#fmc fic

[netherfeildren]

FABLE OF THE DOG : 1. The Two Headed Calf

Series Masterlist;

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Summary: Welcome home and buck up, cowgirl.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol & Drug Use; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Graphic Descriptions of Vomiting; Description of a Dead Body; Death of a Parent; Parental Neglect; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Past Teenage Crush; Unrequited Pinning; Yearning and Longing Galore; Boss’s Daughter; Complicated Family Relationships; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: Disclaimer, I know nothing about Wyoming and it’s geography, ranching, or being a cowboy and just made all this up. Any and all misrepresentations are fallacy of my laziness.

The FMC tag was decided because she has a last name. It was just too difficult for me to speak in depth about her father without giving him a name, and thus her one too. After that decision was made, she kind of went away from me and devolved into her own person who I have come to be quite obsessed with. It’s still written in ‘you’ format, anyhow.

I’ve been having a whole lot of fun with this, I hope you do too.

Word Count: 10K

Read on AO3

1: The Two Headed Calf

“She’s been shut up in that house goin’ on three days now, Joel,” Tommy says as the two brothers make their way across the lawn. 

The ride had been long and hard, and Joel is tired—he levels a dark look at him. “Just sayin’. Nothin’ you find in there’s gonna be pretty to look at.” He raises his hands in surrender at the brooding glare, that non-confrontational shrug that’s set Joel on edge since they were boys. 

“One of you’s should’a gone in there. Made sure she’s okay.”

“The housekeepers’ve been keepin’ an eye. And Frank tried to go in there and check on her himself, but she’s angry as a barn cat. Hissin’ ‘nd yowlin’, and just bein’ downright scary as hell, to be honest. You should be prepared is all I’m tryin’ to say.”

“Her father just died, Tommy. I’m not expectin’ pretty sights right now,” Joel gruffs, trying to swallow the panic that flutters in his throat as they crest the final hill up to the big house. 

The beautiful stone, oak, glass monstrosity that’s stood as monument to this place, this home that is not truly his, for over a decade now. The Kelly Ranch. The sky above is still a sultry, yawning blue, deep and tired, basking in the throes of dawn as the sun just now makes its way over the crest of the Tetons in the distance so that the house sits for just a moment longer in its pool of shadowed blues. 

Joel pauses on the border of that somber darkness, afraid suddenly of what awaits him inside; boots glued to the ground with the gum of cowardice. He doesn’t want to see her broken. He doesn’t want to see her hurting. But there’s no other recourse, he knows this. The death of the estranged father she’d fought with all her life, the inheritance of this world that seems suddenly too big for just one orphaned girl, all alone now. 

He’s afraid that he’ll walk into that house he’s always seen as other and home all wrapped into one—that Olympus that was so far removed and out of reach even when he walked through it’s halls to the man who’d given him sanctuary and salvation, to the man he knew mistreated her sometimes, didn’t love her enough—and not have the capacity to recognize her, this girl who’d always been familiar and stranger all in one also. 

Joel Miller suddenly feels afraid of the memory she exists as in his mind, in the face of the woman he knows she is now. 

When he lets himself in the back kitchen door, it’s still nighttime within. The cool dryness of the AC cranked up to inhuman temperatures makes him shiver once while sprouting a damp sweat along his nape. He should’ve showered before coming, should’ve washed the ride and the days of camp off his skin before walking into her presence, but all he’d managed were his hands and face. There’d been panic to make sure she was well, if not then alive, at least. But he should be more presentable for her. 

Hell, he should’ve been here for her when she came home for the first time in two years to the house where her father had died. He should’ve been here when the man died. 

But the herd had needed moving. He hadn’t thought it’d all happen so quickly, thought he had more time, that they all had more time. He’d hoped she wouldn’t return at all, if he was being honest. There was nothing here for her. Nothing except memories of a gilded and loveless, already motherless childhood. The reality of all she was set to inherit. The truth of an aloneness Joel didn’t know if she was prepared for. 

