#and he clings to the shame and he lets it wash over him

[lovelookspretty]

lover of mine

drew starkey x actress!reader au

— in which drew and y/n, secretly exes, must fake date in order to keep the peace at a mutual friend’s wedding, but the forced proximity makes them question whether they ever truly moved on.

warnings: girl bye this whole part is just screaming n crying omg be prepared

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authors note: wanted to make a little unexpected visit at the end given his character but yk 😋 let me know if u arent on the tag list yet !! interact w me thru replies, anons, or dms !! notifications are always on <3

long story short, the group collectively agree to postpone this dinner night because of what happened. just as you left the restroom, drew was gone and were instead met by leila who told you they were leaving to eat at the pearl some other time.

you feel terrible that they had to witness what they did, and you assume they must’ve seen you and drew talking in the hallway for them to make this decision. they know something’s wrong between you two, and you almost break on the spot. it’s like the whole plan is crashing down and you don’t know what to do, how to move forward.

you and drew travel in different cars on the way home but to end off the night, the group splits up. some dress down and head back to explore the town at night or there are others who choose to stay home, just keep a respectful distance.

you rid of your clothes and step into the shower to collect your thoughts, and it takes everything in you not to cry from frustration. the steam curls around you, the hot water beating down your back like it’s trying to wash the weight of everything away—but it doesn’t.

no amount of heat or scrubbing can erase the guilt, regret, and shame that engulf you.

when you finally step out, your skin is red from the heat, and you wipe a hand over the fogged mirror, catching a glimpse of your own tired reflection. your new clothes cling to your still-damp skin, and your hair hangs heavy and wet down your back.

when you step out of the bathroom, the cool air bites at your skin, but that’s not what makes you freeze. you see him—drew—walking toward your shared room. he’s freshly showered, his hair slightly wet, and you realize he must’ve used the bathroom across the hall that gia and roman share.

for a split second, your eyes meet, and you have to bite down on your emotions, hard, before you can speak. before you can let it all flood out.

you get to the door first, quietly letting yourself in, then leaving it open so he comes in too. the air between you feels heavy—like there are words unsaid. you can hear the faint sound of music downstairs, theo’s voice talking low, maybe to leila, but it’s distant. they must be trying to let you talk without feeling like you need to worry.

you step into the room, moving toward the dresser on your side of the room. your hand rests on top of it, gripping the edge for balance, as if the solid wood can keep you grounded. your back is to him, but you can hear him enter. he stands there for a moment, probably watching you, probably waiting for you to say something.

the silence is unbearable.

“why didn’t you just tell me?”

your voice comes out quietly, almost too low for him to hear. you don’t turn around, your eyes focused on the lamp in the corner of the room, as if looking anywhere but at him will keep you from falling apart. your hand tightens on the dresser as you wait for him to answer.

you hear him shuffle behind you, his breath catching like he didn’t expect you to speak first. “i . . . i don’t know,” he says, his voice just as quiet as yours. “i didn’t want to hurt you.”

you swallow hard, blinking rapidly as the familiar burn of tears threatens again. you know he’s trying to be honest, but that answer—it’s not enough. it doesn’t fix anything.

“you didn’t want to hurt me?” your voice wavers, and you finally turn, facing him. he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at you like he doesn’t know how to fix the mess he’s made. “this wasn’t even just a few days either. this has been weeks—weeks of us talking, planning, pretending . . . and the whole time, you were lying.”

as you walk over to him, he opens his mouth to respond, but you can see the guilt weighing him down, making it impossible for him to speak right away.

“not only were you lying to them,” you gesture loosely, meaning the others, everyone, “but you were lying to me.” you point to your chest as your voice cracks, weak and filled with betrayal.

his face tilts slightly to the side, and though he’s staring at you, his eyes are glossing over. you can see the weight of what he’s done finally sinking in, and it’s tearing him apart. he swallows hard, his throat tight.

“i didn’t mean to,” he whispers, his voice trembling now. “i never wanted—”

but he stops, his words catching in his throat, and you can see the tears threatening to spill. his jaw tightens as he forces himself to keep looking at you, even though it’s breaking him inside.

“no, but you did,” you tell him. “you made this decision. you created this plan when you had mila back home, drew.”

he winces at her name. you can see it. but you don’t stop.

every day, every conversation, every moment you’ve spent together, he knew. and he said nothing.

your words slow down though, and the weight of them sinks in deeper. “i had finally gotten to a point after we broke up where i felt like i was free of us,” you say, voice quieter now, but raw. “i didn’t have to worry about things like this anymore. i was finally done with us.”

drew’s lips part like he’s about to say something, but he can’t, and you don’t give him the chance. “but here i am.” you let out a short, breathless laugh, as though even you can’t believe the mess you're in. “i mean, i didn’t think agreeing to this plan was going to work out perfectly, but—”

you stop, searching for the words, your throat tight with emotion. it takes everything in you to keep from crying. you look away from him, your voice going numb, the exhaustion seeping through. “but i didn’t think i’d end up feeling like this. like none of it ever really ended.”

you stand there for a moment, letting the weight of everything hang between you two. you wipe at the corner of your eye, then shake your head slightly, more in disbelief than anything else.

“so why?” you ask, “why didn’t you just tell me? why didn’t you say something from the beginning, when we started this whole thing?"

he looks at you, his jaw clenching, but his eyes are filled with guilt. he takes a deep breath, his face turned slightly to the side like he's trying to hold himself together.

“i fell in love with you,” he says, and you scoff. oh, he’s just now fallen in love? he realizes his mistake and gets up when you start to walk away, but he grabs you by the arms, “no, no, no, y/n please, i fell in love with this life—being with you again. i didn’t want to lose that. i’m still in love with you. i always have been. i just realized it too late.”

you can’t believe him. “but you did lose it, drew.” your voice is quieter now, but no less intense. “you lost it the moment you decided to lie. you didn’t just ruin this plan, this stupid fake relationship.”

you shrug him off of you.

“i thought,” your voice cracks, “i thought telling our friends the truth would make everything worse. i was so scared they’d feel like they had to walk on eggshells around us, like it’d be awkward if they knew what happened. but you know what? i wish i’d just told them. instead of this. instead of . . . all of this.”

“and it’s not just about mila,” you say, “even when you’re supposed to be my fake boyfriend, you’re still making decisions for me. you speak for me, like you always know better, like i can’t speak for myself.” you can feel your frustration bubbling to the surface, the heat rising in your chest as you push forward. “it’s like . . . no matter what happens, you still feel like you need to control everything.”

drew’s mouth opens slightly, like he’s about to respond, but you can’t stop now. the words tumble out, each one hitting you harder than the last.

“i mean, do you know how exhausting that is?” your voice rises, and you can feel your emotions slipping, coming out faster than you can stop them. “you made up the plan, you pulled back the moment i was getting comfortable again, even our breakup was your decision.”

his expression hardens, and you can see the conflict raging behind his eyes. “i thought we agreed there wasn’t any point in keeping up something that was barely there,” he says. “we were hardly talking or communicating, y/n. i mean, trying to keep up a relationship for us that wasn’t even really there? was it . . . do you think it would’ve been better if we didn’t break up? i mean—”

“yes! yes, it was worth it! i didn’t care if we weren’t always together!” you blink, caught off guard for just a second, but the fire inside you flares back to life. “and you said there wasn’t any point; not me. we’re busy people, drew, lives like ours don’t get spent every day how these two weeks are supposed to be. you have to know that. so i’m sorry that you felt enough was enough for us but you shouldn’t have had to decide what you thought was best for both of us and make that decision on your own without telling me!”

as you speak, you notice the way his face shifts, confusion and regret flickering in his eyes.

you exhale, shutting your eyes. “trust me, i spent nights worrying about us when we were together, replaying every moment, every doubt.” your voice lowers, becoming more vulnerable, almost a whisper. “and i told myself, ‘okay, that’s normal. that’s normal maybe. so you didn’t get a fairytale relationship; grow up.’”

“but i understood that . . . no matter what, i wouldn’t have left you because i loved you,” you cry, “i stayed because that’s what you do when you love someone.”

drew’s face crumbles at your words, and his gaze drops to the floor. you take a deep breath, steadying yourself as you meet his gaze again. “look, i’m not going to say anything to anyone about mila,” you say. “but you need to figure this out, how we move on from here, and whether you’re going to tell her about this plan because i’m not gonna keep doing it if she’s not comfortable with it.”

drew nods slowly. he’s quiet, visibly processing everything. “i’ll do it,” he says, almost to himself, but you nod anyway. he takes a shuddering breath, his voice barely above a whisper as he finally speaks. “i didn’t mean to lose you,” he says, staring at the ground. “but i did. i know that now.”

you watch him for a moment, the weight of his confession hanging between you, before you turn away. your hand reaches for the door, and this time, you don’t hesitate.

“yeah, you did,” you whisper, voice broken as you open the door and hurry through, leave him standing there alone. “you did.”

drew stands there, frozen in place as the silence settles around him. he watches when you walk away until the laughter from outside fades into a distant echo, and he sinks down onto the edge of the bed, his body heavy with regret.

“—fucking—” he mutters under his breath, his voice barely audible. he leans forward, elbows digging into his thighs, and cradles his head in his hands while tears spill from his eyes. in that moment, he’s completely alone, engulfed by the realization that he pushed away the one person who mattered most.

“i’m gonna be back, okay?” libby tells you. you’re sitting in her bed, her and leila feeling like it’s only reasonable for her to step up, and she would’ve no matter what.

“hey,” you say before she goes, your fingers reaching her arm. she halts, looking at you again as she settles back down on the edge of the bed. “thank you for letting me sleep here tonight.”

she gives you a knowing look. “there’s no need y/n. my job is to make sure you’re comfortable and okay. your job is to get under my covers and drool on my pillows ‘til morning.”

“shut up,” you murmur and consider whacking her in the face with one of said pillows, but she leans forward to give you a hug. it’s gentle at first, and you’re relieved to feel a warmth from someone at a time like this. you feel like you can stay there forever, but she pulls away to leave the room.

there’s a knock at the door that startles you a bit, and you wait anxiously for who’s behind it. they open it quietly and peek their head in—roman?

he lets himself inside with cautious steps, and before you can speak he shushes you.

“keep it down, stupid,” he says, and you furrow your eyebrows at him. he takes maybe two steps forward and then stops there. “i just wanted to say sorry for not saying anything before at the peel.”

“the pearl.” you nod, your lips pursed. “thanks.”

he deadpans at you. “i don’t do this very often so i’d appreciate more than just a thanks, you kn—” he pauses to rephrase his words, and you can see the gears shift in his head. he sighs. “i fully saw that you were upset and i didn’t do anything. part of it was because i didn’t know if i should’ve but the other was that the food was just really good—”

“roman,” you try to tell him to get out, but he persists.

“no,” he tells you. he tries to search for the right words before continuing, “i’m just sorry. i don’t want to make it seem like i don’t care or that you don’t have anybody to talk to. and i’m not gonna jump the gun or be all enthusiastic the next time this happens but . . . i just won’t be quiet anymore.”

you’re taken aback by roman’s unexpected display of concern. you can’t tell if you’re imagining this. this has to be the first time you’ve probably ever known him that he’s being like this. but you nod slowly, absorbing his words. “thank you, roman,” you say softly, appreciating the effort he’s making. “it means a lot that you care.”

he shifts on his feet, clearly uncomfortable with the emotional territory but pressing on anyway. “good,” he replies, his voice a little firmer. “because i might not always show it, but i do care. just . . . don’t think you have to go through stuff alone, alright? we’re friends, i guess, even if i don’t always act like it.”

you smile faintly, still surprised that he’s even still standing there. “i get it. i appreciate you saying something.”

“goodnight, y/n,” he says. just as he’s about to leave, he glances back, a knowing look in his eyes. “and just so you know, i get that things are complicated with starkey, but it’s pretty obvious you two aren’t really together. you don’t have to pretend around me.”

your heart skips a beat, and you feel a rush of vulnerability. how much does he really know? but before you can question him further, he’s already slipping out the door.

at the same time, libby slides past him with mugs of hot cocoa, “ew, what are you doing here?” she says to roman, avoiding him like he’s her brother. “get out of here.”

she kicks the door closed behind her, and her mood switches to a smile. “what was all that about? oh my god— did he hurt you? did he infect you?” she asks, feigning concern as she plops down next to you and handing you a mug. you take the mug and just shake your head with a grin.

@rubixgsworld @itgirlbrina @thepopcultureaddict @icaqttt @samsmelodrama @kissfinalgirl @itsamegazaddysworld @willowpains @toterry @wearemadeofstardust0 @cl4uus @maybankslover @itneverendshere @httpsdrewstarkey @ilyrafe @sunny1616 @pillowprincess4him @yootvi @matthewswifeeee @uwuemlwlrld @l4venderia @chenslucy @darkreymbow @congratsloserr @skyslowalking @behindviolettwrites @allthoughtsmindfull

[tomwambsgans]

greg always speaking for tom's repressed subconscious/what he's not willing to say himself + tom always accurately calling greg out when he's being fake + their true selves are only ever fully Known through each other, mortification absent

[luveline]

kisses before dinner — steve comes home to his girls after a long day. 2k, mom!reader

Steve has a back ache twinging between his shoulders that takes his breath away as he treks the last step up to the front door. The door gets caught on the latch when he pushes it open, which is awesome, Steve’s so glad you’re being safe late at night, but deplorable in that he has wood grain etched into his jaw and no way inside. 

“Girls?” He knocks the glass pane. “Anybody home?” 

Everyone should be home. Your car is in the driveway, the girls’ shoes are by the wall. He pushes the door open as far as he can (not far) and weasels his face into the gap to look for you. It’s dark besides the upstairs bathroom light. 

Steve calls your name a few times, but eventually comes to the realisation that you’re all asleep and he’s locked out. He closes the door and heads back to his car to scrounge the spare back door key from under his seat. 

He fights through the garden gate covered in brambles to the backyard. It hasn’t been touched since summer, forgotten things left to the elements. Avery’s bike flakes with copper coloured rust against the wall. The trampoline net is tangled and fallen off of one side. There are plastic cups in the stinging nettles growing back beneath it and gummy bears swollen with water along the paving stones like some poor retelling of Hansel and Gretel. He unlocks the back door and promptly knocks over the trash can he’d left in front of it. His back whines as he cleans it away, but at least it’s warm inside. 

It’s good to be home. 

He shoves the toppled garbage back into the can, washes tomato sauce off of his hands in the sink, and lets himself bask in his own poorly lit company for a moment, rubbing his tired eyes. He was hoping for a welcome party. It took longer to help Robin move than they’d anticipated. 

“I won’t be back for a while,” he’d said apologetically down the phone. 

“Okie dokie,” you’d crooned. He didn’t need to see you to know there was a baby in your lap. “Just come home when you can, babe. And lift with your knees! I’ll put your plate in the fridge, yes? Love you.” Your voice turned to sugar. “Love you, love you, love you, honey.” You definitely weren’t talking to him at that point. Mother of my kids, he’d thought reverently, the strength of a thousand men restored for an hour or two before the fatigue truly set in and he and Robin considered leaving the rest of her furniture on her new front lawn.

He scratches his hair from his eyes with both hands. Mother of my kids, he thinks again. You’ve actually managed to keep the kitchen tidy, the only evidence of a day of play being the grape juice rings on the dining table placemats. How the fuck you’ve done it is a miracle worth marvelling. Three children, one (admittedly smaller) baby bump, and a full eighteen hours by yourself. You’re very impressive. 

He decides to tell you emphatically with his face in your neck. He should shower, and he will apologise to you for subjecting you to his sweaty hair in the morning. You’ll shrug off his apology, say something sweet about for better or worse or maybe wrinkle your nose and kiss him anyways. 

Steve honestly can’t find any shame about how much he likes you. Like and love can begin to diverge in a marriage, especially after kids when your duty as parents is more important than it is as partners, but you’ve yet to let him pull away, and he won’t give you a reason to. He’ll keep trying as hard as possible to be a husband you can adore. And you don’t have to do much, really. Realistically you give the majority of yourself every day to Steve and your kids, but he would cling to you if you got sick of it. He knows he would. You could turn hermit and live under the bed, and Steve would spend half his life on his stomach just looking at you.

Half trying to pull you out again. The other half getting the girls ready for school. He’s so tired he doesn’t realise that this is too many halves. 

When he gets to the top of the stairs he feels like a lifetime has passed since he left that morning, bright and early at 5AM. There’d been driving, car swaps, booing at people from behind the wheel, a hundred boxes, a million trips up and down the stairs, and a suspicious washing machine recalibration. This was without the cold coke drinking, peanuts, popcorn, mistimed movie references, and the obligatory insulting of Robin’s girlfriend’s mauve chaise, of which Robin refused to participate. 

Between all that, there’d been worrying, and a want for more phone calls. Promise me you’ll call me if you need anything at all, he’d said that morning, giving your face a fond caress. There’s a confidence that comes with this much love. Steve can pour every inch of his affection for you into one touch and knows you’ll soak it up like a sponge. Really. Any problems, any stress, any tantrums. Just call me. I’m ten minutes away. 

You were grateful if amused, telling him he didn’t need to worry so much, and then offering him another slice of toast. 

Is it weird how much I love my wife? he wonders, pushing open the bedroom door gently. 

You’re actually awake! He’s shocked and a little betrayed to find you looking at him, but the betrayal fades when he notices the swelling around your eyes and your trembling arm as you hoist yourself up under Avery’s weight. He’s woken you up coming in. 

“Sorry,” he mouths, frowning at your shakiness. 

You manage a smile and beckon him forward. The problem is the little ladies strewn about in the way. Avery drools on your chest while Dove takes up the entirety of Steve’s side, spread into a star shape, and Bethie snores loudly by your knees. An especially aggressive one makes him laugh as he rounds the bed to your side. 

“Hello,” he whispers, taking your face into a loving hand, “sorry I’m back so late.” 

You smile into his palm but don’t say anything. 

“You okay? Had a good day?” he asks.

You hum something nonsensical. He wipes at your cheek in the rough way you enjoy, your face bumped with every stroke of his thumb.

“Did you…”  Your eyelashes flutter closed. “Did you eat?” 

“Loads. Sorry. I’ll eat my dinner tomorrow.”

You wrinkle your nose. He’s been dying to see it. “Don’t bother, it wasn’t my best.”

“All dinners are your best.” 

You cover his hand with yours, and then you steal it away from your cheek and kiss it all over. Steve bends down to hug you.

“Missed you,” you say at the same time. Steve laughs. “Was it a long day?” you ask. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

“It was aeons,” you say. “The girls were good, mostly. Baby not so much.” 

“Aw, no,” he croons softly, “what’s she been doing?” 

“She won’t let me eat.” 

Steve rubs the top of your arm. “I’m sorry, honey. You should’ve called me.” 

“What are you gonna do, H?”

He breathes out into the side of your face. “You’re right, like always. What can I do?” 

