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spikedfearn · 3 months ago

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Mercy Made Flesh

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: In the heat-choked hush of the Mississippi Delta, you answer a knock you swore would never come. Remmick—unaging, unholy, unforgettable—returns to collect what was promised. What follows is not romance, but ritual. A slow, sensual surrender to a hunger older than the Trinity itself.

wc: 13.1k

a/n: Listen. I didn’t mean to simp for Vampire Jack O’Connell—but here we are. I make no apologies for letting Remmick bite first and ask questions never. Thank you to my bestie Nat (@kayharrisons) for beta reading and hyping me up, without her this fic wouldn't exist, everyone say thank you Nat!

warnings: vampirism, southern gothic erotica, blood drinking as intimacy, canon-typical violence, explicit sexual content, oral sex (f!receiving), first time, bloodplay, biting, marking, monsterfucking (soft edition), religious imagery, devotion as obsession, gothic horror vibes, worship kink, consent affirmed, begging, dirty talk, gentle ruin, haunting eroticism, power imbalance, slow seduction, soul-binding, immortal x mortal, he wants to keep her forever, she lets him, fem!reader, second person pov, 1930s mississippi delta, house that breathes, you will be fed upon emotionally & literally

tags: @xhoneymoonx134

likes, comments, and reblogs appreciated! please enjoy

Mississippi Delta, 1938

The heat hadn’t broken in days.

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

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

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

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

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

A quiet. Too quiet.

You turned your head. Listened harder.

Nothing.

Not even the frogs.

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

But this?

This was different.

It was as if the night was holding its breath.

And then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not loud. Not frantic. But final.

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

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

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

No.

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

You made sure of it.

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

Your hand rested on the knob.

Another knock. This time, softer.

Almost...polite.

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

It was him.

You didn’t answer. Not right away.

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

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

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

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

"You’ll know when it’s time."

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

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

You turned it.

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

Remmick.

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

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

Still young. Still wrong.

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

And his eyes—oh, God, his eyes.

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

"Hello, dove."

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

You hated how your body reacted.

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

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

"You remember, don’t you?" he asked.

"I came to collect."

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

"You can’t be real."

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

"You promised."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I paid my debt," you whispered.

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

He still hadn’t crossed the threshold.

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

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

He smiled, eyes flashing red again.

"You gave it, seven years ago."

Your breath hitched.

"I was a girl," you said.

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

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

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

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

Your heart thudded violently in your chest.

"I didn’t think you’d come."

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

And then—

He stepped back.

The wind stopped.

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

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

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

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

You’d made a promise.

And he was here to keep it.

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

You didn’t move.

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

It came in the shape of him.

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

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

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

He didn’t have to.

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

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

You passed the mirror in the hallway and paused.

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

No bite.

Not yet.

But you swore you could feel phantom teeth.

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

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

He didn’t look at you right away.

Then, slowly, he did.

Red eyes caught yours.

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

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

"I should have," you answered.

"But you didn’t."

His voice curled into the quiet.

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

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

His shoulder brushed yours.

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

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

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

"Since before you knew to look."

"Why now?"

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

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

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

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

The house was too quiet.

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

Just stillness.

And scent.

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

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

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

But something had changed.

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

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

You opened the front door.

The porch was empty.

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

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

You picked it up with trembling hands.

Come.

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

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

It belonged to him.

And now…so did you.

You didn’t bring anything with you.

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

Just yourself.

And the road.

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

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

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

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

And then you saw it.

The house.

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

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

He’d brought you here.

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

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

You didn’t run.

Your bare foot found the first step.

It groaned like it recognized you.

The door was already open.

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

And you stepped inside.

The air inside was colder.

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

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

But it had been kept.

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

He hadn’t lit any lamps.

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

You swallowed, lips dry, and stepped further in.

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

Remmick was nowhere in sight.

But he was here.

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

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

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

A whisper of air moved behind you.

Then—

A hand.

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

You froze.

He was behind you.

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

His voice was low, close to your ear.

"You came."

You didn’t answer.

"You always would have."

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

Maybe that was why he smiled.

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

He looked at you like he was already undressing you.

Not your clothes—your will.

And it was already unraveling.

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

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

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

He spoke like something older than it.

Older than the country. Maybe older than God.

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

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

He studied you for a long time.

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

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

Your breath caught.

"You knew her?"

A soft smirk curled at the corner of his mouth.

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

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

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

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

Some said they aged. Slowly. Elegantly.

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

You didn’t know how old Remmick was.

But something in your bones told you the truth.

Five hundred. Six hundred, maybe more.

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

And you’d given him both.

He stepped closer now, slow and deliberate.

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

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

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

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

"Then what do you want?"

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You."

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

You swallowed hard.

"Why me?"

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

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

Your throat tightened.

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

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

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

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

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

Not a question. A statement.

You didn’t answer.

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

"You dream of me, don’t you?"

Your hands trembled at your sides.

"I don’t—"

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

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

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

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

He could’ve taken.

He didn’t.

Not yet.

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

"Say it," he murmured.

Your lips parted, but nothing came.

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

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

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

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

"Because I do."

"That’s not fair."

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

"No, dove. It ain’t."

You hated him.

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

He looked like sin and the sermon that came after.

Remmick moved closer. You didn’t retreat.

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

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

"You saved my brother."

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

A shiver rippled down your spine.

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

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

His eyes flicked to yours, unreadable.

"I’ll wait."

You weren’t expecting that.

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

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

"You think I will?"

"You already have."

Your chest rose sharply, breath stung with heat.

"You think this is love?"

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

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

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

Your knees buckled, barely.

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

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

And God help you—

You wanted him to.

The house didn’t sleep.

Not the way houses were meant to.

It breathed.

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

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

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

Him.

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

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

But he never came.

And somehow, that was worse.

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

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

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

You followed it.

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

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

You knew he had.

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

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

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

He turned.

God help you.

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

"Sleep alright?" he asked.

You gave a small nod.

He looked at you a moment longer. Then—

"Sit down, dove."

You moved toward the table.

His voice followed you, lazy but pointed.

"That’s the wrong chair."

You paused.

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

"That one’s yours now."

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

He brought the plate to you himself.

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

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

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

You picked up the fork.

His eyes stayed on your mouth.

The cornbread was still warm.

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

You brought the first bite to your mouth, slow.

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

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

But you swallowed.

And he smiled.

"Good girl," he murmured.

You froze. The fork paused just above the plate.

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

"Why not?"

Your fingers tightened around the handle.

"Because it sounds like you earned it."

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

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

You looked up sharply, heat crawling up your neck.

"You shouldn’t have touched me."

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

Your breath caught.

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

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

You pushed the plate away.

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

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

You glanced around the kitchen, suddenly uneasy.

"You talk about it like it’s alive."

He gave a slow nod.

"It is. In a way."

"How?"

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

"You’ll see."

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

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

Not hard. Not even firm. Just…inevitable.

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

You nodded.

His eyes darkened.

"Then I’ll have my taste next."

Your breath lodged sharp in your throat.

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

He was done pretending.

You didn’t move. Not right away.

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

You swallowed hard.

"You said you didn’t want blood."

"I don’t."

"Then what do you want?"

"You."

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

And what terrified you was this—

You didn’t want to run.

You wanted to know how it would feel.

To give something he couldn’t take without permission.

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

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

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

"You do."

"What do you smell like?"

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

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

You shivered.

"And still I want you," you breathed.

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

"That’s the worst part, ain’t it?"

You didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

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

He guided you up from the chair.

Didn’t yank. Didn’t drag.

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

"Come with me," he said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere I can kneel."

Your heart stuttered.

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

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

Inside, the room was dark.

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

A ritual.

Not violent.

Intimate.

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

"Sit," he said.

You sat.

He knelt.

And then his hands found your knees.

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

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

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

"Yer too quiet," he murmured.

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

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

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

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

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

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

Your lungs stuttered.

His lips trailed higher.

Another kiss.

Then another.

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

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

You shook your head.

He smiled like he already knew the answer.

"Good. Let me be the first."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t stop.

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

And all the while, he watched you.

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

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

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

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

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

You whined. Desperate.

He smirked against your cunt.

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

Your lips barely formed the word—"Please."

He hummed in approval.

Then he devoured you.

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

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

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

And when it hit—

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

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

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

Then, finally—finally—he pulled back.

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

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

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

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

Remmick still knelt.

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

He looked drunk on you.

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

He beat you to it.

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

You didn’t answer.

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

You watched, breath held tight in your chest.

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

He stopped in front of you.

Tilted his head slightly.

"How’s yer heart?"

You blinked.

"It’s…fast," you whispered.

He smiled slow. Not mocking. Not soft either.

"Good. I want it fast."

Your throat tightened.

"Why?"

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

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

Your breath caught somewhere between your ribs.

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

You swallowed.

"You said you’d wait," you whispered.

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

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

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

You lifted your chin, barely.

"I’m not scared."

He chuckled low, and it rumbled through your bones.

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

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

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

You shivered.

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

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

Your fingers twisted in your lap.

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

He smiled against your skin.

"Will it feel good?"

You said nothing.

"You already know."