He moves through the house slowly, afraid to disturb the ghosts and the silence. The interior, immaculate and beautiful and solemn. Something out of a movie picture or the gloss of a magazine. Something covered not in dust but in sadness. The stairs are silent as his spinning mind makes up for the creak, the boots she’d sent him on his last birthday hit the richly piled rug at the top, and the hallway to the bedrooms yawns long and frightening in front of him. Two grand a pop, the boots—Lucchese, he’d looked them up on the iPhone she’d sent him the year before. A gift giver, generous to a fault, kind to a detriment. She sent something to all the ranch hands that’d worked for her father since she was a girl. Something for the entire ranch at Christmas. And all he managed each time was a perfunctory thank you card, like he did every year because he remembered, years ago, in her little voice, polite people send thank you notes, Joel, my grandmother told me so. Last year he’d written that they were too much, that she shouldn’t have, that he was grateful. There wasn’t much else to say. 

That was the extent of their communication, familiar and stranger in one, the far removed golden child of the Kelly. They’d all called him that, the Kelly, for as long as he’d known the man. As if he was some Scottish laird of old, ruling over his clan and half the world. Egotistical, was what it really was. He’d thought himself a god among men, in the face of his only child. Ridiculous was what Joel saw it all for, a put on play, a farce.

And wonder of wonders, she was entirely unlike him because of course she would be. Of course a man ruled by nothing more than ego and narcissism had been sent his polar opposite in the form of his only child. Kind hearted, was what she was—sending him a birthday gift every year. Remembering them all here always no matter how far she’d gone. He sent her a thank you note for each benevolence in return, a word of respectful gratitude for the fact that a person like her could ever remember a dog like him. 

Sometimes, Joel had wanted to go to him, the old man, Oswald Kelly, and ask him where his daughter was, why he wasn’t looking for her, keeping her closer, caring for her. He wasn’t the sort of man that could’ve ever understood such callous behavior towards one’s child.

The last time she’d been here, over two years ago: less than forty eight hours that had ended in screaming so terrible they’d all heard it down from the barn, sitting in uncomfortable, swollen silence, the spinning of tires ringing as she yelled at her father that he was never going to see her again, the man’s echoing laugh as she’d fled him. 

Joel hadn’t seen her on that visit, it’d been so quick and angry. Flying down on the jet from New Haven for her father’s seventieth birthday and not even making it long enough for the festivities. This was what her life was, as he’d observed it from a distance for all these years, the singular daughter of this great house, coming to her father, attempting joy and finding nothing but disappointment at the end of him. 

She’d been right, a knowing streak running through her. Kelly had never seen her again, and Joel didn’t know if the old man had regretted it or not, the anger and the estrangement and the lack of love. But the last time he’d spoken to him, hours before setting off on their move, the herd always came before everything else, the ranch was all that mattered is what the man had always said, with death scratching at the window, his frail and withered body licked down to almost nothing from the austere and imposing figure Joel had always known him as, he’d asked for her. His only child. Do you think she’ll come, Joel? The dying man had asked him. My daughter, do you think she’ll come see me? Joel had lied a lie he hadn’t known was one, said she would, that he’d call her as soon as he was back. 

In the end, he hadn’t even afforded her that decency, a personal call.

He comes to her open bedroom door now, pitch dark as grief within, and the stench of sorrow and liquor seeping from the living grave. He looks down the long and empty hall for a brief second, wishing it didn’t have to be him, that again, he didn't have to see her any way other than okay. And he realizes that there’s something about her, as she will exist now, that makes him cowardly. Something about this house without the man who’d granted him the absolution of a hiding place all those years ago, who’d understood and sheltered Joel in the midst of his own past grief, that makes him cowardly. The house feels wrong without Kelly within it, wrong with only her as its holder now. 

Joel steps into her dark, and it’s a battleground—

—You are silent and motionless in the blue room. 

