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chamomiletealeaf · 2 days ago

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Omg???

you'd do anything to fuck your boss. (18+, ghost x f!secretary)

well, he's not technically your boss. you report to captain price, but he never fails to remind his boys that there's a pretty thing that sits outside of his office that can file their paperwork and take notes for them. he's always volunteering your services to them, and all you can do is cross your legs behind your desk and smile. even if you didn't want to do it, you would never tell your captain no.

except for him—not for your favorite.

lieutenant riley is exactly the sort of thing you would ruin your career for. closed-off. angry. matter-of-fact. he dealt with no bullshit, and he said whatever he wanted to; he did not care for how anyone perceived his opinions.

there is something comforting about someone that does not wear a false face. ghost is not creepy nor is he mean (not unless you're asking for it). he tells it to you as it is, and he doesn't reserve room for comfort nor ease. he doesn't care, and that's what makes him feel safe to you. there is nothing to discover. he has no secret to hide from you. there's something transparent that he keeps close to himself, and in that way, you can't keep your eyes off of him.

oh, well—he's also built like a fucking tank.

you think often about what you might have to do to get him to look at you. he's so massive; you find yourself in meetings, watching the way he takes up whatever side of the room he's in. the chair creaking as he sits down, straining to take his weight. the top of the doorway nearly skimming his head. the way he pins you to where you are just with a fixed glare.

fuck. he's hot. when his reports come across your desk, you even feel yourself squeezing your legs together at the way he writes—eloquently, with expansive vocabulary, a keen eye for detail and a penmanship that isn't written in fucking blue crayon (you'll never forgive johnny for that shit).

capable, confident, killing machine—holy fucking shit, will you just forget you're in my bed for one night? please, please, please, please—

for fuck's sake, how hard could it be? he's just a man; and men are all the same.

it's late when you knock on his door. he likes this little corner of the base; a room with four walls and one measly window, tucked in with just enough yellow light to keep him settled. when he opens the door, you can smell the cigarette he must've been smoking. he's dressed down because of the hour; just in the shirt under his jacket and dark jeans, mask just under his nose as he blows the remaining breath of smoke he was holding to the side.

"'s late," he mutters. you're supposed to be off-base by now. at home, back in civilian life, back with people of the real world and not amongst the ones that hide from it. he talks like he doesn't care you're even there; like he didn't even notice your wet eyes.

"i-i know," you whisper. "i-i need some help. no one else is...up."

you hold up your hand, which is shaking now. the side of your hand has been sliced open—an office accident, a paper cutter in the wrong position. there's blood dripping down the skin of your arm, soaking through the thin napkin you're trying to use as a makeshift bandage. ghost tilts his head, looking down at it, and he shakes his head when he sees it.

"clumsy girl."

you sit on his desk as he flips open a first aid kit. it's quiet here, no music, no men, just the sound of the outside and the rustle of plastic as ghost fishes out a clean bandage. he already helped you clean up the cut over the sink; nothing but soap and water, big hand scrubbing at the cut until he was satisfied it was clean.

he uses his teeth to tear open a new package, and you keep your eyes on his as he smooths it over your hand. he's not looking at you; he's focused on your hands, keeping you still, and when he finishes, he finally looks at you.

"thank you," you whisper. ghost doesn't move away. he doesn't want to; if he did, he would already be out of your space. you don't flinch when he reaches a hand up, a gloved hand wiping under your eye. when your lashes flutter, ghost's nostrils flare, tongue coming out to trace along his teeth. you smile, so demure, so soft.

you look sweet; and a man has to eat.

you squeak when he takes a blade out of his boot. you meet his eyes, mouth dropping open in a pant as he licks across the metal before using the tip of it to cut the button of your blouse. you look down, a whine leaving you as he pops each button off of your blouse with a flick of his blade. the buttons scatter across the floor, clattering, and then he's closer, stretching your thighs apart, pencil skirt riding up as he slides those gloved hands up your legs until it scrunches around your wide hips.

"i know wot y'r doin'," ghost mutters. his forehead presses to yours, and you lift your knees, trapping him between your legs as you lock your ankles behind him. "think i haven't seen ya?"

"mmm..."

"oooohhh, now y'wanna play stupid, tha' 'ow it's gonna be, yeah?"

you'll play dumb and dumber until the day you die if he fucks you like this every time. the items on his desk scatter as he lays you over it, arms knocking pens and papers over as his mouth fits against yours and your little (compared to his own) hands fumble with the zipper of his jeans to get him just naked enough. he's eating you, stealing your breath, tongue laving over your teeth and around your mouth until there's spit gathering under your chin. he'd be a good kisser if he wasn't so fucking nasty about it, but it means you taste the ash that clings to him, and somehow it's good—so fucking good, take it out, take it out, take it out—

"knew you'd be big," you babble, soft hand cupping under his cock. he cradles the back of your head, tip catching between your folds, and you can do nothing but arch your back as he puts two thumbs against your pussy and fits himself inside.

he is big, in a nasty, terrible way. he's big in the way that must've turned other girls off. he's big in the way that must've made them gag, made them hurt, made them decide it was all too much and left before they could get his cock properly wet, and for that, you're taking this as a challenge.

when he presses a gloved hand over your belly and feels for the tip of his cock, you know you have him.

locked and fucking loaded.

he lets your fingers under the mask. your nails scratch over his buzzed hair under the fabric, and you hum into his mouth as he grips the outside of your thigh and pulls you even closer to him.

it'll never be the same again. you'll never be normal, not with this thing hiding you under their shadow. you'll never want another man, you'll never look at him the same way, you'll never feel as full as you at this very moment underneath him with his cock rearranging your insides and forcing your toes to curl in the heels you're still wearing.

your eyes water just as much as your pussy. you're leaking from everywhere—tears on your cheeks, slick along his cock, sweat at the base of your spine, drool in his mouth. you take it like the clumsy girl you really must be. your legs are dangling around his hips, body following his lead because you don't know what to do with yourself with how good he makes you feel.

you bare your throat as he grinds his hips. as your head tips back, his teeth catch your jaw, and when his cock punches somewhere soft, you push your hips up against his to meet him halfway. your body react on autopilot, but ghost forces you where he wants you with a stiff hand and a condescending huff.

"tha' good, innit?"

yes. yes, it's that fucking good, yes, it's the best you'll ever have, yes, you're going to make an excuse every single night so you can end up right here, underneath him, anchored against him for nothing but your pleasure. you'll do anything to come back.

you come just before him. your legs are shaking, hanging off his arms, and he buries his face into your neck when you feel his cum hot inside of you.

he pulls out slowly, chin against his thick chest as he watches the knickers he never took off of you soaked through now. he pinches the fabric between his gloved hands, sliding them off of you. he's a nasty man, and you expect him to pocket them, but what you didn't expect was his tongue to fall out, and you definitely didn't expect to see him wad up the fabric and stick it right into his mouth.

he grins, maniacal, as he sucks with a fervor before spitting it back out into his waiting hand. when your legs start to close, your thighs rubbing together for stimulation, ghost grits his teeth and shakes his head.

"oi," he pushes your legs apart, stepping between them again. "not done with you."

no, maybe ghost isn't like other men.

he's hungrier. it'll take much more than that to feed him right.

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chamomiletealeaf · 3 days ago

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Me next! Me next! Either place is fine

It’s inevitable Ghosts ‘hands-on instruction’ ends this way ;)))

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chamomiletealeaf · 3 days ago

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Have u ever considered using Ai to expand ur blurbs? I love all the idea you put out, but they're so short!!

Id rather kill myself.

#same

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chamomiletealeaf · 6 days ago

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Dear god I need him to condescend me while he’s balls deep in me so bad

splinter [2]

ghost x f! reader. 4.5k words cw: none. 18+ mdni [masterlist]

your car breaks down in a snowstorm. a crude stranger takes you in from the cold.

If she was perturbed by his demand that she put on her beanie before she hopped out of his truck, whatever look she gave him when he suggested that he carry her to the door was ten-fold.

Not an offer he made to be a gentleman, was never in his nature to be one. Wasn’t about to lay his coat down over a puddle for her to step over. It was the pragmatic thing to do, he thought, because the girl was already teetering on the edge of early-phase hypothermia and there were no socks on under those slippers. Last thing he wanted was to have to strip off her wet clothes and stick her in front of the fire wrapped in blankets, because he was sure she’d kick up one hell of a fuss if he tried.

Her circumspect squint twisted into a gawk of disapproval once she had processed the offer, standing in front the garage’s open side door with her arms crossed like a crabby little girl.

“What? That’s — no, I’m fine, thank you.”

She had to yell it over the volume of the gale, whipping through the towering pines that surrounded his cabin and hammering against the open door, snow blowing in from the thick coating on the ground outside.

“Snow’s a foot deep,” he growled, and when she shook her head he scoffed irately. “Fuck’s sake. Fine. Move it then, snow’s getting’ in.”

She only chuffed, marching out into powder once he stepped aside to give her room — impeded immediately, because the ever-thickening layer of fresh snow reached her knees. Watching her try to wade through it might have made him laugh if his tempers weren’t so high.

It was genuinely a miracle he even managed to get the truck up the long driveway and into the garage, considering how deep the snow was already — and it was still growing deeper, the snowfall was so dense he could practically see it accumulating in inch-thick layers with every passing minute.

“C’mon,” he barked, planting a firm hand on her shoulder to nudge her forward the porch, guiding so that she didn’t hit the rocks and bushes hidden under the snow.

Smirked when she failed to conceal her chill from the ice filling up her Uggs, a bright squeak as the biting wind nipped at her cheeks. Not a long walk from the garage to the cabin, only ten-odd metres, but he had no interest in tending to frostbite if she was completely snowblown by the time she toppled through the front door; so he was not gentle.

“What about my stuff?” She moaned, as he jostled her up the porch steps until she was under shelter, and began punching his code into the lockbox by the door.