You did.

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

You nodded once.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

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

"That’s my girl," he breathed.

And then he bit.

It wasn’t pain.

It was pressure, first.

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

You gasped.

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

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

The pull came next.

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

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

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

Your head tipped further, offering him more.

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

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

Your moan was breathless.

"Remmick—"

He shushed you, mouth never leaving your throat.

"Don’t speak, dove. Just feel."

And you did.

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

It was too much. It was not enough.

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

Like he hadn’t fed on you.

Like he’d prayed.

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

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

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

He looked undone.

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

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

You nodded, though your limbs still trembled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You stared at him.

"You mean for you?"

He shook his head once.

"For us."

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

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

"Will it heal?"

"Eventually."

"Do you want it to?"

His mouth curved, slow and wicked.

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

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

Not soft.

Not careful.

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

You tasted your own blood on his tongue.

And it tasted like forever.

The house knew.

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

As a belonging.

Remmick hadn’t let you go.

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

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

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

You didn’t argue. You couldn’t.

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

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

You didn’t ask.

He didn’t explain.

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

It wasn’t grand.

It was personal.

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

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

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

Your breath stilled.

"I thought it was the blood."

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

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

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

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

The words landed like a stone in still water.

They rippled outward. Slow. Wide. Deep.

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

Only his voice.

Only your blood between his teeth.

"What…what was she like?" you asked.

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

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

He exhaled through his nose, slow.

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

Your brows pulled.

"What happened to her?"

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

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

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

"Remmick—"

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

You froze.

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

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

You whispered against the curl of his mouth.

"And what do you think I am?"

He kissed the hinge of your jaw.

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

You shivered.

"You said you saved me."

He nodded.

"I did."

"Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He leaned into your hand, eyes half-lidded.

"You’re becomin’ mine."

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

When he pulled back, your breath followed him.

The room shifted.

You felt it. Like the house had exhaled too.

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

You obeyed.

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

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

It was to be taken.

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

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

He didn’t have to.

His body said it.

His mouth said it.

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

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

That red glow was dimmer now. No less powerful, but softened by something raw. Something reverent.

Not hunger.

Not lust.

Not even possession.

Devotion.

The kind that didn’t speak. The kind that buried itself in the bones and never left.

His hand slid down the side of your face, tracing the curve of your cheek, then the line of your jaw, calloused fingers lingering in the hollow of your throat where your heartbeat thudded wild and uneven.

"Still fast," he murmured, half to himself.

"You’re heavy," you whispered, not in protest, but in awe. Every breath you took was filled with him.

He smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching in that crooked, wicked way of his.

"Ain’t even layin’ on you yet."

You didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. Your body was stretched too tight, strung out with anticipation and need. Every inch of you burned.

He leaned down then, not to kiss you, but to breathe you in. His nose skimmed your cheek, the edge of your ear, the curve of your throat already marked by his bite. His hands traced your ribs, the sides of your waist, slow and steady, like he was trying to learn you by touch alone.

"You’re shakin'," he whispered, voice low, thick with something close to worship.

"So are you."

A pause.

Then softer—truthfully,

"Yeah."

He kissed the inside of your wrist, then the space between your breasts, then lower still—his lips reverent as they moved over your belly, your hipbone, the softest parts of you.

"You ever had someone take their time with you?" he asked, mouth against your skin.

You didn’t speak.

"Didn’t think so," he muttered. "Shame."

His hand slid between your thighs, spreading you again—not rushed, not greedy, just gentle. Like he knew he’d already had the taste of you and now he wanted the feel.

"Tell me if it’s too much," he said.

"It already is."

He looked up at you then, his face half-shadowed, half-lit, and something flickered in his eyes.

"Good."

His cock brushed against your entrance, hot and heavy, and you nearly arched off the bed at the first contact. Not even inside. Just there. Teasing. Pressed to the slick mess he'd made of you earlier with his mouth.

He groaned deep.

"Fuck, you feel like sin."

You reached for him, pulled him down by the back of his neck until your mouths were inches apart.

"Then sin with me."

He didn’t hesitate.

He began to press in—slow. Devastatingly slow. The head of his cock stretching you open with a care that felt like madness. His hands gripped your hips as if holding himself back took more strength than killing ever had.

He moved in inch by inch, his breath hitched, jaw tight, sweat beginning to bead at his temple.

"Shit—ya takin’ me so good, dove. Just like that."

You moaned. Your fingers dug into his back. You were full of him and not even halfway there.

"Remmick—"

"I gotcha," he whispered. "Ain’t gonna let you break."

But he was already breaking you. Gently. Thoroughly. Beautifully.

He filled you like he’d been made for the task.

No sharp thrusts. No hurried rhythm. Just the unbearable slowness of it. The stretch. The burn. The drag of his cock as he sank deeper, deeper, deeper into you until there was nothing left untouched. Until your body stopped bracing and started opening.

You clung to him—hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt that still clung to his back, damp with sweat. He hadn’t even undressed all the way. There was something obscene about it, something holy, too—the way he kept his shirt on like this wasn’t about bareness, it was about belonging.

"That’s it," he rasped against your throat. "There she is."

Your moan was caught between breath and prayer.

He buried himself to the hilt.

And still—he didn’t move.

His hips pressed flush to yours, his breath shaky against your skin as he held himself there, nestled so deep inside you it felt like you’d never known emptiness before now. Like everything that came before this moment had just been the ache of waiting to be filled.

"You feel that?" he whispered, voice thick, almost reverent. "Where I am inside ya?"

You nodded. Couldn’t find your voice.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear.

"Ain’t no leavin’ now. I’ll always be in ya. Even when I ain’t."

You whimpered.

Not from pain. From how true it felt.

He moved then—barely. Just a slow roll of his hips, a gentle retreat and return. It was enough to make your breath hitch, your body arch, your legs wrap tighter around him without thinking.

"That’s right, dove. Let me in. Let me have it."

You didn’t even know what it was anymore.

Your body?

Your blood?

Your soul?

You’d already given them all.

And still, he took more.

But not cruelly.

Like a man kissing the mouth of a well after years of thirst. Like a thief who knew how to make you feel grateful for the stealing.

He found a rhythm that made the air vanish from your lungs.

Slow. Deep. Measured. His hips grinding just right, dragging his cock against every place inside you that had never known such touch. Every stroke sang with heat. Every breath he took turned your name into something more than a sound.

"Fuck, I could stay in you forever," he groaned. "Like this. Warm. Tight. Mine."

You dug your nails into his shoulders, legs trembling.

"Please," you whispered, though you didn’t know what you were asking for.

He did.

"Beg me," he said, dragging his mouth down your neck, over the bite he’d left. "Beg me to make you come with my cock in you."

"Remmick—"

"Say it."

You were already gone. Already shaking. Already his.

"Make me come," you breathed. "Please—God, please—"

His smile was sinful.

And then he fucked you.

His rhythm shifted—no longer slow, no longer sacred.

It was worship in the way fire worships a forest. The kind that devours. The kind that remakes.

Remmick braced a hand behind your thigh, hitching your leg higher as he thrust harder, deeper, dragging guttural sounds from his chest that you felt before you heard. The bed groaned beneath you, iron frame clanging soft against the wall in time with his hips. But it was your body that made the noise that filled the room—the gasps, the breaking sighs, the high whimper of his name torn raw from your throat.

He kissed your jaw, your collarbone, your shoulder, not like he was trying to be sweet but like he needed to taste every inch he claimed.

"You feel me in your belly yet?" he growled, words hot against your skin.

You nodded frantically, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from the sheer force of sensation.

"Say it," he panted, each thrust brutal and beautiful.

"Yes—yes, I feel you, Remmick, I—"

"You gonna come f’r me like a good girl?"

"Yes."

"Say my fuckin’ name when you do."

His hand slid between your bodies, finding your clit like he’d owned it in another life, and the moment his fingers circled that aching bundle of nerves, your vision went white.

Your body seized around him.

The sound you made was raw, wrecked, something no one but him should ever hear.

He kept fucking you through it, hissing curses through his teeth, chasing his own high with the rhythm of a man who’d waited centuries for the perfect fit.

And then he broke.

With your name groaned low and reverent in your ear, he came deep inside you, hips stuttering, breath ragged, body shuddering with the force of it. You felt every throb of his cock inside you, every spill of heat, every ounce of him taking root.

For a long, suspended moment, he didn’t move.

Only the sound of your breaths tangled together.

Your sweat mixing.

Your bodies still joined.

"That’s it," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his forehead to yours. "That’s how I know you’re mine."

The house exhaled around you.

The candle sputtered in its jar, flame dancing low and crooked, like even it had been made breathless by what it had witnessed. Somewhere in the walls, the wood groaned—settling. Sighing. Accepting.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Your body was a temple razed and rebuilt in a single night, still pulsing with the memory of his mouth, his weight, the stretch of him inside you like a secret only your bones would remember. Every nerve hummed low and soft beneath your skin, like your blood hadn’t figured out how to move without his rhythm guiding it.

Remmick stayed inside you.