Nothing of the gleaming splendor that dresses the rest of the home sleeps in here. There are clothes everywhere, an exploded suitcase lies open and massacred in the middle of the plush white rug, a turned over bottle of red wine bleeding into your clothes. Shredded pages with scratched on writing slashed across them, the dusted white mounds of crushed pills, as if you’d smashed each one individually beneath the thumb of your grief. The sight makes him more afraid, the scent of weed and cigarettes heavy in the air, as he takes the final step towards the wrecked bed, and a single small foot hangs limply from the edge.

He stares at it long and hard for a second, afraid, afraid again, still, of what he’ll find. He says your name once, short and gruff like a dog’s bark. It’s what he feels like. Animal, bestial, lacking any sort of cognizance amidst this minefield. His heart beats against his spine, and he thinks he should do something else, shake you, check for a pulse, his bones throb inside his skin. He needs to fucking move, but the smell of smoke is so cloying he’s choking on his own tongue. 

Your ankle twitches.

And Joel sucks in a sigh of relieved air without panic, saying your name again. His voice is level now, maybe gentle, no more barking dog. His eyes move up the length of one pretty leg, and then quickly, he averts his gaze when he gets high up enough he’s met with soft-creased asscheek covered in silk. Swallowing his tongue, his eyes roll in their sockets, looking for anything else to look at besides the sight of panty clad ass. He steps closer again, gripping the edge of the sheet to pull it over your scantily clad body, eyes flitting to the silver spun clock on the nightstand, the warm glow of the hall light shows that they have two hours to get you sober and presentable before the funeral. 

Joel should have been here. He does not feel that he is even here now. And the guilt eats at him like acid. The fear too. 

“Darlin’, you’ve gotta get up now,” he says softly, taking hold of your shoulder, scalded by the feel of fragile skin, realizing with the suddenness of a gunshot that you’ll be the Kelly now. He gives you a gentle shake, “We’ve gotta get you ready,” and his heart pumps blood like a machine. The sight of the dry liquor bottle toppled on the nightstand, the shattered glass glittering the floor in crystal, the empty pill bottles, it all taunts him. His guilt is a cacophony in his mind. He knows he’s going to have to stick his fingers down your throat, make you spit it all up, that you’ll hate him for all of this afterwards, but when his gaze meets streaked rust, dark and shocking against the white sheets, he’s kicked into terrified action. 

He turns you over, your head lolling sickeningly in unconscious stupor, hair a tangled mess strewn about your face so that he has to dig for your eyes, parting the curtains of your fringe to uncover you. He focuses on your closed eyes, the too long lashes clumped together, lips cracked and parched. 

He should’ve fucking been here. 

Smoothing his fingers along the lengths of your arms, he keeps his eyes on your face and averted from all the skin that keeps peeking out below, searching the divots and slopes of your arms for hurts. When he gets to your right hand, battleground of a long ago broken hurt, he finds the drying crust of blood, the ragged split in the soft, small palm, thankfully shallow.

 His eyes smart, looking down at the broken glass, feeling the tear in you. 

Gripping you gently below the elbows he pulls you into his arms, cradled like a child, light as loss. Your head lolls again, neck crooked at an unnatural angle as he carries you into the restroom, careful of your head, knocking the lights on and putting you down in front of the toilet bowl. He pulls your camisole to rights, making sure everything is covered, and gathers your mess of hair as carefully as he can, trying his best to not snag the fragile strands in his too rough hands, but gripping you firmly in position. And ignoring the sound of your awakening cry, he sticks two fingers into your slack jawed mouth and down your throat until he feels the hot rush of vomit. 

Crouching behind you, his thighs bracket you, keeping your form from slumping over as you empty the poison from your belly, flushing the alcohol soaked bile as you struggle. He wipes his messy hand on the leg of his jeans and rubs soothing circles on your back, his fingers woven through the soft silk of your hair to keep your head in place and your face clear. His heart thumps in rhythm with your heaves, your too quick, panicked breathing. There seems to be not enough oxygen for the two of you and your grief in the too small room of the commode, and Joel gasps like a dying fish, trying to swallow calm breaths. 

