel your heart beating rapidly against your ribcage. Head pressing harshly against the comforter of the bed, your body hooked itself into an arch at his ministrations. A lewd, antagonizing sound of your pleasure being had by a man whose eyes bore deep into the way your body moved at his will sent you spinning.

Scott shifted himself on the bed. His feet propelled him upwards but he never let go, his hands nor mouth. He pushed you upwards on the bed and wrapped an arm around your leg to rest on your lower abdomen.

The change caught the words in your mouth.

Scott, occupied, still watched you unravel like putty. His eyes watched you focus on anything but his face and in an attempt to get your attention, his hand on your stomach moved to fiddle with your shirt that had not made it to the floor.

Your hand was quick to fold over his, squeezing tightly. His fingers flexed back.

“Oh,” you keened. In an effort to stay quiet, your other hands fingers pressed against your lips. The fire within you grew hotter.

Moving his hand from yours, he shifted to spread open your lips and gather the wetness on his tongue. Scott titled his head upwards and sucked on your clit that had you spinning. Your free hand went straight to his head and settled in his brown locks.

“F-fuck,” you stuttered as your toes curled and your hips rutted against his face unabashedly.

Scott’s other hand was long missing from your body as the one focused on you was hard at work with your satisfaction. He palmed at himself in his pants the best he could. The angle wasn’t working and soon, he’d need a reprieve.

The muscles in your body tensed. They began to shake not from a release, but an anticipation of one growing. The more you moved, the more Scott wanted to let go and slip inside of you.

He slowed his tongue to small, sensual flicks reminiscent of him bringing you back from a high you hadn’t yet reached. Pulling back on you, his lips caught with a trail of your slick and his spit. Scott ran his tongue over his lips—taking with him the taste of you.

“Move up,” he instructed, voice hoarse.

You sat up on your elbows and moved upwards on the bed as he stood up. He walked back to the chair beside the door where his belongings had ended up when he first burst through the door.

If you were attempting to be sly, your eyes navigated his body on display. Scott fully undid his belt and chucked his phone on the chair beside it. He shuffled out of his pants and briefs—pausing when the screen on his phone lit up with a text.

You couldn’t read it from the distance between you but he left it unread, turning back to you as your focus narrowed to his dick freely standing.

“My eyes are up here,” he rolled his eyes.

“I’m admiring,” you drawled. You ran a hand up your body and bent it behind your head on the pillows. “Can’t a girl admire? I mean…”

“She can,” he nodded in implying you can.

Scott took himself in his hands, pumping as he approached the bed again. He didn’t need to ask the ways in which to make both of you happy. He could read the room and the days and knew that what you both needed was something simple.

But sometimes, something simple was enough.

He joined you on the bed, tapping on your leg that blocked his goal.

“Come on,” his words were cut and dry and quiet.

You moved your leg back down as you sat up to meet him. Him, on his knees before you with his length in his hand and you, splayed before him wet and wanting. You reached to replace his hand with yours but he shook his head, knocking his chin at your shirt with a disapproving shake.

The worn Ole Miss letters standing stark amidst the nakedness of the room. Doc.

Huffing, you were quick to lose the shirt.

“Better?” You asked him. Reaching back toward to replace his hand, he removed his and let you take him.

“Perfect,” he groaned at the feel of your hand.

He was heavy and warm in your palm; watching with an intensity that only beckoned you to go further—sliding your hand along him delicately and squeezing just enough at the base for him to emit a grunt of satisfaction. Scott’s hands caressed the sides of your thighs as his mind went blank.

“Scott,” you purred. Sitting up on your knees and never letting him go. Your other hand wrapped around his shoulders as you pressed your chest against his. His hands were hot on your hips and ass.

You lazily drew your lips along his jaw to ear.

“I want you to fuck me,” you whispered. His heart was beating so fast. “I want you to fuck me into this mattress and make me think about it for days.”

Scott’s eyes were closed. His breathing unsteady and head pushing into yours. He gripped your body tightly.

“Baby—“ the pet name slipped out before he had a chance to take it back. Too personal? He wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t think straight. With your hand on his dick, all he could think about was how fast he could get inside of you.

“I thought we said—“

“We’ll be quiet,” you reassured him. “I didn’t say hard.”

Oh. You wanted to be fucked softly. At least for the moment you did.

The kind of sex that left a heavy haze in the air. The one that drew everything out of a person and left it there, lingering, as if the pieces of them were nothing more than particles in space.

It was the sex you couldn’t turn back from.

You were too far gone.

You had been for quite some time yet never slipped up. You enjoyed what small, unreliable fling you had no matter how it grew inside of you. Scott wasn’t a man you’d dream about as a teen thinking of your future. He was a certified asshole with an ego as big as the fucking ocean but it slithered past your defenses and ended up knocking at the gate.

But you loved the sinful way it made you feel.

“Do you wanna fuck me?” You cooed. You careened in his touch, pitching upwards as he cupped your ass roughly and relished the feel of your breasts on his chest. Everything about you was so soft. So delicate and warming and familiar.

“You know I do,” he panted. You stroked him still. His eyes could have drooped but he watched you intently.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

You positioned your head in front of his, kissing him gently on the lips before lowering back down onto the bed with your knees parted. You let him go and his cock bobbed.

And he did as you asked.

When Scott fucked you, the heavens blushed from above. He took his dick in his hand, positioning himself to be in front of your pussy that was still shining with the wetness he left. He rubbed the tip up and down, gathering the wetness he could. Each motion threatening to push him in faster than either of you wanted.

This could be hours or forever and you’d never want it to end.

He stopped at your entrance to look in your wanton eyes. They begged him, they wanted him without a word. He guided his cock into you slowly. Your cunt, hot and inviting, welcomed him smoothly. Pressing your head deep into the pillows, you let out weak gasps at his intrusion.

Your head was swirling. You were full of him.

Each touch and each thrust was sending you toward a tether that was breaking string by string. A violin to be played delicately and only the musician who cared enough to learn its tuning could make it sing.

Scott was calculated but not over aware. He listened to your calls—the shallow, meek whimpers at the virility of his drives. He let you get lost; finding the stars in your eyes as he peered down at you until it became too much and Scott needed to feel you again.

Scott leaned down, taking your neck in both of your hands and kissed you deeply. Your hands glued themselves to the sides of his torso. His lips were a pillow in short breaths; tongue sloppy when his hips ground into you faster than before.

His cock was splitting you. Thrust after thrust he gained the momentum of chasing a high. He never let you go; holding onto you whether delicate on your neck or grasping at your body, Scott palmed as you grew in want.

“Come on, come on,” he gritted through his teeth as you clenched around him. You weren’t registering the sounds of the headboard hitting the wall behind you. It was only you, Scott, and the sounds of your pleasure.