“Jesus, girl,” he grumbled, exasperated, almost snapping the lid off the box in his ferocity to open it, sheer frustration turning his hands into bear claws. “I’ll get your shit in a second. Getting you inside first.”

She was bouncing on her toes as he unlocked the door, already shivering and whimpering in the cold; her hair was covered in a sprinkling of snow, white flecks caught on her lashes and melting on her cheeks. Once he managed to unlock and open the door, he hooked an arm around the small of her back and unceremoniously hurled her inside.

Fucking dog started barking immediately, those ear-splitting husky yelps he let out whenever Simon came through the door; only exacerbated by the surprise arrival of a stranger. She squealed in fright, stumbling backwards until she fell against his torso — and that startled her even more, she chirped and bounced off him like a ball off a racket.

Couldn’t help but chuckle at her, as he reached around her and tousled the dog between the ears.

“Careful,” he sneered. “He’s aggressive.”

A joke. He was a well-trained pup but a miserable failure of a guard dog. He didn’t jump or mouth, just rested his chin expectantly on her belly and wagged his tail like a whip, panting like he had just run to the lake and back. Had clearly chosen a new favourite already.

“This’s Johnny.” He cleared his throat, because the name made his mouth dry to utter aloud; and only then did he realise he hadn’t spoken it in months. Only ever referred to the dog as boy. Shorter, simpler that way. Didn’t leave burns on its way out.

“Oh,” she bleated, once she had caught her breath, releasing it with a sheepish chuckle. Gave the blue-eyed husky a timid pat on the forehead. “Hi Johnny.”

He stepped around her, then, shutting the door behind him and heading towards the woodburner in the corner of the small sitting room. Added a few logs to the embers to get the fire going again, blowing on it until the pile glowed amber and a puff of ashes sprinkled over the stone tiles around the hearth.

“C’mere,” he ordered, as he shut the firebox door and twisted the wrought iron knob to seal it.

“Hm?” She hummed, distracted by the dog who lavished her in attention, and her expression was not nearly as dour than it had been not a minute earlier. Boy seemed to have that effect on everyone.

“Here,” he repeated, no give in his tone.

She meandered over without dispute, dog nailed to her hip and looking up at her expectantly. Kiss ass.

“Dark in here,” she remarked.

“Mh. I’ll start up the generator in a minute,” he said, dusting the slivers of wood off his palms and heading back towards the front door. “Warm yourself up.”

“Where are you going?” Her arms crossed, pup as attentive to his departure as she was.

Didn’t like that the concern in her question made his throat sting like he had swallowed something sharp.

“Unloading the truck,” he said.

First thing he did was start up the generator.

Needed a top up on diesel, but it started without issue thanks to the antigel, and through the sheets of snow he saw the lights flicker on through the bathroom window once he stepped out of the shed.

The blizzard was somehow worsening, though, and in the few steps from the toolshed to the garage he felt shards of ice form in the mucosa of his nostrils, skin of his cheeks threatening to blister in the cold — so he decided to unpack the truck proper in the morning. Anything perishable would be better preserved in the frigid air than his freezer, anyway. He took in the fuel cans, though, so the petrol wasn’t frozen by morning, and begrudgingly grabbed the girl’s enormous suitcase from the backseat. Weighed a damn tonne.

She stood uneasily in the corner of the sitting room as he lumbered back into the cabin, pushing shut the door with significant effort against the incursive gale and sealing it with a switch of the lock. He kicked the snow off his boots as the dog wandered up to him and gave him a welcoming sniff.

She watched him like he had committed some wrongdoing, rigid and white-knuckled, perched close enough to the fire to feel some of its warmth but not curled up like he’d hoped she’d be.

“What,” he grunted, shucking off his thick black jacket and hanging it from the hook by the door, the snow that had coated it dusting over the hardwood. There was a churlishness in his tone he didn’t intend to put there.

She only returned with a mutter, crossing her arms. “Nothing.”

“What’s the matter,” he repeated, impatient, as he walked in her direction. “Y’want a bite?”

She didn’t seem appreciative of the offer. “No thank you.”

“What do you want, then?”

He didn’t mean to snap like he did. Abrasive was an apt description of him upon reflection, because every word that came out of his mouth was acrid with irritation. He was irritated, though. He just lacked the ability or care to conceal it.

She only huffed like a child, turning to look into the woodburner instead of at him, as he came to a stop in front of her. She seemed to shrink when that close to him.

“Use your words, girl. Can’t be arsed with sulking.”

She gritted her teeth as she chewed on a response, still averting his gaze, pinching at the fabric of her hoodie as though some habit borne of discomfort. He was sure he was making her uncomfortable just by being in the same room as her, but that was something she’d just have to suck up or get used to.

“I’m just tired,” she mumbled.

He sucked his teeth. “Right. Well, couch is there if you want to sleep.”

Not the most appealing thing to sleep on, he’d admit. A two-person loveseat with wooden armrests and thin, overused cushions that had lost their spring after forty-odd years of exiled military asses sitting on them. Place was built in the eighties, he guessed, and half the furnishings were mummified remnants of the era.

Stiff shit for her, though. He could see her wrestling with it, eyes peeling away from the sapless couch to flit around the room, as if she might find a more comfortable alternative.

“There a problem?” He asked, amused at her hesitant expression when she met his eye. He’d have loved to tell her that her only other options were his bed or the dog bed. He was sure she’d have chosen the dog’s.

“No,” she shook her head.

Her belligerence did little to obfuscate how afraid she was. She was riddled with it, pre-programmed by a swollen amygdala to keep her still and chary as a trapped animal. It left him exasperated more than anything — because there was seemingly nothing he could say, nothing he knew to do to assuage her overwhelming distrust. Unlikely she would sleep a wink that night while in the cabin with him, and the last thing he wanted was for her to be sleep-deprived and crabby when the news of her inevitably extended stay was broken.

He wanted to tell her he wasn’t a bad man. He didn’t think he could say it with a straight face. Couldn’t convince himself, let alone the girl he dragged in out of the cold.

He let out a harried sigh and rubbed his brow with his thumb. “Scared I’ll do something, are you?”

Her glare pinned to him, and he could all but see the battle waging behind her forehead — deny politely or risk honesty. Asking her so bluntly was probably not the most couth way to go about it, and he she tightened up at the notion.

“I just—” She hesitated, squeezing her shoulders with the hands wrapped around herself. “I don’t really know you.”

He nodded, tilting his head in concession. Not quite a clear answer, but she confirmed it implicitly.

So he turned and went to the tall cabinet by the door, rummaged through the drawers within for a moment, before returning with his glock. Was never good at storing his firearms properly. It was fortunate she didn’t register what he was holding until he held it out for her to take, grasping it by the barrel, grip in her direction.

She gawked at it, horrified, and for a heartbeat he dreaded that he had made everything worse by presenting her with the very tool she feared he’d murder her with.

But she reached for it tentatively, fortunately understanding he intended to give it to her and not point it at her. Whispered what the fuck to herself as though forgetting she had spoken aloud. He found himself amused by how gingerly she took it from him, holding it like it was liable to jump from her grip or explode if she touched it wrong, eyes not parting from it for a second. Tiny hands made the thing look twice as big.

“Safety’s on,” he mumbled, turning the gun over in her palm to show her the switch, before flipping it. “Now it’s off.”

“This is… why would you—”

“S’yours,” he said dryly. “If I do something bad you can shoot me with it.”

“I — you — but I—” Short-circuiting, evidently, eyes darting from the pistol that suddenly looked more comfortable in her hand and back to him, her supposed captor.

“Won’t need to, though,” he said dismissively, giving the dog a pat on the side before he turned and wandered towards the narrow hallway. Dog was staying with her tonight, apparently, because he remained by her side instead of following him to his bedroom like he usually did. “Blankets are in the basket under the couch.”

“Where are you going?” She asked again, and he bit down on nothing.

“Bed.”

He anticipated silence, or some more whingeing, or perhaps even a bullet to the back of the head on his way out.

Instead, an apprehensive murmur. “Good night.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He responded with only a grunt.

His dreams were ugly.

Axes and lumbered logs, too wet and rotten to burn. Blood where it shouldn’t be, splashed over the stump, smeared on the throat of the axe grip, in the shape of his handprint. A futile effort to wash the red off his hands, and while the water ran rusty down the sink, the stains remained.

Only when they were rubbed raw, finally clean, did he find a splinter in his palm — tried to squeeze at it, pick it out with his fingernails, scratch off the flesh it was embedded in — he woke up with his fingernails burrowing into his hand, with sweat clammy on his neck and and his blankets kicked off.

The heater in his room had been humming all night, and the cabin was well insulated, so he had almost forgotten the extent of the snowstorm until he slipped off his bed and tugged open his plaid curtains.

White.

All he could see. For a moment he thought the snow might have been deep enough that it swallowed his entire house — instead it was more whiteout, thick cloud that obfuscated much of the horizon he was used to. The snowfall was lighter, though, and the wind had somewhat settled. The lodgepole pines that were once spindly and deep green were thick with a coating of fondant, branches drooping under the weight of the cover.

Hard luck for the wee girl on his couch.

He remembered she was there as he wandered out of his bedroom in his sweatpants, rubbing his eye with his palm and grunting huskily to clear his sleep-coated throat.

He could smell her. Only in the warmth did the faintest hint of her perfume fill the air, or perhaps her deodorant, even just the scent of her skin — utterly alien in the permanently dust- and tobacco-tainted air of his cabin.

She was, bafflingly, still asleep when he made it to the kitchen. He spotted her curled up on the scratchy woven rug on the floor, a stolen sofa cushion under her head and two woollen blankets pulled up to her cheeks. The fire had gone out overnight, and she and the dog were as close as possible to the hearth without sleeping on the stone surround. Dog must love her already, squished up behind her with his chin resting in the hollow of her waist. That, or, she was a good source of warmth.

The couch must have been that uncomfortable. Couldn’t bear it for even a single night, princess and her damn pea. He wondered if he’d be able to find her an alternative for the next few nights she’d be stuck with him, but he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.