He can’t do a thing to ease your morning sickness, so… Steve ends up taking a knee on the bed beside you to hold you for a while, no rush to lay down even though he aches in strings and shouts. “I’m glad I can’t get pregnant. I’d have hundreds of your babies if I could and it would be torture.” 

You laugh at his absurdity in the giggly startled way he’d been hoping for. 

“Did you throw up?” he asks, pulling away enough to see your face while his hand starts the soft journey down your front to your bump. You’re about three months along and the bump came quickly. It’s cute and Steve loves it and he tries not to be weird about it but he’s weird about you. 

“No, just kept churning. I made eggs for breakfast and we can’t eat them anymore.” 

Steve kisses your cheek, the corner of your eye, knowing it’ll make you happy. Your smile follows swiftly after, and he kisses that with gusto. “I don’t even like eggs,” he mumbles.

“You love eggs.” 

“What was it like being the stay at home mom today?” he asks. 

“Hard. But fun. Avery was being really nice to me all day, did you have something to do with that?” 

“Avery’s always nice.” 

Your smile widens impossibly, “Yeah, but she was asking me if I wanted to sit down and if I needed a glass of water all day.” 

Steve shrugs. “Doesn’t sound like something I’d do.” 

“Well don’t do it again, H. She’s just a baby. She doesn’t need to worry about me.” 

Steve strokes your forehead, totally in your orbit. “She’s not worrying. Are you worrying about her when you take care of her? And sometimes you need a reminder.” 

You chew it over. “Okay… you’re right. You win that one, Harrington. Mostly ‘cos I’m too tired.”

Steve always wins when he gets to slide into bed next to you. You push yourself over and bunch the kids up tighter. There’s not quite enough room for him. He feels as though he’s one little legged kick from falling back out, but he doesn’t mind, wrapping an arm around you and Avery where she’s sliding off of you and onto the mattress between you both. The poor girl is in a deep sleep, dribbling from the corner of her mouth. Steve wipes it away. 

“You comfortable enough?” he asks. 

“I’m fine. Thank you for asking.” 

He rests his head against yours on the pillows. “Missed you.” 

“But you had fun, right?” 

“It was great. I feel like I ran a marathon.” 

“Exhausted?” you ask. 

“And accomplished… You sure you’re okay? It was a long day by yourself. That stunt you pulled in the kitchen? Incredible.” 

“I thought you’d like that. I told the girls you’d buy them a pony.” 

“You did not.” 

You laugh into his cheek. “No, I didn't, you caught me… I’m fine, really. I did miss you. It’s not nice, not seeing you. I’m used to a couple of hours, but it started feeling wrong when it was dark out, I… it’s silly but I was thinking about how horrible it would be if you never came back–”

Your pitch lifts up as Steve gasps and slaps a hand over your mouth (doesn’t slap, but covers, big hand on your lips and pressing them shut without sympathy). 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He meets your eyes, smiling hard despite the fatigue clinging to you both, and doesn’t buckle, even as you kiss his palm again. “Pregnancy brain is a scary thing.” 

Your eyes turn to melting. He’s putty immediately, pulling your hand away to caress your cheek. 

“Wanna be crazy in love in the morning?” he asks gently. You put your arm behind Avery’s back and smile as she snuggles into your ribs. Steve kisses your nose. “Go to sleep, honey. I can feel how tired you are. Back to normal in the morning.” 

“Love you, Steve.” 

“Love you, too.”

[teddybeartoji]

彡 LOVE BY THE OPEN WINDOW

☆. contains: toji fushiguro x gn!reader; established relationship, fluff, a bit bittersweet in the beginning... very sappy very cute, reader calls him "my baby" wc: 1.9k

toji doesn't understand why you love the rain so much.

he doesn't see the appeal. at all.

everything gets wet, gloomy and dark – he hates the way soaked clothes feel on his body; how heavy they are, how they cling to him. he hates the puddles, he hates having to go around them. and he hates when a car passing by splashes him. it's fucking ridiculous.

he doesn't understand why your eyes are glued to the street below as you sit by the open window. a brisk breeze cards your hair, cradles your jaw; he can see the goosebumps on your skin but you refuse to move. you're holding onto a cup of something (he knows it's tea) and he can see the warmth of it. he watches you raise the ceramic to your lips, he watches you swallow, he watches you take in the heat with a faint smile. droplets of rain litter your bare legs and arms and he thinks about chiding you about catching a cold... but he just can't seem to actually do it.

fresh out of the shower, he stands in the dim living room with a towel in his hand - the only light in the room is coming from the outside and it's not a lot. the sky is painted a hazy, pale gray shade; he can't even see the clouds the water is pouring from - everything above has mixed into one big melancholy blob. the rain thrashes so loudly that it muffles every other sound in the world. it's overwhelming. he hates it.

images of a kicked, sad dog sitting under a sky just like this flood his mind. licking his wounds as the water tried to wash him away; the drops felt like daggers, like sharp little blades, trailing all over his skin. the clothes on his back burned as the cold took over, nothing ever made sense to him. the dog hated how bright it was – why weren't the clouds darker, why wasn't it storming, why wasn't the weather worse? he wanted to hide in the shadows, hide from the stupid rain and the hurt and the shame, to hide from the light.

(memories, not images.)

"toji?"

warm, like the sun. another kind of light. your lips curl around the letters of his name like they're meant to do so and he doesn't know... he doesn't understand why. the rain – ever so gloomy and sad and cold and dark and irrelevant and upsetting and useless and—

"baby?"

a switch goes off in his head and the rain changes into a simple background noise. he hears you loud and clear.

an extended hand, reaching for his – you're as patient as ever, your hand doesn't shake as you wait for him. it never does. toji shakes his head to rid of the images because he wants to see you instead. you're here and that's all that matters. his shoulders relax and he let's out the breath he didn't even know he was holding. you're smiling. you're beautiful.

the background doesn't muddle in his eyes – it's you and the rain. coexisting; the flood won't wash you away like he fears and you won't make it disappear either. and that's okay. he watches you place down your mug and his heart does a little flip when you reach out to him with two arms now. your grin stretches wider, your shine – you want him there, no matter how unbelievable it sounds or seems.

throwing the towel over his shoulders, he sneaks forward. he's not as sour as he was mere seconds ago and you're glad. you've noticed that he doesn't like this type of weather and you understand why.

his mossy green eyes bore into yours as you dig your fingers into his still damp skin. he smells good, he feels anew. while he still feels quite warm from the shower, he sees more goosebumps raise from your skin and he's decided to try and lecture you now, he's gonna tease you about the dangerous breeze, the risk of getting sick. the corners of his scarred lips tug upward and—

"stupid, your hair is still wet. you're gonna catch a cold."

...

you're not really looking at him; fully focused on his unruly, wet strands of hair, eyebrows furrowed as you push them away from his eyes. your tone is caring, albeit a little teasing. he loves it.

he loves you.

he's about to bite back but you're just not letting have his moment today.

a surprisingly warm hand slithers up his chest and around his neck while another hold onto his soft cheek. an unstoppable object meets an immovable force. toji doesn't even have a chance.

you tug him down with the most gentle pull and before he can even question what you're doing – your lips press against his forehead. adoration blooms from the touch; it travels to his cheeks and the tips of his ears, his own lips, his neck, his chest, his lower stomach, the tips of his fingers, his thighs and knees, his fucking toes. it's everywhere. you are everywhere.

the loud "mwaaaaaaah!" that spills from you makes him chuckle; his chest rumbles with warmth and you take the moment to fully cradle his face in your hands. he leans into it, nuzzling into you like a big cat.

"my baby..."

toji hates how much he loves it when you call him that. him – a baby? how ridiculous, how childish, how foolish and naive; he is not a—

"myy baabyy..."

his insides fill with butterflies and his skin burns. the desire to pull away, to look away, to hide, is immense but your hold on him is stronger. he let's you tug him down a bit further, until his head bonks against his – you're looking at him from an incredibly silly angle and he's never felt more at home.

"'m a grown man, stop callin' me 'baby'." he grumbles. like a child.

"i can literally hear your heart racing right now, stop lying tough guy."

you know his act better than he'd ever like to admit. it's scary how clearly you see him. he really doesn't have a chance against you. you're something that grows between the cracks of concrete, slowly but surely growing your roots underneath before sprouting up and reaching for the sky. you hold him together.

in order to distract you from your unnervingly accurate comment, toji pinches your side before pulling you into his embrace. still sat on the windowsill, you let him snake his strong arms around you and wait for him to take his rightful place behind your back. he holds onto you as if you're about to slip away from him but you aren't. and you never will.

more droplets of rain fall onto your thighs and his arms and it feels refreshing. you feel him rest his heavy head on your shoulder and you know that this is the perfect time to introduce him to your favourite type of weather.

hand on top of his, you use the other to grab the lonely, almost forgotten cup of tea and bring it to your lips. it's still warm. after a quiet 'ahhh!', you raise it to his – he drinks it without a word. you know it's too sweet for him and you laugh when he doesn't say anything, just letting his eyes fall shut at the taste with a low grumble. your big baby.

the sound of the rain isn't as overwhelming anymore, it's not deafening. he feels you breathe and he feels the brisk air; the tiniest drops find his face with the help of the wind but they don't sting like they used to.

"look..."

toji gives you a 'hm?' before peeling open his eyes. he looks at you, only to find you staring at the street below again with a pretty smile. he follows your gaze and his hearts stammers. three kids, jumping around in a puddle, laughing so hard that they're almost crying – he didn't even hear them. they're wearing the most colorful clothes toji has ever seen in his whole entire life and they're laughing.

"so fucking cute."

you nuzzle your nose against his cheek while he's still looking at the kids splashing each other. "c'mon, when are we doing that, hm?"

the corners of his lips tug up despite his best efforts to stop them from doing so. he gives your body a aqueeze before murmuring. "y'really are something, huh..."

a toothy grin and another laugh – he doesn't know what he'd do without you.

toji lunges forward, pretending to bite your nose and he revels in the sounds that bubble from your throat. damp hair tickles your face as you try to push him off and the tea in your hand threatens to spill as you squirm in his hold, but he doesn't budge. he nips at your skin and he swallows your laughter like it's the last meal he'll ever have.

"y'wanna go and play in the rain?" kiss. "wanna play in the puddles?" kiss. "y'wanna catch a cold like those kids out there, hm?" kiss.

whatever thoughts plagued his mind before are long forgotten now. the memories are actively being replaced my newer, happier ones and he's glad to let the old ones go. he's fucking elated to do so.

with one final bite-kiss, he steadies his arms around you once more and let's you catch your breath.

"tell me more."

your eyebrows raise and you tear your eyes from the dancing trees outside. "about what?"

"what ya wanna do... why ya like the rain s'much..."

he's just a little hesitant to ask, though he himself isn't sure what he's so afraid of.

(he's scared he won't be able to give you what you want.)

"oh. hmm..." toji feels like a blanket around you and you can't help but melt into him as you answer his question. "i love the sound of it, i think it's very calming."

a hum.

"i love just watching it too, i love watching the puddles grow. i love to watch it soak everything."

another hum.

"i love the fact that it helps the flowers bloom, the grass and the trees. i like how it smells, during and after. i love how the sun peeks from the clouds when it's all done."

toji's eyes fall shut as he listens to your smooth voice. he pictures you instead of a weeping dog – he thinks about you sitting outside, in the rain. he knows you'd welcome it with a bright smile and open arms.

(like you welcome him.)

"i wanna feel it on my skin, and my hair. it's so refreshing. and i really do wanna play in the puddles, toji..."

he hears the pout in your voice and his insides feel warm. it's easy to forget about his past when he's with you; his every single thought involves you, they circle around you and he couldn't be more grateful.

"'n i wanna kiss in the rain. you know, like they do in the movies?"

his voice is smooth, comforting. he's not making fun of you, he's genuinely invested in your wish. "mm, yeah? wanna kiss like yer in a movie?"

"i do."

the rain. it pours and pours. the kids laugh and cheer. you sip on your tea and he hears you swallow. he feels your heartbeat.

"okay."

determination.

a promise.

[mizading]

Taking Care of Sick JJK Men

╰┈➤ {Characters} : Satoru Gojo, Kento Nanami, Suguru Geto.

╰┈➤ {Warnings} : None

Satoru Gojo:

With a sick Satoru, you’ll be greeted with his sniffles and strong arms clinging to your waist as soon as the sun rises. Little groans and complaints would leave his lips to get your attention. (He’s an attention whore.)

Satoru would whine endlessly about how sick he felt, pleading for you to miraculously make him feel better. A little pout is permanent on Satoru’s face. He’s always excessively moody when he feels sick.

As if his complaints weren't enough, Satoru has no shame, clinging and kissing all over you as if he won't get you ill as well. It’s Satoru’s way of self-soothing when he’s grumpy and feeling under the weather.

No matter how much you complain or push him off, Satoru will come right back, holding you tighter than before. It’s not like he wants to get you sick; he just can't keep his hands to himself to save his life.

Like the big baby he is, Satoru will beg and beg for you to make him homemade soup. Be prepared to spoon it to him if you make some.

Cuddles, cuddles, cuddles. Most of the day will be spent in different cuddling positions. Satoru doesn’t care how hot or sweaty you two eventually get; he refuses to let go. Big spoon or little spoon, he doesn’t care as long as he gets his cuddles.

Despite how high his fever is, Satoru insists on taking at least one bath. Baths with you always soothe him. Telling him no is useless; Satoru always gets what he wants.

Nothing in this world could ever make Satoru happier than sitting in the bath between your legs with you washing and massaging his hair. He loves how delicate you are when you scrub his sick body.

Satoru likes to be sung to softly once back in bed with you. He doesn’t care what you sound like; you sound beautiful to him regardless. Satoru feels safe when he’s able to nuzzle his head into your chest and listen to your gentle voice.

Satoru feels at ease being vulnerable and treated like a human being after spending his entire life being treated as nothing more than the strongest.

Sick days with Satoru aren’t easy, but you’ll do anything and everything for him because he’ll do the exact same and more for you.

Kento Nanami:

Much like Geto, Nanami keeps to himself when he’s sick. He doesn’t believe that it's your responsibility to take care of him, no matter the circumstances.

It’s quite hard to tell when Nanami is sick; he refuses to let a “minor bug” hinder his performance. Unfortunately for Nanami, this “minor bug” forced him to call out of work early.

Nanami shuts you out when he comes home, constantly reminding you to stay away for your own good. You’re stubborn, and of course you weren’t going to let your husband suffer sick alone.

You still respect Nanami’s wishes and manage to keep a small distance between you two while taking care of him simultaneously. When you help Nanami take his work uniform off and pepper his bare back with kisses, he wanted to marry you all over again.

A hot shower with you is a must. All Nanami wants is to hug your body close and let the droplets of hot water patter on you two. A little back massage in the process would melt his poor heart. Nanami knows that he’s not keeping a safe distance, but he can’t seem to care at the moment. He’s more than willing to take days off of work just to care for you if you get sick as well.

Getting Nanami to lay down or sit down is quite hard. He has a hard time giving his body a break. The only way that you can get him to lay down is if you offer him cuddles. At this point, any attempts at keeping distance are thrown out the window.

Nanami becomes extra soft when he’s sick. He’ll spend hours on end laying in bed with his eyes closed, telling you why he loves you. Even after hours of him explaining, he still can’t tell you every reason why you’re the only woman he’ll ever love.

Nanami considers being sick a perfect time to simply catch up and talk. The conversations will range from his high school days to what he thinks happens after death. He might even throw in a random book from his collection to read to you.

Being in such a weak state reminds Nanami that a full life isn’t guaranteed. He’ll bring up his plans for the future with you once he retires. Even if living a full life isn’t guaranteed, he’ll do everything in his power to guarantee a future in Malaysia with you before it’s too late.

Suguru Geto:

Suguru has a bad habit of keeping quiet when he’s sick. He doesn’t want you to risk getting sick yourself while taking care of him. Suguru would much rather suffer in silence if it meant keeping you safe and healthy. This poor boy will hide from you in the house, purposely looking down when you’re near.

You only notice that Suguru is sick when you catch him slugging around the house with a red nose and tired eyes when he thinks you’re gone. That would explain why the full tissue box was almost empty within 2 hours. He’ll refuse to admit that he’s sick, but you know better.

Without question, you immediately come to the rescue, dragging Suguru back to the bed with a thermometer and water bottle in your hand. He knows that he’s been caught and won't be able to keep you from getting sick now.

As much as Suguru doesn’t want you to risk getting sick, he absolutely loves your gentle care. It’ll take a few hours of convincing for Suguru to finally let you care for him without pushing you away. His weak state makes it easier for you to force him to comply.

Due to how soft Suguru's voice naturally is, he loses his voice 9/10 times when he gets sick. It melts your heart to hear him ask for favors in a little whisper. He finds it embarrassing, but you convince him otherwise. Suguru thinks it's so sweet and strange that you find almost everything about him in his sick state cute.

Suguru doesn’t ask for much out of fear of burning you out. He tends to keep to himself. With enough harassment, you’ll eventually get him to tell you his needs. Lucky for him, you always give him what he needs and more without him having to ask. He can’t believe how lucky he is sometimes. What did a man like him do to deserve such an angel?

He wouldn’t dare ask you for affection in the state he’s in, even if he wanted it so so badly. His eyes scanning your body constantly, unfortunately, gave him away. Without hesitation, you'll give Suguru more love than he can handle.

You can’t help but smother Suguru with your affection. You have no concern about getting sick yourself. Your priority is making your baby feel better.

Suguru is an adorable mess when he’s sick. He’ll never take your love and care for granted.

Banner Credits: Cafekitsune

[jolapeno]

the man who has returned home

javier peña x f!reader | masterlist

summary: this week’s sex diary - the man who has returned home under the covers’s sex diaries series asks anonymous men to record their sex lives — with angst, sometimes sexy, and always revealing results.

wordcount: 3k warnings: sex diary. modern!times (for the plot). smut (it's a sex diary) 18+, so the usual explicit things. reader in this has a nickname to protect their identity. an: I've wanted to finish and post this for ages, all because I've read and been inspired by The Cut’s Sex Diaries for the longest time. not sure what this will be, but at most going to be a loose collection of the ppcu boys, but for now, i don't want to run before i walk, so meet javi p.

DAY 1 5.32am

He’s woken earlier than he wants to.

There’s sweat on his forehead, on his spine—it forces the off-white sheets, which are crumpled under him, to cling to him. Worst of all, he’s breathing heavily, his heart angrily thumping in his chest, a tightness that doesn't lessen the more he gulps still-warm air.

He knows it's another nightmare; another shapeless horror that can be added to the tab.

Foolishly, he thought they’d lessen in time, ease a little as time ticks from weeks to over a month of being back.

Instead, it’s only worsening. A thought which ruptures as he digs the base of his palms into his eyes, groaning, before stopping himself.

The last thing he wants is to wake up his Pop.