He picked up the rapid movements as best he could. It was so easy to lose himself in you. He, the most rigid man in both word and action, came alive at the opportunity to simply let go. Those words were strange—to let go—but he had found it in your meetings.

Scott Miller was many things, yet fucking you unbeknownst to the world was his greatest secret in his cruelty.

He watched you wither or waver, hands shifting to hold his face close to yours. You kept muttering nonsensical deliverances with your hips jutting up to join his. It was growing fierce—your end. The orgasm eating away at your resolve. Scott’s eyes were battering down on your own, nodding his head with eager anticipation of the rush of your finish. Scott knew you to be quick. It was so easy for him to get you off because the methodology of you and him made it that way.

He could read you the alphabet and if you bore into your eyes enough, you’d be wet. He could feed you a fucking pretzel and your mind would illustrate the way you’d let him pound you into tomorrow.

He nodded, chin bumping yours as your mouths declined to collide in a spectacle. Your breaths beat at the rapid nature of your heart; panting for respite in the low light of the hotel’s table lamp and glow of the television.

“That’s it,” Scott coaxed. His silence in the efforts of his body ceasing. “Come on.” His teeth bit at his words.

“F-fuck,” you stuttered out. The wave was approaching. It tingled in your toes and laid heavy in your core. “Shit,” you gasped quietly. “Oh!”

Your mouth fell open and he took the opportunity to kiss you, tugging on your bottom lip as he pulled away and the curl of your toes became too real. You kept squeezing him, emboldening him to come with you.

Scott felt your muscles contract before it was nothing but a shake of your legs. You arched your back into him, allowing him to draw you close as he pounded into your finish to race to his own.

There was nothing in your eyes except the stars you couldn’t see. It was fuzzy, exhilarating as the pulses rushed through you in a couple, disjointed and erratic bursts. You couldn’t help but shake; it was overstimulating as Scott continued to push against your walls.

He loved to feel you shake. He loved to be the one to cause such a rapture within you. To have to uncontrollably trembling in pleasure? What a treat.

You swallowed his grunts, clinging onto his shoulders and cupping his face as he drew his arms under your back and repositioned you. He was close, so close. The beads of sweat on his forehead called him to end—a sure sign of his stamina along the sheen that covered you.

His hips snapped in and out with a fury. The softness of his earlier actions were thrown out the window. He did as he believed, fuck you into a state where you’d remember it for days.

And then his tether broke too.

Scott held your hips against him tightly. He kissed your lips as he finished inside of you before deepening it.

Suddenly you weren’t going to remember the sex.

You were going to recall the way he kissed you after he made sure you both came. How he wouldn’t let you feel anything but his lips, his tongue, his teeth, until he was soft inside of you.

Scott left your lips with a faint, nearly absent smile.

“How’s that for remembering?”

He wasn’t one for validation. He didn’t seek your approval but it slipped out of him with the words he shouldn’t say.

You ran your tongue over your lips to wet them or maybe to collect the remnants of him. “Mm,” you thought. “I might forget what it feels like to be kissed?”

Scott scoffed as you ran your fingers through his hair. He dipped his head again to kiss your shoulder, peppering kisses to your lips as he made a trail. He nuzzled his nose into the side of your face and could tell when your face broke out into a smile. Taking the chance, he tucked his forehead into the crux of your neck and shoulder. You squirmed with laughter but his hands held you steady.

“I’ll be heading to The City for a few days,” he grumbled into your neck. “We got a new truck.”

“The gang ain’t enough anymore? You’re gonna outnumber us.”

Scott shook his head and began to unravel. He lifted up from you, slipping out as the cold met wet in the air. You could not help but draw your brows together at the discomfort—Scott’s thumb rubbed soothing circles on your thigh.

He started off the bed and into the bathroom attached to help clean you up. Tossing your worn shirt back on the bed before shuffling into his briefs and pants again. You sat up in confusion.

“Aren’t you stayin’?” You asked. “I thought we’d have a few hours.”

Maybe it had been dangerous to voice hope.

To voice and acknowledge the misery of missing him when it hurt to do so.

He shook his head again and went to his phone. “I gotta get that truck before she flies in.”

She. “Who?” You questioned with concern. You weren’t exclusive, you weren’t supposed to be jealous.

“Some girl Javi invited out for a few days,” he dismissed. Scott’s eyes were glued to the phone in his hand. “She works for NWS.”

“To help you?”

“Why else?” He sounded disgruntled at the fact. But he ignored your tone too. “Said she was a friend from college.”

“What’s the NWS got to do with your work?”

“She’s just helpin’ us find the tornados, not anything else. We don’t need help in what we do.”

You weren’t oblivious to Storm Par—you’d be a fucking fool not to be. It was something you detested, despised, about him and if you thought about it too long, you felt even the slightest bit guilty of letting your thoughts wander to him when you were set on doing good.

He took from people in pain for what? His own personal gain? The money he raked in on the side of allowing a maniac of a man to fund his projects?

You knew there was a piece of him that strung you along not for sex or the fondness of it, but out of necessity to follow.

His team of storm chasers wouldn’t have the opportunities they did if they didn’t follow Tyler and the crew.

You were just collateral for the course. A “get love quick scheme” in the center of a raging cyclone of fucked up felonies and a YouTube channel of misfits.

Scott let his fingers move briskly over the keyboard of his phone.

“When is she coming?” You feigned to ponder instead.

“Monday.”

“So that means you have to leave now?”

Oh Lord Almighty. You sounded pathetic. Knees pulled up to your chest, holding the pieces of you together as you became forgotten. You felt the events of moments ago begin to unsettle your body. The need of care that hasn’t come making your skin crawl.

You may have done things that made your momma blush but you cowering under the idea that a man is gonna leave you cold after a good roll in the sheets would set her aflame.

“Have to,” he tossed his phone back on the chair and took a new shirt out from his backpack. “For business on Sunday with Riggs before we head out. We agreed to…” he went back to his phone to check the time. “A two o’clock departure time.”

It wasn’t even fucking twelve thirty but hey, he couldn’t be seen, right?

“Bullshit,” you let fall out.

“What?” Scott picked it up. His head snapped to you.

“I said it’s bullshit,” you said a bit louder for him to hear. “I don’t get it, I don’t.”

“What don’t you ‘get’?” He had a lacing of judgment in his voice. It could have been the MIT superiority in him that festered with the ever mounting praise of his colleagues.

“I just don’t know when it will be enough for all of you,” you scoffed. “You pour money down drain for machines and tech and then you stockpile tragedies we can’t even keep up with. And now you’ve got the NWS on your side? The ones who are supposed to care about keeping us safe?”