He heard a faint moan as he lumbered towards the kettle, filling it up with water and setting it on the gas burner. Must have woken her up. He hadn’t made any particular effort to be quiet, though such a thing was near impossible for him. So damn heavy that every step shook the floor.

She was still fully dressed as she stumbled over to the kitchen archway, same clothes as yesterday, though she had her pompom-adorned beanie on the top of her head. Must have been cold overnight, once the fire went out.

“Morning,” she said, voice all croaky from a rough sleep, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

“Couch no good?” He asked derisively, grabbing two mugs from the cabinet above the counter.

“It was a little um — yeah,” she dithered. Yet unwilling to be frank with him. “It’s fine, though, I slept alright.”

“On the floor?” He questioned, smirking, his back to her.

“It was fine,” she repeated.

He shrugged. Unwise suggesting the only alternative just yet. He grabbed the tin of teabags from the cupboard.

“Tea?” The offer was bitten out short and impatient, a grunt more than a word.

“I’d like to hit the road pretty soon, if that’s okay with you.”

He let out a hoarse sigh. Too fucking early for a conversation he didn’t want to have at all. He had hoped she’d have come to terms with it on her own, the obvious fact that she was there to stay. Spared him the argument.

Her eyes flicked up from his chest as he turned to face her, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. He might have grinned if he wasn’t filled to the ears with beleaguered dread.

Birds used to love it when he forsook a shirt in his days of being an active field operative. Back when he was nice and chiselled, all carved abdominals and lean around the middle. Two years of hibernation had thickened him up, though. He had grown a hearty padding of fat that wrapped his meat and kept him warm, muscles bulked up by the manual labour of living off-grid. The slight paunch of a man too familiar with alcohol and a diet of mostly red meat and baked beans.

Not a pretty sight, in his estimation — but he wouldn’t begrudge her skittish glances. Liked that she looked a little sheepish when she met his eye.

He chewed on what to tell her. How to say it. “Have you looked out the window?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty snowy, so—”

“It is,” he grumbled.

“—So we should probably head out before it gets worse.”

Just about rolled his eyes. Scratched his stubbled chin instead. “Use your head, love.”

“What do you mean,” she questioned accusingly, “I am. I want to make sure I can get to a — a town, or something, before I get stranded.”

Seemed she wouldn’t reach the conclusion on her own. “You already are.”

Her brows scrunched up at that. “No — it’s, but you said—”

“I know what I said,” he disputed. “I said if the road’s open I’d take you.”

“You don’t know that it’s closed,” she spat, “you haven’t even gone out to check.”

“Mh. Go on, check then.”

“But—”

“Find the road for me.”

She scowled, scoffed, turned up her nose as she stomped over to her nest on the floor and shoved her feet into her Ugg boots. He found himself chuckling as she unlocked and tore open the front door, only to be met by a wall of snow on the porch that met her knees.

For a misguided moment he was satisfied. Patent evidence that there was no chance of driving anywhere, smack in front of her, surely that would suffice — but then she stepped into it.

“Fuck’s sake, girl,” he barked, marching to the door. “I wasn’t serious.”

She was unfazed. Waddling through the powder like she might walk all the way back to fucking Hazelton.

He was woefully unprepared to follow her. Only item of clothing he had on were his grey sweatpants — no shirt, no socks, no shoes. Hardly enough time to put his snow boots on before she got too far and vanished into the whiteout, so he left them unlaced as he ordered the dog to stay and hurried out into the snow.

Lucky that the residual body heat from his fitful sleep meant he could handle the gelid morning without a jacket. Hoped it would last as long as it took to catch her.

It took him a moment to spot her through the cottony haze of cloud — a moment too long for his liking, because he felt his chest tighten up when he couldn’t find her, until he saw her silhouette meandering towards the garage.

Fortunate that he was well-practiced in trudging through snow, and she manifestly was not; must have got her foot caught on something, because he watched her topple forward and land arms-first into the powder. Heard her squeal get muffled by the snow as she sank in it.

Growled indignantly as he shambled towards her, where she scrambled and bleated like a tipped goat, failing to push herself to stand. He hooked her by the belly once he reached her and reeled her out of the chalk-white snow, hoisting her up like a limp animal, cold and wet.

She didn’t kick, didn’t squeal, didn’t even wriggle in his grip; instead she disputed with only a moan, a pitiful appeal; “put me down.”

Her defeat was tangible in her laxity, though, flopping her arms over his shoulder as he hauled her back to the cabin. Snow that had stuck to her hoodie melted into his skin and his frustration only distended, gelid water dribbling down his spine and soaking into the waistband of his sweatpants, and he might have called her a stupid girl if the circumstances didn’t make him feel like a reprobate.

“Any luck?” He grumbled, needlessly facetious, as he carted her up the snow-coated steps and finally had her back inside. Shut the door with his boot before he dropped her to her feet.

She stood there with her arms crossed, snivelling quietly to herself, refusing to look at him or take a single step in any direction. Perhaps he would have felt guilty, if she hadn’t forced him to venture out into the frigid morning to prevent her from getting herself killed. Again.

He pinched the thick fleece of her hoodie between his fingers. Soaked with melt.

“You gonna do that again?” He asked grimly, watching the flakes of snow on the top of her beanie deliquesce into the holes in the yarn.

She was obdurately silent, wiped away a smelting snowflake with the sodden cuff of her sweater as she glowered at the wall to her left.

“I don’t wanna be stuck here,” she mumbled, somehow spiteful. “I don’t want to be stuck here with you.”

He couldn’t suppress a mordant chuckle at that. A puff of droll air out his nostrils.

“Stiff shit,” he said. “I don’t exactly want you here, either.”

The grimace she gave him could have turned him to stone, but it only made him grin in placid amusement. A cruel twist of fate, wasn’t it?

“Then why won’t you take me back?” She asked bitterly, and his amusement was snuffed out as quickly as a blown candle.

“Y’think I’ve kidnapped you?” He questioned, vexation poisoning his tone. “S’that really what you think?

Seemed she wasn’t willing to say as much, that she wouldn’t stoop low enough to make an outright accusation, but she wore her conviction plain as day in the crease in her brow.

“You won’t let me leave,” she murmured, her voice suddenly infinitesimally small.

He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger until they ached and he saw red blooming, because she was, regrettably, probably right. He had no intention of letting her leave. Not one. He’d sooner tie her up by the ankle to the radiator than let her wander out into the snow on her own.

He’d like to think it was merely fervid protectiveness. An inborn and insurmountable need to safeguard the vulnerable that was only fostered by a decade in the military. The pathological need to obviate any further responsibility for someone else’s death.

That was a charitable excuse, though.

He could feel something uglier in his gut. Something dark and desperate, borne of a malignant and omnipresent familiarity with loss. A void that both forcibly assured its vacuity and yet still hungered for something living and beating to surfeit it.

Worse, still.

She was such a pretty thing.

He loathed that he liked the smell of her, the sight of her, the sound of her voice. Even in spite of how she irked him; a prickly rosebud in the thorn-ridden bramble of his solitude, one that he quite selfishly enjoyed the presence of.

“No,” he admitted, through teeth. “I won’t.”

Wet little eyes fixed to his. Scleras all pink from welling tears and a restless sleep. Pupils blown wide and black, looking for something. He could feel it, picks mining away at the stone walls surrounding his motivations, like there might be something obvious within them. He wasn’t even sure what she’d find.

“Snowstorm will last a couple days,” he said, eventually, amidst a sigh. “Then it’ll clear up. Snow’ll melt. When it does, I’ll take you wherever y’need to go.”

Then, miraculously, she nodded. Slowly, warily, but he was grateful for even an iota of acquiescence, so that he didn’t have to confront the possibility of forcibly restraining her.

“How long will that take?” She asked, taking a preparatory breath.

“Week, maybe.”

Good timing from the dog, as he meandered over from his bed and sniffed at her thigh, and she seemed to loosen a little. Gave him a scratch behind the ears.

“Do you — have you got supplies for that long?”

“‘Nuff to last a month,” he said. “Not my first time being snowed in.”

She nodded again, and he felt a weight lift from somewhere he couldn’t pin. “Okay,” she breathed. “Fine. As long as you promise you’ll take me to town the moment you can.”

“Cross my heart,” he grunted. Plain in her expression she understood how brittle a promise was from a stranger, but he was pretty sure he meant it.

The silence that followed was prickly. Clear she had no clue what to do with herself, as if awaiting permission or instruction, because she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

“You should put on something dry,” he said, as he turned to head back into the kitchen. Kettle needed to boil again. “Want a tea or not?”

She said nothing as she went back to her spot on the floor, and he heard her unzip her suitcase and burrow around in the doubtless mountain of clothes within.

“Um — yeah, thanks,” she said, and after a moment she appeared in the kitchen archway with her arms wrapped around a bundle. “Where’s your bathroom?”

“First on the left.” One of two doors. Decided against warning her that it didn’t have a lock.

She came back a moment later. “Is it — um, is it okay if I use the shower?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have a spare towel?”

“Cupboard in the hallway.”

“Can I—”

“Use whichever one you want, I don’t give a shit,” he grumbled. “Just don’t use all the hot water.”

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chamomiletealeaf · 7 days ago

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this sudden wave of hate against Pedro Pascal is so fucking annoying.

enjoy this somewhat detailed tangent about why it’s dumb⬇️

You shouldn’t put celebs on pedestals, but you’re allowed to say you love a celeb just because they are a good person. You don’t need to meet them, you don’t need to know them. You’re allowed to admire people who are true to themselves and stick up for what’s right.

Like look if it does come out he’s a bad guy? fine, i’ll eat my words. But what i do know as of now is i have never seen a video of a woman be uncomfortable around him.

I don’t know Pedro Pascal and I won’t pretend to. But just going with context clues..

1. He is physically affectionate with male and female costars. And often times they initiate the contact with him, it is not one sided. So the whole narrative of ‘he is only affectionate with his female costars’ is quite literally false.