6.18am

The shower isn't fixing the irk in his bones, it doesn’t wash away the woven annoyance in his muscles as water cascades and slides off the slope of his nose to his chest.

He tries fucking his fist to the memory of... let's call her Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a woman he used to know and now knows in an entirely different way. She doesn't ask questions, doesn't appear to care what he did overseas or not and mostly doesn't look at him like he hung the moon.

It's why he fucked her. It's why he keeps fucking her.

Now, he's touching himself to the thought of her. Hoping it helps, alleviates.

A few tugs and he’s panting, forehead pressed to the cold tiles as he groans her name. It's all acidic, purposeful. It hisses out all coiled around pleasure before it's swirling down the drain.

It does rid the annoyance, but it’s replaced instead by shame. It blooms out similar to the red welts as he dries himself, running the towel over his shoulders, chest, stomach, and thighs.

He doesn’t recognise the person he greets in the mirror when he goes back into his bedroom. The one with dark bags under his eyes and a haunted look he manages to mask every day when he steps into the rest of the house.

He’s barely pulled his jeans up his thighs before a fresh irk swarms him. Wondering, nursing his lip between his teeth whether breaking the new horse in might help. It’ll keep him busy, at least.

Then he spots the number on his dresser. The one staring at him as he tucks his shirt into his jeans—the one etched in lipstick. His phone is next to it, all but tempting, making his jaw jut to one side as he contemplates if he should open that text chain again.

He doesn’t.

He wonders if he’ll crack sooner on this than he did smoking.

6.38pm

Twelve hours could be a new record.

Cinnamon’s fingers claw, scratching at the back of his head. Each slap of his thighs against the back of hers makes her whine. A delectable noise, a sight for sore eyes. Especially as she’s smothered in a faint sheen of sweat and perfume, neck bowing as he pants against her neck. Inhaling her. Feeling her pulse against his tongue.

Each plunge of his cock, each press of his fingers into her supple skin makes him grunt. The feel of her, squirming, desperately rutting back into whatever he gives you only makes him more desperate to fuck her so hard he hopes it’ll fuck the bad out of his head. Loud, sinful noises come from where the two of them are joined, the sheets a mess under the two of them.

He can still taste her on his tongue. He’d delved, made her thighs stretch around his broad shoulders as he buried his face into her pussy, fucked her hole with his tongue as her breath hitched and her fists clamped around her sheets.

He suspects she knows that he’s not sleeping, but she doesn’t ask. Likely has little care about how he’s using her, because he suspects she’s using him too.

Dragging his mouth to hers, she moans against his tongue. She pants out harder, as though knowing he needs permission. He does. Makes her skin ripple with the force of it as more sobs and mewls are punched out of you as your pussy clenches, flutters and pulses.

Fuck, he groans—quickening his pace, desperately clinging to not come just yet. Needing her to. Wanting her too. Feeling her squeezing and bearing down as she nods, as she tells him she’s close, I’m close, fuck I'm c—

When she comes, she arches into him. Tensing before becoming boneless and limp. Wrapping her tight, fucking heat around him that makes his morning feel futile.

And it is, because he never wants to leave this. A need. A desperate, hungry need. One he can never replicate this as a moan is forced from her throat and her pleasure crashes over her in a thick, heavy wave. It pushes him over with a few more thrusts until he’s groaning into her neck, bruising her hips to the point of no return as he pulses inside of her, fucks his spend into her until he’s softening.

Fuck, she says, panting.

Fuck, he replies, before he finds his mouth is latching to hers and the two of them become a heap in her bed.

7.12pm

He suspects there should be some guilt that he keeps doing this with her.

A thought that ruminates as his fingers twitch for a smoke. A need for it. One she must tell because she smirks and says nothing.

He won't admit it, but he likes it when she smirks. Has some perverse reaction to it. Because it reminds him she took him in her mouth behind the bar, his nails scraping brick, coming forcibly down her throat as she looked at him like she somehow expected more from him.

All that's to say, it's ruined her smirk now. It makes him hard now whenever she does it, like some sick Pavlov's reaction.

She may have a new number, a new look and an apartment, yet she’s the same girl he’d once known deep down. She's been shyer then, but he knew she wasn't innocent, not like she let others think.

But, he supposes that's the meaning of a true friendship. When you know a person intimately, like he knows her. Like he knows that she hates heights because of the time they climbed a tree and knows she sobbed when she tripped and broke her arm on his ranch. In the same way, he knew for a long time what oversized tees she owned, could almost predict which she'd choose, until one day there was suddenly a sundress that made his cock hard and his brain malfunction.

Fuck, she still has nice legs.

A thing he had witnessed when he was a teen. When she began dating a friend of his and wore their jacket on cooler evenings with him on the ranch. We're ranch friends, she used to say, hooking her pinky with his.

Now he’s fucking her.

Spearing her and making her fingers clamp around his as she needs him for leverage as she careens towards another orgasm. Those glorious, beautiful, stunning fucking legs wrapped around him or pressed to her chest as he sheaths his cock inside of her.

She reminds him of how good they are when she slips from his arms to retrieve water. Naked. His and her slick likely still smeared between her thighs.

His arm comes up over his forehead, muscles relaxing into your mattress and flower-scented sheets. He shouldn’t sleep.

He shouldn’t sleep over.

He falls asleep anyway.

DAY 4 9.12am

He’s not sure whether to be offended that he doesn’t hear from her or if he’s out of practice.

Before, back in Colombia he supposed it was more scheduled. A need for info and a need to forget. Routine, almost booked in. I’ll be here to hear what you have to say and then hear how you say my name.

Back home isn’t like that.

Cinnamon does have a job—a good one, from what he has been able to pull out of her. She keeps things locked down. Any time things toe the line of getting too close, she clams up and shifts the conversation.

There’s no faded tan line on her finger, though. No gossip when he enters stores about her.

He thinks he could ask his pop. Quiz him.

He decides against this ten minutes later.

4.12pm

Cinnamon is busy tonight.

He kinda hates that he was the one to ask. He hates it more than she only replies with the word can't.

10.48pm

He hears his phone go off when he’s doing his best to pretend the world doesn’t exist.

For one, he should be asleep. A thing he knows but hasn’t quite managed to get more than five hours since he came home.

The sound of nothing bothers him more than the old sounds of busy streets, guns and shouting. It crosses his mind he should check in on M tomorrow. See how he coped when he came home.

His phone sounds again. Jaw grit, he checks it, and sees a photo from Cinnamon.

Felt bad not being available is accompanied by her holding a towel in a way he’d describe as art. He can almost feel the condensation from her skin, how the droplets would feel on his palm and how he’d collect the beads from her perk breasts. She’s chosen her angles, even made sure to twist her hip toward him, casting a shadow that leaves your perfect pussy hidden.

He’s hard before he can wrap his head around it. Palm around his velvet skin, tugging, hips meeting his movements.

He comes hard, phone in one hand, fist around his cock.

You’re forgiven, he texts back when he’s cleaned up.

He sleeps for six hours.

DAY 13 9.02pm

It’s been days.

Odd texts, a phone call that lasted 18 minutes. But otherwise, silence. Awkward, weird silence that makes him feel shitty.

He wonders if he’s the other man. If there’s a whole life that she lives and he’s the break for her. It makes him think, question, ponder. Delve into a side of his thoughts he shouldn’t do sober or without a smoke.

Then, like the sun after a storm, Cinnamon asks if she can come to the ranch.

A thing she has yet to do since this thing began. There’s a white line, he imagines, between the road and where he sleeps.

She looks upset when she exits her vehicle, with red eyes and a sternness he thinks is forced. He asks her what she needs, and she responds with a shrug.

He doesn’t think when he places his hand on her lower spine, when he leads her down the beaten path—when he scoops overhanging branches from her face and takes her to the edge of the ranch.

It’s crosses his mind that he should ask, that he should check she’s okay, but then her mouth is on his. Hot, fervently, breathing him in as her fingers slide into his hair and pull him as close as she can have him.

Stop with the puppy eyes, Peña. You don’t have to… we’re not like—

He kisses her instead of letting her finish her thought. Better that than ask why not. Choosing to part her lips with his tongue, moan into her mouth like he’s starving, like he needs a taste of her as much as she needs him.

Maybe he does.

Maybe that’s why he can’t fucking sleep again.

Wanna taste you on my tongue, Javi…

And her hand is undoing his belt, not even needing both hands, managing with one and a smirk. Easing his jeans down to his knees, licking a stripe up her palm before he’s grunting, shifting his hips into her hand as she kisses his lips, his jaw, before descending down to her knees.

Can I?

He snorts before nodding, because how could he refuse her? A thing he almost says but Cinnamon has the sweetest mouth.

She takes as much of him as she can, right down her throat. He knows if he reached his hand around, he’d be able to feel how determined she is, trace his fingers over the bulge of him there.

The thought makes him grunt her name—her real name. Hissing it into the quiet air that only is interrupted by the cicadas.

He bites at his lip as she swirls her tongue, gazing down to find her cheeks hollowed and her eyes staring up at him—uncaring that her knees are in the dirt and she’s slobbering over her chin.

Her breaths are measured, nostrils flaring as she bobs up and down, and the sounds of it meet his ears.

And shit, fuck—she looks wrecked, fucked, and he’s not even touched her.

Suspecting if he did, however, he’d find her soaked, dripping, desperate to be stuffed full of him.

It’s that which almost makes him confess that he can’t stop thinking about her. He’s almost become sore from how much he’s stroked himself to the memory of her, to the image she’d sent and the one she’d let him take.

His photo album is becoming dedicated to her, to them. A shrine. Images of her in lace or nothing; her body contorted and her face hidden. Then, the latest one, her body splattered in shadows from her undrawn window, skin wearing only moonlight and the light sheen of their activities—one covering a breast, the other dipped between her legs, doing as he said, two fingers swirling around her clit, chin tilted up, take the photo, Javi. Just take it.

He wonders if she’d let him take one like this. Or if he’d have to settle on a memory.

A grunt passes through his clenched teeth, hand firm on the back of her head as she takes him deeper, as she bobs her head and sucks and swallows—

A louder noise leaves his throat soon after. One that rips from it as he spurts down her throat. When his body is licked by flames and something has tightened to an impossible degree in his lower stomach before he’s hissing, feeling her cleaning him up and releasing him with a pop.

Then, he’s treated to another prize, another treat. Cinnamon’s mouth opens, seeing the white ribbons swirling in her spit. Her tongue almost outstretched as though presenting him with a gift wrapped in a bow.

Swallow, he commands.

And she does.

He wonders if it’s romantic to fuck her in a field.

He does so anyway.

DAY 20 7.02am

There’s something about morning sex he can’t put his finger on.

Whether it’s because it’s a thing he hasn’t indulged much in. In Colombia, he’d only encountered it a handful of times.

He suspects it’s Cinnamon.

Her soft thighs on either side of his waist, the way she arches into him, contorts so her chest is flush against his as he finds himself deeper like this, hitting that spot inside of her that makes her look at him with nothing but lust.

It’s slower, less rushed. The pace not punishing, but controlled thrusts that somehow make her slicker, tighter.

He comes to the conclusion it’s her when she grasps his forearm, feels it flex under her fingers as she splutters his name and splinters around his cock. He realises this because he understands her, and knows what she needs. Has her figured out as he shifts her muscle-slacked body to hit the angle she needs to see stars again. It makes her eyes and her whines become desperate moans. He wishes she’d bury the sounds into his skull, into his brain. Wishes they’d cover screams and the sound of a life being taken.

For a moment they do. She makes sure of it.

Heat becoming blistering in his lower stomach, a need to increase his pace as she keens and whines, fingers digging into his shoulders, cut me he thinks, dig your nail down he silently pleads.

Her orgasm crests and he becomes dizzy from it—pushing a thigh closer to her chest, staring down at the place the two of them conjoin. Seeing the mess he’s made of her, how she takes him, how her slick coats around the base of him and the tight curls.

Then his own breathless moan forces itself out, small jerks followed by a stillness before her lips find his. The taste of him there, evidence of what began the entire morning thing.

12.33pm

He has a call with M, one he takes in his truck—overlooking the place he’s from.

It’s quiet here. A favourite from when he was at school, a place he brought people to so he could impress them.

Once, a long time ago, he’d brought Cinnamon here too.

As a friend. To make her smile—cheer her up.

He thinks about that when he should be listening, a thing he seems to do more and more of lately.

He hopes M hasn’t said anything helpful.

8.24pm

Do you fancy grabbing food?

Five fucking words that he regrets typing out, never mind sending. Biting his nails, rocking on the two legs of a garden chair as he prays his weight won’t make it buckle beneath him.

He stares at the slight curve of his stomach under his tee. The one that had formed as age caught up with his horrendous diet and his lack of fitness out of running and fucking.

He almost launches his phone when it beeps, and he sees a reply.

Now or as a date?

He contemplates his reply.

DAY 24 7.02pm

Cinnamon arrives looking fucking beautiful, just as he expected she would. Her eyes latch and dig into him as she moves between tables and he finds himself on his feet to pull her chair out.

She’s wearing a different perfume, a different lipstick than the night they’d reunited. She also looks nervous, politely asking for water before turning her smile to him. She likes his shirt, and teases him about not wearing a tie—he laughs. Finds it slips from him with ease.

He keeps laughing, interspersed with hers.

She finally shares that has never been married. Engaged though, once. He asks her if the breakdown of it is as rememberable as his, and she smirks, eyes shimmering, nothing can be as memorable as you, Javi.

He hopes she chose her words carefully.

She confirms later she did, dragging him through her door, his fingers undoing her dress.

Finding her wearing his favourite colour. A thing he’d said offhand the night they reconnected in the bar.

I remember, Javi, she had said then.

Now, he realises he maybe should have believed her back then. 

an: hope you like this different styling. I've had this half-done in my drafts for ages, trying to find the courage. so a huge thank you to @thetriumphantpanda for always believing in me, cause without her so much of what i'd write would find its way into the bin.

[toxicanonymity]

Stepdad!joel stepdad!joel stepdad!joel stepdad!joel stepdad!joel 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤

Amazon 📦

2700, stepdad!Joel x f!reader. Stepdad Master List

New: BONUS SNAPCHATS, and one more (what if)

Ty for always ID-ing stepdad in the wild @gracieispunk including this pic ILYSM!!

SUMMARY: You give Joel the cold shoulder. He's sad and horny and finds a way to get your attention with a gift. He snapchats you a lot. A/N: Shout-out to @scratchietella (cum ask). WARNINGS: I8+, POV alternates twice, jacking off, stepcest, degradation, angst, reflection on cheating, a bit of whump and a hint of reader dacryphilia. Joel comes a lot (7x or so?), and I spelled it the short way for disambiguation.  NO use of Y/N. 

After you let Joel give you head, he thinks he’s back in your good graces despite cheating with your mom. But as soon as Joel leaves your room, you must be putting on your clothes. Because within less than a minute, you call Jacques on your way downstairs-–in earshot–to apologize on Joel's behalf for rushing him out.  

Joel follows you downstairs, but your Mom is on her way in.  You go out the front door, and when your Mom walks in from the garage, Joel is standing at the kitchen with his hair all messed up from running his hands through it in distress.  He doesn’t know if you’re going to Jacques’s, back to your apartment, or out, but he doesn’t like it. Joel knows he has no right to tell you anything, but that doesn’t stop him from calling you.  You don’t answer.  

Your Mom isn’t home for long.  She goes right back out, at which point Joel goes straight to his dresser to retrieve both pairs of your panties: The pair you gagged him with after he gave you a ride home, and the pair you stuffed in his pocket in the kitchen on Thanksgiving. The ones from the car are already ruined by his own cum, but the ones from Thanksgiving are all you. 

Joel lies on the bed and lubes up his cock, still hard from eating you out.  He puts on his glasses and looks at the screenshots he took of you before he knew Snapchat was telling on him. He whimpers as he strokes himself.

After a minute of looking at your scandalous photos, he feels pathetic for clinging to such a tiny morsel of you when he needs it all. He tosses his phone aside, closes his eyes, and smothers his face with your panties as he strokes himself.  He takes in deep breaths and he grunts and moans into them, and his hips involuntarily flex like his fist might as well be you. 

For the thousandth time, he imagines putting an end to his misery by just fucking your shit up.  Busting in your door, grabbing you by the throat slamming you against the wall.  Shoving his tongue down your throat and his hand between your legs. Tearing your clothes off as you whimper his name. Then taking you to bed, only so he can put you on your back and spread you wide open.

He'd memorize the folds of your dripping cunt as it twitches and begs for his tongue. Flip you over and shove himself in without warning, making you mewl as his girth splits you in two. Pounding you. Spanking you. Yeahh, just railing into your needy whore cunt as you whimper under him.  He sees your face screwing up as he cums inside you with a harsh grunt, finally giving you what you wanted all this time, a cunt full of his load.  

Cut to his own fist full of it on his bed. As he lies there breathing, the shame sets in. Not only the stepcest shame, but also the knowledge that he'd never have the balls to do any of that. It’s barely believable enough to get off to.  And then the guilt sets in – the guilt of what he did, how he fucked things up with you.  He feels guiltier about this than he felt for cheating on your Mom. He feels like he cheated on you. 

He puts away the evidence and washes his hands. Then he stares at your text convo. He has to figure out how to make things right. 

You don't respond to a single text or snap for the next week or so, and you don’t come back to the house either. Joel feels even more desperate. He’d do anything, if he only knew what might help.  He needs something to get your attention. He doesn’t sleep with your Mom, and your Mom doesn’t care. She doesn’t even bring it up. He’s pretty sure she’s having an affair anyway. Brazenly.  For her to confront Joel about his lack of interest would be to risk Joel confronting her about the affair. Joel isn't sure if it’s physical or just emotional, but it doesn’t matter much. He’s over it. 

Joel thinks about you at night and wonders if you think about him, too. He envisions what you might look like, thinking of him.  He imagines you with your spine arched, toy between your legs, closing your eyes, just soaking your sheets as you sigh his name. One night, he’s picturing this, really choking his cock.  He groans then sighs as he cums into his fist.  And then, when he’s recovering from his climax, that’s when it hits him.  How to get your attention. 

—---------

You’re lying on the couch watching TV.  You’re distracted.  Joel’s outreach has been ambiguous so far.  He hasn’t said anything about your mom. He hasn’t begged for pictures, much less for another chance. He’s only begged for forgiveness, over text.  You haven’t opened his snapchats because you don't want to be reminded about what he did.  You don’t want a serious talk or a lecture or god forbid details.  You don’t even want a sincere apology, unless it’s in the interest of fucking you.  

You get a notification that you have a package at the leasing office and sigh in exasperation that you have to make the trip there when it's probably not even yours. You aren't expecting anything, but sure enough, it has your name on it. 