“It’s freelance,” he pointed out while tucking in his shirt. He did up the belt in a flash. “And these people don’t need what’s left for them after it’s all gone. You know how hard it is for them to rebuild.”

“But those are their homes, Scott. What if it was your home or my home or your parents?”

“I’d figure we’d all end up in different places anyway,” he tucked his phone in his back pocket.

You shook your head at him, looking away to focus on the TV. Muttering an “unbelievable” under your breath, you began to wonder the reasons why he even bothered to show up.

They drove an entire team to Perry to sleep in a run of the mill hotel or perhaps that was second to Scott getting his fill. He just needed one good fuck to send him off and running to his next paycheck.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Scott concluded dispassionately. That stone cold, humorless man replaced whoever burst through the door.

“We both have jobs to do. Just stay in your lane and I’ll be in mine.”

Oh Christ he made you fume.

“You can be a real jackass, you know that?” You narrowed your eyes at him.

“You aren’t tellin’ me anything I ain’t heard before, honey.”

“Oh fuck off!” You shouted a bit too loudly. He slung his cap back on his head. “You’re such a piece of shit.”

“Then why tell me you were gonna be here?” He hummed an ask, approaching the bed with intent. You looked up at him as he settled in the spot next to you with his feet on the floor and arm outstretched to hold onto the headboard.

Scott caged you in. He towered over you to be intimidating.

“Why ask me to sleep with you or stay or kiss you or whatever else just to hate me after it’s all done?”

“I didn’t ask to hate you.”

“You don’t hate me,” he clarified. “You just hate the way you feel about me.”

“You’re selfish,” you settled on.

“You’re entitled,” Scott countered. The Ole Miss logo on your shirt burned.

“You don’t care about anyone except yourself.”

And that pained you.

“You care about everyone else far too much,” he pulled his head toward you. His eyes flicked between your lips and eyes and you wanted to punch him and kiss it away.

All you wanted was to have a good night. To be worshiped in a quiet space and he gave you that, even if brief. But he also tore it away. He always took it away.

“Sometimes I don’t know why we even try.”

He was taken aback by it. You both were two people on very different ends of a string that snapped you together. It wasn’t perfect but it worked for the most part.

“Then why do we?” He shouldn’t have said it yet he did.

“You can’t even bear to stay,” you whispered. For a second, you thought you saw clarity in those cloudy eyes. “You can’t even fucking hold me after what we did… or-” the words fell deaf on your lips.

“I have to leave. I can’t stay.”

“You don’t get it do you?”

Scott breathed in deeply, declining the sentiment with a toss of his head.

“I gotta go,” he said quietly instead. He took your chin in his hand, knocking it gently to the side.

“I don’t know how you do it,” was all you could muster.

And then he left without another word.

In Boone’s mind, it did not matter if the sky was at its darkest, a joint never waited to be smoked when necessary.

He had woken about an hour before as Storm Par’s slamming of car doors rustled him from slumber. The RV wasn’t the most perfect place to reside while traversing wild weather but he loved it all the same. He rolled off the bunk without notice of Dexter who would have surely scolded him for partaking at such a late hour.

So, he snuck into the truck and lit up in the quiet solitude of night without interruption.

It wasn’t until an hour later when the drowsy feel of his tingles began to wear into sleep that he began to see things he’d question.

Boone rubbed the tired from his eyes the same time a door opened up to his right. He ducked into the front seat as though what he was doing was far from normal and spied the invasion of the public space.

Down to the right, Scott exited the room with a scowl on his face Boone could see in the dark. A backpack slung over his shoulder, he looked frustrated compared to the blasé he was used to. Scott walked past Boone without noticing and hopped into one of Storm Par’s trucks.

Boone remained ducked as he thought back to the room. Scott settled in the passenger seat before reclining it back to sleep. He disappeared from Boone’s view and the latter looked to the motel rooms again.

Even in his foggy memory, he recalled Lily sticking a crumpled piece of paper in the cup holder for Tyler to use. It had the address of the motel and the room numbers reserved. He scouted the cup holders until his fingers grasped the paper’s corner.

“34221 Sli-“ he rumbled off as he read the note. His eyes traveled down to the rooms.

Lily room nine.

Tyler room thirteen.

Dani room twenty-one.

And then his eyes widened in curiosity at your name finely written and a twenty-two carved next to it. Those same numbers were lightly illuminated by the light above the door.

“No shit,” Boone chuckled in disbelief.

The next few days were nothing but a blur.

The sky was like that too. Cloudy and gray. It seemed to reflect whatever was left inside of you to stir and gather into something larger as your memories of Scott overplayed in your mind with poor restraint.

God, how you wished it would just rain and swallow you whole.

It was absurd—feigning such disappointment over a man who was not your significant other but did everything in solitude to appear that way. He loved on you and left you cold with nothing to warm the thoughts of what it would be like when you saw him again.

And when you did, it was disappointing.

The brown haired woman they had brought on to help with was far too good to be mixed in with a crowd of degenerate Ivy pricks but she stayed with them longer than she should have. In their paths, it felt like they crossed yours even more than before.

You were stuck trying to avoid Scott’s entire being when his truck passed or when they stopped at the same station or motel or place as you and yours.

It started to eat at you, the avoidance.

On an early Tuesday morning, you felt the winds begin to change again. Tyler blew a tire the night before and broke his jack trying to fix it. The lot of you ended up in the parking lot of a rundown gas station as the sun began to rise when the white trucks came barreling down the road and straight into the parking lot.

Dani booed them from the stairs of the RV.

“Can’t your just leave us the hell alone?” Lily complained. It had been four days straight of interactions with them and it had caused nothing but trouble. You tried your best to stay normal but Boone kept sitting by you as if he wanted to hold your hand.

It peeved you to think he knew something was wrong.

“They just love us too much,” Dani joked as she waved at the group exiting their trucks. Kate, their newest addition, smiled in the distance.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Boone acknowledged from beside you.

“Hey Storm Par!” Dani shouted. “Go find your own fucking tornados!”

Beside their trucks, Javi scoffed and shook his head.

“What?” Kate inquired, her eyes curious as they had been the last week. “They’re just jokin’ I’m sure.”

“Nah,” Javi replied. “They don’t like us the same as we don’t like them. I thought you’d pick up on that now.”

“Well sure,” Kate laughed at the ridiculousness of it. “But there’s more to this than that.”

There’s more to chasing than a fight.

“Yeah well, tell that to them.”

“They’re just shitheads,” Scott piped up on his approach. “Think they’re better than the rest of us because they’ve got a camera in their face.”

“They’ve been fine to me,” Kate defended. She watched as the so-called tornado wranglers bounced up from their seats and headed in her direction. The man with the bandana tried to coax you to join but you refused physically. Hands outstretched and pushing the man away. It was a weak attempt, she noticed.