His body was heavy atop yours, but not crushing. His head tucked into the curve of your neck, the same place he’d bitten, the same place he’d worshipped like it held some holy truth. His breath came slow and ragged, the rise and fall of his chest matching yours as if your lungs had struck the same pace without meaning to.

"Don’t move yet," he muttered, voice wrecked and hoarse. "Wanna stay here just a minute longer."

You let your hand drift through his hair, damp with sweat, curls sticking to his forehead. You carded through them lazily, mind blank, heart full.

He pressed a kiss to your throat. Then another, just above your collarbone.

"You still with me?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded.

"Good," he murmured. "Didn’t mean to fuck the soul outta ya. Just…couldn’t help it."

You let out the softest laugh, and he smiled into your skin.

His hand slid down your side, tracing the curve of your waist, your hip, the spot where your thigh met his. His fingers moved slowly, not with lust, but with a kind of quiet awe.

"Y’know what you feel like?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Home."

The word struck something inside you. Something tender. Something deep.

He lifted his head then, just enough to look down at you. His eyes had faded from red to something darker, something richer—garnet in low light. The kind of color only seen in blood and wine and promises too old to be remembered by name.

"You still think this is just hunger?" he asked.

You blinked at him, dazed.

"It was never just hunger," he said. "Not with you."

The silence between you was warm now.

Not empty. Not tense. Just quiet, the kind that comes after thunder, when the storm’s rolled through and the trees are still deciding whether to stand or kneel.

You felt it in your limbs—heavy, humming, holy. The afterglow of something you didn’t have language for.

Remmick hadn’t moved far.

He still blanketed your body like a second skin, one arm braced beneath your shoulders, the other tracing idle shapes across your hip as if he were still mapping the terrain of you. His cock, softening but still nestled inside, pulsed faintly with the last of what he’d given you.

And he had given you something. Not just release. Not just blood. Something older. Something that whispered now in the place between your ribs.

You turned your head to look at him.

His gaze was already on you.

"What happens now?" you asked, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he ran the back of his fingers along your cheekbone, down the side of your neck, pausing over the place where his mark had already begun to bruise.

"You askin’ what happens tonight," he murmured, "or what happens after?"

You blinked slowly. "Both."

He let out a breath through his nose, the sound tired but not cold.

"Tonight, I’ll hold you. Long as you’ll let me. Won’t leave this bed unless you beg me to. Might even make ya cry again, if you keep lookin’ at me like that."

You flushed, and he smiled.

"As for after…"

He looked past you then, toward the ceiling, like the truth was written in the beams.

"Ain’t never planned that far. Not with anyone. Just fed. Fucked. Moved on."

"But not with me."

His eyes snapped back to yours. Serious now.

"No, dove. Not with you."

You swallowed the knot rising in your throat.

"Why?"

His jaw flexed, tongue darting briefly across his lower lip before he answered.

"‘Cause I been alone too long. Lived too long. Thought I was too far gone to want anythin’ that didn’t bleed beneath me."

He leaned closer, forehead resting against yours, his next words no louder than a ghost’s sigh.

"But you—you made me want somethin’ tender. Somethin’ breakable."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"Don’t gotta. Nothin’ about you ever has. And yet here you are."

You let your eyes drift shut, just for a moment, and whispered into the stillness between your mouths.

"So I stay?"

He didn’t hesitate.

"You stay."

The candle had burned low.

Its glow flickered long shadows across the walls—your bodies painted in gold and blood-tinged bronze, limbs tangled in sheets that still clung with sweat and want. The house had quieted again, the way an animal settles when it knows its master is content. Outside, the wind threaded through the trees in soft moans, like the Delta herself was eavesdropping.

Neither of you spoke for a while. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers traced lazy patterns across Remmick’s chest—over his scars, the slope of muscle, the faint rise and fall beneath your palm. You still half-expected no heartbeat, but it was there, slow and stubborn, like he’d stolen it back just for you.

He watched you. One arm draped across your waist, his thumb stroking your bare back like you might fade if he stopped.

"You still ain’t askin’ the question you really wanna ask," he said, voice rough from silence and sleep.

You paused.

"What question is that?"

He tipped his head toward you, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"You wanna know if I turned you."

Your heart gave a traitorous flutter.

"And did you?"

He shook his head.

"Nah. Not yet."

"Why not?"

His fingers stilled. Then resumed.

"’Cause you ain’t asked me to."

You looked up at him sharply.

"Would you?"

A long beat passed. Then he nodded once.

"If it was you askin’. If it was real."

Your breath caught.

"And if I don’t?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Then I’ll stay with you. ‘Til you’re old. ‘Til your hands shake and your bones ache and your eyes stop lookin’ at me like I’m the only thing that ever made you feel alive."

Your throat tightened.

"That sounds awful."

He smiled, slow and aching.

"It sounds human."

You looked at him for a long time. At the man who had killed, who had bled you, who had tasted every part of you—body and soul—and still asked nothing unless you gave it.

"Would it hurt?"

His hand slid up, fingers curling beneath your jaw, tilting your face to his.

"It’d hurt," he said. "But not more than bein’ without you would."

The quiet stretched long and low.

His words hung in the space between your mouths like smoke—something sweet and terrible, something tasted before it was fully breathed in.

Your chest rose and fell against his slowly, and for a long time, you said nothing. You just listened. To the house settling around you. To the wind curling past the windows. To the steady thrum of blood still echoing faintly in your ears.

And beneath it all—

You heard memory.

It came soft at first. A shape, not a sound. The slick thud of your knees hitting the alley pavement. The scream you didn’t recognize as your own. Your brother’s blood, warm and fast, pumping between your fingers like water from a broken pipe. His mouth slack. His eyes wide.

You remembered screaming to the sky. Not to God.

Just up.

Because you knew He’d stopped listening.

And then—

He came.

Out of nothing. Out of dark.

You remembered the slow scrape of his boots on the gravel. The silhouette of him under the weak yellow glow of a flickering streetlamp. You remembered the quiet way he spoke.

"You want him to live?"

You didn’t answer with words. You just nodded, crying so hard you couldn’t breathe. And he’d knelt—right there in the blood—and laid his hand flat against your brother’s chest.

You never saw what he did. Only saw your brother’s eyes flutter. Only heard his breath return, sudden and wet.

And then he looked at you.

Not your brother.

Remmick.

He looked at you like he’d already taken something.

And he had.

Now, years later, lying in the hush of his house, your body still joined to his, you could still feel that moment thrumming beneath your skin. The moment when everything shifted. When your life became borrowed.

You looked up at him now, breathing steady, lips parted like a prayer just barely forming.

"I’ve already given you everything."

He shook his head.

"Not this."

He pressed two fingers to your chest, right over your heart.

"This is still yours."

"And you want it?"

He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away.

"I want it to keep beatin’. Forever. With mine."

You stared at him.

You thought about that alley. About your brother’s eyes opening again.

About how no one else came.

And you made your choice.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

"Don’t say it unless you mean it, dove."

"I do."

His voice was barely more than a breath.

"You sure?"

You reached up, touched his face, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw.

"I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life."

His eyes shimmered—deep red now, alive with something wild and tender.

"Then I’ll make you eternal," he whispered. "And I’ll never let the world take you from me."

He didn’t rush.

Not now. Not with this.

Remmick looked at you like you were something rare—something holy—like he couldn’t believe you’d said it, even as your voice still echoed between the walls.

Then he moved.

Not with hunger. Not with heat.

With purpose.

He sat up, kneeling beside you on the bed, and pulled the sheet slowly down your body. His eyes drank you in again, but this time there was no heat in them. Just reverence. As if you were the altar, and he the sinner who’d finally been granted absolution.

"You sure you want this?" he asked one last time, voice soft, like the hush of water in a cathedral.

You nodded, throat tight.

"I want forever."

His jaw clenched. A tremble passed through him like he’d heard those words in another life and lost them before they were ever his.

He leaned down.

His hand cupped the back of your head, the other settled flat on your chest, palm over your heart.

"Close your eyes, dove."

You did.

And then—

You felt him.

His breath. His lips. The soft, cool press of his mouth against your neck. But he didn’t bite.

Not yet.

He kissed the mark he’d already left. Then higher. Then lower. Slow. Measured. Your body melted beneath him, your hands curling into the sheets.

And then—

A whisper against your skin.

"I’ll be gentle. But you’ll remember this forever."

And he sank his fangs in.

It wasn’t like the first time.

It wasn’t lust.

It wasn’t climax.

It was rebirth.

Pain bloomed sharp and bright—but only for a heartbeat. Then the warmth flooded in. Then the cold. Then the ache. Your pulse stuttered once, then surged. It was like drowning and being pulled to the surface at once. Like everything you’d ever been burned away and something older moved in to take its place.

He held you as it happened.

Cradled you like something delicate.

His mouth sealed over the wound, drinking slow, but not to feed. To anchor you. To tether you to him.

You felt yourself go limp. The world turned strange. Light and dark bled into each other. Your breath faded. Your heartbeat fluttered like wings against glass.

And then—

It stopped.

Silence.

Stillness.

And in the space where your heart had once beat…

You heard his.

Then—

Your eyes opened.

The world looked different.

Sharper.