It’s a vibrator.  Your heart races when you read the gift message. “Thinking of you. A lot. I’m sorry. J.” Unwanted butterflies swarm in your chest and you try to bat them away. He even included an extra pack of batteries.  How. . . thoughtful. Smart, too, because if it were rechargeable, you’d never plug it in.  It would feel like an admission of forgiveness. But since it’s battery-operated, you can just pull the battery tab as soon as you get horny. And of course you do. You lay on the sofa where you and Joel hooked up before and you take the toy for a spin. His ploy is working, you’re thinking of him, and you’re too horny to care.

You finally open his snapchats. They're a mix of horny and pathetic videos. They start off horny, just showing you a bulge in his pants or he's jacking off with your panties.  

Video: Then something non-sexual. A closeup where he’s just looking at you with messy hair, puppy dog eyes, and dark circles. “Talk to me. Yell at me, I don’t care. I'll take anything.” 

Video: Then horny. Palming himself over his joggers.  Whining your name in a whisper.  “Please.” His desperation turns you on. 

Video: A sad one the same night. He's sweating, looking like a little more of a mess, forehead glistening, catching his breath. "Don't throw this away." He breathes for a few more seconds.

Video: Another sad one another day where he doesn’t really say anything but his face says it all.  He looks awful, as if he’s not sleeping. Red eyelids, might have been crying.  He starts to say something, “I—” he takes a deep breath. Then he shakes his head, looks up and it cuts off. 

Video: A horny one that must have been the same night. He looks the same, but his reddened eyes look hungry. His lips are parted and he's taking in a shaky breath with his arm moving slowly off screen. "I just miss you." He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He turns the camera down where his clothed erection sticking straight up in his joggers, just jutting into the air. His hand pushes it down and he slowly grabs it.

You leave his snaps on "seen," not even beginning to reply. Then a few minutes later he sends a new one.  A minute after that, another one.  You leave those unseen for the time being.

—------------

Joel sees you open the old snaps. That's progress, he thinks, and boldly assumes you open them when you’re horny. When he starts to second guess that assumption, he gets self conscious and thinks it might be for the better that you don’t open the last two snaps. They might have been too much. . .

Video: He’s sitting in his office chair in front of a full length mirror. He’s manspreading and his joggers are hugging him in a way that emphasizes his bulge.  His big, veiny hand is slowly rubbing his inner thigh, getting closer and closer to where he desperately wants your touch. He says, “Ya know,” (deep breath) “I should be doin’ that for you.” Then he palms his arousal and says, “Ahh, fuck it.”  

Video: A few minutes later, he’s slouched down in the chair.  His T-shirt is pulled up well over his  belly button and his hand around his cock. After just a few wet strokes, he sighs loudly as he cums all over his abdomen.  It’s a lot of cum, like six or seven ropes. Then his stomach rises and falls with heavy breaths for a few seconds before he ends the video. 

He’s grateful for the glimmer of hope but still beating himself up.  He doesn’t know what to do. He’s not even sure what you want. At times, it feels like a losing battle. He’s not even sure what you feel.  At some point he thought he knew, on some level. He thought you both knew, the moment you kissed, it felt like there was something electric neither of you could articulate but both of you knew.

It felt more than skin deep, but he couldn’t say where it went within either of you.  He still can’t say. It’s not like you were in love. Certainly not batting eyelashes at each other or making future plans. Half the time you were bickering.  But there was something there.  Even if it was only physical, it was deep in your bones and something made it electric. 

The further it gets from that moment, the more he wonders what you ever wanted. Is he your play thing? Do you get off on torturing him? Did you genuinely enjoy chatting with him?  Do you get off on sneaking around or would you be into him if you knew each other a different way? 

He pushes those thoughts away and keeps coming back to the physical spark between you. The hunger in your eyes.  Your persistence.  He wants both of you to take a leap of faith–not into a relationship–but a leap backward to the beginning.  This all burned down and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.  If he lets it cool and builds it right, maybe it can become something better.  Abstaining from other people feels like a good start. He can’t think about whether you’re seeing anyone else or it keeps him up at night. 

—-----

The next day, you’re horny again.  You get comfortable and turn on your new toy. You tell yourself opening his snaps doesn’t mean anything.  You don’t have to respond.   It won’t have any effect on you.  But when you watch those two in his office, and oh, God. It takes you no time flat to cum, and cum hard.  You don’t say anything back to him. He texts you, “did you like that?” and you don’t respond.  He continues, “if not i’ll stop, sorry. Lmk.” You don’t let him know anything at all. You stay radio silent. 

Over the next couple of weeks, he keeps snapchatting you.  Even if you don’t open it that night, he knows you might go on a spree and open several in a row, probably when you’re using his gift. 

Video: It’s a computer screen with your insta pulled up.  He’s at the desk in his bedroom, the one where you found him jacking off to your pictures a few of months ago. He points the camera down at his lap and he’s wearing gray boxer briefs you didn’t know he had.  You see the very clear outline of his hard cock atop his thigh, straining to burst out of them.  “See what ya do to me.” He runs his hand down it with a low sigh.

Video: A few minutes later, selfie mode, breathing heavily.  Hand wrapped around his shiny cock, stiff and swollen.  He fists himself at a beat that’s becoming as irregular as his ragged breaths. He grunts as he thrusts into his hand.  “Oh, fuck—oh—-ohhh fuck, I–nngg–” He devolves into a groan as he erupts in his hand. It shoots back toward the camera. It takes a good thirty seconds of him moaning and sighing and catching his breath before he’s finally done emptying his balls. 

Video: He’s on his bed, rear camera facing his lap.  cock and his hand gliding wetly up and down it.   “I can’t believe. . .” (heavy breathing) “-oh, fuck—I–I can’t --I can't believe,” (moan) “I ever turned you down.” (long, drawn out orgasmic groan). 

Photo: Close-up of his lap with a boner.  His hand resting at his groin. His hand has no business being that hot.  Caption: How’s silicone joel treating you.”  You roll your eyes and begrudgingly smile just a little as you use the silicone joel and quickly tap for the next snap. 

Video: He’s in the office again, standing in front of the full length mirror. He’s in boxer briefs and his thighs swell out from them. No shirt.  He pans so you can see him head to toe, shirtless. Then he relaxes back in the chair, manspreading. The snap ends and it cuts to the next one.

Video: Now he’s breathing fast, stroking his raging erection feverishly in the next one “Ohh-nng-Oh–God–Fu–” (moan) “Fffuuuck” (loud, low sigh).  Stringy white ropes rocket onto his abdomen as he shudders loudly and strokes himself slower. You rewatch this one multiple times and count seven real ropes before it’s just gurgle. Seven.

You think about getting your ipad out and taking a video of this one for later use, but you accidentally tap for next. By now, he's completely unashamed.

Video: He’s in his car. You can only see his lap, and the ample bulge in his joggers. “Had to pull over.” He scoots the seat back, rubs himself slowly, breathing heavily. “Just thinkin’ about” (low sigh) “the way you came all over my mouth” He pulls his waistband down, spits on his cock, then sighs loudly. That snap ends, and in the next one--

Video: He's just cumming–really hard. It’s his fist around his cock.  “Oh, fuck,” (a gasp, then a soft, ragged groan)  “Fu–” he cuts himself off with a long sigh as he cums into a t-shirt.  You can’t see the cum but know it’s a lot.  You see his cock twitch and his hips lift as he sighs again. 

Photo: His big, masculine hand is holding a peach. Caption: Every fkn thing reminds me of you. 

All this time, you’re still not responding. Not so much as a thumbs up or sweating emoji. But you keep watching them, day after day, until  one day, he doesn’t send any.  You use the toy and just think about him, envisioning his videos, and replaying your encounters. You don’t just think about him jacking off, you think about him crying, too, and that turns you on just as much. You picture him crying and jacking off and you cum instantly. Then you feel kinda bad.

In your post-nut clarity, that’s when you realize you’re pretty much ready to move on from it.  Because you start to worry. Maybe he’s had enough of the games. Maybe he’s given up. Maybe you shouldn’t have punished him like this. It was fucked up, so fucked up, but the memory will fade. You detached enough in the moment that it's not that vivid to begin with.

Joel is married. He’s always been married. That's why he was always saying no. They kissed in front of you days before. Instead of insisting on a conversation, within sixty seconds you were putting your panties in his pocket. Then you made a pass at him, and he got you off on the kitchen counter.  Then you kissed.

That kiss. It was so loaded. Packed full of tension and potential. A glimpse of what could be had. There's no doubt in your mind the sex would be explosive.

If Joel hasn’t given up, maybe this interlude got you a little closer to what you want, somehow.  There's only one way to find out.

—-----

BONUS SNAPCHATS

the silicone Joel

STEPDAD MASTER LIST - Fandango has the most advanced smut

—-----

THANK YOU for reading and engaging. Your reblogs and comments mean so much to me, and I love when I start to see new “regulars.” It’s so exciting really. Love you guys 💙💙💙

Special shoutout to stepdad’s lawyer @milla-frenchy for expert counsel!

A/N: Based on a) people wanting her to hold out on him longer (which is what this was) and b) what i want to do on vacation, I think the vacation is going to have to be after Christmas. 

FAQ: I’m not planning on pursuing the jacques/cheatbacks storyline rn, you can HC that however you want as for what she did that night (if anything).  Don’t really wanna address the mom situation more, and probably won’t answer plot Qs. That way maybe you'll get the next story sooner --- I’m kinda trying to make this easier to write so it won’t take so much deliberation and weighing opposing inputs lol.

TBH it was supposed to just be sexy, smutty, scandalous, “we shouldn’t be doing this” PWP and it kinda got away from me.  But I at least wanted to give a little insight into Joel’s POV with this  one. 

Now back to the agenda: [cock, baby!.gif ].

-------

You can follow @toxicfics and turn on notifications (click on the person at the top) for just the most major posts. You have to have push notifications turned on for tumblr on your phone.

All Joel:@ethanhoewke @silkiers @eiviea@evyiione@xdaddysprincessxx @queerly-anxious@chernayawidow@ambassadortotrilliusprime@not-a-unique-snowflake-blog@jasminespringtime @romanarose@fandomsfallnomore @djarinxore@blackvelveteen1339 @manazo @wolvesandvampires@taeslarityy@str84pedro@lokanda @kyloispunk @filthfairy@fieryglutenfreechickennoodles @harriedandharassed @moonlightdivine@worhols@fan-fiction-floozy@cutesyscreenname  @weddingfairy @pedropascal-whore @spideysimpossiblegirl@feministfanboi@gracieispunk@prettypartyfavor@am-3-thyst@babeincolor@milla-frenchy@switchbladedreamz@within-the-depths@am-3-thyst@may-machin@pedromania91 @sloanexx@paleidiot

[buckyalpine]

Bucky uses safe word

I was feeling angstyyyyy 

Warnings: Use of safe word, sub space, overstimulation, slight non-verbal Bucky, aftercare, 

“I can take it” Bucky nodded, sucking in a breath when he heard the clink the cuff, pushing aside his anxieties, instead focusing on your pretty, naked body. “I’m ready”  

This wasn’t particularly new to Bucky; letting you take control while you toyed with his body, pulling pleasure from him while you also pleasured yourself. He loved giving himself to you, taking everything you’d give him, the satisfied, lust filled dazed look on your face fulfilling him in a way he couldn’t explain. 

It started with just letting you riding him on top to him now allowing you to push his body further and further, testing his limits. 

He loved it. 

The feel of your hands closing around his neck.

The feel of your nails scratching his skin. 

The feel of your palms striking his flushed cheek. 

The feel of pleasure shooting through his body, just to be stopped right before his release.

It was a delicious, painful torture. 

Maybe because he felt he deserved it. Pain was all he knew. It felt right. 

Even when he wasn’t ready for it.

Like right now. 

The usual prickles of pleasure he’d feel from your nails when you gripped onto his shoulders to ride him felt too hot. His body ached, mind too hazy to focus on the way you bounced up and down on his length, instead his throat closing in on itself, feeling trapped as the restraints dug into his wrists.

He knew he was safe with you, that no one could hurt him, that he had full control to stop everything when he wanted. Yet, he was slipping further and further into a deep space where he couldn’t speak for himself, where he had to be silent and just take what was given to him. He tried so hard to be good, to let you satisfy yourself on him, to ignore the pain of overstimulation between his legs, to ignore the way he was struggling to breathe, his chest starting to heave with panic. He should’ve listened to the voice that screamed at him to be honest about how he felt. 

That tonight, he needed soft loving and cuddles, that he just wanted you to hold and take care of him. Hot tears welled in his lash line, no longer able to hold it together, forcing the word out as best as he could, he didn’t want to disappoint you but he was drowning. 

“R-red” 

You froze hearing the tiny whimper, immediately stopping your movements and reaching over to release the cuffs, setting them out of view. 

“It’s okay sweet boy, its okay” You cooed, carefully slipping off, not wanting to overstimulate Bucky further, your hands softly massaging his wrists. He curled up in on himself, shame and guilt clouding his mind, slipping deeper into subspace, unable to swim to the surface. 

“So-sorry” He hiccupped, tears streaming down his face, a part of him thinking he deserved punishment again, having stopped you when he could have just sucked it up for a moment longer. “m’s-sorry” 

“No baby, don’t. Can I touch you?” He gave you a small nod, letting you cup his cheek, gently guiding him to look at you while he tried to hide his face into the pillow, refusing to look at you, “Look at me Jamie” You wiped the tears that continued to fall, pulling him to your chest while he sniffled, burying his face between your breasts. 

“You have nothing to be sorry about, I’m glad you used your safe word bub, m’so proud of you” You could feel some of the tension ease from his shoulders though only getting a whimper from him as a response. You continued to kiss his forehead, rubbing soothing circles down his spine, while he slowly started to regulate his breathing, following the rise and fall of your chest. “So proud of you baby boy” 

He looked at you with wide eyes when you shift from under him, clinging onto you tighter, unable to speak but his face telling you he didn’t want you to go anywhere. 

“I’m going to clean you up baby, not going anywhere” You pecked his forehead before grabbing a warm wash cloth and soothing lotion, the one with a lavender scent that he found calming. Your heart broke at the way his body flinched, as if he was anticipating a painful strike, eyes squeezing shut, waiting for the blow. 

“I won’t hurt you baby, you’re safe” You held back your own tears, cleaning his sweat slicked body, kissing away the sore areas before carefully moving lower. “Shhh, almost done, you’re doing so good for me bub” You gently wiped his thighs, using only a feather light touch when you got closer to where he was most sensitive, rubbing up and down his tensed muscles to ground him. He whined at the feeling of you brushing over his sensitive cock, squeezing his thighs together. 

“M’sorry baby, just a little bit more” you cooed, dabbing away your sticky mixed arousal before tossing away the cloth. “I’m going to get you some water and take care of you, okay?” 

Bucky nodded, reluctantly letting you go, trembling slightly when you pulled up the covers to tuck him in. You found your robe, slipping it on while you quickly went to the kitchen to get some juice and snacks, noting he seemed to prefer sweet things when he got like this. You grabbed his favorite peanut butter cups and some strawberries, cutting them up into smaller bite sized pieces before bringing them up. 

He was happy to curl into your lap, letting you feed him between taking sips of water, toying with the corner of the blanket, a nervous habit he had when he was unsure of how to communicate. 

“How are you feeling baby, do you want to tell me what happened?” You tested the waters, still hugging his body to yours, letting him take his time while he peered up at you through his dark lashes. 

“Just wanted cuddles today” He managed to get out, still guilty over having used the safe word, “Sorry-

You cut him off with a soft kiss to his lips, before letting him rest his head into the crook of your neck. “Don’t, don’t apologize for using it, I’m glad you did, okay? You were so good baby boy, do you still want cuddles?” You checked on him to be sure, squealing when he wrapped his arms tightly around you, his leg hitched over your body, feeling especially needy for you to hold him.

“Still wan’ cuddles” he whispered, closing his eyes as you pulled up the covers, protecting him in a safe cocoon of warmth. 

“You can always tell me if you just want cuddles baby” You ran your fingers through his hair, letting him snuggle further against your chest, “Always”

[turbulentscrawl]

Steamy Rescues

Sorry, I'm just thinking about hot men saving my life today. Let me drool in peace

Warnings: suggestive stuff, delicious men

Naib

Your time in the chair was nearly up when Naib suddenly slammed into it at full speed. One second you were struggling against your restraints, cursing and consumed with desperate thoughts of freedom, and the next his hands were next to your head. Initially you fell silent because you were startled, but that quickly melted into a perverted sort of awe as you looked over the mercenary.

He was looming over you, muscles tense, toiled taut like a spring. His tight shirt was torn open like he’d been caught by the collar and wrenched himself free, leaving a teasing view of his sweaty, scarred, heaving chest. Some of his hair had slipped free of his hair band and clung to his damp face and neck. He was out of breath too, each exhale fanning down on you, panting less like a rescuer and more like a predator who’s cornered his prey. There was a certain musk wafting off of him…it was a bit maddening.

“I know, I know,” Naib said quickly. “You can tell me I look like shit later. We’ve got to GO.” He grabbed the bar pinning your torso to the chair and, with a flex of his biceps and feral grunt, ripped it off you.

“I’ll tell you something alright,” you gasp quietly, briefly wondering if your nose was bleeding.

Naib seemed to pay no mind to your mutterings. The last cipher popped, and the siren blaring in the distance gave you both a rush of adrenaline that overrode any lingering pain. Taking that que, Naib grabbed your wrist and all but dragged you sprinting to the gate.

When you were home free, though, he held your gaze daringly and asked, “So what did you want to tell me?”

Andrew

You had heard the disturbance of dirt nearby, but were too preoccupied with struggling to notice the source. The next second, Andrew’s dirty blonde hair (literally) popped out of the ground between your legs. He was already cursing under his breath, and shaking, just a bit. You vaguely remember hearing about Andrew being claustrophobic…. But those thoughts are washed away when he roughly grabs your thighs for support and you realize the exact position you’re in.

He had emerged a little too close to the chair and was having trouble getting out without sliding his body up against yours. The chair wobbled forward a little, hanging you over him, as one of the feet dangled into the hole he’d left in the dirt. He grabbed your caged forearms next, managing to haul himself out enough to be level with your chest.

“Can’t you help me?” he hissed, face flush with embarrassment at his predicament.

“I’m a little preoccupied,” you snap back, thankfully still having sense enough for it. Andrew clicks his tongue, hangs his head in what’s probably supposed to be shame…but his mop of hair hides his face and most of your lap from view, bringing even mor lewd thoughts to mind. “Y-you know, I’m kind of on a time crunch here!”

“Shut up, I know!” Andrew shouts. As soon as it’s out he clenches his teeth and looks over his shoulder for the Hunter, and without bothering to climb out of his hole starts fumbling with your restraints. When you pop free, the angle and weight of him clinging to you throws you both to the ground, your chest right on his face.

He screeched like a schoolgirl, but his tomato-red face was endearing enough to override most of the fear you felt for the remainder of the match.

Luchino

Though no one called him such, Luchino was a healer in his own right.