“It’s just all of you that rub them the wrong way.”

“Well it’s a two-way street.”

You go your way, and I’ll go mine.

Kate observed the carefree way in which everyone interacted with one another. The two other girls tugged on your arms to bring you to your feet against your will. She felt Scott shift on his feet beside her but didn’t dwell on it.

“They still got that reporter with ‘em,” she noted. “Must be an interesting bunch to write a story about.”

“When you put together people from seven different walks of life, you’re bound to get something good,” Javi agreed with her.

Scott shifted again and Kate looked up at him. He wore his sunglasses, therefore it was hard to see his eyes. But his face was set and jaw tight. His hands were dug into his pockets but the distaste rolled off of him in waves. She looked back into the direction of all of you.

Boone was running circles around the three girls as their arms were wrapped around each other. Friends. It reminded Kate too much of the ones she lost.

“Alright everyone,” Scott called out. “Five minutes and then we’re back on the road.”

The inside of the station was no different than any other. Five rows of food with a wall of freezers in the back, a broken counter with a tower of cigs and vapes waiting to be sold. Kate was reading the back of a SunChips bag when you all came in. The bell above the door sounding with a jingle, Dani and Lily’s laughter filled the space compared to the nonexistent chatter of Storm Par’s presence.

You held the door open for Tyler who gave a wink and a thanks that didn’t phase you as it would her. He was handsome, charming, if a little obnoxious. He smiled at Kate and a part of her felt like running, the other falling.

You didn’t have the same spunk the others did. After they left your vicinity the smile on your face dropped and the shoulders you wore were heavy. You passed Kate, giving her a small hello, before walking down the aisle. She peaked her head to the side of the stand.

“Find anything good?�� Kate called out kindly. Her light Oklahoma twang cutting through.

You glanced at her. “If you count fruit flavored Doritos good, then maybe we have different tastes.”

She chuckled and took it as a sign to approach you.

You didn’t know much about Kate other than what Boone had dug up and what Scott had mentioned before she arrived. She was smart as a whip, a talented chaser, and one who made mistakes too.

“I don’t think those would be good in any situation.”

“We can agree there,” you mumbled. You picked up a small bag of Veggie Straws.

“So where are y’all chasing today?” Kate inquired.

“Why?” You countered. “So you can follow us around?”

“No,” she shook her head, feeling as though she offended you. “No… we can find our own. I was just wonderin’ if y’all wanted to go to this bar tonight.”

You furrowed your brows. Under the static lighting of the gas station mart, you were falling into confusion.

“Y’all as in… us?”

“Yeah,” she laughed. Kate was intrigued by what you did. The way you all risked so much for entertainment or maybe, for some of you, there was still an inch of science to be discovered.

The day after you all converged and she had a panic attack at the sight of the tornado, Kate spent the morning watching the videos posted from your channel. She was amazed by the thrill of what feelings Tyler and Boone could ooze out of the screen.

But she took a liking to the science you broke down for the average viewer. The way you taught amidst the chaos of wrangling tornadoes or shooting fireworks up the funnel.

“I thought we could all use a break,” she shrugged. “Javi and I have known each other for a long time and we used to stop there for line dancing on Thursdays.”

Well it just so happened to be a Thursday.

“And these fellas are more wound up than a goddamn toy,” she said under her breath. “I think a pitcher of beer and some good ol’ fashion Oklahoma hospitality would do us well.”

“Oh,” you replied softly. “Um, well… Ty makes a lot of those decisions so maybe you could ask him?”

Her eyes went bright. “Sure! I mean, I just thought I’d ask. They all talk about you a lot… I think they’re all a little jealous.”

The thought of what Scott or any of the other Storm Par guys said about you and your friends bristled you. Scott’s face met you in dreams to remind you that he was never too far away and whatever strife you had with him and his work was always going to get in the way.

“Do they?” You commented. You could hear Javi in the aisle over talking to Scott about equipment.

“Mhm.”

“How charming,” you moved down the aisle to the other products but Kate didn’t follow. She looked in your direction but behind you.

Javi and Scott were now at the end of the aisle beside you, the former shuffling behind you with a small ‘excuse me’ while the other stood there for a brief moment. You looked over your shoulder at him and his glasses were now gone, meeting your gaze for seconds too long.

“I was just inviting them to come with us,” Kate informed Javi who turned, eyeing you as your attention was distracted.

“Well I hope they can dance,” Javi said with a glee he always had.

Kate said your name which brought your attention back. You could feel Scott lingering, his stance imposing on the small aisle of snacks. You could always feel him around—a curse from caring about everyone too much. He wasn’t a small man or one who could hide in the shadows; he towered over the short shelves. He was as gigantic as a comic book hero even if he was far from one.

The invitation caught Tyler’s attention when the conversation became too loud to go unnoticed. He appeared out of thin air at the other end of the aisle by the door.

Like an old western standoff, you were caught in the center.

You wanted the bags of chips to swallow you whole. It was bad enough that you were stuck between the world you loved and the man who made it more complicated. It was bad enough that Tyler would certainly say yes to Kate’s proposal because he had been sneaking glances at her for a week.

He had shit-eating grin on his face as he walked closer to the group of you. His curious eyes monitoring the way Scott’s body was a little too close to yours.

A part of him believed they were cornering you for something about storms. He wouldn’t put it past them for their sordid work in the hellish treatment of victims but hey, who was he to assume? You clutched the bag in your hands hard enough it could pop.

“We all good over here?” Tyler questioned Scott specifically. It was the only other guy he could size up to and play out a macho-man persona. “I don’t think I need to tell y’all that my team is my team, off limits to your work.”

Scott laughed, truly laughed at Tyler. Javi and Kate’s heads whipped around to Scott who rested an arm bent on the shelves beside him. It was far too close to you and it gave you flashbacks to his nasty exit. Tyler focused on Scott in a labored calculation. He might have been the one they all liked the least.

“Did I say somethin’ funny?”

“Yeah,” Scott replied. His voice flat as always. “You did.”

Tyler looked around at Kate, Javi, and yourself who frowned.

“Care to explain what?”

Scott held back an amused smile as his eyes creased at the edges. You looked up at him with a warning. To your surprise, Scott looked back.

“No,” he responded curtly while looking at you. Off limits.

Kate sensed it. She did. There was something there—the air heavy like a storm.

“We’re gonna go to a dance bar in Enid tonight. I was just askin’ if all y’all would like to join us,” Kate pitched in to Tyler who slowly removed his gaze from Scott to her. His eyes let up softly.

“Dance bar? I don’t take any of these fellas for the dancing kind.”

“Don’t you know we’re all from here?” Javi asked him and Tyler didn’t. You did but Tyler didn’t know much about any of them except their high degrees of achievement and late-stage superior fraternity behavior.