Brighter.

Every shadow deeper. Every color richer. The candlelight burned gold-red and alive. The scent of the night air was so thick it choked you—smoke, soil, blood, him.

Remmick hovered above you, lips stained crimson, breathing hard like he’d just returned from war.

And when he looked at you—

You saw yourself reflected in his eyes.

He smiled.

"Welcome home, darlin’."

#turns out vampire jack o’connell is my roman empire #the only plot here is what if a monster loved you too gently and then ruined you anyway“#yes he eats you out like it’s the last supper. no i will not be taking criticism at this time #sinners 2025 #sinners au #sinners fic #remmick #remmick x reader #sinners remmick #jack o'connell

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buckyseternaldoll · 29 days ago

Text

bad desire

this is the final story from my 707 followers' milestone event 💖

Pairing: WinterSoldier!Bucky x Civilian!Female!Reader

Summary: Hydra tried to turn you both into monsters. But even as the Winter Soldier, Bucky still chose you.

Disclaimers: 18+ (mdni!), explicit smut content, p in v (standing & bed positions), oral (m giving), light dubcon (serum influence), winter soldier mode, overstimulation, soft dom!bucky, recovery sex, emotional aftercare, post-Hydra escape, angst with resolution, semi-public surveillance

Word Count: 8.5k

Author's Note: As much as I love Winter Soldier, writing his smut scene is very challenging 🥹😭

Bucky escaped Hydra with Steve’s help—though “escape” wasn’t quite right. It felt more like a release. A bleeding, uncertain kind of freedom.

He vanished into a quiet Eastern European village, tucked between cold hills and roads long forgotten. Somewhere small. A place where the language felt foreign in his mouth, and the people kept to themselves. No tourists. No curious eyes. Just cobblestones, an aging clocktower, and silence.

It was perfect for him.

He rented a room above a bakery. Kept his head down. Never let anyone walk behind him. The locals didn’t pry, and he didn’t offer anything back.

But you noticed him.

He was tall, broad, always in the same dark jacket. He moved like someone studying life from the outside—trying to memorize the rhythm of it. Watched more than spoke. At the bakery, he never haggled—just nodded, paid in full, and left. Over time, he started greeting the baker. Murmured a stiff “thank you” like he’d practiced it. You even caught him trying to smile once. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, but the attempt was there.

At the market, he lingered. Watched people barter. Mirrored how they tapped scales or leaned in to laugh. He looked like he was trying to relearn how to be human.

He often came to the café where you worked part-time. A small, tucked-away place across from a crooked bench and flickering lamp post. That bench became his perch. He’d sit, stiff-backed, notebook in hand—too small for his fingers, but he wrote in it anyway. Not often. Just a few lines, then he’d tuck it away like it mattered.

You watched him from behind the counter. Pretending not to. But he stood out—quietly. Like a story you couldn’t quite read.

Once, you saw him flinch—actually flinch—at a fat green caterpillar crawling over a daisy by the café door. He took a full step back like it had hissed at him. You barely kept your laughter in. He took a full step back, like it had hissed. You barely kept your laughter in.

Another time, a stray cat jumped onto his bench. He just blinked at it, then scratched behind its ear like he wasn’t sure how. Two more joined. That evening, he walked in covered in cat fur.

You handed him his usual—black coffee. No sugar. No milk. But this time, you added a glazed donut beside it.

“On me,” you said softly. “You’re a regular now.”

He stilled. Shoulders tense, gaze sharp. Like he hadn’t planned for kindness.

You raised your hands gently. “No pressure. Just sugar.”

He hesitated, then gave a slow, reluctant nod.

And he ate the donut.

—

The next day, he was back on the bench again—early afternoon, sunlight brushing through the thinning trees. You brought his coffee out and hovered a little longer.

“Do you like cats?” you asked.

He didn’t answer. Just gave a tiny nod, almost imperceptible.

Your grin grew. You pulled out your phone. “Wanna see mine?”

You held up your phone—a photo of a chonky black cat sprawled across your kitchen table like a lazy prince, belly up, legs akimbo, mid-yawn. “That’s Noa,” you said, grinning. “I found him at night, back in Romania. So—Noa. From noapte (night). He only answers when he feels like it. Fat chonk gremlin thinks he’s royalty. Loves pumpkin purée more than tuna, for some reason.”

You chuckled softly to yourself, expecting silence again.

But then came his voice—quiet, deep.

“Noa. Suits him.”

You blinked. It caught you off guard—not just that he spoke, but the way his voice wrapped around the name. Calm. Unhurried.

You tilted your head, smirking. “You can actually talk?”

He huffed through his nose. A breathy, reluctant sound. But it was amused. The closest thing to a laugh you’d seen from him yet.

You’d take it.

—

A week later, he tapped the edge of the table when you brought his drink.

You raised a brow. “Want me to sit?”

He nodded, eyes still on his cup.

So you did.

You didn’t talk that first time. Just sat, close enough that your knees brushed beneath the table whenever one of you shifted. He didn’t flinch. That felt… like something.

It became a habit. Not always. But often enough that the seat across from him started feeling like yours.

One quiet day, after closing early, he was still there—scribbling in that little notebook. You sat down with your tea, watching him.

“I’ve seen the way you move through the village,” you said. “Like you’re learning. Studying how people work.”

He stilled, pen pausing mid-stroke.

“I think you’re trying to be more human. Or trying to remember how. If you ever need help… I’m good at pretending to be human.”

Still no reply. But he didn’t leave.

You leaned in slightly. “I swear on Noa, I’m a solid secret keeper. He’s the only one I tell things to. And unless he starts speaking, your secrets are safe with the cats.”

That did it.

A low chuckle escaped him. He shook his head, eyes down—and smiled.

It wasn’t wide. Not perfect.

But it was real.

Something pulled tight and warm in your chest. You smiled back, trying to play it cool while your heart scrambled.

—

You’d started seeing him outside the café more often.

Not exactly planned meetings—but they became frequent enough to feel like a habit. You’d catch him on your way home. Sometimes, he’d be waiting at the park bench with his notebook. Other times, you’d spot him loitering near the market until you finally walked up and dragged him into conversation.

You were the one insisting on it—on helping. And to his quiet credit, he let you.

“I mean,” you said one afternoon as the two of you strolled down a quiet lane just past the edge of the village, “you’ve gotten pretty damn good at talking, considering how you used to communicate in grunts and side-eye.”

He gave you a sharp glance, but there was warmth tucked into it. “Didn’t grunt.”

You snorted. “You did. I have witnesses.”

He shook his head, but you caught the curve of his mouth. He wasn’t quite smiling, but it was there, that pull—like he was getting used to the idea of letting something reach him.

“I’m serious, though,” you said, more gently now. “You’ve picked up on social cues really well. You don’t stare at people like they’re puzzles anymore. You even laugh sometimes.”

“I don’t laugh.”

“You chuckled when I told you Noa tried to eat my eyebrow pencil. That counts.”

He sighed. It wasn’t irritated. Just resigned.

You looked at him, eyes soft. “Anything else you want to work on? Anything you need practice with?”

That made him pause.

You both stopped walking, the dusty road quiet around you. The breeze shifted, carrying the smell of firewood and something herbal from a nearby window.

Then he said it—low and measured.

“Human touch.”

You turned to face him. “Touch?”

There was a silence between you, and in that moment, it held weight. Like a breath held too long.

“I forgot,” he said slowly, eyes not quite meeting yours. “What normal touches feel like.”

You felt something stutter in your chest. You wanted to ask more—about what he meant, about what kind of touches he did remember—but something in his voice told you not to. There was a darker layer beneath that calm tone, a history stitched into his skin, and you knew better than to tug at those seams without invitation.

Your gaze dropped for a second—to the gloved hand at his side. The right one.

That other arm—his left—was usually hidden, but sometimes you’d catch it glinting beneath his sleeve. Sleek metal, darker than silver, and forged with faint grooves along the knuckles. You’d never asked about it. Even though you were curious as hell.

Even now, it caught the light—a quiet shimmer beneath the worn fabric.

You took a slow breath. “Do you want to try?”

He blinked. “Try what?”

You lifted your hand, palm up. Open. Gentle.

“I mean… my hand’s not exactly groundbreaking,” you said with a light smile, trying to ease the sudden weight of the moment, “but if you want to… I dunno. Start small. No pressure.”

He stared at your hand.

For a second, you weren’t sure he’d move.

But then—without a word—he reached up and tugged the glove from his right hand. His flesh hand. The one that looked weathered but strong, broad-knuckled with veins that caught just beneath the skin. His fingers flexed once in the air, almost uncertainly, like they were trying to remember how to approach something.

He didn’t grab you. Didn’t squeeze.

Instead, he touched the center of your palm first. Just with the tips of two fingers. A featherlight stroke.

You didn’t flinch. Didn’t move.

He traced slowly. His forefinger curling against your skin, drawing a slow, shaky line toward the base of your thumb. His touch wasn’t smooth—it trembled, faintly. Like he was afraid he’d do it wrong. As if even this small contact required permission.