His skilled hands had patched you up twice already this match, and though the pain from Michiko’s cuts lingered, you could hardly complain when you thought about how Luchino had loomed over you. He was a polite man, but no-nonsense. Whenever you appeared at his cipher, alone and bleeding, he shoved you to your knees beneath him and got right to work. You couldn’t say if it was the adrenalin, but you were acutely aware of the heat radiating off his body the whole time. Of the gentle ghosting of his claws on your back, making you shiver. When he tied the bandages tight—too tight, almost, but he said that’s how they’re supposed to be—he grunted and huffed in your ear.

“All done,” he said, smirking. “Take these, too.” Luchino straightened up, but instead of returning to his cipher he applied some of that mystery serum to his forearm—his sleeves rolled up deliciously—and peeled away a hard patch of scales. You were too entranced by the oil-slick glisten it left on his skin to question why he was handing them to you.

Before you could stand, a butterfly alighted on your shoulder. Luchino reacted incredibly quickly; you blinked and he was hunched over you again, arms caging you fully to his chest. A sound like cracking glass met your ears the same time as his displeased hiss. Before you could ask, he grabbed you by the waist and threw you into a forward sprint, ordering “Go!”

[melanieph321]

Ruben Dias x Reader - Shower Me With Love

+18

Reader feels overwhelmed as a mother. Thankfully, Ruben knows how to make her feel good again.

Enjoy!

It was a hard thing to admit. A thought that brought you shame. But being a mother of three sometimes made you want to scream.

It was always at the end of the day, just before dinner and the moments after, that you felt like you had no control over yourself or the children. The oldest and the youngest would run around, chasing each other throughout the house. While the middle child needed help with homework that kept reminding you of the horrors of being a student with dyslexia. You simply felt incompetent as a mother, a sudden urge to take it out in your kids. They expected so much of you and so little of the rest of the world. Putting all of their trust in you and Ruben.

"I'm home."

"Daddy!"

Peace would fall upon your home whenever Ruben showed up at the door, a brimming smile on his face, arms open for the kids to run into his embrace. And just like that, the conflict within you simply seized to exist.

"Hi baby, how was your day?"

He would kiss you with a child clinging onto his neck and another his leg. You would tell him that your day was fine, leaving out the part where you almost had a mental breakdown again.

"How was your day?"

"Fine. We're doing alot to prepare for the game next week."

"I see."

Ruben would then fight his way through the house, carrying two children just to get to the third, who sat around the kitchen table, still tussling with homework. Ruben never failed to greet any of your children, giving them the individual attention that they all deserved. This he did better than you. It was a sad thing to admit. However, it was true. Ruben was better with the kids than you, or so the chaos in your mind made you believe.

"I'm going to hop in the shower." You announced. However, none of them seemed to have heard you. They were all gathered around the kitchen table, suddenly interested in doing homework. It didn't bother you as much as it could. This allowed you to slip away unnoticed, finally getting well needed time for yourself.

You would let the water run for at least an hour. The heat was scolding to the average man. However, the perfect temperature for you. You soaked in it, melting into a puddle of nothing. Someone without so much expectation on them.

"Baby?"

The knock on the bathroom door came just in time, like it did almost every night. Through the foggy glass, you saw your husband slip into the bathroom. The kids had been put to bed, leaving him nothing else to do but to join you in the shower.

"God, you're beautiful." He pulled open the glass doors, grinning at the sight of you.

"Don't just stand there." You teased, to which Ruben wasted no time stripping himself of his shirt, tugging his sweats pants down his legs. He winced with the first sensation of the hot water. Once his skin was used to it, his arms pulled your body towards him, pressing your back against his front.

"I've missed you." He said, whispering the words against the lobe of your ear. He then traced his kisses along the running water that ran down your shoulders and the length of your arms. Ruben then made you turn around and face him and the way he regarded you with such admiration and lust. How he never failed to make you feel special was a wonder itself.

"You okay?" He asked, perhaps seeing the fatigue in your eyes. Not even an hour spent in the shower could wash away your fear of inadequacy.

"I am." You nodded. However, it only rewarded you with a skeptical look frown from your husband.

"Don't lie." He said, which caused your heart to strain and tears to well up in your eyes.

"I'm okay, Ruben, I really am. It's just that the children...." You stopped yourself from admitting your sinful thoughts and how they would make you come off as an even worse mother than you already were.

"Y/N?"

Suddenly, all that anxiety seemed to evaporate with Ruben's touch upon your cheek. Even though he couldn't see them through the running water, he seemed to be drying away your tears.

"Why are you always so hard on yourself?"

You chuckled. "Perhaps because I have a husband who makes it seem so easy."

"It is easy." He nodded, and for a second, you thought about stepping out of the shower, ignoring the tempting way Ruben's growing erection put pressure against your stomach. "You make it easy." He smiled.

"I what?"

"I come home to a house where my kids are happy because my wife makes them happy. I get to play with them until it's time to put them to sleep and you leave me to help them with their homework which mends a big part of me that hates it when I'm gone for too long. Football and my career are temporary. You and our family are forever."

"Oh Ruben."

You had never thought of it that way. How you were the heart of the home that he came home to. How he, unlike you, enjoyed helping the kids with their homework, cherishing every moment he had with them considering that he wasn't present for the majority of their day.

"I love you." Ruben spoke the words into your skin, his mouth now attached to your collarbone, nipping the skin until it became softer and thicker as he reached your breasts.

"Fuck." You moaned as he licked across your nipple, taking it into his mouth. Ruben's rough hands then traveled down your body, searching for the soft folds of you slit.

"That feels so good." Your head knocked against his torso, your hands cradling around his head, fingers running through his wet hair. You kissed his lips as you stood on your toes, savoring the tase of him.

Ruben rubbed small circles on your clit, small but powerful.

"Just put it in." You nodded.

His laughter drummed in your ear. "Without a condom?"

"Why would you wear a condom in the shower?"

Again, his laughter drummed in your ear. You always seemed to forget the beginning of your troubles. How your hot showers with Ruben resulted in three kids barley a year apart from each other.

"Can I fuck you like this?" Ruben turned you over to face the wall, arching your back in a way that offered him your ass.

"Yes, like this." You nodded, eager to have him inside of you.

His muscles flexed as his hips aligned with your entrance, the hot water running down the length of your back.

"You ready?"

"Ready." You squealed to the sensation of the size of Ruben, easing into you. Like always, he started of slow, despite your plea for him to go hard right away. His thrusts then came in waves, slow and fast, a combination of both. The sounds of your breathless moans were confined to the sacred sphere that was your shower.

[sunnymoonxx]

OSHMIR☆MDNI!

OSHA knew it was wrong, shame washing over her like a scorching waterfall blinding her sight. She felt guilty, the images of her friends laying, rotting in the ground of an uncanny forest she stepped foot into weeks ago. She saw their faces, still, pale and shattered. Like a marble statue, someone shoved from a desk to the ground, leaving it there cracked open. That someone was now drawing circles on her shoulder, and she was a bystanding accomplice.

QIMIR'S touch was gentle and tender. No signs of the hostile and dangerous man OSHA witnessed on Khofar. She felt disgusted with herself. Disguted with QIMIR. Disgusted by his touch. But no matter how many intrusive thoughts visited her and how many times, she heard the cry of her Master Sol in her head, QIMIR's touch erased all doubt, and she found herself clinging for more.

Whenever she felt his touch or felt his eyes set on her face, her heart slowed down, and she felt warm. Like a fireplace in front of her, warming her, his touch like the blanket that wrapped around her. Sometimes, it overwhelmed her, the warmth scarring her skin, but no matter the scars, she always returned. She was cold for far too long. The fire kept her mind at ease.

As OSHA let herself relax in QIMIR'S embrace, her head resting against his chest, she wondered about the future. How will they come out of this. What will happen when the others find out. Will he leave her, abandoning her in the cold. Or will she leave him, the warmth being too much for her, after being used to the cold for so long.

She was doubtful, but QIMIR'S touch washed her thoughts away.. She thought back of the way his lips felt on her neck and the way they left wet marks along the line of her spine. The way his hands held her gently, his eyes scanning for any sign of discomfort or hesitation. He never found any. After years of uncertainty and unease, she felt confident and secure. Finding herself drowning in QIMIR'S eyes, letting herself fall for she knew he'd catch her.

She reminisced about his fingers. How they danced on her skin, caressing and adoring every scar. How his fingers merged with hers as he worshipped her with his tongue. How his thoughts melted with hers, amplifying the pleasure and comfort.

During her Jedi days, OSHA never let anyone take a look into her head. Scared they might find her corrupted and rotten. But QIMIR only saw a blooming garden and growing flowers. She let him inside, and he always kept the doors open if she changed her mind. She never did.

His mind felt like a lost piece of puzzle falling into a place. Her edges already bent, and scratched after trying to find herself in puzzles that didn't fit. He loved every curve, every scratch. Every thought. His scars matched her wounds, slowly healing as they touched each other.

She thought of the way he let her guide him, teaching him about her likes and dislkes. He learnt quickly. He enjoyed teasing her with his thoughts while his fingers teased her between her legs. How his eyes bore so deep inside of hers, he wanted to see her every reaction, every flicker of her eyes. He wanted to give her the pleasure she never received, wanting to worship her and give himself away.

OSHA couldn't forget how they swallowed each other's moans, breathing each other's air. The way he held her so close, their hearts could touch. His arms gripping her waist, his hips meeting with hers. How she whispered his name into his mouth and how he returned the favour with crying out hers. VEROSHA.

She never wanted to leave. She never wanted his touch to disappear. She wanted him to take her every night at every sundown. She wanted to worship his scars with her every breath and give him all she could offer.

The Jedi were her family. But she never felt at home. QIMIR'S arms taught her what it feels to be safe, seen, and understood. And she was willing to fight anyone who would dare to split them apart.

[miguelswifey04]

okay idea, so let’s say Miguel has a crush on Spider!reader, or regular reader which ever you prefer. And he steals reader underwear and he used it to Jack off

Basically Miguel being a pervert , sorry if this is isn’t what you write

yandere! miguel o’hara x fem! reader

cw: perverted! miguel, stalking, stealing reader’s underwear, masturbation, nsfw 18+, smut; no plot, miguel has a corruption kink (?), dub-con

a/n: in no way i condone this at all. this is purely fiction.

miguel’s admiration for you goes beyond the realms of simple desire, evolving into a deeper fondness and adoration. he becomes infatuated with you, wanting to possess a piece of you to satisfy his longing. he wanders through your room, his heart racing with a mix of exhilaration and guilt. his eyes land on your panty drawer, and he can't resist the temptation to have something even more personal to satiate his forbidden desires.

in an act of mischief, miguel secretly takes hold of a pair of your panties, relishing in the scent of your essence that clings to the fabric. he locks himself in his room, his mind consumed with thoughts of you as he indulges in his personal fantasy.

with your panties in hand, he wraps them around his throbbing length, using them as a makeshift masturbatory aid. the silkiness of the fabric against his skin drives him wild, intensifying the pleasure coursing throughout his body. “your scent, your touch... it drives me crazy," he moans, lost in the intoxication of his desires. "having a piece of you like this... it's almost like having you right here with me."

he strokes himself with fervor, picturing your enticing curves and sultry gaze. with each movement, he can feel you in his imagination, the pleasure building to an overwhelming peak. finally, he releases a deep, guttural groan of satisfaction, his hot release shooting onto the stolen panties. the stolen panties are now stained with his release, a haunting symbol of his obsession and the depths he has sunk to.

as he catches his breath, the weight of his actions washes over him, a bitter mix of shame and regret. he quickly gathers himself and slips out of your home, leaving with a heavy heart and a haunted conscience, vowing to confront the turmoil consuming him.

tags 🏷️!! @kairiscorner @obi-mom-kenobi @emiemiemiii @meeom @astro1bloom @meeom

[bakvrue]

his room

genya x reader: wc 1.7k

a little smut, nsfw, established relationship-ish, eating out, feelings, very hot, i think i out did myself tbh, selfship coded. divider by @/saradika

Your heart slams in your chest with each step you take. You shouldn't be awake this late. You shouldn't be tiptoeing down the hallway. You shouldn't be wrapped in a robe with nothing underneath.

And yet…

The floorboards creak, almost as if they're laughing at you. Shaming you into going back to your room. But you've already gone two nights wishing you were doing what you're doing now. Tomorrow both of you go out on new missions, it has to be tonight.

You reach his door and slide it open, step inside, and close it before you can second guess yourself. 

The room is small, very similar to yours down the hall. A small window lets the moonlight in, bathing his futon in a cool glow. The night breeze makes the small candle on his table flicker, and shadows jump across the wall. 

And then there's him. 

His back is turned towards you, his shirt, halfway unbuttoned, slides down his biceps. His upper back, his shoulder blades, his traps, his scars, the rippling muscles that have been trained and honed for years… you take a sharp breath in.

He looks over his shoulder, you don't know what he was expecting but his scowl quickly turns into surprise. His eyebrows raise, his mouth slightly parts, and even in the dim light you see the dusting of pink completely wash over his face and neck.

He doesn't turn towards you, instead standing perfectly still like you're a ghost. And you don't move either. As bold as you were feeling before you didn't think past getting through the door.

Your face warms. 

The man in front of you opens his mouth and closes it, his mind reeling at your sudden presence in his room.

The two of you are together, you've never called him your boyfriend out loud, mostly because he feels like more than that. You've battled together, you've cried together, you've kissed and pledged to protect each other no matter the cost. But tonight you crave something different, something more. There's a heat inside of you that only burns for him and you want him to feel it. 

You whisper his name, “Genya…”

It wakes his body up and he finally moves. He adjusts his pants as he turns, his shirt still clinging to his biceps and your hungry eyes devour him. The scars across his chest and his pecs, and his abs and his collarbone.

He finishes taking off his shirt, his forearms flexing when finally freed. 

You press your legs together. He can not have you this bothered from just the sight of him. A sight you've seen before, you remind yourself, but here you are practically dripping.

“I know it's late,” you start but he immediately jumps in.

“It's okay.” There's an eagerness hidden in his voice. 

You take a step deeper into his room playing with the hem of your sleeve, “Tomorrow we're both leaving on separate missions, and—” you look up at him “—I need you.”

His face turns red, deeper than you've ever seen, but you reach out for his hand and he gives it to you. You pull him closer to you, his eyes never leaving yours almost as if he's trying his hardest not to look at the rest of your body. 

Your hands start to sweat, “We don't have to do anything you don't want to. I can go back to my room if this is too fast.” 

God, where is the confidence you had walking down the hall?

“No! I mean, no. I don't want you to leave.” 

“What do you want then?” you try to ask as sultry as possible but the crack in your voice exposes just how vulnerable you feel.

His hand holding yours tightens, begging you not to go, but no words come out of his mouth.

“If you can't tell me what you want, can you show me?”

His shoulders relax and he exhales. He pulls you closer to him with a small nod.

He guides your hands to his chest, laying your palms against his warm skin and you can feel how fast his heart is beating. 

Your fingertips glide down his sternum until they reach a scar. The knotted skin is proof of a battle won, proof of how strong he is and how hard he fights. Your lips gently press against the scar and Genya groans. 

He's looking down at you with half-lidded eyes. Their path tracing from your eyes down to your lips. His hand gently cups your face, he's so careful with you always, and he leans down to you. Stopping himself a breath away from your lips.

“Kiss me, Genya. Pleas—”

His lips capture yours and your eyes flutter shut. Your back arches, pushing your body into his and you both moan. 

It's sweet at first, a small push and pull. But each second gets hungrier, more passionate. His tongue licks along yours as you wind your arms around his neck. 

His lips are so soft. The drag against yours is intoxicating, and you can feel your head start to spin. Each touch makes your hotter, every push and pull has your body grinding against his. Wanting to be closer. Needing to feel more.

You bite his bottom lip and playfully pull away, taking a step back. 

His chest is heaving, each breath moving his whole body and his pants are struggling to keep him contained. 

His head spins as he looks down at you, and the robe that you're wearing. The knot around your waist has loosened, the neckline no longer tight against your neck. It's slipped down your shoulders.

And it's then he realizes that there's nothing underneath. The only thing between him and your perfect naked body is one measly piece of fabric. 

You pick up the two ends of the bow tie and hold them out in front of you. Offering them to him. His mouth goes dry, and every word disappears from his brain, along with every other brain function. He forgets how to breathe.

He falls to his knees in front of you, gently taking the ends of the bow from you. But he hesitates. 

“Genya,” he wishes to hear you say his name over and over again in that sweet tone. Your fingers run along the side of his mohawk, down the back of his head and then around to his chin, gently lifting it up. “I want you to see me.”

He bites his lip. God, does he want to see too.

He pulls at the bow, watching as it slowly unravels. He pulls the knot apart, and with it the robe reveals you to him as it falls off of your shoulders to the floor.

His mind and body are unable to comprehend the beauty that you are. The curves of your waist, the thicknesses of your thighs, the small dips in your hips, the soft curls between your legs, and then that's not even everything. His eyes trail back up to your breasts, perfect and round and beautiful and he's going to explode. 

“Beautiful,”  he whispers, his lips aching to kiss every inch of exposed skin.

You step closer, running your fingers through Genya's hair. 

“Yours.” 

A shiver runs down his spine. He can’t speak, he can barely breathe. But he’s never wanted anything more in his life. The need to touch you, to feel your skin under his hands. To kiss and touch and devour.

His hands pull at your hips, he needs you closer. Needs every inch of space between your bodies erased. 

His breath is warm against the bare skin of your thigh and it sends a shudder to your core. He kisses up your thigh. You can’t take your eyes off him, the drag of his lips gets slower until he’s ravenous and his eyes become fiendish. He’s getting drunk on the taste of your skin. The promise of ambrosia soon coating his lips has shut his brain down and his body, his instincts, are taking control.

Calloused hands slide up your leg, and he bites the inside of your thigh as he guides one of your legs over his shoulder. He pants when he sees the way your folds glisten for him.

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself before looking back up to meet your gaze.

The darkness in his eyes makes your heart pound in your chest. You’ve seen a similar look hidden deep in his irises when killing demons, but this is something entirely different. A need to consume, to drown, to never see the morning if it means that this paradise is lost to him. 

You try not to lose your footing as his tongue pushes through your folds. You moan his name and his hands wrap around your body, holding you in place, anchoring you as he goes deeper. Every swipe of his tongue makes your heart beat faster and faster until your hands fall to his shoulders. The thick muscle moves under your palms as his greed destroys you.

You want to feel him deeper. You want to take every inch of him into your body and pray to the gods above that sent him to you. Your hand grabs onto his hair, balling it up in your fists as you wait on the edge of release. You can’t believe you waited this long for him, to have this man between your legs, to give him the final piece of yourself. You’ve always belonged to him, mind, body, and soul.

The band inside of you snaps and stars blot your eyes. You say his name over and over and over until your throat is sore and your body stops shaking. Your legs can barely hold you up as you come down from your high.

Genya smirks against your skin. Your release coats his lips and you can tell he’s very proud of himself. Especially when his hold tightens and the room is suddenly tilting.