2. I literally cannot think of a time I’ve heard or seen anything about someone saying he made them uncomfortable. If anything I’ve heard ten times over how sweet he is and how he always tries to make others comfortable, as he understands how shitty it feels to be uncomfortable around others.

3. All of this hate is coming from cisgender men, mainly conservative ones. Right now we live in ‘Trump’s’ America, where power is being stripped away from minorities and hate is becoming even more rampant. Cisgender, and usually white, men are on a power trip knowing that the president cares about them the most, and has no care in the world for people who aren’t his followers.

And what else do we know about these kinds of men? They are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, sexist, transphobic, and so on. They hate people that are different from them. Pedro is a man of color who has openly defended the queer community as well as immigrants who are being attacked by the government. He has openly spoken about these issues, and what are men’s favorite tactics? To yell. To be loud. To be aggressive. They have taken this smear campaign and run with it, saying whatever they can to get Pedro to stop talking.

They’ve noticed how women and minorities love Pedro because he cares about us. He is one of us. People are allowed to think he is in too many films, or that he is overrated. What they are not allowed to do is to make up accusations about a man who has shown no sign of inappropriate behavior towards his costars or anyone else for that matter. These men will do whatever they can to get Pedro’s career trashed, and his reputation tainted. It’s literally disgusting how hateful they are.

4. This hate comes from a place of jealousy. It’s so obvious that the only men hating are incredibly insecure. They wonder why women can’t be that comfortable with and around them, and it’s because they can’t be normal around women. They always have to make things weird, or take things too far. They’re upset that Pedro is setting a standard that consent is a requirement and the foundations for any healthy friendship with a woman, or anyone. So, they go and try to ruin his reputation. ‘Wow, this guy that always seemed like he cared about consent? Yeah, turns out he’s just a creep who never cared at all.’ It’s literally trying to ruin the idea that men can have platonic relationships with women and have healthy contact that isn’t driven by ulterior motives. By going out and ruining a good guys reputation, they think women will have to lower their standards and go crawling back to creeps like them. ‘The bar is too high, women really like this guy because he is emotionally intelligent and kind. If we make him look bad women will further fall into the idea that all men can be bad and not care about consent, so they’ll be more likely to give normal guys like us a chance.’ It’s a very ‘savior’ tactic. ‘A guy who seemed genuine and sweet wasn’t that way at all? Maybe you need a guy who doesn’t act like that, just like me. Guys who are that nice have to be weirdos.’ They’re just trying to make an excuse for not being polite and gentle people, attempting to normalizing their shitty behavior.

5. Men constantly whine about women not caring about their mental health. But the second a man is open about his mental health struggles and finds comfort in other people, he’s bashed and told he’s faking it. ‘If he had anxiety he shouldn’t have been an actor.’ The male loneliness epidemic is not real. Male loneliness is real, but the term ‘male loneliness epidemic’ has heavy connotations by saying that women have caused it. Women having better standards and fighting for their rights does not cause male loneliness. Men treating other men who openly share their struggles like crap causes male loneliness. Women are not responsible for making men feel comfortable, especially since men have never made an effort to make women feel comfortable. If men want people to care about men, they need to look in the mirror and realize they do it to themselves.

6. Men complain about how women label all of them as threats. ‘Why do women assume I’m dangerous?’ and ‘Women are scared of me? I’m scared of being falsely accused.’ Men do not want to be seen as threats to women. Yet, the second a man is incredibly kind and gentle with women, everyone calls him ‘gay’? Or not manly? Do men even realize that the typical standard of being manly involves being aggressive and intimidating? What woman would feel safe around you while constantly being reminded that you could and might attack her. Women have to live in fear for their own safety. Men who make an effort to make women feel comfortable are men like Pedro Pascal. While he may initiate physical contact, he does so in a safe and polite way. He has never just grabbed someone like plenty of other male celebrities have.

7. Men are saying they are outing Pedro as a ‘creep’ to protect women. Why didn’t you guys want to protect women from other male celebrities? Why didn’t you support the MeToo movement? Why do you say women reporting their assaults is attention seeking? Why do you refuse to acknowledge that women deserve to feel safe? ‘If women wanted to be equal so bad, I won’t go to their rescue.’ It was never about protecting women, and it never has been.

8. Pedro has openly supported the queer community, especially trans rights. His sister is trans, and honestly as a trans man myself, his support means the world to me. I don’t often see celebrities so outwardly support us, and with him being such a famous person right now, it counts for a lot. Every single person I’ve found saying Pedro is a creep, is also transphobic. That alone says enough. Any YouTube videos I’ve watched about him being weird? (Because I do care to listen to the other side and give them a chance, I am not a blind supporter of anyone.) Every single channel also had videos that were transphobic, homophobic, anti-feminist, pro trump, etc. It is so incredibly clear that Pedro has a large target on his back for something as simple as supporting human rights.

All in all, I love Pedro Pascal as an actor, and I enjoy seeing him in films and online. I don’t love him in a weird parasocial relationship way, I love him in a ‘I really respect him as a human being’ way. I am not saying all men are bad, Pedro is a great example of that. But I am saying that the men hating are him are very clearly sad people who have nothing better to do with their lives than smear others, and spew bullshit about people who disagree with them. You don’t have to like Pedro Pascal, but you do have to recognize that none of this started until just recently, where J.K. Rowling has probably been fuming over him calling her out for being transphobic, as well as at the same time of him hitting his peak as an actor. He is right in the spotlight, starring in multiple major films, and the center of the public eye. Even if you hate him, it doesn’t give you the right to make false allegations or speculations about him when there is literally nothing other than him and his costars being touchy and friendly with each other.

Which btw even if it was weird for him and Vanessa Kirby to be that close for the last few weeks, you have to remember that in Fantastic 4 they play husband and wife. They are clearly playing it up for the cameras, as that is such a large part of their characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were encouraged to act more familiar with each other for the press. He also just seems like an incredibly caring man, so with her being pregnant there is a whole extra layer of wanting to make sure she feels safe and comfortable, as being in the public eye can be a lot.

Sorry for the rant, I just really hate when anyone has stupid accusations made about them for literally no reason. He’s just famous and lovable and people are jealous🤷‍♂️ thanks for reading :3

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chamomiletealeaf · 7 days ago

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obsessed with mrs. price who genuinely doesn’t give a fuck that her husband is a captain. don’t bring that authoritative tone home john. the missus ain’t about to have it.

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chamomiletealeaf · 8 days ago

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john price pulling his rusted chevy over to the side of the road just to fuck you in the back of it bc you keep giving him that cute lil smile in that devious lil sundress and there’s only so much he can take

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chamomiletealeaf · 10 days ago

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“Damn good toy.” WHAT IF I LOST MY MIND RN

Reader having to share a sleeping bag with soap for reasons, idk maybe some of the supplies got lost dont ask me.

Anyways hes...shockingly polite about it. Keeps the crude jokes to a minimum and his hands to himself (as much as he can when ur stuffed chest to chest lol)

Its well into the night when you feel it, soaps hard cock grinding against you. Ur not all that shocked, given the fact youve woken up in the night to see him jerking off before. Have even helped him a few times.

What does shock you is how he seems to be dead asleep still, snoring away as two arms encircle you and press you close. Should you....wake him up? Would that be worse than just hoping he moves on?

When his hand sneaks beneath ur waistband you decide, yeah, wake him up. A small whisper of his name and soaps blinking awake. You watch in real time as he takes stock of himself and realizes the situation. "Ah, fuck. Sorry-" he mumbles, but makes no move to pull away. If anything he only settles more firmly on top of you. "You wouldnt mind uh- letting me finish, yeah? Can't sleep like this."

At ur nod, you feel soap grin into ur neck, hips rutting again. His hands pull down ur pants just enough for him to slip out his dick and push in between ur thighs, the top of it grinding against ur groin. "Hmmm, knew you'd let me." He rumbles happily. "Such a good soldier, know just how to please a sergeant, aye? Yknow ur bodies a perfect tool for me."

He growls when you shift ur hips, hands bruising where they grip ur waist "dont move. You just lay there and fuckin' take it. Take what i give and be happy for it."

His hips stutter at the whimper you make, and a few strokes later hes spilling all over ur underwear. "Fuck- hmmm. That hit the spot." He pulls ur pants back up, cum sticking obscenely between ur legs and into the fabric.

"Maybe ill make use of you more often. Damn good toy."

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chamomiletealeaf · 10 days ago

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Omg…

Margaritaville

For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort.Or: the knocked up on vacation au Part 2 masterlist

For all your zoning out, you still know how to make the most of your vacation.

Grains of white sand scratch the skin between your toes on the walk back from the beach, sun-fatigued and pruny-fingered. Synapses firing slower than usual. You nearly doze off on the shuttle ride back to the hotel until someone jostles you awake, the embarrassing snort you let out entirely unintentional.

It’s not your fault. Several hours in the sun and sea will do that to a person.

You can’t put John entirely out of your head though. The intent in his gaze still sizzles under your skin like a bad burn. It takes everything in you not to tell your friends that you’ll see them around and take the shuttle right back to the hotel to meet up with him. Knowing him, you’d probably find him in one of his usual haunts—lounging around poolside or still seated at the swim-up bar—pleased as punch to see you come crawling back.

You pinch your arm to snap yourself out of it. You’re better than that. You can take your mind off John long enough to focus on spending time with your friends and making the most of your vacation. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of activities going on around the resort to help take your mind off him.

The silent disco is held on a small patch of sand in the atrium of the hotel, surrounded by couches and corridors leading to the other wings on all sides. There’s a DJ booth off to the side that’s mostly for show since the only music playing is what’s blaring from your headphones.

Three hours spent dancing and drinking and you’ve practically sweated out all the alcohol in your system, which you’re more than happy to replace with another drink. You stumble over to the bar twice for a top up on your margarita before your head begins to spin something fierce and the sand somehow poses more of a risk than the ground given that it keeps slipping out from under you.

You slip the earphones off your ears and turn to your friends, two of them still dancing together. The other is sitting on one of the couches nearby, hands folded over her belly and eyes pinched shut like she might throw up.