Then, after a pause, his entire hand lowered into yours—deliberate, careful. He fit his fingers into the spaces between yours, but not all the way. Just hovered there. Testing.

You let your fingers curl softly around his. Closed the gap.

His breath caught.

For a long, quiet moment, you stood like that. His hand warming against yours, every inch of skin-to-skin charged with something unspoken. And when he finally wrapped his hand fully around yours—gently, so gently—it felt like a tether. Like he was anchoring himself to something he couldn’t name.

You didn’t speak. Didn’t tease. You just let him hold you, because it felt like he needed it.

And when he looked down at your joined hands, eyes blinking slow, the smallest crease formed between his brows—confused, maybe. Or overwhelmed. Like he wasn’t sure what to do with softness that didn’t come with strings.

You squeezed lightly. Just once.

He didn’t let go.

And something about that… moved in you.

You weren’t sure what it was exactly—only that it lit something behind your ribs. Like an invisible string tugged its way from your palm to somewhere along your spine, curling low and quiet and warm. It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t wrong. But it made you feel… squirmy. Restless. Like there was something else happening beneath your skin that hadn’t been there a second ago.

You stayed still anyway. Let the moment stretch.

But he must have felt it—something shifting, or maybe just the timing of it all—because after a few more seconds, he slowly unhooked his fingers from yours and pulled his hand back. Carefully. Like he didn’t want to break something.

You didn’t say anything.

Neither did he.

But from that day on, the “touch training” became a regular part of your meetings.

It started innocently enough. A brush of shoulders while walking. The occasional graze of his knuckles when he passed you something. You let him explore the idea of safe contact—real, present, unprogrammed. And in turn, he let you see how deeply lonely he must have been to crave it in silence all this time.

Today, you told him you were ready for the next step. “We’ve done hands,” you said with a teasing smile, standing beneath the low branches of a pine tree that shaded your usual path. “Now let’s try hugs.”

He didn’t move at first.

Then—slowly—he nodded.

You took a breath. Arms out. Waiting.

He stepped forward, movements uncertain but controlled. His arms wrapped around you not like someone who had done it a thousand times, but like someone trying to replicate something from memory. Not tightly at first. Just enough to encircle you.

You stood there, letting the contact settle in. His chest was warm. Firm beneath your cheek. His breath slow against your hair. But then…

Something inside you curled.

It was that feeling again—that tight, electric buzz in your stomach. That low twist of pressure that felt… weird. Not in a bad way. Just… complicated. Your insides knotted, not from fear or nerves, but something else. Something unnamed.

He smelled like cedar soap and wood smoke. His heart beat slow. Heavy. Constant.

And then his arms shifted—pulling you in closer. Just slightly. But closer.

The hug deepened. Changed.

You weren’t sure how, but the second his body pressed more fully against yours, you felt it again: that same shiver in your chest, sliding low through your belly like something melting. Your breath caught. You didn’t understand it, not really. You didn’t even have a name for the feeling.

You didn’t know that was what want felt like.

You swallowed hard and buried it. Ignored it. Because he didn’t seem to notice anything strange.

At least, you didn’t think he did.

—

The last thing you remembered was the sound of his breath near your ear. His hand between your shoulder blades, steady and warm.

The next time you opened your eyes—he was gone.

You were no longer in his arms.

You were strapped to a chair.

Metal. Ice-cold. The kind that bit through your clothes and dug into your spine. Thick cuffs pressed around your wrists, holding you in place. Your ankles were bound, too—tight and immovable. The room around you was dark, echoing. Empty, except for the faint buzz of electricity overhead.

A single bulb swung slowly above you, the only source of light. It flickered once. Twice.

Your vision was still blurry. Mind fogged, sluggish. But your body knew something was wrong before your brain could catch up. Your head pulsed with pressure. And your arm—your right arm—ached.

You blinked downward, slow and heavy, catching the faint pinprick of dried blood at your inner elbow. A needle mark.

You’d been injected.

The panic didn’t hit all at once—it crept in slowly, like ice cracking beneath your skin. Your breath came shallow. You tried to move, to speak, to scream, but nothing useful came out. Just a hoarse breath. Dry. Weak.

And then you heard it.

Voices. Low and sharp. Coming from beyond the door.

Russian.

At least three men, maybe four, talking quickly—too quickly for your foggy brain to translate. The hinges of a metal door groaned. Then footsteps. Heavy boots. Closer. Echoing.

You tried to brace yourself.

But you couldn’t even remember how you got here.

All you knew was that a moment ago, you were in his arms.

And now… you were alone.

—

The door creaked open with a loud metallic groan, and four men stepped into the cell.

All in black. Boots heavy. Faces unreadable under buzzcuts and shadows. One of them—broad, smug, older—stepped forward like he owned the ground he walked on. The others fanned out like guards, or wolves waiting to be told when to bite.

He tilted his head. Eyes gleamed as he looked you over like you were inventory.

“Well, well,” he drawled. “Feeling better?”

You barely lifted your head. Everything ached—your skull, your arm, your gut. You tried to speak, but the words clung to your tongue like glue.

He didn’t wait for an answer.

“Got what we needed, thanks to you.”

You blinked at him, dazed and confused.

He grinned like a jackal. “Soft little village girl walks into his life, and boom—he forgets what he is.”

He crouched a little, closer to your face now. His breath reeked of blood and smoke.

“Our asset went soft,” he spat. “You made him soft.”

The word dripped with disgust.

You stared at him, blinking through the fog in your brain.

“Where is he?” you rasped. “What did you—where’s the man I was with?”

His grin widened. “Man?”

He laughed. Sharp and cruel. One of the others snorted behind him.

“That wasn’t a man, darling. That was a weapon. And now he’s exactly where he belongs.”

He rose to full height again. “Different cell. Alone. Like he should be. We’re reprogramming his brain.”

The blood in your veins turned to ice.

Hydra.

You didn’t even have to ask.

You knew exactly what they were—what that name meant, what it carried.

The older man smirked, noticing your change in expression. “Ah. Now it clicks.”

You felt sick. Your stomach turned. But still—you shook your head.

“No,” you said. “You’re wrong. He’s not like that anymore. He’s—”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” the man interrupted, lips curling with glee. “Winter Soldier. Ring any bells?”

You went still.

James.

The name slammed into your chest like a blunt weapon.

“And you,” he sneered, “got in the way. Made him weak. Turned him into a fucking puppy.”

You didn’t answer.

You couldn’t.

“We should’ve killed you,” he added, almost casually. “Collateral damage. But lucky you—we had something better.”

He gestured to your arm. “You’ve been injected.”

You glanced down, breath catching at the sting on your inner elbow. The tiny welt. The bruising.

“A gift,” he said, all false cheer. “We call it a mirror. Brings out the dark stuff. Whatever’s locked deep inside. Instinct. Want. Urge.”

He leaned down one last time, lips close to your ear.

“You’ll be placed in his cell when it’s time. Once he’s been… tuned.”

He straightened, already walking away.

“Let’s see what happens when we give the monster exactly what he wants.”

The men laughed—cold, barking sounds that echoed as they stepped out.

The door slammed shut behind them with a brutal, final thud.

—

[BUCKY POV]

The sting in his neck came first.

Then the cold.

Then nothing.

Just flashes.

Boots dragging him across concrete. Metal floors. Voices scraping through static—low, clipped, familiar.

Russian.

Fucking Hydra.

He came to strapped into a chair.

No. The chair.

The one they used when they wanted to rip you out of yourself and leave the bones behind.

Thick leather cuffs bit into his wrists. Ankles locked. Wires pressed cold and sharp against his chest. A band wrapped tight around his head, wired into the humming machine behind him. He didn’t have to turn to see it.

He knew it. Every screw. Every sound.

He could feel the current buzzing in the wires before it even touched him.

His jaw tensed. Shoulders squared.

Don’t show it. Don’t move. Don’t give them anything.

Then the door creaked open.

Three of them stepped in—uniformed, smug, smiling like they were about to unwrap a weapon, not a man.

“Back where you belong,” one sneered. “Didn’t take much, huh?”

The second laughed. “Too easy. Poor thing really thought he was human.”

The third passed by, tapping a syringe. “Relax. We’re not wasting the asset. Just giving him a little… reminder.”

Bucky stayed silent.

They didn’t expect a response. Not yet.

“We already dosed the girl,” one of them said, voice curling with amusement. “Desire-enhancer. She’ll be begging for him before the hour’s out.”

“And yours?” the last one smirked, fingers hovering over a switch. “We upgraded it. Stronger. With a twist.”

He flipped it.

The current hit like fire.

Bucky’s spine arched against the restraints. A choked sound tore from his throat as electricity ripped through him—nerve to nerve, bone to bone. Sparks blurred his vision. Static roared in his skull.

His name vanished.

His mind split.

But somewhere, buried in the white-hot haze—you.

Your laugh. Your voice. The softness of your hand in his. The way your eyes never flinched when they met his.

Hold onto that. Don’t lose her.

He tried. God, he tried.

But the machine clawed deeper. Pulling him apart from the inside. Ripping softness from his bones, kindness from his memory. Replacing it with silence. Precision. Directives etched where memory used to be.