“So you’re tellin’ me that Mr. Stick-up-his-ass here can two step like it’s his birthday?”

“Oh you ain’t never seen Scott dance,” Javi laughed loudly and gathered the rest of the wranglers to the aisle. “We can dance you into next week!”

“Alright.” Tyler nodded his head. One night wouldn’t hurt. “I’m good with it as long as it’s fine with Doc.”

Shit. They all gazed at you with bated breath. You could feel their beady eyes piercing; Scott's blistering eyes on the side of your head prompting you to try.

The last time you attempted to have a good evening it left you reeling. That was six days ago and you still replayed Scott’s words through your mind. Over and over and over and over again.

You’re entitled.

Stay in your lane.

You cared about everyone else too much.

Yet your lanes always converged. And you had the right to be entitled as the name suggested. Doc. You were overly qualified to be there and whatever flew your way, you deserved it.

And fuck, if you didn’t care about everyone else, you’d be a shell of a human. So hollow that your world would collapse. By the laws of physics, you’d stay in motion. You’d keep going even if he pulled you backwards a million times.

You looked at Tyler, tossing your bag of chips in his direction.

“I’d love to go dancin’.”

Boone screeched a happy whistle and yelled to save him a dance. Scott seethed at those words as if he had a claim otherwise. It was an agreement to keep it quiet for the sake of your jobs, your sanity. But he was covetous in his belongings and for whatever belief he had, you were his in all but name.

His actions made it difficult to fully manifest into reality. When you keep a locked door locked, you don’t deserve to enjoy it for free. It ate away at him differently than the anxiety of hurt ate at you.

He wanted to freely give himself to you–to be the man you'd see on dark nights in the solace of a bedroom or wherever you could find respite.

It was tough to be the person you thought you were. It was much easier to be a coward.

The dance bar was packed full of locals and tourists alike. You couldn’t place the pull Enid had on people who weren’t from there but it was alive the moment you walked through the door.

Boone whistled at the sight of everything.

“I gotta hand it to ‘em. They sure can pick a place.”

“Have you never been dancin’ before?” You questioned, linking your arm in the space offered by him. He gave a cheeky smile and tipped his cowboy hat with a free finger.

“Oh, don’t underestimate me, Doc. Just cause you ain’t seen these moves don’t mean I ain’t got them.”

“Maybe I’ve been blessed. If it’s the same way you hold a camera, I can’t imagine your feet.”

“Uh huh,” he egged you on. “Keep it comin’. I have a whole night to prove you wrong.”

You scrunched your nose at him. At the moment, a series of rapid clicks sounded behind you. You and Boone peaked behind you at Ben, the reporter, snapping a photo.

“Sorry,” he apologized bashfully. “I haven’t been able to capture much of you.” He spoke to you, not Boone. “I want to feature more than just the storms.”

“Well you’re gonna get a whole lot more than storms tonight, Ben!” Boone cheered as Dani joined him on his other side.

You got the sudden sense of deja vu to your college days. Those undergraduate nights where your friends would drag you to the bar and everything was far too loud and over exciting. It was beer and booze and feet that fumbled. There was nothing over exhilarating about going out on a weekday but now, past those prime days, you felt a simmer of that feeling come alive inside of you.

Against your better judgment, the idea that Scott and you were crossing paths in a public setting beyond your professions was exciting. It sent thrills down you when it shouldn’t.

He had done nothing to remedy what he said—nor you for that matter. You kept your distance by sitting in the truck while stopping or sleeping in the RV with Dexter and Boone instead of a motel. Every time in the last week that your lines had met, you kept them parallel.

Tonight would be the hardest to not intersect.

“Can I buy you all a round?” Ben offered kindly. His mannerisms were foreign in the West. “For an exciting week, I suppose.”

“Who are we to say no, Ben?” Tyler slung an arm around his shoulder. Dexter and Lily flanked him at his sides.

Your group settled at a table in the back of the bar by the darts and pool table. Dexter challenged Dani to a rematch of a game they had settled a couple of weeks ago, and the rest of you nursed or chugged the beer that Ben had bought. You were the former. Sticking your attention on the foam at the top as it slowly made its way down the glass to become nonexistent.

“So,” Boone cleared his throat beside you as Dani, Tyler, and Ben looked over the photos the journalist had taken thus far.

“Is there a reason your attitude has been shit lately?”

You peered into the glass. Fingers tapping the sides of it.

“I was editing the last video and if anyone wanted a tornado to actually kill them, viewers might be convinced it’d be you.”

“Oh come on,” you scoffed. “I am sure my bad day didn’t ruin the video.”

“I didn’t say ruin, only tainted it. But what’s goin’ on?” He pointed and probed at your temple invasively. “The wheels are turning. I can hear them.”

“It’s nothin’, Boone. Just… girl stuff.”

“My favorite!” He bellowed like a King. Dani transitioned from her conversation to yours.

“What’s your favorite?”

“Girl stuff,” he mimicked. “Just askin’ about little miss sad is all.”

Dani nodded, taking a sip of her beer.

“Is it about your tinder date?”

“My what?” You showed deep confusion. “What date?”

“Last week,” she said casually. “I could hear your headboard against my wall. Jesus,” Dani laughed. “I didn’t know you had it in you Doc.”

Ben and Tyler’s conversation ended and they eavesdropped from the end of the table. At the other end of the bar, Storm Par, in casual clothing, entered.

You blanched at her words. You didn’t even realize.

“Oh-ho!” She pounded a fist on the table. “It was a tinder guy! Ha!”

Boone went suspiciously quiet beside you as she kept on.

“I didn’t want to say anything then but it makes sense. You’ve been on edge ever since. Maybe you should call him—“

“No,” you shook your head at her. Your hands left the glass and settled in your lap.

“He wasn’t good? Oh—“

“No!” You defended too fast and awkwardly. Boone glanced at Tyler who became far too interested in his co-pilot’s silence.

Dani lowered her voice with concern. “Was it too, you know, rough? Did he hurt you?”

“Oh my God!” You exclaimed at the invasion of privacy. “Can you not?”

“Sorry!” She held up her hands. “I didn’t hear anything else if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t want to know your kinks.”

“Oh fuck me,” you wailed. “Dani, can you please stop?”

“Ok, ok!” She backed off and sat in her seat. “I’m just trying to help!”

“I know,” you breathed in. Tyler took a large sip of his beer before putting it back on down the table.

“We know him?” He questioned, eying Boone move uncomfortably in his seat. You looked at him and gaped for a millisecond before shaking your head.

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

Boone glanced at Tyler again and he knew you lied. He didn’t think it was Boone—that would be a nonstarter because you weren’t his type. It wasn’t Dexter because he was married and Ben was not interested in women.