One of your friends dances a bit too close to you and you reach out to tap her shoulder.

“D’you guys mind if I go upstairs?” you ask, slurring your words only a little.

“Yeah,” one yells, only one headphone pushed to the side.

You point over to where your other friend is still sitting on the couch. “Are you guys gonna—”

“Yeah, we’ll take her up, don’t worry. I only had one drink.”

Reassured, you say your goodbyes and dust the sand off your feet before putting your sandals back on.

You barely make it a couple yards from the atrium dance floor when the exhaustion finally starts to catch up to you. Your feet catch on the grout line of the tile floor when you can’t seem to muster up the energy to fully lift your feet with each step, making you stumble forward a couple steps.

A hand catches you under your elbow when you nearly stumble right into a wall, reeling you in firmly.

“Hey, hey, hey—think you might’ve had a bit too much,” a gruff voice says, lightly scolding you, and you blame the way you instantly go liquid at the sound of his voice on the alcohol still clouding your head.

“I’m gettin’ water,” you insist and he snorts, less amused than indignant.

“You damn sure are.”

He herds you over to a couch and makes you sit down, growling at you when you try to get back up, insisting that you wait until he comes back. Alcohol might make you more petulant than usual, but the warning note in his voice doesn’t escape you, so you sit there with your hands in your lap, head spinning, until he returns a few minutes later, sitting down beside you and handing you an unopened bottle of water.

It says something about the state of your fixation that you recognize exactly who came to your rescue by voice alone, despite having only spoken to each other the one time. It registers in the lizard part of your brain that makes you go almost servile, letting him put you exactly where he wants you and take what’s given to you.

“Drink up—there we go,” John instructs when you take a long drink, nudging your chin up with his knuckle and nearly making you choke. “That’s a good girl.”

You drink your water with gusto, the plastic bottle crinkling under your fingers, condensation making the plastic label slide all over the place with your thumb. A bead of water dribbles down your chin and drips onto the floor. Your face burns from his touch and his words.

It’s not the first time that you’ve seen him in something other than his swim trunks—that wouldn’t be appropriate to wear at the breakfast buffet—but the patterned Hawaiian shirt and board shorts combo is doing something unholy to your libido. His shirt is mostly unbuttoned save for the two in the middle, hiding his midsection but exposing his pecs at the top and the treasure trail of dark hair leading down into his shorts.

“Where’d you come from?” you ask dumbly.

He laughs softly and your stomach flips at the sound. “The bar over there.” He points someways off and you squint until you can make out the shape of the bartender moving back and forth between the people sitting in front of him, submerged in cindery darkness. “You know, I’m on vacation too.”

“Oh. Yeah. I know.”

It’s healthy that you remember that every once in a while—that a whole world exists outside of your experience of it. John isn’t here as a manifestation of your libido, but as a real person on vacation too, one that just so happens to make your heart beat twice as fast when you see him.

But a better time for introspection might be when you’re upstairs in your bed and not drunk off your feet.

“You need any help getting back up to your room?” John asks.

You grunt, shaking your head and regretting that action almost immediately when the room starts to spin all the more violently and your stomach lurches.

“That’s a yes then,” he says, shushing you when you start to protest. “Don’t argue. Drink your water.”

Exhaustion leaves you boneless, no fight left in you to object to his words. Besides, he’s not wrong. With the way your head is spinning, you’ll be flat on your ass tomorrow if you don’t drink water now.

You guzzle the rest down with both hands until there’s nothing left, blindly handing the empty bottle back to the man sitting beside you who leaves for not more than a second to toss it. He comes back to find you slumped over, your elbows braced on your thighs and your breath coming out short and shaky.

“You gonna be sick, hun?” John asks, kneeling beside you and holding a new, ice cold water bottle to your cheek, an instant balm to your suffering.

“…No,” you sigh, suppressing the urge to shake your head. “Just need to lie down.”

He nods. “Okay. Wanna give me your key and we’ll get you up to your room?”

Your eyes crack open a hair to stare suspiciously at him. “…You’re not coming to my room with me.”

John shakes his head. “Didn’t mean it like that, honey. Just not sure you can make it up on your own right now.”

Though he isn’t exactly off in his judgement, you’re still not sure how you feel about a strange man walking you back to your hotel room in this state. You’re tempted to go back to your friends instead, and maybe he sees that in your gaze because he reaches into his back pocket to pull out his wallet and then hands you his driver’s license.

“Take a picture and send it to your friends—anything happens to you and they can hold me responsible.”

You don’t know why that statement of all things nearly leaves you breathless. You listen though, snapping a quick picture of his license before sending it to one of your friends with a quick little message to keep her from worrying.

“Good?” John asks, lifting an eyebrow. You nod, mouth still dry from drinking too much.

The ease with which he hoists you up onto your feet briefly renders you speechless. Wide-bodied man that he is, he seems twice as large stood beside you, the arm linked with yours one big slab of muscle. He keeps you braced to his side as he starts towards the elevators.

True to his word, after the long journey back upstairs with your arm hooked through his to keep you on the straight and narrow, John lets you go at the door, though not before handing you the unopened bottle of water still in his other hand.

“For tomorrow morning,” he says.

“Oh,” you reply, all raspy and unsure. “Thank you.”

For a second, you almost think he’s going to follow you in. You’re not sure what you’d do or how you’d feel about it. There’s not much you’d be able to do if he really wanted to force his way in—even sober, you’d have a hard time putting up much of a fight.

So when he takes a step forward into the room, your heart skips a beat and your stomach drops, only for John to grab the handle and pull the door shut behind him, leaving you in the empty room alone.

The girls are piled together on the other bed when you wake up the next day, still out for the count despite the alarm going off on one of their phones. They must have gotten in not long after you, but they look twice as knackered, makeup smeared around their eyes and still in their clothes from the night before. No one must have bothered to sit them down and forced them to drink a bottle of water before passing out for the night.

Your head buzzes at the thought. Instead of focusing on it, you turn your head to look down at your bedside table where the extra water bottle and Advil are waiting. Heat flickers briefly into your cheeks when you remember who was responsible for making sure you’d be alright in the morning.

The day slows to a crawl when you’re by yourself. It’s quieter somehow, late enough that most of the families have already left for the beach or the more kid-friendly pool on the other side of the resort. The girls only crack open their jaws and yawn good morning around noon, long after you already went downstairs for coffee and breakfast, enjoying the morning to yourself for once.

“I think my head’s going to explode,” one complains, collapsing into a chair.

Despite your own mild hangover, you’re not void of sympathy. “Want me to get you guys some food?” you ask.

All three look over at you with big, pleading eyes. You take that as a yes.

The breakfast service from earlier in the morning has already been swapped for the lunch service. Too late to grab something from the omelette station or a full English breakfast. From the state of your friends, you don’t think they’d turn down anything carb-heavy though, so you head to the pasta station with a tray big enough for two or three plates.

Head in the clouds, you don’t see him coming until he’s suddenly there. All it takes is the slightest tilt of your head to catch him from the corner of your eye, John all the way at the front of the line, big and imposing as ever. Even more so in the light of day.

When he feels your stare on him, he looks over, winking when he meets your eyes.

There’s nothing to bury your face in and hide what wink does to you. All you can do is smile at him awkwardly and turn to the cook when she hands you back three plates, which you pile on your tray one by one.

Your friends are in various states of collapse when you return to their table, heads resting on folded arms. There’s a round of drinks in front of them from a passing server, though only one of them has the wherewithal to pop the straw into the corner of her mouth and drink.

“Hot guy’s over there,” one of your friends grumbles, pointing as discretely as possible. You follow her finger to find John at a nearby table, minding his own business. If he feels your stare on him, he doesn’t acknowledge it this time.

“Yeah…I saw him in line,” you admit.

“He’s good eye candy…” another muses. “But…we should make some kind of pact.”

“What kind?”

“No one tries to fuck him. We’re supposed to be on vacation together—it won’t be any fun if one of us leaves the group to shack up with the only hot guy on the resort when we’re supposed to be spending the rest of the week together.”

Not a chance in hell, you almost blurt out, swallowing your words at the last second. You’re more offended at the thought that any of them would try than at the idea of you not being allowed.

Another one of your friends snorts. “He’s not the only hot guy around.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Seriously—there’s a group of frat bros that checked in the other day. I saw them at dinner the other night.”

“I saw them too and please be so fucking for real. They were nowhere near as hot as the other guy.”

A medley of snorts breaks the slight tension. “Okay, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Are we all in agreement?”

“Why bother making a pact?” you ask, annoyance flickering in you like a lizard scuttling up the wall.

The one who brought it up turns to you, unimpressed. “You texted me his ID last night, dude.”

You cringe, just now remembering that you did in fact send her the picture of his ID the night before. “Oh, that’s just—he walked me back up to our hotel room last night after I left. He didn’t, uh…come in or anything.”

“Yeah, sure,” she says, not buying a word of it.

“He made me do it actually. Just to be safe.”

“Well, that was nice of him,” another snorts, fork clinking against the plate as she starts digging into her food. “Guess that means he only wants to fuck one of us.”

“Oh my god, stop,” you beg, hands covering your face so you don’t have to look at any of them. You do take some pleasure in her saying that though, however guilty that pleasure may be.

The only thing that brings you back to Earth is glancing over at John’s table again to find him still oblivious to your staring, too preoccupied with his breakfast to pay you any attention. That stings a bit. It’s as good a reminder as any that despite him wanting to fuck you or not, he won’t be sitting beside you on the plane at the end of the trip. It’s your friends that you’ll have to face back home if you sideline them on your group trip.

You turn back to them, pinky finger out for them to take. “Okay. Promise.”

And you almost believe it when you say it.

But promises made in peacetime aren’t easily kept in times of strife. Days of unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses sitting low on the bridge of John’s nose prove that to you.

Your resolve wavers like a bear shaking fruit from a tree—standing up on its hind legs with both paws braced against the tree trunk and giving it a few powerful shakes before checking around to see what came loose.