When it finally stopped, his body sagged forward, gasping. Muscles trembling. Jaw clenched so tight he tasted blood.

But something was off.

He wasn’t gone.

Not all the way.

Not the Soldier. Not Bucky.

Something in between. Something worse.

The serum already pulsed in his blood, coiling around every raw edge. Every flicker of need. It sank claws into the parts of him that still felt.

And what he felt now—

Was you.

But not with love.

With hunger.

Every memory of your skin, your voice, your scent—it all shifted. No longer comfort.

Triggers.

He needed to hear your breath catch. Feel your body tense under his. Mark you until you knew he was there, even after he was gone.

To take.

To claim.

To never stop.

[END OF POV]

—

The door to your cell groaned open, flooding your ears with the shriek of rusted hinges.

You blinked against the sudden light, but it barely helped. Everything around you was still dark—your vision tunneled, your limbs heavy, your skin burning.

You barely registered the two guards entering.

Thick fingers undid the straps around your wrists and ankles. Cold hands hauled you up before you could find your own footing.

Your legs buckled once.

“Move,” one of them growled, dragging you out into the hall.

You stumbled forward, caught between their grips. The corridor was dim and narrow, stone underfoot, cold air brushing your fevered skin. You could hardly see—just outlines and flickers of shadows along the walls.

But none of it mattered.

Because you felt him.

Somewhere ahead. Close.

Your whole body throbbed with it. Like your nerves were no longer your own. All you could think—feel—was the need for him. Not the gentle kind. Not the kind with whispered touches and stolen glances.

You wanted him inside you.

You wanted him to tear you apart and put you back together with his hands, his mouth, his body.

It was a hunger that crawled under your skin and made you feel like you’d melt if you didn’t touch him soon.

The guards reached a door at the end of the hallway—wider, steel-reinforced. One of them punched in a code. The other turned the handle.

You shivered, your skin hypersensitive under the thin fabric of the knee-length dress you still wore—soft and light, now clinging slightly with sweat. It felt out of place here. Too exposed. Too easy to pull up. A whisper of softness in a place built to break you.

And then they shoved you in.

You stumbled again, caught your balance on instinct, heart hammering.

The room was bright.

Too bright. Walls blinding white. Sanitized. Cold and clean in a way that made your skin crawl.

There was a bed, bolted to the floor. A single chair in the corner. No windows. No shadows.

Cameras. You knew there were cameras. Probably hidden in the corners, blinking silently as they watched you unravel.

Your eyes adjusted—and then you saw him.

Bucky.

Only—he wasn’t quite Bucky anymore.

He stood near the back of the room, facing the opposite wall. Shoulders tense, spine straight, chest heaving beneath the thin black shirt that clung to every ridge of muscle. His metal arm gleamed under the overhead lights—exposed now, the red star dark against the metal.

He turned toward you.

And your breath caught in your throat.

His eyes.

Not soft. Not tired. Not like before.

They were darker. Sharper. Focused.

Predatory.

He looked at you like he already knew what you were feeling—because he felt it, too. Because he wanted it. Wanted you.

But not gently.

Not sweetly.

There was no careful Bucky here.

This was the Winter Soldier.

And he wanted to ruin you.

—

Your breath caught in your throat, your pulse thundering in your ears as you took one slow, trembling step forward.

“James…”

The name slipped out—quiet. Barely above a whisper.

His head tilted slightly at the sound of it. His eyes flicked toward you, nostrils flaring like a wild animal scenting prey. His shoulders rose with a slow inhale.

But he didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t move.

You swallowed hard, body tense, skin prickling as the serum’s grip twisted deeper in your belly. The heat was unbearable. Your thighs pressed together instinctively, trying to stop the ache, but it only pulsed harder. Your cunt throbbed, needy and swollen, aching for him—only him.

Still, you tried to stay in control.

“I want you,” you rasped, your voice hoarse with restraint. “God, I want you so bad it hurts—inside, everywhere—but I know it’s the serum. I know Hydra did this.”

He didn’t move. His jaw flexed.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” you continued, your voice cracking. “I never wanted this to happen like this. Not with you like this. I wanted—I wanted you—but not like this.”

He was still silent.

But something flickered in his eyes.

A shadow of the man you’d held before. The man who’d brushed his fingertips across your palm like it meant something. Who smiled when you talked about your cat. Who let you into his world one inch at a time.

That man was still there.

Barely.

And he was fighting.

But the desire was eating you alive.

“I’m trying to fight it,” you whispered, stepping back until your shoulders hit the wall. Your hands flattened behind you, bracing against cold white. “But I—fuck—I can’t. I’m so wet it hurts. I’ve been clenching around nothing thinking about you, and I hate it. I hate how badly I want you right now. I want you inside me. Filling me. Stretching me. Ruining me.”

His eyes darkened.

A crack formed in his stillness.

Then he growled something low under his breath—in Russian.

“Хватит говорить.”

Stop talking.

The words barely left his lips before he moved.

He lunged.

In less than a breath, his body crashed into yours, pinning you against the wall. The impact stole the air from your lungs. You gasped, but he was already on you—his metal hand seizing your wrist and slamming it above your head, hard and cold and unrelenting.

The other hand gripped your waist, lifting you slightly off the ground as his mouth crushed into yours.

It wasn’t a kiss.

It was a claim.

Teeth. Heat. Pressure. Desperation.

You tried to push him away—tried to gather what little control you had left—but it was useless. Your hands, your mouth, your body all betrayed you. Your hips rolled up against him like they had a mind of their own, your thighs shaking.

You moaned into his mouth, unable to stop yourself.

There was no softness in the way he kissed you.

It was all teeth and heat and panting breaths, mouths crashing over and over, no rhythm—just hunger. Every movement from him was brutal, precise, urgent. Like he was trying to rip the need out of himself and shove it into you.

Your body burned.

Your cunt clenched around nothing, soaking through your underwear.

The sound of your whimper made his grip tighten.

His metal arm held you like steel, unrelenting, fingertips bruising where they curled around your skin. You were pinned in place, completely at his mercy—and yet, all you could think about was how badly you wanted more.

Your free hand curled in his shirt, yanking him closer. Your legs lifted, wrapping around his hips as he held you pinned.

Your back hit the wall again with a thud as he ground against you—rough, hard, hot. His cock was already stiff beneath his pants, pressing against the curve of your cunt, and it made you cry out—the contact was too much, not enough, everything and nothing at once.

His mouth tore away from yours, lips red and wet, breath ragged.

You barely heard the static click of the camera in the corner behind you.

Hydra was watching.

And they were delighted.

The serum wasn’t meant to end in one round.

It was designed to feed itself.

To keep you both burning.

To keep you needing until you were hollowed out.

Even if it killed you.

And right now, with Bucky’s mouth on your throat, his hand tearing at your clothes, and your body already grinding down against him—

You weren’t sure you’d live through it.

But God—you wanted to.

—

His mouth dragged lower, tongue hot against your collarbone, and then suddenly—

RIP.

Your dress split down the middle with one brutal yank—his metal arm tearing through the fabric like paper. The sound cracked through the room, echoing against the white walls.

You gasped, trembling, suddenly half-naked—left only in your soaked underwear and a thin, non-padded bra. The cold air met your feverish skin, and your nipples peaked instantly, painfully hard under the sudden exposure.

He saw them.

And groaned.

A low, guttural sound. Not desperate. Not hungry in the way a man would be. But programmed. Like a predator recognizing its target.

His mouth closed over your left nipple through the thin fabric—biting, sucking, dragging his teeth over it like he wanted to bruise you there. The stimulation made your knees buckle, but he didn’t let you fall.

His arm still held your wrist tight above your head, unrelenting, while his free hand gripped your waist to keep you still.

He was in control. Utterly. Entirely.

You squirmed, hips rolling forward, grinding against the solid length of his cock through his pants, your wet panties dragging along the ridge of it with every movement.

“Fuck,” you whimpered. “James.”

He didn’t blink.

Didn’t pant.

Didn’t tremble.

Not like you.

He was still—his eyes sharp, his mouth ruthless, his body composed like he wasn’t even breathing hard.

Because he wasn’t.

He was in Winter Soldier mode now.

And Winter Soldiers didn’t pant.

With a quick shift, his flesh hand reached behind you, unclasped your bra with a practiced jerk. The clasp snapped open, and he yanked it down your arms, tossing it to the floor without ever loosening his grip.

Then his hands—both of them—were on your breasts.

He squeezed hard.

Too hard.

You cried out at the pressure, but your cunt clenched in response. Slick coated the inside of your thighs, your underwear already soaked through, sticking to you like a second skin.

“James—James, please,” you gasped. “I need—I need you inside me, I need it, I can’t—”

Still no response.

Just that single flash of his eyes before his metal hand dropped down, hooking into the waistband of your underwear. He didn’t pull it down.

He tore it off.

The fabric snapped apart in his grip, and your gasp turned into a full moan.

Your thighs parted without thinking. Your hips bucked.

You were so fucking wet.

The air hit your pussy and made it worse—the heat, the slick, the hollow ache deep inside. You were clenching around nothing, sobbing through your teeth, begging like it was the only language left in your body.