He knew you didn’t swing for Dani or Lily so it was someone else. Dani already deduced it was a man so any other woman was out of the question.

“Well maybe you just need to find someone else to take your mind off of it?” Dani suggested.

“Yeah. Maybe.” You bit at the inside of your cheek.

“A lot of fuss over a one night stand,” Tyler put an arm over the back on Ben’s seat. “Must’ve been somethin’ if you’re down and out about it.”

You downed the beer before you in a flash.

“Must’ve,” Dani agreed with a hum.

“Anyone want another?” You asked, shifting out of your seat. The heels of your boots clacked onto the floor with a bounce.

Everyone shook their heads no and let you leave the table.

The music was pumping through the speakers loudly and the bar was full. You spotted Kate with a couple of the Storm Par guys doing a shot—all of them looking like regular Joe’s in their tees and flannels. Not far from the edge of the bar Scott and Javi waited for pitchers to be filled.

It was rare you saw him out of his “uniform.” Clad in a dark blue tee and his own flannel, the only thing that separated him from the rest was the way he looked. When he tried, Scott was movie-star handsome. The kind of person that’d be having girls write their numbers on his hand at the end of the night.

His presence was unfair to the other men around—except for Tyler on the occasion. It was a shame he was an asshole.

Instead of going toward Scott and Javi as you might have a week ago, you took an empty spot beside Kate who cheerfully greeted you. She waved down the bartender, asking for another shot and to refill your glass.

Tyler watched you walk away. He couldn’t see the decision making in your eyes or hear the thoughts in your mind, yet he had his own to make assumptions.

“Boone,” he called to his friend who sat quietly. Tyler watched you stand next to Kate and Ben’s gaze followed.

“Yeah?”

“Why you bein’ so quiet?”

“I’m n-not,” he tripped over his words. “I’m not.”

“You sure we don’t know him?”

Tyler clocked each of the Storm Par men. None of them looked immediately taken by you standing there, itching to get their hands on you, but then he let himself wander to the end of the bar.

And he locked in.

“I don’t know him,” Boone choked a laugh. “How would I know? She’d tell Dani before me.”

“I didn’t say she told you.”

“Well I’m just implying.”

Tyler turned to Ben who was trying to copy Tyler’s movements.

“Ben,” Tyler tipped his head toward you. “Tell me what you see.”

Ben cleared his throat like he was being interrogated. “Well they just got a second round of shots and the bartender said it’s on the house. She must recognize us.”

“Ok,” Tyler pointed. “And down there? What can we conclude, Mr. London.”

“Oh, well… it seems not everyone is out for a good time.” It was Scott’s frown that told him that.

“You sure?” Tyler watched as Dani blanked. Her eyes suddenly went wide and worrisome at the thought.

“No!” She objected. “No fucking way. Not on my watch, Tyler. Nope!”

“What?” Ben asked frantically. “What’s wrong?”

“Tyler thinks it’s one of them,” Dani pointed to Javi and Scott.

“It is one of them,” as though there were options. “It’s the fucking stick in the mud.”

Dani scowled and physically rejected the idea. Ben watched what Tyler did as Scott, the taller of the two men and the one facing your direction at the bar, couldn’t keep his eyes off you as you laughed at whatever Kate said.

You started to leave and he averted his gaze until your back was to him. You didn’t even look at him when you passed him and Javi.

“Shit,” Dani muttered as you got closer. Boone closed his eyes with a sigh before nodding at the rest of the table.

“It is him,” he admitted and Dani slapped a hand on her face. “I saw him.”

“You saw them?”

“No, him. Leaving her motel room last week.”

“Oh Lord,” Dani nearly wailed. “She’s been sad over him?”

“He is quite attractive,” Ben defended. Dani slapped his arm harshly.

“Dammit don’t say that!”

Tyler sat in contemplation. He had been your friend for years now and knew when things got rough, it could be difficult to overcome them. Everyone had gone through countless breakups and one night stands and situationships that didn’t work out and after a bit, you’d be ok.

Yet he knew it was different somehow.

Even though he despised Storm Par and had nothing but horrible interactions with Scott, there must have been something there for you to cling on to.

And anger had a distant cousin: jealousy.

When you came back to the table, everyone was quiet and observing.

“What?” You questioned each of them.

“Nothin’” Dani said quickly.

“Oh really?”

“Do you wanna dance?” Tyler asked you abruptly. You could see on his face that there was another thought lingering below the surface.

“Right now?”

“Yeah,” he hopped off his stool and motioned toward the group of people dancing to the rhythm of the music. Most were couples, a few scatterings of friend groups around.

Tyler held out his hand to you.

“Don’t tell me a PhD can’t dance, Doc.”

You rolled your eyes, taking his hand in yours. It wasn’t Scott’s, but it would do for now.

“Of course I can, hillbilly. I just do it a bit more sophisticated than you.”

Dani and Boone howled in laughter as you let Tyler take you to the dance floor, spinning you around twice before settling to the score. You danced sweetly with one another as the others looked on from their seats.

Tyler Owens always looked proud to be in the company of his friends. Each plucked from their own little obscure corner of the world: a YouTube daredevil, an amateur late-age scientist, an ex-pr firm reject, a tech fair winner, and you—the science bros internet girlfriend who was a professor of physics.

He adored each of you in a special way that made everyday worth living.

It hurt him that you couldn’t be honest about an action so natural. If Scott had been a one time thing or a many time thing, he would learn to accept it if it meant you would be happy.

He’d want the same in return should a situation arise.

“You know,” he cleared his throat as the song sped up in tempo but came back down. “We don’t really keep secrets from each other here.”

You sighed, looking away from Tyler. Everyone was at peace on the floor before the real dancing began and you tried not to peak at the table as Storm Par settled at the table beside your friends.

“I’m not keeping secrets. I’m not revealing information.”

“Ah!” Tyler chuckled. “Ok, fine… but if I said that even if you didn’t tell us and kept whatever you have with whoever it is going, that we would all be ok with it, that wouldn’t matter?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said frankly. “I think—“

“That he’s staring at us right now.”

Tyler met your eyes with purity. There was no cruelty or hatred in them for you to think he was being a jerk about it.

You opened your mouth to speak but he denied you the chance.

“There’s a lot of things I could say about it, Doc. A lot. You could’ve picked a nicer dude, not a leech to our operations, someone who cares about people…” he trailed off when he saw your demeanor fall far from his jokes.

“Boone saw him,” he clarified. “He put the pieces together but didn’t want to say anything. Not his place, I guess.”

“No,” you said in soft resignation.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“How long?”

“Not long after we met them,” you confessed. About a year ago. Tyler whistled, his hand inched a bit lower on your back but it was still respectful, you didn’t mind.