His complexion deepens as the days go on, tan setting in and sunburn fading away. When you see him through the glass walls of the fitness centre on the way to the pool in the early morning, it’s all you can do to keep walking.

Now that you’ve broken the ice, John isn’t shy to track you down around the resort. Not that he ever was. Maybe before he was just biding his time, waiting to see if his advances would be reciprocated, and now that you’ve given him the greenlight, so to speak, his reservations have vanished into thin air.

The attention feeds your ego to the point of critical mass. You can’t stop imagining yourself from an outside perspective, obsessed with the thought of what you might look like to John from afar, in the throes of a perpetual out of body experience.

It’s just addicting to think about a man like John being interested in little old you. Makes you look at yourself in a whole new way. In the morning, you put on your sunscreen in front of the bathroom mirror and take an extra few minutes to appreciate all of your features, turning this way and that to admire your form, insecurities plucked out one by one, his desire refracted in the prism of your chest and reflected back out.

The frustrating part is that you know you’re doing the wrong thing by indulging him when you shouldn’t be even entertaining his flirtatious overtures. You came all this way to spend time with your friends, not follow a hot man back to his hotel room. If it were any of your friends and not you toying with the idea, your anger would come swift and righteous. It’s hypocritical to not think they’d ask the same of you.

But—you chew your lip when he makes eye contact with you from across the restaurant at dinner—like everyone else, you have a breaking point. You’re only human at the end of the day.

“Ah, ah, ah, there we go,” John rumbles right in your ear, hot breath panting down the side of your neck.

You don’t know how you wind up back in his hotel room hours later with your knees draped over his shoulders and his voice low in your ear telling you to count to ten while he pushes in, gasping every time his hips punch forward, cockhead nearly nudging your cervix and filling you all the way up, close to overspilling.

Too much, too big; even though he stretched you out on two thick fingers for what felt like hours, it still forces all the oxygen out of your lungs when he bottoms out.

“Gonna have to pry you open, huh,” he chuckles in your ear. You don't get what's so funny about that, but in fairness you can barely wrangle enough sense together to form a thought.

One big hand effortlessly pins your wrists over your head. His grip isn't even that tight and you can't wriggle out of it. Your heart quickens when you realize that.

He worships your breasts like a man that prefers tits over ass and he tells you that too: got a lovely set on you, honey, and then sucks a nipple into his mouth.

You shouldn’t be here. Your friends are all down by the pool soaking up the sun and getting their feet wet while you’re in John’s room on the other end of the hotel getting railed within an inch of your life. You should’ve known that it would end up here. You should’ve known that you were always going to end up in his bed.

Nothing but experiencing his broad body suspended over yours and rutting between your thighs could’ve prepared you for the reality of it. Smothering, oppressive; tacky skin sliding against yours, friction making your skin burn, the hair on his pecs and belly all sweat-slicked and dragging against your chest. Broader and heavier than you could’ve imagined.

One time, you tell yourself. One time and then never again, just to know what it would be like. Just to know what fucking a man like John would do to you. One time and then you can go back to your friends and act like it never happened, like a man didn’t just fold you in half and drive his dick to the root into your pussy.

The hand holding your wrists together disappears and reappears at your waist. Both of them this time, snug on either side of you, scooping under your low back and lifting it up to get more leverage before driving his hips down, plunging his shaft deeper into your hole, the tip of his cock nudging against something that makes your leg spasm and your breathing go choppy.

“Oh—f—fuck,” you grit out, squeezing your eyes tight.

It’s deeper now. Deep enough in you that his cock might well be butting up against your cervix. You’ll have to waddle back to your friends after this or ice your pussy until it stops aching from having too many inches of dick shoved inside it.

“There we go,” John says. “That feel good?”

He asks that like he doesn’t see your eyes rolling back into your head, like there isn’t a line of drool leaking down your cheek.

There's a condom wrapper on the bedside table that you don't remember him putting on. He must have though, you think blearily and then he repositions his knees and drives forward hard enough to make your teeth clack together and whoops, there goes any chance at forming a coherent thought again. He must have because what man would forego a condom before turning you over onto your belly and slipping a hand under you to palm the flesh there, hips flexing forward and groaning when you squeeze him a bit too tight. What man would run the risk?

“Careful,” John laughs into your hair. You don't understand. “Gonna take a little souvenir home with you if you keep that up, sweetheart.”

Your stomach swoops at that. His meaning, as always, comes clear as day, but this time the shock of it ripples through you like an electric current, mind wiped clean of anything apart from the sound of his voice.

He pumps into you with a single-minded intensity, not giving you an inch to breathe. Smooth, measured strokes, an intent to his fuck instead of a mindless, frantic search for his end. It’s a treat to be with someone who knows what he’s doing—and fuck, does John know what he’s doing.

“John—hgn, ah—fuck—” you gasp, so close to the edge that your voice almost gives out altogether. Taut as a tightrope. Charged as a live wire. “Wait, wait, wait—”

He thrusts one last time to the hilt before stilling, petting a hand down your spine to reassure you of his attention. “You alright, love?”

“You—ah, um—c-condom?”

It must come out too soft, too breathy, because he doesn’t catch your words at first, ducking his head to hear you better. “What’s that?”

“D’you have a condom on?”

It’s the wrong time to ask the question, far too late for it to matter, but you ask it anyway. You should’ve confirmed it earlier when he didn’t have you flat on your belly with your hips canted up, pussy soaking wet and throbbing, so desperate to cum that you’d accept any answer so long as it meant he wouldn’t stop fucking you.

His fingers dig into the flesh of your belly. “Saw me take one out, didn’t ya?”

“Uh huh,” you slur. When you turn your head, you see the foil wrapper on the bedside table, ripped only halfway open. Maybe just enough to stick a finger inside and fish the condom out.

Your cunt clenches around his dick involuntarily and you swear you can feel the thin rubber against your walls. You swear you can.

“Then quit askin’ stupid questions,” John growls into the crown of your head and drives his hips forward again.

Cold air from the AC wafts over your sweaty body as you lay stretched out on the mattress, cum drying between your thighs and chest still heaving with every breath. Goosebumps ripple across your flesh like tall grass swaying with a gentle breeze.

John’s somewhere else in the hotel room. Probably in the bathroom from the faucet you can hear running in the background. He’ll probably gently coax you out in a few minutes. Give you just enough time to come back to yourself before helping you get dressed and seeing you to the door. It’s the kind of dalliance that you’d expect from a man like him—a good fuck, a solid effort to make you come, and then a gentle but firm hand on your back leading you to the door. You won’t be surprised when it comes.

That’s good though. Now that you’ve gotten it out of your system, he won’t be as much of a distraction anymore. You’ll finally be able to leave behind any guilt that you felt before and devote yourself and your attention entirely to your friends, your little tryst a careful secret shared just between you and him.

Catching your breath, you slowly lift yourself up, throwing your legs over the side of the bed and drawing your body to the edge. Allow yourself one last glance around, intrigued by the sight of his suitcase tucked away in the corner of the room, open face on the luggage rack. It says something about him, but you’re not sure what. Like he’s always ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

“In a hurry, sweetheart?” John asks from the doorway, startling you. A glass of water dangles precariously from between his fingers.

You figured he might come out in a robe or towel, but he’s as naked as when he left the bed, flaccid cock resting against his thigh and the dark thatch of hair at the base of his shaft still damp with your cum. He leans against the doorframe like he’s got nowhere to be and no one to answer to, all lazy confidence and assumed authority.

“Well, I figured…” You gesture towards the door with your thumb, lip caught between your teeth.

“Figured what?” John asks, prompting you to keep going.

He takes a step forward, heavy cock swaying with the movement of his hips. It’s big, even soft, flushed and spent against his thigh. The dull ache between your legs reminds you of where that shaft was buried not too long ago. It looks almost brutish in the light of day, heavy like a hammer and marbled with veins.

“Figured that you’d—” Your voice trembles into nonexistence the closer he gets. “Figured that you’d maybe…want me out of your hair…”

The thunk that the glass makes when he sets it down on the bedside table makes your pulse jump. Muscled thighs covered in a thick dusting of hair fill your vision, his cock unavoidable this close to your face.

A big hand wraps around his cock while the other braces itself on the back of your head, drawing you in. “You at least gonna clean up your mess before you leave?”

There’s no point in pretending like you don’t understand what he means, not when the evidence is right in front of your face, so close that you nearly go cross-eyed staring at it. Wrapping one hand around his shaft, he guides the soft, blunt head of his cock to your lips and pries your lips apart with his thumb, hips guiding it the rest of the way in.

“There we go,” John sighs, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. His breath comes out heavy. “Y’can leave after. Won’t be more than—ah—a minute.”

Throat stuffed with his cock, your moan comes out muffled, eyes already watering from the strain. Your thoughts go soft and fuzzy when he drags his thumb over the bulge of your cheek, stroking the skin there tenderly. Almost affectionately.

One time, you tell yourself as he draws his hips back and thrusts forward again. One more time and then never again.

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chamomiletealeaf · 11 days ago

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Need 150 10k parts to this right now

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[masterlist]

ghost x f! reader. 4.5k words cw: ehh. none. 18+ mdni

your car breaks down in a snowstorm. a crude stranger takes you in from the cold.

Solitude was as familiar an organ as his liver.

It had been with him since birth. A congenital defect, bulbous and ugly, wedged somewhere between his lung and his stomach.

Inoperable. Harder to kill than a liver, too. Liquor alleviated the ache in the short term, a brief reprieve from feeling it nudging against his ribs — but he wasn’t ignorant to the fact that booze was a nostrum. Fed it like tributaries to a lake, diameter stretching every year, and it wouldn’t be long until he drowned in it.

He didn’t concern himself with the long-term, though. Not much point in it. He’d tell himself that he’d cross that bridge when he got to it; but, in truth, he never imagined himself reaching the bridge in the first place.