“Please, please, please—James—fuck me—”

You barely had time to breathe.

You felt the heat of him between your legs—thick, hot, pulsing. Then came the sound of a zipper—fabric shifting just enough for him to free himself.

He didn’t undress. Just shoved his pants low enough to free his cock.

Thick. Veined. Angry-red and leaking.

You gasped. “Wait—”

But he wasn’t built to wait.

His metal hand gripped your hip, cold and unrelenting. His flesh hand slid under your thigh, hoisting your leg up and pinning it to his side.

Just one leg.

Just enough to open you.

And then—he drove forward.

No warning. No teasing. No care.

Just a brutal thrust that knocked the breath from your lungs and slammed your back into the wall.

You screamed.

The stretch lit your nerves on fire, forced your body to open around him—thick and hard and so deep it hurt. But the pain was nothing compared to the ache that came before it.

Now that he was inside you, your body clenched like it never wanted him to leave.

He pulled back, barely.

Then thrust in again.

Harder.

Faster.

He fucked you like he was trying to purge something from his bloodstream—his hips snapping forward with unrelenting force, again and again, every motion slamming you into the cold wall behind.

You weren’t just holding on—you were unraveling.

Your hands scrabbled at his shoulders, fingers digging in wherever they could find purchase. One leg hooked up high on his waist, the other shaking, barely able to hold you upright, but he didn’t falter.

The wet slap of skin echoed in the sterile white cell. Your moans cracked open and feral, your body shaking with every punishing stroke—and he?

He didn’t blink.

Didn’t groan. Didn’t pant.

He just fucked.

Mechanical. Precise. Feral.

The Winter Soldier wasn’t built to feel.

He was built to finish.

And that’s exactly what he intended to do.

—

He didn’t stop.

Not even when your spine slammed against the wall again, the shock rattling through your ribs.

Not when your lifted leg started to tremble, slipping a little against his side.

Not when your moans broke into gasps—ragged, breathless, barely hanging on.

He only growled—low and wordless—and wrapped his arms around you, metal and flesh, lifting you clean off the ground with a brutal grip.

You cried out as your back arched involuntarily, still so full of him.

He carried you—still inside you—across the room in a few fast, purposeful strides. His cock didn’t slip once. The stretch remained deep, unforgiving, dragging across every nerve inside you like it belonged there.

Then you hit the mattress.

Hard.

The springs squealed beneath your weight as he slammed into you again. No rhythm now—just sheer force. He was fucking like a machine with one directive: use. release. repeat.

Your eyes rolled back. You couldn’t breathe.

You didn’t even want to.

You were burning alive from the inside out and still you needed more.

But then—he stopped.

Pulled out.

You gasped from the loss, legs trembling, your cunt clenching around nothing.

“Flip,” he barked. The only word he’d said since entering you.

Your dazed mind barely registered the command, but your body obeyed—rolling over, knees digging into the mattress, arms braced, still shaking from the first onslaught.

You didn’t even get the chance to settle before he grabbed your hips—his metal hand gripping tight enough to bruise—and slammed into you again.

No warning. No patience.

You screamed into the mattress, forehead dropping forward, hands clawing at the sheets for something to hold onto.

He pounded into you from behind with no rhythm, just relentless depth—every thrust jarring your body forward, dragging a fresh moan from your throat.

It hurt.

It burned.

But God, you were so close.

So close you were choking on it, dizzy with it. Your body betrayed you completely, clenching, spiraling, seconds away—

But he didn’t let you come like that.

Not from behind.

Because the Winter Soldier wasn’t done with you yet.

He pulled out suddenly, flipping you over like a ragdoll—no tenderness, just force—and shoved himself back in with a violent thrust that made your hips lift off the bed.

Your mouth fell open in a silent scream as he slammed into you, now facing him.

His face was blank. Eyes wild. Breath controlled.

You, on the other hand—were falling apart.

He fucked you violently, brutally, each thrust harder than the last, hips crashing into yours like you were built to take it.

And you did.

You came hard.

So hard your body spasmed, your nails digging into his shoulders, your voice breaking apart on his name—“James—oh fuck—James—”—as you shattered beneath him.

You shook.

Convulsed.

Almost blacked out.

But he didn’t stop.

You tried to breathe, to beg for a pause, but your lungs wouldn’t cooperate and neither would he.

His thrusts grew even rougher—inhuman—and then with a sharp, guttural exhale, he came too.

You felt it.

Hot and thick, pumping inside you in waves.

But he didn’t stop moving.

He kept going.

His cock still hard, still twitching inside you, still thrusting, like his brain didn’t register release as a signal to stop.

You gasped, overwhelmed. Your hands scrambled for his chest—“wait, wait—”

But he didn’t hear you.

Didn’t want to hear you.

Your body convulsed again, overstimulated, throat hoarse from moaning and screaming and gasping for air like you were drowning beneath him.

It almost felt like you could die from it.

And only then—finally—he pulled out.

Leaving you empty, ruined, soaking in your own slick and his cum, your legs still spread, your chest heaving like you’d run for miles and your heart might never slow down again.

—

He wasn’t done.

Even after spilling inside you—after wringing you dry and watching you break—he still wasn’t done.

The Winter Soldier moved with a single, controlled motion, shifting downward along the bed, his metal hand still gripping your thigh, prying it open wider. You tried to close your legs, weak and trembling, but it was useless. He forced them apart like it was protocol. Like this was routine.

He dove between your legs without a word.

Not hungry.

Not greedy.

But driven.

Programmed.

His tongue dragged along your folds—slow, deliberate. Gathering everything. Your slick. His cum. All of it. He wanted it. Wanted to taste it. To keep stimulating you until you broke again. Until your body couldn’t take it anymore.

He licked deeper.

Sucked on your swollen clit until your legs kicked out on reflex, your throat catching on a sound you couldn’t even shape into a word.

Your hips bucked weakly. You tried to push at his shoulders, but he didn’t move.

He was a machine.

And you were his task.

He kept going—precise licks, tight suction, his tongue fucking into you like he had been ordered to memorize your body and extract your climax as efficiently as possible.

You were already so sensitive. So raw. You couldn’t even process the pleasure anymore—it felt like pain. Like lightning.

You sobbed out his name again. “James—please—”

Still nothing.

No reaction.

And then—

You came again.

Your body convulsed violently, back arching off the mattress, vision tunneling. Your voice cracked open around the moan, and this time, it wasn’t lust.

It was a cry for help.

“B-Bucky—!”

His name tore from your throat like a sob—like a plea from somewhere deeper than instinct.

And it stopped him cold.

His mouth froze. His grip loosened. The relentless pace, the way his tongue had been driving you toward the edge—all of it stopped in an instant.

You couldn’t breathe right. Your chest was heaving, every sob catching sharp under your ribs. One arm had gone slack beside you on the sheets. Your thighs trembled where they draped over his shoulders—still open, still shaking. Your back arched off the bed in aftershock, your cheek damp with tears you hadn’t realized were falling.

And then—he looked at you.

Really looked at you.

His head tilted slightly, like something wasn’t computing—like your voice had hit a frequency he couldn’t filter out. His eyes, still dark and storming, moved over you slowly. The marks on your hips. The red prints around your wrists. Your swollen lips. The way your body shook in his arms.

His gaze landed on your face last.

The tears.

The way you whispered his name again, softer this time.

“Bucky…”

A breath caught in his throat—different from the harsh, mechanical rhythm he’d been running on. This one was shallow. Fragile. Human.

And then—

Something cracked.

You saw it.

Like a wire snapped behind his eyes. His brows drew in sharply, lips parting, shoulders falling—not with discipline but with shock. The kind of shock that came with recognition.

The Soldier had no use for guilt.

But Bucky Barnes did.

He stepped back.

Stumbled.

Like his legs suddenly remembered how to give out.

“No—” he rasped, voice frayed and hoarse and unmistakably his. “No, no, shit—fuck—I didn’t—”

He looked down at his hands like they didn’t belong to him. One metal, one trembling. Covered in sweat, in your slick, in proof of everything he’d just done.

His breath hitched. “I’m sorry,” he whispered—raw and cracked open.

And when he reached for you this time—

It wasn’t to hold you down.

It was to hold you up.

—

He eased you up—gentle now. Hands soft under your arms, cradling your head as he slowly pulled you into a seated position. You gasped for air, your body shaking like a leaf, lungs still catching up to the storm he’d left in you.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, his voice shredded. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—I lost control. I didn’t know how to stop.”

Your head dropped into his chest. You were still trembling. Still clenching around nothing. Still throbbing for him.

But now… it was different.

Now it was safe.

Now it was him.

You felt his heartbeat under your cheek—fast, uneven, not cold or programmed, but human. Real.

“Bucky,” you rasped, barely a breath.

“I’m here,” he whispered, his fingers trembling as they tucked your hair behind your ear. “I’ve got you. I’m so fucking sorry—I’d never hurt you. I swear I’d never—” His voice broke. His mouth pressed into your temple, like he was trying to will the shame out of his body. “I’d rather die than touch you like that by choice.”

You exhaled shakily. Your palms pressed to his chest—warm, solid, familiar.