When you finally stop your heaving, you rest your arms at the edge of the gleaming porcelain, head hung low, defeated, wracked with shivers or silent sobs, he isn’t sure, a strange and horrible keening noise, so small he barely catches it, held in your throat. There’s the finest down of peach fuzz that covers the tender slope of your vulnerable nape, and it makes Joel feel suddenly, just as vulnerable, just as unprotected. At a complete loss for how to help you. 

“Finally decided to show your face,” you croak, voice ragged with your sick. 

His fingers tighten once around your shoulder, a panicked tick of reminder that he’s here now, that he’s him. “I was moving the herd. It had to be done. Your father, he—” he stutters, trying explain, tripping over his own guilt ridden words. “I didn’t think it’d happen now, so fast, that you’d get here so soon. I thought we had more time.” 

We. 

Your skin seems to cool by the second beneath his fingertips, and then you’re shrugging his touch away, huddling closer to the porcelain bowl, further away from him. 

“Get out.”

“Let me explain. I—” And he’s begging now. He can hear the note of it in his voice. Begging for forgiveness. For a chance. 

“I don’t want to see you.” You don’t say his name. “Get out.” It feels worse than anything. 

“I’m here now. I didn’t know— I didn’t think.” He reaches to grab for you again, but you turn to face him suddenly. Wiping the back of your hand against your mouth, pushing your heels at his shins to kick him away. Your eyes are red rimmed, the hollows beneath bruised with lack of sleep. But fire spits from the deep color, all anger and hurt. 

“Go deal with your fucking ranch,” you fling the words at him. “It’s all you care about anyways.” And they weren’t shivers, he sees now, they’re tears tracked as proof of all his guilt, all his lacking, along the slopes of your fine grained cheeks. 

Your, you say. As if this place and anything in it has ever been his. He’s never wanted any of it like that, only ever seen a thing that needed taking care of, and him, with the ability to care for it. 

“I needed you,” you whisper as if the thought comes along on a second wind of anger, a realization that sends your voice breaking, hitching, your chest caving in on itself as the tears come faster and faster now. “He’s dead, and I needed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks now too. He thinks he’ll cry now too, for the man who he also lost, who despite it all meant something to him, as well. For you, who’s lost even more. For Joel’s own guilt. 

But he doesn’t think you see any of that, not his apology, not his regret, not his own grief. You turn away from him again, laying your temple down again on your forearm. “Get out. I’ll be ready soon.”

And so he goes.

-

Your father is made small and withered in death. 

One of the wealthiest men in the entire world. A stranger, a titan, a nightmare of a man. 

It wasn’t something you’d ever considered, that a human body could look so colorless and frigid and not alive. Like a shock or a ringing bell, it’s a realization that you’re an orphan now. That you’re all alone. 

You feel something like a memory of regret. Or something that’s like the idea that you should feel regret, that you should feel guilt for how it was between the two of you. But all that is overshadowed by the reality of what you weren’t. All you feel even more, or in actual reality, is the old loss of what you’d never been to each other. That, you realize, is the seed of your grief. That long ago wound, that child’s understanding that he wasn’t like all the other fathers, that he’d never care for you the way other children were cared for. 

Looking down at the frozen face that looks nothing like the one he’d worn the last time you’d seen him, the wispy thatch of hair that hadn’t been so jarringly white before sickness had ravaged his body, you realize that this is no new loss, it is only a continuation, a reopening of a very old one. 

The cavernous cathedral at your back is silent, vacated by the sea of people that had congregated here earlier. And with sickening curiosity, you uncoil an arm from where you’ve got it wrapped around yourself, reaching out to press a finger against the ice cold back of his hand. Shockingly not alive; he feels made of rubber. 

Everyone that’d been here to bid farewell to this behemoth turned slip of a man, to catch a glimpse of you, packed like teeth into Jackson’s grandest cathedral; business men and heads of state from around the world, the oldest family names in the country, figures of the highest echelons of wealth and society, vipers circling the barrel—half the world here to see this person who was supposed to have been your father but was really only a stranger. 

You take your hand back, and you don’t say goodbye as you turn away from his body. There’s no farewell to really tell. 