He wasn’t in a hurry to die, by any means. There was some gratification to be found in surviving one day at a time. Gave him the feeling he was proving someone wrong. His father, maybe. The Captain. Himself. Didn’t matter — that spite was what fueled him, and as long as there was still gas in the tank, he’d keep driving.

The safehouse he had been holed up in for the better part of two years was good for him in a bad way.

The perfect place to fester, let his apathy rankle into something cold and vindictive, to the point that crossing peoples’ paths irked him and their smiles struck him as insults. He hadn’t considered himself antisocial as a young man, because wherever he went there were people around, to either his pleasure or annoyance. Kids at school, barrack mates, brothers-in-arms. Pretty birds, too, back when he used to be pretty himself.

Proof was in the pudding, now that he was tucked away in the backwoods at the base of Mt Thomlinson, with a counterfeit Canadian passport and specific orders to stay under the radar. Human interaction was something he needed to seek out, to actively pursue — and he didn’t.

The thought made his jaw tight, in fact. Gone long enough without it that the very notion of it nettled him. He’d answer with two words maximum when the Captain checked in. He’d offer the worker at the nearest supermarket a single greeting when he checked out and a single thanks when he left. Most words he exchanged were with his dog.

It wasn’t social anxiety that turned him reclusive. He wasn’t shy, wasn’t reserved out of some bashful worry that he’d say the wrong thing — no, what kept him alone was anger.

Anger with nowhere to go but out. A creature in itself, starved, hankering for another being to consume. To infect. His simmering rage was confined within the walls of his cabin when he was alone, safely restrained, hidden from sight. The simple presence of another heartbeat threatened to tip the balance, to pop the balloon he had been steadily inflating with every breath he exhaled since his sergeant was shot in the head.

Being alone was fine by him. Preferable, even. Beholden to no one, and no one to him.

His monthly supply run had come a week early, in anticipation of the snowstorm they had been blathering about on the radio for the past few days. The three-hour drive to Smithers was rarely a pleasant one, winding roads that were carved into the tall mountain faces, poorly maintained chipseal riddled with waterlogged potholes – but this time the snowfall was especially heavy, and the dicey trip took him an hour longer than usual.

He wasn’t complaining. Empty time to sit in silence and smoke a whole pack.

The bird at the Safeway checkout wasn’t particularly bubbly, something Simon always found a relief. Made him feel like less of a prick for not reciprocating even a single smile. Probably at the end of her shift, pissed off that he showed up fifteen minutes before closing with five-hundred dollars worth of groceries. She gave him a half-roll of her eyes as he loaded his goods onto the belt; not quite subtle enough to avoid notice, but he had as little interest interacting with her as she did him, so he said nothing. She sent him off with his receipt and a muted stay warm and he responded with only a grunt.

He left the township with enough supplies to fill the bed of his truck, secured tightly under a tarp — cans, jars, bags of milk, three cows worth of beef that would find home in his chest freezer. Toilet rolls, pancake mix, couple blocks of chocolate. Few jerry cans. Diesel and gasoline. Liquor, but that went without saying — enough to kill an elephant, but he was only replenishing his dwindling reserves. Hopefully just enough to last him the rest of the month.

The weather had turned for the worse on his way home. Someone with a stronger sense of self-preservation would have pulled over and waited for the blizzard to pass, but he had his husky waiting for him by the hearth, and a bottle of Redbreast calling his name. Besides, his truck was built for it — four-wheel drive, locking differentials, deep tread tyres with alpine snow chains.

Even still, the emergency alert lighting up his phone was enough to put him slightly on edge. Snow squall warning in effect until 03:00 PDT. Slow down.

Bit fucking late for it to be of any use to him. He could see it out the damn window. See was a stretch, even — the snow beating on his windscreen was so dense it was near blinding, glowing bright white in his headlights, and despite knowing the road like the back of his hand he begrudgingly slowed to twenty to avoid careening off the side of the mountain.

Small miracle that he did.

Right as he went around a bend in the road, the smallest flash of an orange light cut through the sheets of white — smack in the centre of the road ahead. He slammed his foot into the break, cursing as the truck screeched along the salt-covered road, planing slightly on the fresh snow — kept the truck under control, though, and he managed to veer off into the shoulder, narrowly missing the trunk of a lodgepole.

He sat in the silence for a beat as he came to a stop. Just long enough to take a breath. Bit down on the adrenaline-riled rage that threatened to erupt through his jaws as he kicked open the driver side door and jumped out into the snowfall, leaving the engine running.

He heard the harried voice before he saw its origin through the whiteout; “Are you okay? I’m so sorry!”

Finally spotted the young bird yelling out to him through the blizzard — standing by a multi-decade-old Toyota Starlet with the hood popped and the hazards on, spun out in the middle of the road.

“The fuck are you doing?” He roared on his approach, arm up to shield his eyes from the blisteringly cold wind.

“I’m really sorry,” she pleaded, wetness in her throat, “I was — I was trying to push it out of the way, but I—”

“No, girl, what are you doing out here in the middle of a fuckin’ snowstorm?” He barked, forgoing his initial reaction to deride her for attempting to push the damn thing; mousy wee bird that she was, amused that she would even attempt it.

“I drove over some ice, and I — I don’t know what happened. I slammed on the brakes and heard a crack and — and now the car won’t start—”

Only as she started rambling and his fury waned to an impatient frustration did he hear the panicked tears in her voice. Stupid fucking girl — driving a tin can like that in the middle of nowhere, amid forecasted blizzards, alone. The pith of his anger quickly shifted from exasperation at the near-miss to the fact that she would have gotten herself killed if fate hadn’t placed him on the road when it did.

Wearing a hoodie and leggings, for shit’s sake. As if those Ugg boots would have kept her feet warm in the double negatives.

“Should’ve waited in your damn car,” he grumbled, as he marched past her and squished himself into the open driver side of her Starlet — fucking clown car — and twisted the keys in the ignition. No use asking for her permission, and she put up no fuss. Probably did her the favour of quashing her need to ask for his help.

The car was screaming at him, dashboard practically a light show — but the cause and manner was unambiguous in the slick whirr of the engine. No catch. Wheezing like a dying man.

“Can you tell what’s wrong?” She asked eagerly, leaning down to peer into the open door, arms wrapped tight as constrictors around herself. Shaking like a puppy.

“Timing belt,” he grunted, as he pushed himself out of the car. Must have found him intimidating, because she shifted to her hind foot once he stood up straight. He was used to that.

“What?” She spluttered, worry creasing in her brow, “is that — is that bad?”

He snorted. “Yeah, it’s bad. Engine’s dead.”

Her face crumpled like a tissue when he said that. “Shit,” she sobbed, gritting teeth, “Can you — is there any way to fix it?”

“No,” he said bluntly.

Stupid girl, swallowed it again so that she didn’t have to hear it — clear in her expression she thought it as much as he did, as she rubbed her face with flat hands, elbows tight to her chest. Those little hands would be black with frostbite if he left her out in the cold much longer.

He made up his mind. Resolved to lumber to the back of her car and crack open the boot. She was quick to protest; “What are you—”

“Get in the truck,” he ordered.

She dithered by her open door, quivering and moaning as she battled for any reasonable dispute she could mount. Must have known as well as he did that whatever she could have mustered would have fallen flat, because there weren’t any.

There was a suitcase in the boot with a sock sticking out of the zipper, overstuffed to the brink of bursting. Found himself fleetingly curious where she was heading with her whole life packed in softshell luggage, driving through the Canadian wilderness in the middle of the night. Running from something, girl?

Not his business. He yanked it out and carted it towards his truck.

“Hey, you can’t just—”

“Don’t make me tell you twice,” he snapped, tearing open his back door and tossing the cumbersome suitcase into the backseat.

“But, my car — there m-must be something you can do,” she begged, as if he might be able to pluck a more agreeable alternative out of the aether and present it to her.

“Yeah, I can get you out of the cold so you don’t fuckin’ freeze to death,” he said, leaning into her open car door to grab her purse from the passenger seat. Tossed that in his truck alongside her suitcase.

“Will you take me t-to a — a nearby service station, or s-something?” She stammered; clear the cold was sinking deep, because he could hear the strain of her full-body shivers in her throat, voice grinding out through gritting teeth.

“Nearby?” He scoffed, “do you have any clue where you are?”

“I was on the w-way to Hazelton,” she said, an endearing attempt at certainty.

“Get in the damn truck. Last time I’m asking,” he grunted, fuse running short, as he went to put the car in neutral and began pushing it to the side of the road. Size of a go-kart, he probably could have picked it up and carried it if he felt so inclined.

She snivelled. “Can you t-take me to Hazelton?”

“D’you hit your fuckin’ head, girl?” He growled, slamming shut her door once the vehicle was off the road.

Wee thing was frozen solid. He could see it in her lips as he stomped towards her, grey and cracked, crystallizing in her eyes as she squinted in the wind. Shivering bordering on convulsion. No doubt her hypothermia was becoming severe enough to affect her judgement.

“‘Nuff pissin’ around,” he grumbled, taking her bicep in a fist and hauling her towards his truck.

“Wait — but I don’t — I don’t even know you,” she blubbered, but put up no tangible resistance. Let him drag her along like a pup on a lead. Lucky, because even if she had fought him he’d have thrown her in the truck kicking and screaming. Wouldn’t have another corpse on his conscience, whatever was left of it.

“Too bad,” he said. “Not leavin’ you out here to freeze to death.”

“I’m n-not ev-even c-cold.”

He almost chuckled at that. Daft girl. Brain all mushy from the chill of the snowstorm blowing in through her ears. Not a good sign.

In any other situation, he might have considered her reluctance understandable. Rational, even — pretty young thing alone on a backcountry road, carted off in a strange man’s truck, no cell service, nowhere to run — didn’t look good. The alternative, though, was leaving her to wander into the snow at the behest of hypothermia-induced psychosis and die where nobody would ever find her.

“Hey — you can’t—” Still whingeing as he lifted her with two hands under her arms and plonked her into the passenger seat. Mouthy little thing.