You nodded.

You believed him.

Because you were just… you.

Just a civilian.

And even with that serum still curling in your veins, you were never built to keep up with the machine he’d been forced to become. Not with the brutal rhythm. Not with the stamina. Not with the feral need he had been hijacked by.

You were still aching—still wrecked, still wanting—but now, what you needed more than anything…

Was a breath.

A pause.

A moment to live.

And for the first time in hours…

You had one.

—

Bucky sat at the edge of the bed—his dark shirt clinging to him, damp with sweat. His breath had evened out, but his shoulders stayed tense, like something inside him still hadn’t fully unclenched. He hadn’t stopped watching you—not since you said his name. Not since the Winter Soldier slipped back into the dark, and something human took its place.

He reached out, slow and unsure, brushing a knuckle along your jaw.

“Do you… need to stop?” he asked, voice low. Careful. Not cold. Not commanding.

Just a man trying to make sense of what was left.

You didn’t answer right away.

Your body was still shaking, legs drawn in now, curled close to your chest. You’d pulled the sheet around your hips at some point, but the sweat, the slick, the after of everything still clung to your skin.

And the ache between your legs hadn’t faded.

If anything—it pulsed deeper. Slower. But steady.

“Hydra’s watching,” he said, quieter now. “They’ll see I broke protocol. They’ll know I’m not… him.”

He swallowed hard. Shame flickered behind his eyes like a faultline.

“I shouldn’t have let it go that far. I shouldn’t have touched you like that—not with them watching. Not like I was still—” He cut himself off.

He reached for the shredded fabric of your dress, trying to drape it over you again.

“I’ll get us out,” he muttered, jaw tight. “I’ll rip through every one of them if I have to. I’ll make them pay for using you. For using me.”

But before he could stand, your fingers wrapped gently around his wrist.

Not to stop him.

Just… to hold him there.

“No,” you whispered, voice raw and dry. “I still need you.”

His brow furrowed, uncertain.

Your hand slid down—hesitant at first—then wrapped around him directly, where his cock rested heavy between his thighs.

He was half-hard. Already twitching back to life.

You stroked once.

Then again.

“I’m still aching,” you murmured. “Still burning from that serum. It hurts, Bucky.”

He flinched at the sound of his name.

“I know it’s wrong,” you continued, your palm moving slow and steady. “But it’s still inside me. It hasn’t worn off. You can help. You can stop the burn.”

His hand came down to catch yours—trying to still it, but not really pulling away. Just… pausing.

“Not like before,” you added, your voice quieter. More certain. “I don’t want the Winter Soldier.”

You shifted your knees apart, just enough to make the invitation unmistakable.

“I want you.”

His jaw locked.

He was still for a long second—then his hand eased around yours, guiding the stroke. His shoulders dropped, tension melting like ice under sunlight.

You were still looking up at him when he bent forward and pressed his lips to your forehead.

It was brief.

But it was him.

He didn’t move at first. Just sat there beside you—silent, tense. Like he was waiting for you to change your mind. Like he wouldn’t touch you unless you asked.

You reached out first.

Fingers curling gently around his wrist. Not to drag him close.

Just to let him know you hadn’t pulled away.

That you still wanted this.

Bucky looked at you—longer this time. Eyes searching. Then he gave a small nod, like he understood. Like he’d follow your pace, whatever it was.

He leaned in slowly, like every inch forward was a question.

Then his mouth met yours.

Not rough. Not rushed.

Just heat. Just lips. Just a man trying to ground himself in something real.

The kiss was soft, tentative. Testing the shape of trust between you. His tongue brushed yours carefully, tasting—not claiming. His hand slid to your side, fingertips brushing sweat-damp skin. He paused at your hip, his touch feather-light, almost unsure.

“Tell me if anything hurts,” he murmured against your lips, voice strained. “I need to know.”

You nodded, breath shaky.

“I will.”

He drew back just enough to look down at you—then shifted, lowering one hand from your side. His flesh palm found your breast, cupping it gently. You gasped as his thumb circled your nipple—slow, delicate, like he was memorizing the way your breath hitched for him.

Then he moved, steady and deliberate—propping himself up slightly on his metal arm while his other hand slipped between your bodies.

He wrapped his fingers around his cock—still slick, still heavy—and stroked it once, twice. Just enough to guide himself to your entrance.

You parted your legs.

Not in surrender.

In choice.

He hovered there, the head of his cock barely pressing into your folds. The heat between your bodies simmered. But he didn’t move. Not yet.

“Is this okay?” he asked, his voice low and tight. “Do you still want this?”

You met his eyes.

“Yes.”

That was all he needed.

He pressed in—carefully, inch by inch. Your breath hitched at the stretch, your body still tender and sore, but it wasn’t pain that bloomed in your chest now.

It was fullness.

Connection.

He exhaled through his nose, brow furrowing as your body clenched around him.

You whimpered when he hit too deep, too fast.

He stopped instantly. Eyes wide.

“Did I—?”

“No,” you whispered. “Just… slow.”

So he did.

He eased in fully, hips flush to yours, both of you stilling—your foreheads brushing, your breaths shaky. Letting the moment settle.

Letting it be real.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he whispered. “I didn’t want it to be like before.”

You shook your head, touching his shoulder.

“Just… stay with me.”

He rocked his hips—slow and deliberate. Nothing like before. Nothing like a weapon. Just heat and care. The rhythm built gently, each thrust a quiet apology, each movement asking instead of taking.

Your legs drew around his hips, locking him deeper.

The stretch no longer burned. It warmed. It ached in a way that felt right.

He adjusted his grip, bracing his legs before slowly sitting up—keeping you wrapped around him, keeping himself buried deep. You moved with him, your thighs tightening around his waist until you were straddling his lap, chest pressed to his. His hands slid up your back, steadying you as the new position settled in.

The new position made you gasp.

“Still okay?” he asked, voice barely holding steady.

You nodded, hips beginning to move on your own.

He let you take control.

You rode him slowly, finding a rhythm that made both your mouths fall open. Your hands flattened to his chest, your eyes fluttering shut as your body pulsed around him.

And when you came—it was soft, drawn out. A slow unraveling that started low in your spine and rippled outward, your breath catching, your voice shaking as you gasped his name.

“Bucky—Bucky—”

That was what broke him.

He came with a guttural sound, arms locking around your waist, his forehead pressed to your shoulder, groaning through clenched teeth as he emptied into you.

Then silence.

Just the sound of breath and heartbeat and the sharp edge of being alive.

Not owned.

Not broken.

Just alive.

—

Hydra didn’t miss it.

The climax. The soft moan of his name. The tenderness.

The serum was meant to create hunger that burned until it destroyed you.

Not… this.

Not love.

Not care.

Not healing.

Alarms didn’t blare, but you felt the tension in the air shift.

Somewhere behind those walls, someone flipped a switch. Surveillance feeds caught tenderness where violence was expected. And Hydra? They didn’t like malfunctions.

You barely had time to breathe before Bucky’s body tensed beneath you.

“They’re coming,” he said, voice low. Calm. Steady.

Different.

No longer cold. No longer detached.

Just… Bucky.

He adjusted his hold, lifting you gently off his lap. His hands moved with purpose now—grounded, clear. He peeled off his shirt and pulled it over your head, helping guide your arms through the sleeves. It wasn’t oversized, but it covered what needed to be hidden. Then he grabbed the torn remains of your dress from the floor, wrapping it like a makeshift skirt around your waist.

“You okay to move?” he asked, gaze locked to yours.

You nodded, heart pounding.

He stood, turned to the metal door—and with a single kick, it crashed open with a screech.

You flinched at the sound. He didn’t.

Hydra guards rushed in, shouting orders in Russian. Too late.

Bucky was faster than them all. Brutal, efficient. He didn’t kill them—but he made sure none of them would walk straight for a while. Every strike was calculated. No wasted motion. All precision.

And then he grabbed your hand.

“Stay close to me,” he said, glancing back. “Don’t stop running.”

You nodded again, breath shallow, legs unsteady but moving.

Together, you sprinted through the narrow corridors of the Hydra base. Red lights pulsed on the walls. Somewhere behind you, someone shouted his name—the wrong one.

“Soldat!”

But Bucky didn’t turn.

He didn’t flinch.

He ran.

You ran after him.

The metal halls gave way to concrete. Concrete to dirt. Dirt to pine needles and open sky.

When you both finally burst into the night, the forest swallowed you whole. The air was cold. Clean. Real.

You stumbled, and Bucky caught you before your knees hit the ground. Without a word, he swept you into his arms and ran deeper into the woods—his chest steady, breath even, grip unshakable.

And you?

You weren’t aching anymore.

You weren’t burning.

You were… full.

Filled with him. With air. With a strange new peace.

He wasn’t just a weapon.

Not anymore.

He was a man. A human being. One that had been taken apart and rebuilt—but still capable of love, tenderness, control.

He just needed someone to help him remember.

And maybe—just maybe—that someone was you.

#by elle.ᐟ #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fic #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes x fem reader #bucky x fem reader #queuedtie pie #mcu!bucky smut #mcu!bucky

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