And at the back of the church, hiding in a bright ream of sunlight, Joel stands propped against the face of a saint. Dark and silent and maybe even more far removed than your dead dad. Watching sentinel. Oswald Kelly’s hovering man—come to watch over him one last time. 

The silk of your stockings slide against each other at the junction of your thighs, the hiss of your skirt around your calves as your reed thin heels click against the stone, and you pull your armor as tightly around yourself as you can. There’s a hollow echo inside of everywhere and everything, your mind like a gong, reverberating, and his gaze is so steady, hazel bright, deeply shaded by the lip of his dark hat, beckoning you towards him from beneath the brim. 

Large and strong and steadfast, your heart gives a painful, longing thump—stupid, writhing thing—and you can only bear to look him in the eye for a second, and if you were to really think about saying goodbye to that father that never really was, lying behind you, slipping further and further away, you’d say it to the man that always stood as his shadow before the world, before you ever said it to the man himself. 

-

The drive back home is cast in frigid silence and made all the more uncomfortable because you can practically hear Joel’s brain clicking and ticking away with worry. 

He’d sent your car and driver away with a harsh word while you collected your final goodbyes and words of respect from the last smattering of people congregated and waiting for the newly birthed heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world. 

Hovering over your shoulder, he’d kept anyone from stepping too close or getting too friendly, so close you could feel the heat of his chest through the silk of your blouse, and then going suddenly full on aggressive when a reporter from the New York Times had approached, fishing for a quote on the future of the Kelly empire. Ushering you away with a hovering hand at the small of your back before the man could get half a question out, he’s opening the truck’s door for you as a haze descends over your eyes, the distant shutter and flash of cameras bursting in your peripherals, a latent hangover and sleep deprivation and not enough to eat in the last forty eight hours causing you to sag in his hold. Then it’s only his big fist wrapping around the span of your wrist as he lifts you into the truck, your eyes downcast and unable to take in sight or sound, vision all a blur. You murmur a barely there thank you with his hand fitting at the dip of your waist, big body blocking yours entirely from prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse or a stumble, and for a single second, your entire weight is suspended in his hold, allowing you to bypass the struggle of balancing your high heel on the step up, and then you’re sliding onto the leather of the seat, the whisper of your cashmere and silk rustling around you as he handles you like a child being spirited away from the scene of a crime. 

The door shuts gently behind you, face turned away from the flashing lights, the watchful eyes of the whole world, and worst of all, the assessment of his concerned gaze. All you’re afforded are thirty seconds of privacy to let out a single gasping sob. 

And now, an hour and a half of silent purgatory. 

You slip your heels off, flexing your smarting toes against the damp of your stockings and tuck your folded legs beneath you on the seat. Paying the frantic energy of his anxiety and lodged words no mind, you consider instead: your new reality. The burden of it all means very little to you now. The last of your worries is being readied for entombing as the two of you speed down the eighty nine, zinging past the bright Wyoming green. The thrum of his truck drowns out your thoughts, brand new, probably over a hundred grand, only the best for your father’s right hand man, and the Kelly Ranch insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides. A brand for the whole world to see just who exactly is being whisked away to her old home turned brand spanking new grave. 

You might be feeling a little bit dramatic. But then again— you’d just put your last remaining parent in an actual grave, surely that provides you some allowances. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his big paw gripping the leathered steering wheel in a death clutch, knuckles white with his frustration at the dilemma you pose, his own discomfort. You’re sure if he thought you wouldn’t catch him, he’d be squirming in his seat. 

You do something to him sometimes, you know this. Not in any way you’d like, not in any interesting way, that of a woman affecting a man, but something respectfully harrowing. Maybe something a little bit like fear. 

There has existed between the two of you, always, that strange intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time, and yet, have always remained at a far removed, arms length distance from one another. 

A professional intimacy of sorts. Your father’s foreman, shadow, fixer. The man who guarded that treasure trove you’d inherit one day, today; the thing your father loved most in the world. Two people who’ve known each other a long time, and yet, don’t really know each other at all. 