Your back is pressed into his futon and before you can say anything he climbs over you, and kisses you. His tongue swipes along your lips asking for entry and you savor the taste of your release on his lips. 

His body grinds against yours and you wrap your arms around his neck. You can feel the heat of him, the weight of his body against your chest, the hardness of his cock pressing into your stomach. All of him, you want all of him. 

He anchors himself on his elbows, taking another look at you splayed out below him. His eyes search your face before he descends upon you again and your hands discover every dip and valley of muscled back until the candle in his room drowns itself in wax.

[oceaneyesinla]

I'm Here

So, Demon Slayer is back and Sanemi is looking GOOD. Combine that with me struggling, and you get self indulgent fluff

Mentions of non-sexual nudity ahead, and the fic kind of implies reader is struggling mentally. Take care of yourselves, guys <3

Enjoy!

Banner by @/cafekitsune

“What's going on with you, baby?” Sanemi's voice cut through the static in your mind, soft and soothing. He rounded the couch, flicking on the lamp next to the armchair and bathing the room in soft warm light.

You hadn't even noticed your boyfriend come in, and when you looked around the room, you were confused to see inky black through the apartment window. You swore it had been bright outside not that long ago. When your eyes finally trailed up to his face, you hated the worry lining his handsome features. Worry that you caused.

“‘M fine, Sanemi. Just tired.” Not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth either. You were tired, but it was quickly becoming apparent that you were anything but fine. A fact you knew all too well, but were powerless to do anything about.

Sanemi moved closer in slow steps, almost as if you were some skittish doe he didn't want to scare away. He knelt in front of you, one hand resting on your knee while the other came up to cradle your face. Warmth bled from his palm into the skin of your cheek and you shivered - a chill had developed while you were sitting there zoning out, and it was only now you realised you felt cold.

“Did you eat today?” You wanted to lie, to spare him the worry, but it was impossible with the way those violet eyes stared into yours. Some scared, hurting part of you expected resentment or anger - wanted it, even - but all you could see was loving concern. Guilt and shame bubbled up in your chest as you shook your head; a tiny gesture that he noticed anyway.

The hand on your cheek moved a little higher, and the pad of his thumb brushed over the bags you knew were sunken under your eyes, a permanent feature these days. You had tried so hard not to burden Sanemi with how awful you felt, but you knew the signs were becoming too obvious for such an observant man to not notice.

“Okay. You go shower; get into some warm clothes. I’ll see what we’ve got in the cupboards, okay?” His voice was still soft and his hand was still a reassuring presence on your thigh. However, just the thought of everything involved with showering overwhelmed you. You would have to pick up clean towels from the cupboard, and clean clothes from the wardrobe. Then you would have to actually get into the shower, and you knew your hair needed washing, and on a normal day, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Today, even getting off the couch right now felt like it would take all your energy. Tears welled in your eyes and began to slip down your cheeks as you sat there, paralysed, “I-I can’t.”

If Sanemi was surprised by your sudden tearfulness, he didn’t show it. He moved closer, your legs opening to let him slot between them. Wrapping you up in an all encompassing hold, one hand landed on the back of your head and the other wrapped around you, cradling you against his body as you cried into the crook of his neck.

You didn’t know how long you sat there, slotted together like puzzle pieces. You stayed with your face pressed into his neck, and slowly, you relaxed into his warmth. Everything seemed a little less overwhelming, a little less terrible when you were pressed this close to the love of your life.

He began to speak and you could feel the rumble of his voice through his chest, “Hold on tight.”

You didn’t know what he was planning, but you did as he asked, clinging to him with your legs wrapped around his waist. A little squeak escaped you as you suddenly moved, and you felt his chuckle rumble through his chest as clearly as you heard it next to your ear. He stood up, supporting your body with one hand under your butt and one around your waist.

He started moving around the apartment, and you reluctantly lifted your head to see where he was taking you. As you watched, head resting on his shoulder, he carried you into the bedroom, releasing his hold on your waist to dig around in your drawers. You noticed he was pulling out your favourites, and even the fluffy socks Kanae gave you for your last birthday. As he moved on, you pressed a kiss to his neck in silent thanks, receiving a squeeze to the plush of your butt in response.

In the bathroom, he lowered you gently onto the toilet seat, pulling away and you felt another couple of tears fall as you realised what he was doing. Towels on the rack, shower turned on, your clothes neatly stacked - he was preparing everything for you, making sure all you had to do was get under the spray.

He returned to stand in front of you, hairbrush in hand and pulled you to your feet. Gentle hands turned you around and released your hair from the messy ponytail you had pulled it into. The hairbrush started to run through your hair and Sanemi carefully untangled the knots that had formed from several days of not bothering to brush it out. He murmured quiet apologies every time he hit a snag and soon, the brush was passing smoothly from root to ends. Once he was satisfied, you felt him lean in to press a kiss to the crown of your head.

Turning around, you met his soft smile with one of your own; the action feeling more genuine than it had in days. He reached for the hem of your shirt, eyes flicking to meet yours, “May I?”

At your nod, he lifted the shirt up and over your head, undressing you with the same tender care he had shown ever since he found you sitting on the couch. His skin was warm against yours as he pressed a delicate kiss to your tummy before he slid your underwear down, prompting you to lift each foot in turn so he could remove the fabric and toss it into the laundry basket. Each gentle touch was lifting the clouds from your mind, and you felt more human than you had in weeks.

He was still crouched at your feet, so you bent down to kiss his forehead, lips lingering before you stepped into the shower, the warm water relaxing you immediately. Of course, it was exactly what you needed and the love you felt for Sanemi burned a little brighter.

So focused on the way the water was beating down on your skin, you jumped when hands came to rest on your waist, manoeuvring you so their owner could slip in behind you.

“Sanemi?” You weren’t sure what his plan was, but you let him move you anyway.

It was only when he pulled the shower head down, gently pushing your head back so he could run the water over your hair without getting it on your face that you realised what he was doing. He knew you usually washed your hair every couple of days, and he knew you hadn’t done it in over a week, and after tonight, you knew he had noticed why. So he was doing it for you.

You couldn’t stop the silent tears that fell, and Sanemi was kind enough not to comment on them as he continued, treating your body like the most precious porcelain as he made sure you were clean, occasionally leaving featherlight kisses on your skin. The pure love and tender intimacy in his actions were balms on the countless little wounds in your soul. You weren’t sure you deserved such open affection, but for tonight, you would allow yourself the indulgence. 

Sanemi moved to wash himself once you were scrubbed and relaxed, and you watched the defined muscles of his back ripple as he lifted his arms to wash his hair. Muscles that had held you steady all night, carrying your weight like it was nothing. You knew he was aware of your staring because when he turned back to you, he was smirking. Normally, there would be teasing from both sides. Tonight, he would let you drink in the sight of him, and you would allow the little ego boost your adoring eyes gave him.

There were still a million thoughts in your head, a million negative emotions just waiting for their moment to strike. A shower wouldn’t be enough to wash them away - you would need time, and probably some intervention. However, as Sanemi towelled you off and dressed you up, making sure your hair didn’t drip onto your clothes, you felt a little flame of hope start to grow. Your Sanemi would be right by your side.

[sadnymi]

「 ✦ The masked boy. ✦ 」

regulus black x reader x barty crouch jr

Summary: following Regulus to what I expected to be a harmless party turned into a night of hidden desires and whispered secrets. Just to meet the masked stranger who seems to know more of me than I expected .

Words: 3,5k

Going to the party was undoubtedly a risky decision, but the allure of secrecy and adventure pulled me in. I overheard Regulus discussing it, and despite Pandora, bless her sensible soul warning of potential trouble, curiosity, that insatiable beast, had her claws firmly sunk into my insides. Ignoring her dire pronouncements, I transformed into a shadow the moment Pandora had fallen asleep Sneaking out I followed Regulus carefully, staying hidden until we reached a mysterious secret door within Hogwarts.

The door creaked open a sliver, revealing two hulking figures clad in black. Their imposing stature and steely gazes instantly confirmed my worst suspicions – this was no ordinary gathering. Fear, cold and sharp, snaked its way through me as one of them addressed Regulus in a low, gravelly voice.

"Who is this?" he rumbled, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine.

Regulus, his back momentarily turned, whirled around at the sound of the question. His face, usually a canvas of bored indifference, contorted into a mask of surprise and, dare I say, a hint of… fear? Our eyes met, and in that fleeting moment, I saw my own panic reflected back at me.

He recovered quickly, however, mustering a semblance of nonchalance. "She's with me," he declared, his voice a touch too loud to be entirely convincing. He strode towards me, a forced casualness in his gait, and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry," he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper, a hint of desperation clinging to the words.

Once inside, the doors clanged shut with a finality that echoed my growing unease. Regulus whirled on me, his green eyes flashing with fury. "What in Merlin's beard, Y/N, were you thinking?" he hissed, his voice barely a whisper above a growl.

Shame burned hot on my cheeks."I… I followed you," I stammered, my voice barely above a whisper. "I was curious, . I just wanted to see I’m so sorry reg …"

He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Curious ? This isn't some harmless gathering, Y/N! You have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into!" The anger in his voice was laced with a hint of fear, a chilling realization that sent shivers down my spine.

The gravity of the situation sank in as I realized the potential consequences of my impulsive decision. Regulus's protective instincts were in full force, and I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret for putting him in a difficult position.

bravado I'd mustered to follow Regulus evaporated, replaced by a tremor that ran through my limbs. Tears welled up in my eyes, blurring the dimly lit chamber.

"I-I'm so sorry, Reg," I stammered, my voice choked with a mix of fear and remorse. "I had no idea… I shouldn't have followed you."

He sighed, the anger momentarily replaced by a weary resignation. "Hey," he said, his voice softening as he reached out to brush a stray tear from my cheek. "Don't cry. It's alright. We'll figure this out , Just… stay close, okay?"

He reached for a nearby table, his hand snagging two ornate masks. The intricate designs, fashioned from a material that shimmered faintly in the low light, were a stark contrast to the rough stone walls surrounding us.

"Put this on," he instructed, handing me one.

As I took the mask, a wave of self-consciousness washed over me. My baby blue sweater and jeans felt utterly out of place amidst the air of clandestine secrecy.

"I… I didn't know there was a dress code," I mumbled, feeling foolish.

He let out a humorless chuckle, the sound devoid of mirth. "There isn't, exactly.There's more to this than a dress code, sweetheart,"

then his voice dropped to a low murmur, laced with a seriousness that sent shivers down my spine. "Don't talk to anyone inside. And whatever you do, Y/N, never, ever reveal your name. Understand ?"

Shame burned in my throat, hotter than any fiery Goblet of Fire. I nodded mutely, the weight of my recklessness pressing down on me.

"Good," he said, his voice a touch softer. "Now, stay by my side. We'll get through this."

His words, laced with a newfound protectiveness, offered a sliver of comfort amidst the swirling vortex of fear and regret. With the mask obscuring my features, I clung to him.

With a newfound resolve, we ventured deeper into the hidden chamber. The air grew thick with the stench of sweat, spilled ale, and a musky perfume that hung heavy in the air.

The sight that greeted me upon entering the main hall was enough to make my eyes widen in shock. Bodies, clad in various states of undress, writhed and swayed to the pulsating rhythm of an unseen band. Laughter, tinged with a hint of hysteria, echoed through the cavernous space.

Instinctively, I raised a hand to my mouth, stifling a gasp.

"Y/N, sweetheart," Regulus hissed, his voice tight with urgency, "if we're going to survive this, you need to feign normalcy."

I lowered my hand hastily, trying to avert my gaze from the two scantily clad figures who brushed past me, their movements more suggestive than celebratory.

"Reg," I whispered, my voice barely audible above the din, "what is this place? Why isn't anyone wearing any clothes?"

Regulus offered a wry smile. "Perhaps you were right about the dress code here," he said, his voice laced with a dark humor.

"Is this some sort of… secret society?" I pressed, trying to quell the rising panic within me. His silence spoke volumes.

"Does this have anything to do with your new tattoo?" I ventured, the question tumbling out before I could stop it.

Regulus' lips stretched into a tight smile as he politely greeted a scantily clad woman who offered us flagons of an unknown, steaming beverage. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he disposed of the drinks once the woman had sashayed away.

"Don't consume anything offered here, Y/N,Not food, not drink. Understood" he murmured, his voice low and urgent. "Just stay close, and whatever you do, don't draw attention to yourself."

Guilt gnawed at me as Regulus navigated the throng of pulsating bodies, his hand a constant presence on my arm.

"Listen closely, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice a soothing balm amidst the cacophony.

"After the clock strikes the hour, I can't stay by your side any longer. I have… business to attend to. However, there's a hidden staircase leading to the rooftop. Go there, and you'll be safe. Once I'm done with what brought me here, I'll find you. Don't be afraid, Y/N. I promise you'll be alright I won’t let anything happen to you ."

He reached out, his touch surprisingly gentle as he brushed a stray strand of hair from my face. "And what about you, Reg? Will you be alright?"

He offered a smile, a gesture that felt more strained than comforting. "I'll handle myself, sweetheart. Just remember everything I told you: silence and anonymity are the keys . Don't speak to anyone, and for Merlin's sake, never reveal your name. Now, go."

His voice, laced with urgency, left no room for argument. I followed his gaze to the ornately carved clock dominating the far wall. The hands were inching closer to the ominous hour. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the approaching chimes.

Regulus squeezed my hand once, a silent promise of reunion, before melting back into the throng. Taking a deep breath, I found the hidden staircase tucked away in a darkened corner and ascended, each step taking me further away from the revelry and closer to the safety of the night.

Emerging onto the rooftop, I was greeted by a breathtaking vista. The moon, a luminous pearl in the inky expanse, cast an ethereal glow over the sleeping castle. Hogwarts, usually a source of comfort, seemed alien in this context, a silent sentinel against the backdrop of the forbidden revelry below.

I pulled my knees to my chest, the cool night air stealing the heat from my flushed cheeks. Fear, a potent cocktail of adrenaline and unease, churned in my gut. But amidst the turmoil, a flicker of hope remained. Regulus had promised.

The passage of time blurred on the rooftop. Every rustle of wind, every creak of the ancient castle, sent a jolt of fear through me. How long had I been waiting? An hour? Two? It felt like an eternity.

A soft voice, barely a whisper, shattered the silence. "Nice sweater "

I gasped, whirling around to find a stranger standing behind me.

This wasn't supposed to happen. My sole purpose was to wait for Regulus, I whirled around, my gaze falling on a tall figure shrouded in shadow. An ornate mask, similar to the one Regulus had provided, hiding his eyes , leaving only a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes , and a smirk in his lips

Silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken tension. Perhaps, I thought, if I remained quiet, he would simply melt back into the darkness, a fleeting apparition.

"Are you mute, darling?" The stranger's voice, dripping with a sardonic lilt, shattered the fragile hope , I opened my mouth shocked by the rudeness of his words

"That's a cruel thing to say," I retorted, my voice barely above a whisper, yet laced with a defiance born of desperation. Although his face remained half hidden, I could sense the widening of his smile, a predator relishing the chase.

"So you do talk," he chuckled, taking a step closer. I instinctively scooted back, the cool stone pressing against my spine.

"I know who you are, darling," he continued, his voice a low murmur that sent shivers cascading down my spine. Panic, a cold serpent, coiled itself around my heart. Don't look at him, don't look at him, a mantra echoed in my mind. He's bluffing.

But he didn't stop there. He sank down onto the rooftop ledge beside me, completely ignoring the disdainful glare I shot his way.

"What are you doing here, sweet Y/N?" he cooed, his voice dripping with a false sweetness. "Isn't it a little past your bedtime?"

Denial, a flimsy shield, crumbled in the face of his unwavering gaze. "I'm not Y/N," I stammered, a desperate attempt at subterfuge that even my own ears recognized as transparent.

A slow smile, devoid of genuine amusement, stretched across his masked face. "Such a shame," he drawled,The way his eyes, though obscured by the mask, seemed to gleam with perverse enjoyment sent a tremor of unease through me.

Panic, a cold hand constricting my throat, threatened to erupt. "What do you want?" I blurted, my voice barely above a choked whisper.

He feigned surprise, raising his hands in a theatrical display of innocence. "Merely indulging in a bit of curiosity," he purred, his tone dripping with saccharine sweetness."What brings the Ravenclaw princess to this clandestine gathering?"

Ravenclaw princess? A flicker of confusion momentarily pierced the fog of fear. Was that what they were calling me?

"I told you, I'm not her," I insisted, defiance flickering in my voice. Yet, a new question gnawed at me. Who was this masked figure? A sliver of recognition tugged at the edges of my memory, a feeling that his eyes, obscured as they were, held a strange familiarity.

Determined not to reveal my identity, I turned away, my gaze seeking solace in the cool serenity of the moon. "I won't tell you who I am," I declared, my voice regaining a semblance of control.

"Oh?" he countered, a playful smirk evident in the way his voice rose at the end.

"Fine, I'll just descend and inform those… formidable gentlemen guarding the entrance about the unidentified young lady gracing the rooftop with her presence."

Panic, a primal urge, surged through me. I lunged forward, grabbing his wrist with both hands.

"No! Please, don't do that!" The words tumbled out in a torrent, a desperate plea born of fear.

He chuckled softly, the sound sending a jolt through me. "Relax, darling," he murmured, his voice surprisingly gentle as he captured my hands in his.

"You won’t tell them , would you?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

He shook his head, a ghost of a smile lingering on his lips."If I wanted to expose you, I would have done so already. I was messing with you "

"Alright," I mumbled, staring at our hands intertwined. "Can you release my wrists now?"

He held my gaze for a moment, a playful glint in his masked eyes. "Why, darling? They seem perfectly content nestled in mine." A smirk danced on his lips as he finally released his grip. My hands felt strangely empty without the warmth of his touch.

My cheeks burned. The playful endearment shouldn't have sent a spark of warmth through me, especially coming from a stranger.

"So, you won't reveal your name," he stated, more an observation than a question.

I shook my head, a mix of defiance and fear swirling within me.

"Fine," he murmured, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. However, his tone suggested otherwise. This wasn't over.

Desperate to shift the focus, I blurted, "Who are you?"

He chuckled softly. "You can't hide your identity and expect the same courtesy, darling."

Darling …. this word again , sent a jolt through me. Why did it sound so...pleasant coming from him?

"But," he continued, a playful glint in his eyes, "we can play a game, wouldn't you agree?"

I hesitated. The entire situation felt precarious, yet a strange sense of intrigue battled with my apprehension. Finally, with a sigh of resignation, I conceded, "okay ."

A triumphant grin spread across his face. "Good girl ," he said, his voice dripping with a hint of satisfaction. "The rules are simple: we ask each other questions, and truthful answers are mandatory."

A knot of apprehension tightened in my stomach. This was a bad idea, a terribly bad idea. Yet, before I could voice my second thoughts, I found myself nodding in agreement.