“And something he did, said, isn’t sitting right?”

“Yeah… it’s not.”

“Do you want my advice?”

You stayed silent as he continued on. He let the music play out as you swayed. Javi and Kate joined on the floor and their giggles were noticeable from the short distance between you.

“Guys like him… they’re complicated. And I get it if you don’t want to hear it but I’ve been around guys like him my whole life. They can be selfish and unnerving and stupid. It’s like they’re trying to prove to the world that they’re fit to be in it.”

You couldn’t disagree.

“When they find a place that accepts them, they’ll rise to the top of it and not know what it’s like to be at the bottom anymore. They forget about people like us.”

“I think I changed my mind—“ you started to pull away but he tugged you back.

“I’m not telling you to let him go. He just hasn’t been put in a place of uncertainty in a long, long time.”

“He said I was entitled.”

“He’s a prick and I will beat his ass if you want me to.”

You smiled. “No. It’s ok.”

“I will do it, don’t underestimate me,” he smirked. “And by the way he watches you, that uncertainty is you.”

“What do you mean by it?”

“I think you might scare him a little, Doc.”

You did.

Scott’s heart rate rose significantly from the time he entered the bar, saw you, and had to watch you dance with Tyler. Those same words that replayed in your mind the last week surfaced as soon as he sat in the truck and the door was shut.

He was an ass. It was a part of him that he couldn’t escape from no matter how hard he tried. His memories delicately held onto the hours you shared where he felt he could be someone else.

Tyler kept glancing in the direction in which Scott sat as though to rub salt in the wound.

“Can we try not to frown today?” Kate saddled up in the seat beside him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile.”

“Normal people don’t walk around grinning.”

“No,” she kicked her feet. “But they do allow themselves to have fun.”

“I am.”

She blew raspberries as Javi poured the beer into their glasses. “You are a tough nut.”

“Never not one,” Javi agreed. “Just loosen up, man. The world is bigger than what we do.”

Scott breathed in a frustrated sigh. “I’m fine,” he pressed.

“Not since I’ve met you,” Kate suggested. She looked out into the sea of people. “Maybe we can just all take it easy tonight. Drink some beer, dance, and then find you someone to take home.”

Scott’s voice was muffled by the beer he drank but he shook off her suggestion. He didn’t even really know this girl who appeared to be a phenom of weather patterns. All she had done this week was disrupt their workings and fall on his irritation scale.

“I like the sound of that!” Javi encouraged. “When’s the last time you been laid, huh? 2015?”

Scott didn’t entertain it. He looked out onto the dance floor and saw you swaying with Tyler—a mix of concern and thankfulness levied on your face.

“Ok, ok… blink once if before or twice if after,” Javi continued at Kate’s amusement. “I’m serious, man. We’re gonna hook you up, alright? Kate’s got a six sense for pickin’ the right ones.”

Javi took his turn but the song changed to a favorite of Kate’s and his eyes lit up at the same time hers did. Call it a sign from the heavens, but Scott had been saved from the humiliation of his friend.

Kate dragged Javi to the floor not far from you and Tyler and it gave him protection to keep looking.

Tyler spun you close to Javi and Kate.

“We all have to face our fears,” Tyler told you. “If we don’t, they’re gonna prevent us from what we need in our lives.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that a book deal might be in your future? Words of Wisdom by everyone’s favorite tornado wrangler.” You emphasized with the sparkle of your fingers.

“That ain’t a half bad idea.”

“I’m full of great ideas.”

“Then start thinkin’ of one to remedy this. I love ya, I do. But if you let his shell break you, it will be a hell of a lot harder to handle the road.”

“Thank you, Tyler,” you said earnestly. “I wasn’t sure what any of you would say about it.”

“Well,” he racked his brain for the thought. “You remember that girl Dani was seein’ from Kansas? She might not have been the most perfect but she was perfect for Dani when she needed her. And maybe that’s Scott for you.”

The sound ended abruptly and the speakers let out a deafening tone. A bartender came onto the surround sound to kick off the line dancing that only Tyler could hype up more. Kate and Javi found themselves beside you both and everyone that could fit on the wooden floor ascended.

Tyler clapped his hands together as he stationed himself near the first line. You weren’t too confident in yourself even if you had been doing this since you could walk, so you settled in the spot behind him. Kate was jovial to stand next to Tyler. Her eyes twinkled and you thought back on his words.

Perfect for what was needed.

“OoO, my man!” Javi clapped Scott’s back in surprise as he joined on the floor.

Dani, Boone, and Lily ran to stand next to you, so Javi and Scott took the positions behind you. Dexter cheered everyone on from the table with Ben. The latter took his camera out with his finger on the shutter.

“Don’t step on our shoes now, you hear me?” Lily screeched over her shoulder to Javi and Scott. Feeling emboldened by the two glasses of beer he downed in a record time, Scott ran a hand through his hair.

“Don’t worry about it!” He shouted back.

“Ok Mr. MIT, come to show us how it’s done!” Lily drawled. She tugged on your arm—having missed the conversation prior. Dani’s smile dropped off her face fast.

“I say we place a bet!” She yelled over the music that was getting so loud. Your ears rung as the lights began to spin in different colors. Javi heard the bet and drew closer to Lily.

She pulled your arm with her, sticking you beside Scott. He put his hands on his hips and his elbow knocked your other arm.

“Twenty that he’ll fall on his face,” she suggested.

Javi looked at Scott and contemplated the idea. Scott was distracted by you standing there. He just stared, like a fish out of water in a town not far from one he visited as a kid.

You made him feel like a fish out of water.

“Deal!” You heard Javi agree and before Lily could shake his hand in a deal, you piped up.

“I bet with Javi!” She peeped at you surprised. “Forty says he can!”

Scott never had someone put trust in him like that. It was a damn good thing his mother taught him more than just math and science.

“Ok!” She yelled back, shaking both Javi and your hand.

Before you turned to take your spot as the music started, you took Scott in.

“Don’t disappoint me!” You shouted.

After the last few days, he couldn’t will himself to.

He shook his head, letting a smile grow to his eyes. Dani had never seen it before.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, baby!”

And Scott danced his fucking ass off.

You weren’t sure where it ended or began, but you could feel it coming in your bones.

Not the sounds of laughter in a confined space or the blaring of music—the rapid, unpredictable nature of dedication a person could not admit. It was a funnel cloud below the truck; a spiraling tire on the side of the road blasting its radius toward you.

The cool air at night hit your body like a bucket of water. The squealing of the door to the bar rattled at the force you used to push but it didn’t slam closed as you expected.

Two minutes ago, you were breathing heavily on the dance floor. The stomping rhythm of boots on wood turning your mind blank with every kick and turn. You had found the peace within the steps and let it drive you to a foundation.