There has always been, however, the fact of the birthday. 

The birthday. Your birthday.

The way you’d latched onto that small, immense, detail when you’d first discovered it at fourteen, when he’d newly arrived at the ranch and the true weight of your first real crush had really hit you, it was probably not entirely healthy. But you’d thought yourself in love with your father’s man, the first figure of the male species who’d ever drawn your attention in such a way. 

He’d never paid you any mind; you were the boss's daughter, a figurehead or a responsibility, maybe a nuisance, although he’d never ever treated you as one. But the day someone had let slip it was his birthday, on the same day as yours, your teenage heart had swelled with the naive hope of fate. It was meant to be, the two of you were connected, so on and so forth, swallowed by girlish innocence and made buoyant by fantasy. 

But you’d had something to share with someone, which was what really mattered. Something tangible, even if only in your inexperienced little mind, something to wield as comfort so that the first time your father had forgotten your special day, fifteen, and what a tender age it had been, you’d had something to cling to. That's when your gifts to him had started. It was your way of making sure there was at least one person in the whole world who’d remember that was your day too. That you were alive, that you mattered. A reminder of yourself. And as the years and birthdays passed, sometimes, when he sent those coldly gracious notes of his, you’d wished you could’ve written back with honesty. Said something like, I’m so lonely, wish you were here, wherever it was in the world you’d found yourself at the time. 

And of course, he was gorgeous and older, strong and patient and capable, entirely unattainable. Impossible to forget. You’d gone so far, traveled wide, gotten yourself an overpriced education that would probably serve you for nothing, had lovers and parties and splendor, and always, you remembered your gifts for him, you remembered him. It was the single most important detail of your birthday every year. 

The leather creaks beneath his fist again, chapped knuckles set to burst before he flexes his fingers out, long and straight. Thickly built hands, strong, made for working or hurting, on a man who you’ve never seen be anything but stoically patient. 

He was strange in that way, neither wholly impulsive nor precisely intentional in his mannerisms. More so, it was that there was something extremely neutral about him, a middle buoyancy of personality. Strict with the cowboys, exacting, wielding his title as ranch foreman with an iron fist and your father’s blessing, and yet still, quiet, serious, with that patient gentleness about him. You’d seen it in the way he’d handled Ellie when she’d first come to the ranch, young and skinny with that hollow look of trauma kids who’d seen things they shouldn’t have shamed adults with. She’d been a little older than you, and with an air you’d not understood, a sort of lived past you’d been naive to the existence of, frightened when confronted by it, and yet inevitably, the two of you’d become fast friends eventually.

You’d even experienced it yourself, on two treasured occasions, that gentleness that you’d held onto for years. Nurturing the memory of him in your mind like a delusional bloom. 

He stretches his hand again, wheel caught between his thumb and forefinger, cinching it there, back and forth. His nails are meticulously clean, cut to the quick, and you imagine he must spend a great deal of time cleaning himself up when he works so hard at getting himself so dirty most days. 

You can see him sneaking glances at you, and he coughs once, a clearing of his nervous throat. Averting your gaze, you turn your face away so that you’ll be able to watch him through the reflection in the window. He monopolizes the space in the cabin of the truck, broad shoulders and hulking form, all the fine leather smell washed away in the scent of him. That bay rum aftershave he’s always worn, the one with the distinctive notes of bay leaf, cloves and citrus. An old fashioned scent, masculine and crisp. 

You’d snuck into the bunk once with Ellie, before he’d moved into the foreman’s cabin, before Switzerland, when the two of you were still girls running rampant and free through the ranch, clutching desperately at the last vestiges of any sort of happy childhood you could scrounge up for one another. You’d peeked in his things, found a whole world of Joel shaped curiosities. The glass etched bottle of aftershave, a hole spotted t-shirt with a burnt orange longhorn across the front, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories—something you found comforting, knowing he could read about the small, the freakish, real life; thinking that perhaps he was homesick for the comfort of the South, hungering for a taste of the life he’d had then, through books. And then, in a spine cracked copy of Suttree, the pages almost falling apart beneath your fingertips, dog eared and well loved, her picture tucked between the pages.