“Knees in,” he said, no interest in entertaining her grousing.

Did as she was told, at least, petulant huff notwithstanding. He threw shut the door once her legs were clear of it and went back to her car for a final once over — didn’t want to hear the bitching if anything was left behind, because he wasn’t coming back for it.

Found an insulated drink bottle, a phone charger, and a beanie with a silly little pompom stitched to the top. Nothing else beyond old receipts and empty cans of diet coke.

He chucked his spoils at her as he hopped up into the driver’s seat and they landed in her lap, but her shaky little hands did little to prevent them from dropping onto the floor between her feet.

He cranked up the heater once he shut his door, full blast, and held the back of his hand to the vent that he turned to pump in her direction. Took a minute to get to max heat, but eventually he felt the warmth bloom across his thick skin.

“C’mere,” he huffed, gesturing with a beckon of his fingers for her to give him her hands. When she failed to realise what he was asking for, he grabbed them, pivoting them by her wrists until they were palm-up.

Frigid to the touch. Stiff and waxy.

“Feel that?” He murmured, pinching the tip of her middle finger, and she sucked her teeth.

“Kind of,” she gritted, then let out a high-pitched chirp when he pinched a bit harder, squishing her nail bed. “Ow.”

He let out a puff of air. “Good,” he said, before forcibly maneuvering her hands so each palm sat flat against a heating vent. “Keep ‘em there.”

She said nothing in response as he put the car in drive and took off down the snow-blanketed road. He had always preferred driving stick, but the truck was prescribed to him by one of the many governments that had him in their employ — and he couldn’t begrudge the thing. State of the art. Something built for the arctic tundra, so rugged and fit-for-purpose that it seemed like an insult to drive it on sealed roads.

Not to mention — good fucking heating. The interior of the cab was a balmy twenty-five celsius within five minutes.

“Where are we going?” She finally piped up, squeezing her hands into fists and twisting them so the backs of her knuckles had a turn in the heat. “You didn’t — um… you didn’t tell me.”

Proper bundle of nerves, now that her wits had returned with a stable body temperature. Focus shifted from surviving the cold to surviving the stranger that threw her in his truck.

Couldn’t blame her. He could practically see the terror dawning on her between every syllable, the stark realisation that she had asked him no questions, had no bearings, and there was no escape.

He had no intention of harming her, but he lacked the ability to make that apparent. Couldn’t exactly say I won’t hurt you without inviting suspicion that the very thought had crossed his mind.

He was self-aware enough to acknowledge his presence alone was threatening, great ugly beast that he was. Scarred and knurled and frayed around the edges. Eyes that carried death with them. Teeth a bit crooked and canines far too sharp. Not least the size of him — served him well in the military, but in the pitch-black wilderness it rendered him something of a cryptid. A sasquatch in a gore-tex jacket. Towering. Beady-eyed. Communicating only in growls and grunts.

Could tell that she was thinking as much, watching in his periphery as she flicked her gaze to him for short bursts, flinching every time he moved. Timid wee thing. Felt just a touch of guilt that he so clearly frightened her, but then he was reminded that he had just saved her from certain death, and her trepidation suddenly bordered on insulting.

Only when she let out a shaky little breath, sinking into her seat like she might fold up into it, did he realise he hadn’t answered her question. Just let the worried words float in the air until they decayed into a denied plea.

“My place,” he said firmly, far too late for the answer to be any succor, because his silence was a threat in itself.

“Oh,” she eked, eyes darting around the car as if to soak in her surroundings. He hoped she wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and open the door, but he resisted the urge to hit the locks, because he knew the second she heard that sound her quiet nerves would erupt into base terror. “Is it, um, how far is it?”

“Not far,” he said. “Twenty-odd minutes.”

“Is it safe to — to drive in snow like this?” She asked worriedly, and he snorted at that.

“You tell me,” he chided.

She huffed. “I didn’t think it would get this bad,” she muttered. “I had to — mh. Doesn’t matter.”

His curiosity was piqued, but he didn’t press. He resolved to remain silent unless prompted, focusing on what little of the treacherous road he could see through the whiteout, cruising at fifteen now that he had more precious cargo aboard.

She regarded him with a caution that made the back of his neck feel hot. Evasive blinks in his direction. Eyes on his hands as they hung from the steering wheel.

No good could come from enjoying it. How he troubled her. How she looked at him with a faint curl in her brow, eyes wide and ears pinned like a cornered cat. Might have spoken to a latent thirst for control that not even being a lieutenant could slake. Could just as likely have been the fact he liked birds with a bit of scratch in them.

“What’s your name?” She asked tightly, hunting for dirt on him rather than asking out of interest. He smirked at the thought, that she was collecting all of the leads she could to feed to the cops once she escaped from his clutches, as if he had taken her against her will.

“Simon,” he said frankly. She was quiet after that, picking at her fingernails and staring out the window, so he returned; “Gonna tell me yours?”

She had to think about it for a bit. Like sharing her name with him might present some risk. When she told him, she only mumbled it, with enough reluctance that he wondered if she had lied.

“Pretty,” he murmured.

Knew he shouldn’t have been complimenting her given the circumstances, but maintaining etiquette was not his strong suit. There was no filter between his brain and his mouth and he had no interest in installing one.

Didn’t help that she was a lovely thing. Sweet enough to bite. Soft-cheeked and glossy-eyed. Might have acted too soon in taking her to his cabin with him.

She drew in a careful breath. “So — tonight, you—”

“Y’can crash at mine,” he said simply.

She looked affronted by the suggestion, head cocked back and all. “For the night?”

“Wouldn’t leave you to sleep in the fuckin’ snow, would I?”

“No, I — I didn’t think I’d be sleeping at your house,” she groused, “I just thought that we’d, I don’t know, wait out the blizzard and—”

“Y’expect me to stay up ‘til five in the morning so I can play taxi for you all the way to Hazelton?”

“Well, it’s just—” She faltered, “I don’t even know you.”

“Sure you do,” he said. “I’m Simon.”

“Simon who?”

He grinned at that. Little bit of moxie slipping out when it probably wasn’t wise to let it. Never know, girl, because he could have been all that you feared he was, and that little bit of fight could have been his excuse.

“Riley,” he said, entertaining her. Not often he threw that around. Didn’t even match the name on his fake passport, but he was sure she’d never lay eyes on the thing.

She blinked at him for a moment. Hunting for the next clue. “You got a wife or something?”

He chuckled wryly at that. “Worried I’ll get in trouble bringing a bird home?”

“No,” she spat, repulsed by the unsubtle implication. “Just — just wondering.”

Want to make sure you’re not a sociopath, was what she clearly wanted to say, because no doubt a wife and kids at home would at least give him the benefit of perceived normalcy. Unfortunate that she kept asking questions she wouldn’t have liked the answers to.

“No missus,” he said, and she nodded rigidly, an attempt at polite acknowledgment to conceal her assumedly staggering disappointment.

Her pussyfooting was beginning to irk him — wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand the quiet suspicion, the coy little questions about his life as though he had endangered her by rescuing her from a snow squall. Course she couldn’t ask it outright, but he hated watching somebody walk on eggshells almost as much as he hated walking on them himself.

She was twitchy, held her knees together, shuffling in her seat. Waited a long interval before she spoke again, like it was a risk just to talk in his vicinity.

“So it’s — it’s just you? Living in your cabin?”

He let out an irate sigh. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not a serial killer.”

She glared at him like he had just confessed to the opposite. Jaw a little slack, eyes all bulgy.

He rolled his eyes. “If you’re so damn worried I’ll hurt you, I can pull over and drop you and your shit on the side of the road.”

“No — sorry, I wasn’t—” She blurted, and his frustration was quick to melt. “I wasn’t saying that.”

Then he felt guilty. Sudden temper like that would not have done much to quell her scepticism, and while he enjoyed teasing her worries he didn’t necessarily want to prove them right. Not if he was going to have her tucked up in his cabin like a stray cat.

“S’alright,” he grumbled. “Cute bird like you gotta keep her wits about her.”

Her lips flattened and she looked out the window again. He certainly wasn’t doing himself any favours. Maybe he was indeed a sociopath.

“If I — If I stay on your couch tonight, can you take me back to my car tomorrow?” She asked, after a short while, arms crossed now that her hands had warmed up.

“That car is dead,” He jeered. “Y’wont be driving it anywhere.”

She let out a sharp sigh. “I could just wait by it and hitchhike, or—”

“You’d be waiting a week.”

“How would you know?” She hissed. “I’m sure truckers drive by all the time.”

“Think a trucker’ll be nicer than me?”

A fraction of a second was long enough to betray that she didn’t think so either.

Strangers on backcountry service roads were hit and miss, and for a bird like her, most likely more misses than hits. He bet the first bastard to have picked her up would have been a cash-swindling hick or a leery old rapist, and God only knows where they’d be headed to or from. She’d eventually come around to realising he was probably the best she could have hoped for.

“Haven’t been that mean, have I?” He pushed, sardonicism on his tongue, glancing at her with a smirk.

“A bit abrasive,” she grumbled, looking directly out of the windshield, no doubt his gaze was making her uncomfortable.

“Abrasive, eh?” He chortled. “Nice way to put it.”

“I just — I just want to make sure I can get back to civilisation,” she murmured. “Will you please drive me to Hazelton in the morning?”

She wouldn’t have liked the truth, so he decided not to tell it to her — that the likelihood of the roads being driveable by morning was slim to none. That the snowstorm was forecasted to last a few days at the least. That the dumping of snow was unseasonable and unprecedented and the meteorologists on the radio were calling it indisputable evidence of climate change. Something we haven't seen since St. John’s Snowmageddon, they said, stock up on emergency supplies and stay indoors. Stay indoors. Stay indoors.

“Sure,” he huffed. “If the road’s open I’ll take ya.”

She deflated at that. Shoulders softened with a long sigh and a feeble nod. Knot of tension in the air unwound with it.

“Thank you,” she said.

He’d deal with the fallout come morning.

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