"good ," he murmured, his amusement evident even in the darkness. "You can ask first."

I wracked my brain for a safe question, something that wouldn't reveal too much about myself. Finally, I settled on, "What house are you in?"

He smiled, a genuine one this time. "An easy one to start with. Ravenclaw, at your service."

Surprise washed over me. We were from the same house? Could it be someone I knew? A classmate, perhaps?

"Your turn," I reminded him

"Do you have a crush on our Regulus?" he inquired, the question laced with a hint of amusement.

My cheeks burned anew. "Of course not!" I spluttered, indignation coloring my voice. "Regulus is my best friend. We practically grew up together."

Immediately, I regretted my outburst. It had been a stupid mistake, revealing too much about myself and confirming his suspicions.

He merely chuckled, the sound devoid of genuine humor. "Easy, darling," he soothed, the endearment sending shivers down my spine. "It was just a question."

"A pointless one," I muttered, trying to regain my composure. My mind raced, searching for a way to deflect suspicion. "Are you a good student?"

"The smartest ," he declared with unwavering confidence.

I scoffed playfully. "Reg is the smartest one," I stated, defending my friend with a touch of pride.

He raised an eyebrow. "Is he?"

"Definitely," I confirmed, a pang of something akin to longing tugging at my heart I wanted to say reg and a certain someone else with beautiful eyes and messy hair who I try not to think so much about right now

He smirked, his gaze locking onto mine. "What are you thinking about, darling? You're blushing again."

"Is that a question?" I stammered, desperately trying to appear nonchalant.

"Indeed," he replied, his voice firm. "And remember, honesty is key."

Panic clawed at my throat. Why was everything so difficult? How did I always manage to get myself into such precarious situations?

"I was thinking about... my actual crush," I blurted out, the confession tumbling from my lips before I could stop myself.

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with a curiosity that both terrified and intrigued me. "Yeah ? , and who might that lucky guy be?"

"That's not your turn to ask” I declared, surprised at my own boldness. A small spark of defiance flickered within me.

"very well ," he responded easily, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. "Your turn then, darling. Let's hear your question."

"Do you know Barty Crouch?" I ventured, my voice barely above a whisper.

He chuckled, a sound both familiar and unsettling. "Certainly, I do."

Thankfully, he hadn't inquired about my reason for asking.

"Your turn," I said

His gaze, intense and unreadable behind the mask, held mine for a beat too long. "Why are you cloaking yourself in secrecy? And I don't simply refer to this clandestine rooftop rendezvou , why are you hiding ."

"I'm not…" I stammered, the truth a bitter pill to swallow. "I'm not hiding."

He raised an eyebrow, skepticism etched on his features. "One might argue otherwise. You blend into the background, a shadow amongst your friends. You downplay your own brilliance, mentioning Regulus's intellect but conveniently neglecting your own place amongst Hogwarts' finest minds."

I remained speechless, a truth I hadn't even acknowledged myself starkly laid bare before me. No one had ever taken an interest in the quiet, observant girl I was.

The mask did little to hide the intensity of his gaze. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken understanding. Finally, I confessed, a weight lifting from my chest as the words tumbled out.

"I don't think I have anything interesting to offer. It's simpler to fade into the background. That's why I followed Reg today. Even though we're friends, they all see me ….. so innocent to handle such talks I wanted to prove something, to show them there's more to me than meets the eye."

Exhaling a shaky breath, I realized the truth in my own words. This wasn't just about Regulus or a forbidden gathering. It was about yearning to be seen, to be acknowledged for who I truly was.

A surge of defiance, quickly extinguished by the realization of my exposed identity, prompted a flippant question. With a brittle smile, I challenged, "my turn. When was your first official date?"

He chuckled, a low rumble that sent a shiver down my spine. "Does having sex in the storage room count as a date?"

Heat flooded my cheeks, and the words tumbled out before I could stop them. "No, God, no!" I exclaimed, horrified by the image his words conjured.

"Ah, so minus the sex then," he interjected, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. "In that case, I can't say there have been any."

Desperate to escape the awkward territory of his past, I blurted out, "Your turn."

His lips curved into a knowing smile. He brushed a stray strand of hair from my face, the touch sending a jolt through me. "So, it's Barty, is it?"

Panic seized me. "What?" My voice barely escaped my lips.

"Your actual crush , Y/N," he continued, his voice a husky murmur. "Is it Barty?"

I cursed my own body's reaction as a blush crept up my neck. Breathlessly, I managed, "My turn."

"Certainly," he replied, his voice smooth as velvet. "Will you tell him?"

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a husky murmur. "Fear not, darling. Your secret's safe with me."

My breath hitched. We were impossibly close now, his touch sending shivers down my spine. His fingers lingered on my jawline, sending a spark of awareness igniting within me.

His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Now," he began, his finger tracing the outline of my lower lip, "are those lips as innocent as they seem?"

A shiver ran down my spine as his touch lingered. My eyes fluttered shut, a soft moan threatening to escape my lips. His words sent a blush scorching my cheeks. Did he think I was… inexperienced?

Shamefacedly, I nodded, unable to meet his gaze.

He brushed a feather-light kiss against my jaw, his touch sending shivers cascading down my arms. I inhaled sharply, my eyes still closed.

"And if I kissed you," he murmured, his voice sending shivers down my spine, "would you let me ?"

My head swayed, mesmerized by his closeness. I found myself nodding again, feeling a complete loss of control.

And then, his lips were on mine. Soft and warm, they moved against mine in a slow, intoxicating dance. His hands found their way to my neck, pulling me closer. The kiss was hungry, desperate, as if he was starved for my touch.

He broke the kiss for a moment, his eyes searching mine, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. Then, he was back, the kiss this time filled with a raw hunger.

We broke apart, gasping for air, foreheads resting against each other. The world spun, the only reality is the warmth of his body pressed against mine.

"Y/N," a voice split the moment .

I ripped myself away, panic and shame flooding my cheeks , I scrambled to my feet, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Regulus stood frozen in the doorway, his face a mask of fury. The weight of embarrassment settled on my chest, suffocating me.

"Reg, I—" I stammered, but he cut me off.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Crouch?" he roared, his eyes blazing with anger.

My gaze darted between them, finally settled to the boy beside me, only to find him smirking.

The realization hit me like a physical blow. I had just kissed Barty Crouch.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

[intheorangebedroom]

Tonight you belong to me, chapter 1

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town. 

Guilt is a wild trip, but so is desire. How the hell did you end up in this divvy motel? And now, what's next?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, orange besties 🧡 PLEASE, see series masterlist for extensive trigger warnings. Now I'm off to disappear for another month, heehee. To anyone who celebrates anything, happy whatever you celebrate. Ily 🧡

@frannyzooey And to you, Kelli… Thank you 🧡 Thank for your help on this chapter, without you it wouldn’t exist. Arguably, without you I wouldn’t exist (my gothic ass) and without you I would certainly not be writing at all. You’re the kindest, most generous, most beautiful person I’ve ever met, you shine so brightly and I love you more than all the Frankies from all the universes put together 🧡✨

Word count: 6.5k

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Chapter 1: Dirt

Guilt, you’re about to find out, is an interesting feeling. 

A viscous, gluey business that sticks to your skin and clings to your frame. It’s a prickling tickle under your armpits, a rigidity in your legs. It’s a tightness in your shoulders, and it pulls on your face. It has a density, and it’s tangible, not only do you feel it, you see it in every mirror, every reflective surface. 

A pervasive, shape-shifting torment that unfurls gradually, and comes in many colorful shades, when you begin to take in the gravity and the ramifications of your actions. 

The first wave is darkened by fear, black as petrol, trickling down your insides when he says his name. 

Frankie.

Like an invitation, an opening. Gaping, abysmal, pulling you in and you remain silent, struggling on the edge of it, grasping for balance. Drawn in, but too stunned to let go and dive in yet.

It’s a violent crimson, next, shame creeping over you when you walk back inside the bar to retrieve your purse. 

Facing Mark is difficult, but talking to him is beyond your strength. You gesture toward the handbag waiting for you on the other side of the counter. He hands it to you in appraising silence, judgmental, surely, and you smile, or you wince, you can’t even tell. With shaky hands, you fumble inside it for your wallet, his green gaze strained on your face. 

You know that your entire appearance gives away the narrative of what just took place in the back lot of his establishment. Your face is flushed, your lips swollen, your hair undone. Your clothes are rumpled and in his eyes, you will from now on and forever be this woman. 

After what feels like several minutes, he takes pity on you, and reiterates his offer. You’re good, he says. Sweetheart. The first pint’s on him. 

You don’t stay long enough for a second drink, however. 

Back outside into the muggy night, you crumble onto the passenger seat of your car. The polyester lining of your skirt clings to the bare skin at the back of your thighs, damp with sweat and what is left of your inconsequential desire, and you feel appallingly filthy, bone-deep disgusting. 

Guilt washes over you in blue waves of regret, welling under your eyelids when you notice that the red truck is gone. And with it, the gaping, abysmal possibilities of another you, reinvented with him. 

The shaking starts as you’re driving, trembling hands gripping the steering wheel. A brutal, chilling comedown, guilt experienced in bright and blinding yellow at the belated realization of your betrayal. 

How easily, how rapidly you forgot, trapped under Frankie’s gaze, coming undone between Frankie’s hands, that your life isn’t truly yours. That it has never been. You’re not on your own, no matter how much you long to be. You have never been afforded the privilege of independence, nor do you possess the necessary strength to break free from your family. 

And who has Frankie betrayed? What faceless, nameless woman has he gone back to? Remorse blends in with envy and resentment, painting green ring-shaped stains in your peripheral vision as you get out of your car and into the lobby of your building. 

Eyes to the floor, you step into the elevator, this oversized coffin lined with mirrors reflecting your image with a silent scoff. There’s dust from the gravel on your leather pumps. 

Inside your apartment, the clickety-click of your heels on the tiled floor bounces off the walls of your skull. You hate that sound, eminently cold and giving away your presence. 

The living-room television is on, probably set to a news channel, most likely broadcasting a financial show in which white men over 50 listen to the sound of their own voice and debate about obscure economical regulations you’re supposed to care about. 

Adrian’s already here. Uncharacteristically early. Friday evenings usually mean late night poker or whatever his own excuse is to get away from your cribless home.

Hoping to go unnoticed so as to avoid him, you take off your shoes, but it’s too late. He calls out your name from the kitchen, his intonation surprised but cheerful. 

Head hanging low, heartbeat picking up, you make a silent dash for the upstairs bathroom, remorse so pungent you fear no shower can ever wash it off your skin.  

Under the scolding high-pressure stream, you scrub your body raw with a soapless loofah, but there is no scrubbing away the feeling of those hands over your skin. 

Eyes drifting closed, you lean your forehead against the anthracite marble of your Italian shower, and let your chest heave around a suppressed sob. 

Guilt, shame, and remorse are powerless to outweigh your want, undeterred, unabated, unquenched. 

Back in the parking lot, it had been a moment before you were able to push away from the side of the truck and stand upright. He stood there, silent and immobile in front of you. Waiting, as if to shield you from the street and the rest of the world. Silence hanging charged and heavy between you, as you wouldn’t offer your name in return. 

When you started moving toward the bar’s entrance, he stepped aside, and that’s when your body moved of its own volition. You took his hand in yours, palm against palm, trembling fingers wrapped around his knuckles.

“Can I see you again?” you asked, pleaded, begged. You didn’t recognize your voice.

He swallowed hard, shook his head at you for the third time, and squeezed your hand in his bigger one. 

“I don’t think so. You know that’s not a good idea,” he said. 

—

Grief settles like dust over the first weeks of September. 

You are surprised, almost shocked, to observe how little your life has changed. You get up in the morning, you shower and get dressed, drink coffee, go to work. You attend meetings about maritime trade regulation, sitting at your father’s side, go over endless spreadsheets detailing import-export profit and loss, you pretend to understand them, and you pretend to care, like a pretty human puppet. 

You come home at night, skip dinner when you can. You lie in bed next to Adrian. You seek out warmth where there is none. You perform sex without satisfaction. 

There has been no question asked. No suspicion, no doubt cast. 

You wear the same clothes, drive along the same roads, walk around the same hallways. 

And no one seems to notice that you are different. That you experienced imperious want and incandescent pleasure. That you carry a secret. Nestled, dormant and quiet, between your lungs, like a wild and unknown creature. 

Whatever part of him you welcomed inside you transformed the hollowed spaces of your existence. It redefined the void, creating a place of your own where to curate your new desires. 

His lips on your lips, your body molded into his, and pressed against your hips, an unfulfilled promise for more. 

In the palm of your hand, the ghost sensation of Frankie’s hold, now forever gone and lost, and your highlighted loneliness feels like a barless prison. On your own, always, again, to divert the old familiar pain of being you.

Weeks go by. The guilt recedes, and sadness takes its place, like clockwork, like physics. Like a new sort of weight coating your limbs. A nostalgic longing without any object. 

In the idle moments of your day, when you’re stuck in traffic, in a meeting, or in a conversation, your mind wanders back to him. The solid slope of his shoulders. The strong span of his back. Muscles bunching up under your grip. His scent, his curls, his taste. An organic trace seared into your being. 

His rebuttal, after he’d given you so much, felt less like a rejection than like a refusal to heed a deeply rooted instinct. 

His stare was no longer hard and cold. It carried only sorrow and loss. 

Does he think of you like you think of him? Does he miss the contact of your skin, or the abandon of your kiss? 

Did he walk away from your embrace with something to keep, like you did? 

Day after day, summer fades into fall, the change hardly perceptible through the consistently sweltering weather. 

Day after day, focusing becomes tricky, finding sleep more and more difficult and your train of thought turns downright maniacal. 

Ava’s calls go straight to voicemail.

More often than not, you start drinking as soon as you come home to fence off the tears of exhaustion, hoping Adrian won’t notice. Another line you had promised yourself never to cross, and under the combined effects of the alcohol and the antidepressants, you feel drowsy and dizzy, increasingly disconnected from your reality. A nagging sting settles on the left side of your lower abdomen. But you don’t mind the pain as much as you mind turning into your mother.

Some days, you think you’d like nothing more than to give way, allow yourself to drown into the proven refuge of self-abuse. Whenever you indulge the thought, soothing images spring to mind, oil on canvas, deep green, tender brown. Ophelia, crowned with wild flowers and rings of violets, sleeping peacefully in a shallow stream. 

When you finally return to the Hole in the Wall, it’s only with the hope of hindering your impending tailspin.

In the parking, after turning off the ignition, you sit in your car for the whole of five minutes, staring numbly at the dark lot where the red truck had been parked.

Mark’s hesitant greeting puzzles you; by now you have lost most of your ability to read people’s reactions. 

You walk to the counter and choose to sit on one of the high stools. Somewhere deep down, you enjoy his distance; you relish the sadistic pleasure of reliving the humiliation you felt standing before him, freshly fucked dumb on a total stranger’s fingers. 

Besides, you’ll take the attention, however uncomfortable it may be.

“Long time no see,” Mark says, and you produce a poorly executed smile. 

“I don’t know… two weeks? I’ve been busy,” you add as a way of apologizing.

“It’s been a month,” he replies curtly.

You try a brown ale, this time, rich and bitter. He busies himself behind the counter, cleaning and wiping, while you drain your glass in silence. You haven’t eaten all day, and you’re drinking too fast. Nausea laps against your diaphragm. It’s the last missing scene from this scenario: you, throwing up in the toilet of his bar. 

You’re considering leaving when he speaks again. 

“Trucker hat dude came by.”

Your head shots up and you glare at him, eyes widening under your pinched brow, a new wave of sickness nudging further up. He gauges your face, twirling a towel inside a pint glass, waiting for your answer, but when you give him none, he goes on.  

“Did he…” he starts, and his eyes slowly go back and forth between yours, “he didn’t hurt you or anything? Cause if he did, if you wanna press charges, I can—“

“No,” you cut him off, “god no, I’m fine. I’m perfectly ok,” you add unnecessarily when his gaze narrows. 

He pauses for a moment, like he’s the only one who can judge if you are, indeed, perfectly ok, before he faces away from you to put back the clean glasses on the lower shelves behind him.  

When he’s done, he turns back around, props his hands low on his hips, and for the first time since you’ve entered the place, he stands perfectly still. 

“He’s been asking about you.”

Between your lungs, the creature begins to stir. 

“He came back,” you say, surprisingly matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Asked if you come here every Friday.”

Piece by piece, your mind starts swiveling, sluggish and blunt after being successfully dulled out by the past couple of weeks of excessive drinking. You picture his tall figure standing in the small bar, perhaps he sat on the stool you’re sitting on now? Did he lift his cap to comb his hair with his fingers before he spoke?

Mark is talking again, and it’s a conscious effort to bring your attention back to his words.

“Asked if you always come on your own. If I know your name.”

“I never told you my name,” you panic, “what did you tell him?”

“I see your name every week on your AmEx Gold, sweetheart, but I kindly told him to go fuck himself,” he scoffs.

His sardonic tone snaps you out of your drifting daydreaming. Your face immediately hardens. You sit up straight, drawing further away from him and he seems to change his mind. He’s softer when he speaks next. 

“Look, I don’t know what’s the lowdown between you two, you understand? And anyway, I’m not in the habit of discussing my regulars with just about anyone. That kinda goes against the job’s ethics, you know what I mean?”

You shrug away the rational, albeit patronizing explanation with a huff of annoyance. You feel more alert than you have in weeks.  

“When was that?” you ask.

“Last week. Thursday, I think.”

“Shit.” 

Mark lets out a heavy sigh, resembling that of an exhausted father, and he opens the cash register. 

“He left a note for you.”

—

An address. Written in all caps, black ink on a white piece of paper torn from a lined notebook. No phone number, not date, no time… and no name. Just the address. Under the feeble cabin light of your car, the paper looks old, like it’s been carried around tucked inside a wallet for years, and time has turned it yellow. 

The coordinates on the dashboard GPS are identical to the ones on the paper. They were identical back in the parking, at the bar, when you typed them in; they were identical at every single red light you stopped at and checked. And they’re still identical now, glowing in blue letters, cold and synthetic, above the message You have reached your destination.

You raise your head again and stare at the building in front of you. 

It’s a motel. One floor, L shaped, slightly sloping roof. With wrought iron details, a porch hanging low and square wooden pillars demarcating each room, nine of them in total. On the right, underneath a bare bulb, a large ice machine gleams like a beacon for lost time-travelers, next to a pay phone with a cut-off cord and a missing receiver. On the rear end of the building, to the left, above what looks like the reception, a 4 feet tall sign spells MOTEL in red neon letters. 

At its height, the place probably looked nice. But that was a rough 55, 60 years ago, you estimate. Now it’s nearly derelict, with visible cracks streaking the yellowing walls, several broken drainpipes, and a missing number on the door of room 7. 

If you cared about these kinds of things, you’d figure that the diversion of the main road further south is responsible for the motel’s decaying state. 