It had been the first time you’d done something you knew you shouldn’t have and actually regretted it, looking down at that green eyed photograph. 

You’d run back to your room after that, ashamed and something a little bit like jealous, desperate to know who she was, desperate for someone to keep a picture of you like that—as if they loved you. And years later, you’d found the scent for yourself. The little molasses glass bottle you still have and pull out on occasion, when you’re feeling extra bad, extra lonesome, extra far away from the whole world, just for a reminding of home. 

Beside you, he sighs again, coughs again, brings you back to himself and the present. Just spit it out already, you think exasperatedly, say something, anything else besides how sorry you are. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he starts, and you roll your eyes, scoffing quietly. 

“You already said that.” Sullen. Mullish. You wish you were a child who could still throw a tantrum and get away with it. Letting your eyes go unfocused from his reflection in the window, you brood at the sight of everything that’s yours now as he turns off the highway, passing below the iron eave of the Kelly Ranch entrance. Eight hundred thousand acres of pristine Wyoming land nestled into the deep valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons mountain range. 

“Well, I’m sayin’ it again.” He’s driving too fast, and you refuse to turn and look at his face. Your heart beats blood in your ears, and you screw your eyes shut to the dizzying blur of green legacy, not wanting to see any of it—him. 

Your belly swoops, going slightly nauseous and gurgling. 

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” He swallows, “Hell, I didn’t think it’d all happen so damn fast.”

“I was already in New York,” you tell him, voice clipped with breathlessness. “I left Paris last week.”

“What? I didn’t know— I—”

“Why would you?”

“I would’ve called you. I would’ve gotten you out here quicker.”

“Ellie called. It’s better like this, Joel.” Finally letting yourself say his name out loud, it feels wrong and molten on your tongue, a heaviness being spit up from the depths of your stomach. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. He’s dead now.”

“There’s no pretending. He wanted to see you—”

“Please, stop.”

But he urges on unheeded: “He told me so before I left. Told me—”

“Stop,” you snap. Finally turning to look at him and hating him for it. For how gorgeous he is, for all the things he’s always made you feel for as long as you can remember what it was to feel something for a man, for all he did or did not have with your father when you had none of it or so much of an entirely different thing. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. It doesn't matter anymore, Joel.”

“But you should know. You deserve to know that—”

“What?” Because that one hurts. “I deserve to know what?” That he actually had loved you but had just never been able to show it? That now it was too late? That the only person the great Oswald Kelly had ever been able to speak to of the supposed care he had for his only daughter was the hired help? You’d read once that one should never let their parents anywhere near their real humiliations. You’d tried your damndest to follow that as soon as you’d grown up. “It’s not your place,” you seethe with teeth bared, an animal shoved into a corner and made to fight for its life, deciding you won’t ever let Joel near them either.  

He spits a cursing, growled sound of frustration, but doesn’t continue. The two of you find yourselves at an impasse, and you turn back to your windowed mirror of him, eyes pinching hot, filling with tears. One of the things your father disliked most about you, your easy tears, and a single salt marred inadequacy tracks down the slope of your cheek, dripping off the edge of your jaw into the bandaged cup of your palm, and you breathe slow and measured through your open mouth, watching the fog cloud grow and shrink against the glass obscuring your vision of him. 

-

The last time you’d missed your mother, the one you’d never known, in any sort of real and true way, you’d been eighteen. Returning to an empty house after celebrating your high school graduation in a far off school, alone. 

In the midst of your sophomore year, you’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school. It had been something worse than devastating, losing your life in Wyoming, the only home you’d ever know, Ellie, the other people on the ranch… But it was far removed enough that you couldn’t bother, where you couldn’t ask for things like attention or consideration. The education had been excellent, the upbringing desperately lonely ending on a whimpering sigh despite your many accomplishments. You’d wanted her very badly then indeed, your mother. To have been there, to have helped you pick your dress, kissed your cheek after watching you walk across the stage. To have wiped your tears when she told you that your father wasn’t there because he was busy managing the whole world, but that he was proud of you, that he’d have been there if he could. You’d wished she could’ve been there to lie to you so that you wouldn’t have needed to lie to yourself. 