Scott had gladly proved them all wrong—enjoying the surprised excitement that emitted from both his and your own team at the way he was able to, standing above six feet, move the way he did. He caught your smile more than once, a resurgence of hope filled him.

At the break of the song, you hung onto Lily’s arm, pointing to the door.

“I need some air,” you nearly heaved.

So you went for the door and he debated on whether to follow but in the business you took up, there was always the possibility of never having another moment.

And if he didn’t strike his fear now, he’d never do it.

“Hey,” he called out to you as the music started up again but you were too far gone. Already halfway to the door by the time he had made a decision. He tried calling out to you again, except his track was cut off by a sweaty Boone.

“Ex-“

“Don’t fucking hurt her,” Boone panted. His eyes pleaded for his friend, for you. “Don’t do it. Please.”

“I’m not—“

“You say you’re not but I’m sure you’ve said it before. But think about it, dude…” Boone got up in Scott’s personal space. “If a tornado hit this building right now and you were the only one left, would you be ok with how this ends?”

Scott saw the earnest plea in Boone’s call. He placed a hard, firm hand on Boone’s shoulder.

“I appreciate it, man.”

It was the first time Scott was decent to him.

Scott left him standing there near the entrance as he caught the door before it slammed closed. Outside, you stood in a cool down position in the orange-yellow glow of the parking lot.

His heart was beating out of his chest. It hadn’t felt that way in a week.

He wasn’t sure if you knew he had followed you. You didn’t turn around and didn’t acknowledge him as the silence overtook. Crickets strung their chords and cars whirled by on the road.

Scott leaned against the brick building under the neon lights with a knee bent.

“Do I scare you?”

You broke the silence after minutes had passed. You kept your back to him but he looked up, folding his arms across his broad chest.

If you turned around, you feared you wouldn’t be able to keep it together.

“Don’t lie to me,” you tried not to sound like a beggar. “Do I scare you?”

“Yeah,” he stated frankly. “Yeah you do.”

“Why?”

You could hear him breathe out. You imagined him looking around for an answer.

“There’s a million reasons why.”

“You can’t name one?” You took the chance to glance at him. His face was half illuminated by a moody blue glow of the neon sign.

“I can name plenty,” he reassured. “I just don’t know what’s too personal to say.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“Fine,” his fingers tapped on his bicep. “You scare me because this game we play doesn’t always feel like a game to me.”

The sex. The getting together in the middle of the night to whisper sweet nothings and cherish a deep connection to feel like it’s nothing the next day.

“You scare me because you’re smart and know what you’re doing when we’re just getting our heads straight.”

Your head tilted to the side at his honesty.

“You scare me because I feel something that maybe I shouldn’t. Because by some stupid chance I can’t have you, someone else will and I can’t imagine seeing them with you.”

Your chest tightened.

“I’m selfish to think that way,” he nodded. “You’re right about that.”

“I was talking about your work,” you confessed. “I think what you do is selfish.”

He didn’t say anything to that because he knew it was also true. Everything he sold to people was a fat lie to make money for a man who already had enough.

“You care about people too much,” he repeated. “And I don’t have enough people to put the care that I have into them.”

“You’re an asshole,” you told him and he nodded again.

“I’d have to agree.”

“You made me feel like shit.”

“I can’t take it back.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “For what I said and didn’t do. I was an asshole and you didn’t deserve it.”

His moody blues were turning the sky sad. A raindrop hit the ground between you.

“I don’t think I deserve your forgiveness,” he continued. “I’ve never been nice to your friends, or you, when we’re on the road. I dislike the way Tyler danced with you—made me want to knock his fucking teeth out but I figured you’d hate me more if I did.”

“He did that on purpose, you know.”

He shook his head, looking off into the grassland beyond the bar. You felt like you were being laid onto an altar for a choice. One that seemed easy but was hard, and one that was hard but the devil claimed it was easy.

“Figures,” he mumbled. “But I deserved it.”

“We’d have to agree there too.”

He looked up at you again. Arms still crossed, he undid them and extended a hand to you as an offering. Scott was not shocked by the hesitation in your steps.

“I think you have a lot of work to do, Scott.”

“I do.”

“And I don’t want to think this is all grandstanding to get into my bed.”

“It’s not.”

“I’m not one to give second chances,” you told him and he dropped his hand in his lap. “But I don’t think what we were doing constitutes as a first chance either.”

You walked toward him at your own volition. The gravel harsh under your heels, you settled with your toes at his. And you fiddled with the edges of the opening to his flannel no different than the collar in the diner.

“This is the only chance I’ll give you.”

Another raindrop fell.

“I don’t intend on wasting it.” Scott’s eyes flicked between your lips and eyes.

In the laws of physics, there is one to triumph above the rest.

The gravitational law states that if a particle exists, it will attract others to them unwillingly—it is simply the natural state of existence.

The pull is magnetic; impossible to pass by the will of your mind, body, or soul. It tugged at the heartstrings roughly. A bridge that connected people from everywhere to be in one singular place at the right time.

Scott’s gravitational pull was too powerful to withstand. It pulled every bit of you into him without remorse—it was blue, red, and the colors of the world within to bloom into spectacles you’d only see when your eyes were closed.

Scott’s hands found purchase on your waist, drawing you into his pull. One of your hands remained on his chest. His erratic heart beat no differently than your own and the other hand grasped his forearm.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in the night. “I’m sorry.”

You rested your forehead on his. “I know.”

The strength of his pull was strong. Yet it was not strong enough for you to pull your head back.

“Don’t prove I’m right,” you wanted him. He nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Can I be selfish one more time?” He inquired with a gleam in his eyes. Scott ran his tongue over his lips expectantly.

“Oh,” you feigned innocence. “Well, I don’t know if that would—“

He cut you off as he brought his lips to yours, kissing you sweetly. His lips were warm and smelt of a faint cheap beer. Another raindrop fell and this time it hit your face. You ignored it.

You gripped onto his shirt with a fist as he deepened the kiss. Taking one of his hands from you, he cupped the side of your neck to position you as he pleased.

It started to rain in Enid.

In the rain, the laws of physics didn’t defy themselves. The rain soaked into your clothes and into his dark locks to drip onto his face more so than yours. The blue of the neon sign growing hot instead of cold.

You broke away from him, tracing the lines of his face.

“Don’t prove I’m right,” you repeated.

And he didn’t.

A/N: thanks for reading! As always comments, reblog, and likes are always appreciated. I love hearing from all of you and your reactions motivate us greatly! Also ignore the spelling mistakes… I didn’t have time to edit.

#scott x reader #scott miller x reader #scott twisters #scott x fem!reader #twisters #twisters fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #x you #Scott x you #Scott miller x you #david corenswet

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