Your attention is elsewhere, as usual. The parking lot is deserted, save for three vehicles. The red truck is here, parked a couple of places away to your right. Engine off. Empty. 

The drive here from the Hall in the Wall was nearly an hour long. The car cruised along poorly lit, narrow two-lane roads, lined with luxuriant vegetation, dense and confining in the pitch darkness of the suburban night. You’ve lived in Tampa your entire life and have never set a foot in this part of the Bay Area. Technically, you’re not even in Tampa anymore. 

He’s inside one of these rooms, somewhere. Waiting for you, and that thought alone makes your breathing difficult and your hands clammy.

What now? What’s next? Are you supposed to walk up to the reception and ask about him?  A tall man wearing a trucker hat? Frankie?

And what will happen, once you’ve found him?

This is ridiculous. Sordid. It’s gone too far, whatever that is. A motel outside of town. The worst possible cliché. The most degrading place. 

Between your lungs, the creature is clawing at your chest. 

You shift nervously on the creaking leather seat, exhaling long and shaky, no longer repressing the memory of his sturdy fingers curling inside your warmth, of his tongue swirling inside your mouth. The instant intimacy of your furtive encounter, that turning point, when he briefly relinquished his control. 

A chorus of voices rumbles like tumbling boulders inside your head, a cacophony of rules and guidelines, tacit and unspoken, ingrained and internalized. But with every passing minute staring at the bright motel sign, your resolve grows surer. 

The yellow curtains ripple behind the rectangular window of room number 2 and you quickly pull the key out of the ignition. Grabbing your phone from the dashboard, you stuff it inside your purse, which you slide under the driver's seat. 

Eyes locked on the curtains, you make a fast-paced beeline to the door. Around you, the night is bustling with the sounds and noises of the invisible wildlife. Revealing nothing, containing so much. 

With a quick rattle of your heels, you step under the porch, hand extended and ready to knock on the door when it opens for you. 

Oh he’s broad, so much broader than you even remembered, blocking the entire doorway with his frame, blue jeans, black shirt, and this goddamn hat that’s already haunting your dreams and your nightmares. 

Looking down on you, irate, defiant, daring you to push him aside and enter. Behind him, the room is plunged in darkness. Above you, the porch lights cast a warm hue on his face, that fails to soften his expression. The crease between his brow is deeper than your fears. 

You take a step closer, on instinct, but he moves to the side as if to avoid any contact with you and you enter the dark bedroom, carried by your momentum.

Guilt will come back to you later, sporadically, in episodes, but for the most part, you forfeit it wholly when you cross the threshold of room number 2.

He closes the door behind you and flicks up the toggle switch near the door frame. Two quaint lampshades blink to life on the headboard, casting a warm, subdued light. There’s no AC, or he hasn’t turned it on, and the atmosphere inside the room is already stifling, charged with his scent.  

“Took you long enough. Thought you wanted to see me,” he grunts, and the creature purrs inside your chest. 

“I did. I do.”

Stopping in the middle of the room, you turn around to face him. He’s standing tall and firm and mighty, feet planted apart on the carpeted floor, arms crossed over his chest. Yet you note his hands are splayed across his biceps, as if he were attempting to hug himself.

Perhaps that’s when you convince yourself Frankie is not his real name. Somehow, it makes it easier to believe you’re not the object of his ire. 

“Your friend didn’t tell you–”

“He’s not my friend,” you interrupt. “I only got your note earlier. Tonight.”

You let the implication sink in and your gaze travels down to the dip at the base of his neck and back up. The square, yellow bedroom provides you with the brightest environment you’ve ever had the leisure of observing him in. 

He’s beautiful, stunning, really, with unique and complex features. Almost pretty, but in a reluctant way, as if it was irrelevant to the life he’s chosen and led. His face speaks so loud, washed over by so many emotions, frustration, doubt and anger, and that lingering sadness in his dark eyes that tugs at your heart and twitches your fingers. 

“What’s your name?” he asks, tilting his chin in your direction.

Janet Leigh’s face pops up in black and white inside your mind, driving through a curtain of strident violins, skittish eyes flicking between the road ahead of her and the rearview mirror. 

“Marion,” you answer, inexplicably. 

“Marion,” he repeats, and you know he knows you’re lying. 

Unable to hold his gaze, you look away to the side, and he gives you time to take in the surroundings. The medium size bed with a stained, synthetic bedspread, the practical, shipped furniture, an angular chair and a desk surmounted by a rectangular framed mirror, the antique cathodic TV set hanging from the wall in the corner. The brown carpet. The yellow curtains. The painting of the Appalachian. 

And whatever your face says then makes him huff.

“Not what you expected? How did you think this was gonna be? How do you think these things go?”

You look at him again, stunned, lost, hurt maybe, that he should recognize you for what you don’t want to be. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before,” you tell him in a small voice. 

He shakes his head, like you aimed to wound, and unconsciously, your fingers find your sternum, jittery, anxious to appease this wild creature scrabbling against your rib cage. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” he mutters hoarsely, shaking his head again, or still, “and you shouldn’t be here either, this is bullshit.”

And he’s right, once more, he is right, neither of you should be here. All the lines you walked, all the rules you abided by, meeting expectations and doing as you were told, and you still end up here, on the outskirts of town, in this gloomy motel. Facing this stranger, begging to surrender to him, with your heart in your hand and your life on your lips. 

Eyes strained on his, you move closer, cautious, with your palms upward, as if he were to jolt and scurry away if you were too sudden. If you tame him, perhaps you will tame the wild creature between your lungs as well.

Drawn to his skin, you brush the tips of your fingers along his bicep, and the taut muscle thrums under the freckled, tanned surface of him.

He’s holding his breath, hardened face, hardened stare, deepening crease, and your fingers skate up along the slope of his arm until they meet his hand. 

He’s difficult to catch, you think, even when willing to be caught, but it’s now very clear what you want for yourself. You want him. 

It matters not that he belongs to somebody else. If you’re here, it’s because he wants you too. Despair and desire have brought you together, combined, conjoined, converging.  

Your hand travels round to the back of his arm, soft and feather-like, up under the hem of his t-shirt, lifting his sleeve. His eyes are boring into yours. You lick your lips, slowly, and lower them to his skin. A light kiss, testing, tender and wet, and underneath it, a tremor. 

There’s a terrible density to his body. He’s tension and heat. Pressing your parted lips to his shoulder, you let your tongue peek out between them. You take in the tangy taste of him, it travels through your body like lava, like syrup, heavy and sticky and sweet and it pools down between your hips.

He’s completely still, eerily so. Emboldened, hopeful, you tug on his t-shirt, tentatively at first, and when he doesn’t stop you, when he unfolds his arms, you pull it off his frame, the hat coming off with it. You suck in a sharp breath at the sight of his naked head full of curls, lush and tousled. You want to run your fingers through them. You know that’s probably not a good idea. 

His chest, broad and solid, fills your vision, and your hands fly to his sternum where you press them, chasing something invisible, roaming up the plane of his chest, as delicately as possible. Your fingertips drum lightly along his collarbone, as if you were seeing him with your hands, as if all your senses were necessary to take in the whole of him. 

His frown turns imploring, his breathing shallow. 

��Tell me your name,” he murmurs, his deep baritone a pleading husk.

“You can call me whatever you like,” you answer, lifting his hand and taking his two first fingers into your mouth, eyelids fluttering. You cradle them with the flat of your tongue, brushing against the callous tips of them, saliva flooding your mouth around the salty taste. A moan escapes you, imperceptible, and his jaw ticks around a curse, something you don’t make out, something in Spanish, you’re too dazed with want, too dumb with thirst. 

Fire licks up your spine when he moves, fast and sure. His hand tangles in your hair and he sharply tugs your head back, his fingers popping out of your mouth with a hanging thread of saliva. His face has become a threat, a warning, a promise. He’ll give you what you want until you regret asking for it.

His mouth crushes yours, teeth colliding, and his tongue is inside you, swirling and licking. 

Like a dam that gives, his strength breaks and sweeps over you, crushing you into his chest with his hold and his kiss, fingers gripping your hair, your ass, and you let him have it, let him bruise your flesh with his need, scraping your fingernails up his arms, on his back. 

You’re smiling into the kiss, with relief and eagerness, squirming into him and he hardens his hold before releasing you, swift and sudden, grabbing your blouse and pulling it up in a feverish movement that you follow, lifting your arms like a docile little girl. A seam of the silky fabric rips around your shoulders. You don’t notice it. 

His face dives into the crook of your neck, the scruff of his beard grating your skin, and he sinks in his teeth, sucking hard and feral, and at first, you melt into it, before you remember. You force his chest away with both palms, whining, urgent, plaintive, “I can’t– can’t have marks,” when what you really want is to be covered in him. 

It makes him chuckle, and it sounds like a growl, so terribly dark, so profoundly disillusioned, that you shiver in the heat of his body. He squeezes your breasts through the thin cotton of your bra, it’s brutal and it hurts like retaliation.

“Get fucking naked, Marion.” 

Drawing away from him, you start working the button and zip fly of your skirt with fumbling fingers, blood beating fast and booming in your eardrums, while he toes off his shoes and undoes his belt buckle. Hard metal, the same one that was scraping against your belly when he was crushing you into his red truck, into white-hot pleasure. 

His skin looks amber and smooth under the mellow lighting, the harmonious muscles you guessed under his shirt on the very first night highlighted in shadows. A soft belly, and a long, sideways scar on his left side. Would he tell you the history of his wounds? Will you ever have the chance to ask? 

Your skirt crumples at your feet, you’re lost in the sight of him, arms falling limp at your sides. Self-consciousness skirts the edges of your lust. This body that you neglect and ignore at best, despise and mistreat if given the chance, will it be worth anything to him? Will he want you like you want him? With determination. Without dignity.  

When he pulls down his jeans and his boxer briefs in one deft motion, your eyes widen, but he’s grabbing your arm already, spinning you around like a doll and throwing you onto the bedspread. He climbs on the bed after you, the mattress dips with his weight. 

His firm hands spread your legs; he’s manhandled other bodies before yours, the skill evident with his dexterity, the experience obvious in his assurance, and you want to be all of them at once, lovers and enemies. 

His hand rubs over your damp panties and you buck into it, trying to raise yourself on your elbows to turn around. You want to see his face as he touches you, see his reaction at the evidence of your arousal, you want to watch his eyes when his cock breaches you, but he presses a large hand between your shoulder blades and pins you into the mattress with a grunt. 

He’s unlike anyone you’ve known before, brisk and rough and domineering, and you blush at your inexperience, at his irreverence, when he yanks your panties to the side and spits on your folds. The sheer obscenity feels like a reward for coming this far.  

Sprawling your arms forward, bunching the slippery fabric of the bedspread in your fists, you brace yourself, the round tip of his cock lining up at your entrance. 

He shoves himself inside you to the base, and you cry out at the blinding intrusion, the strength of his thrust hauling your body forward on the bed. With a harsh grasp, he slides you back down on his length and you bite down another cry, flesh gushing through the splayed fingers clutching your hips. 

Crouching over you, he presses his forehead heavy against the back of your head.

“Don’t move,” he hisses through clenched teeth, “don’t fucking move.”

His cock pulsates angry and swollen inside your throbbing pussy, his chest pressing down on your back with each uneven, shaky breath burning your nape.

Sitting back, he wraps his right hand around the strap of your bra and twists it around his fist, pulling on it for leverage as he begins to fuck into you. The thin elastic bands bite into your shoulders, raspy vibrations echoing from your throat straight into the bedding with each of his rhythmic pushes forward. 

He’s too much, too fast, too sudden. And he picks up the pace, forcing your right leg up with his knee and angling up his strokes, reaching deeper inside your core. He’s going to puncture your body from the inside, and you contract tight and rigid around his length, writhing underneath him, until he leans into your neck, close to your ear with a command, voice low and gravelly. 

“You want it, just fucking take it, then.” 

That wild thing inside your chest is swelling, madly swirling, your slick floods around his drilling length. Closing your eyes, the side of your face smearing makeup on the bedspread, you nod with just enough strength to exhale a breathless yes. 

Yes. Yes, you want it, just like so. You want to be used, shattered, obliterated by this man.

And so you relent. Curling your fists and sinking your fingernails into your palms, as the pain turns to pleasure and he rams into your taut heat, rams against your cervix, bending you backward, spine ready to snap with each forceful shove. 

The room is filled with the explicit sounds and noises of your emerging dirty secret. The relentless smack of his hips against your ass, the lewd squelch of his cock slamming in and out of your cunt, the creaking bedding, his feral groans, your grateful moans.

He’s miles away from you, but that’s what you came here for, drain the sadness from his eyes, make it yours, understand. If you’re only going to have him once, then you want it all. 

But his rhythm is faltering already, and it stops abruptly. He releases his grip on you and pulls out with a loud curse, leaving you empty, for all those things you never wanted in the first place to fill you up again.

You feel his knuckles brushing against the swell of your ass as he strokes himself into his release. He loses his balance, and braces his hand next to your face to catch himself as come spurts hot and rich into the curve of your arched back. 

He slaps his cock into the cleft of your cheeks once, twice, pumping out the last drops of his spend, and he collapses next to you, with a grunt when his back hits the bed, his chest heaving with exertion. 

Unshed tears weigh down your eyelids. Your heart rattles against your rib cage, frantic and irregular. Your blood is thick as molasses, of amber and gold, coursing dense and languid down your limbs, but your nerves are crackling like electrical wires of blue and purple. 

The creature between your lungs has tripled in size and your sore cunt throbs with your suspended orgasm. 

Sunk into the mattress, you’re unable to round your back or turn your head towards him. Everything hurts. Everything is alive.  

Reaching back blindly, you dip the tip of your fingers into the pool of his spend, and bring them back to your lips. Tasting him with delight and a quiet, strengthless moan. 

The mattress moves with him as he shifts on the bed, and you feel the warmth of his large hand covering the expanse of your lower back. 

Before you can relax into it, he flips you on your back with an easy strength, and you wince with the sudden change of position. What a mess you must look like, flushed face, sweat-damp hair, clotted mascara. 

He’s heavy, in his straddle of your thighs. He brings his hand to your mouth, and you open up for him, pulling out your tongue to lick his come-coated palm, wrapping your lips around his fingers as they glide over the hot wet muscle. You swallow his essence with fluttering eyelids, grateful, tears rolling down your temples. 

The soft light catches at the sheen of sweat gleaming over his chest, like he’s made of gold, leaning over you like a magnificent and merciful god, like you’ll grant him everything, and you bask into his radiance, your lips pursed into a new smile around his digits. 

The frown that hasn’t left his brow softens ever so slightly. His throat bobs, corded muscles, pebbled skin, the tension barely relieved. His fingers slip out of your mouth and come to cup your chin, so gentle your mind fails to comprehend. His touch lingers, warm and relenting and it becomes a caress, trailing down the line of your throat and coming to rest over your beating pulse at the base of your neck. 

“Are you real?” he asks, sorrow blurring his dark eyes. 

“I don’t know,” you murmur, beading sweat, beading tears. “Make me be.”

He breathes in deeply, and perhaps it’s the first time in years he breathes in so freely.  

“Okay,” he nods.

Slowly, with the tip of his tongue darting between his parted lips, he tugs down your bra to the side. His calloused palm finds the soft swell of your breast, and his warmth radiates through your skin. His hold strengthens, he pinches your nipples with his two first fingers, the ones you took in your mouth earlier, harder, until your mouth goes slack with pleasure and with pain, and you keep smiling at him through it all.

Loose, trustful, pliant, you watch as he drags your panties down along your damp skin and spreads your thighs. He pauses, eyes on your core and you lie still, exposed and opened, feeling no shame. 

His curls, matted with sweat, are stuck in locks to his forehead. Where was he, when you were still hopeful? Were you too young for him, then?

He dives between your hips, and his teeth bite into the soft skin of your inner thigh. You jerk, palm pushing feebly onto the crown of his head and he freezes, eyes shut, like he doesn’t have enough willpower to let go, like too much of his control has already waned and thawed.

“Please,” you coo, “please. I’ll get in so much trouble.”

And your heart sinks a little with apprehension because, surely, he’ll scoff at you again, but instead he just lets go, bringing his fingers to your swollen folds to part them. 

A small whimpering sound escapes you when he latches his lips around your clit, but the sensation is nothing like what you anticipated. Of his previous roughness, only the bruising digging of his fingers into the plush of your hips remains.

His mouth is warm and soothing, a liquid caress, the touch from the tip of his tongue precise but gentle. He shifts with a soft groan, applying more pressure and you keen, head trashed back into the bed. Instantly, he adjusts his grasp, pulling you closer to his face, suckling on your clit with more insistence. 

The smooth skin of your calves brushes over his shoulders, your heels digging into the muscles of his back and you’re reminded of that first night again, when he swiveled around to meet your gaze, soft sad eyes, hard cold stare. Your orgasm builds up fast, embarrassingly so, encouraged by his heavy breathing fanning the soft curls on your mound.

The wild creature melts into your blood and flows down to your core, branching out to every nerve from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. And when you come, you come sharp and bright, with your hand clasped over your mouth to muffle a loud mewl and your back arched from the bed. 

He forsakes his restored restraint when you recoil from the overstimulation, hardening his hold and fastening his mouth over your cunt to lap up your release, tongue diving in, greedy, burning your walls. 

You’re still shaking with the aftershock when he releases you and rises above your trembling body. Lying his forehead on your belly, heavy head, heavy breathing, sweat dripping on your skin, he stays there until his breathing slows down, falling in rhythm with yours. You reach down for his hair, threading your fingers through his curls, at last, and he gives in, leans into the tenderness of your touch. 

A stray tear slides down into your hairline and it’s over, he’s gone, standing up, his broad back turned to you, gathering his clothes and dressing up. 

The notion of the world around you resurfaces. Outside, tucked away in the heart of the night, countless other wild creatures dwell and carry on, moved by fear or desire, and you lie still in that crushing knowledge. Soon, you will have to leave this bed, confront your solitude to theirs.

You roll to your side and curl up on yourself, drifting with the soft droning from the sleeping creature between your lungs and the sweet soreness thrumming between your hips. 

He’s at the door, putting his hat back on, when you call out his name. 

“Frankie.” 

It passes your lips for the very first time, a long kept secret, a forbidden vow, a usurped oath, and immediately you want to say it again. You want it to be real. You want it to be yours.

Frankie pauses and tilts his head towards the bed without facing you completely. 

“Thank you,” you say.

He opens the door to a draft of air wafting in, charged with the salty, humid scent of the faraway bay. He’s about to cross the threshold, and disappear into the night, when he speaks. 

“The room is paid for til morning. I’ll see you next Friday.”

****

Additional note: I woke up on day and decided to build a multiverse of orange bedroom Frankies 🧡 For those who've read PTMY, can you spot all the clues? This Frankie is really pissed off, though, but I kinda like it. I hope you'll like it too 🧡

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