Peering down from your balanced perch atop the deck’s bannister, you survey the deep bed of Lily of the Valley, destroyed beneath the vindictive soles of your bare feet. He’d planted them for her all around the house after she’d died, her favorite flower. 

You’d always hated them. 

And that was the thing of it all, which you’d learned when you grew old enough to recognize such things like disdain. He couldn't stand you because you reminded him of her. Clichéd and old and tired. An excuse for being a neglectful father. The daughter who was too much like her dead mother, and thus did not deserve to be loved. 

You tip your head back, nursing at the lip of fine aged Macallan, and the sky is a glass mirror of blackened silver streaks. You’re almost positive that all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from right here at this very spot in the heart of Wyoming. The sight makes your broken heart feel full and falsely mended. 

You’re certain you’re painting a pretty picture right now: tipsy on a bottle of your dead dad’s sacredly hoarded whiskey that probably cost as much as someone’s house, staring up at the stars in your newly inherited home with a whole unappreciated life full of possibilities ahead of you. Basking in the title of your newly minted— orphan-hood? Orphan-ness? A peer of the orphans. 

You snort softly, sucking on the bottle again, letting the heat of it settle in your belly, smolder in your heart. Your head feels full of bubbles and sugar and sad. 

There’s a part of you that feels a little ridiculous, despite the circumstances. You’re good at compartmentalizing, good at being objective of your realities. Obviously: sad because your father is now dead, and it’d been nine months and eleven days since you’d last spoken to him. Sad because he’d never given a shit about you. Sad because you’re alone, dumped by the stupid French jockey boyfriend who you’d not even liked very much, just a few days before this whole pathetic ordeal of acquiring your orphan-hood, yeah, that’s what you’re sticking with, had occurred. Not to mention the army of looming lawyers and financial advisors and various heads of business vying for your attention, waiting for the what next?

And Joel.

A one man army of looming Joel. 

So you’re feeling morose, blue, maybe a little spoiled, but brought low and cut short. Depressed and unsatisfied with your life thus far. 

Poor little rich girl. Poor little orphan. Poor little me.

What you want? 

Someone to care. 

Someone to love you. 

Hard to come by. Impossible to buy. 

The stars gleam purple silver, winking at you. The bracketing black so dark it swallows the eye. Another taste of the nutty bouquet of smoked apple oranges, and soon you’ll be tipsy enough you won’t be able to balance your butt on the bannister’s ledge anymore. Maybe you’ll go humpty dumpty over the edge and crack your skull against your mother’s valley of destroyed Lily’s. 

You laugh again with sound now, not crazy, only an orphan, ha, but you think that it’s only that it feels shockingly as if you’ve fallen through the surface of your life. As if you are still falling with nothing and no one to grab on to, to help stabilize you. A really terrible, shit-out-of-luck feeling. 

Your eyes continue their infernal leaking, and you blow your nose loudly on the inside of your sweater. You’ve given yourself three days to do whatever the hell you want, be as disgusting as you may. When the three days are up you’ll plan to get your act together, take responsibility and hold of your life and become the woman you should be. 

Who that is? Still being decided. 

You think that maybe you’ll buy another jet before that time’s up. Or an island. Something ridiculous. Maybe you’ll sell the goddamn ranch. 

You eye the dark rolling hills of the valley with seething suspicion. Let’s see what Joel says about that. You, marching up to the highway entrance and spearing a For Sale sign in the dirt of the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the continental United States. Way more than that God forsaken surly frown is what you’d get. 

So long, Joel, it’s been swell. I’m done with this place. It’s time to pack it up and find some new hunk of land to care about more than you care about me or anything else. 

Maybe you’ll be real funny and put up a Craigslist ad. 

And it isn’t that you don’t love this place, the only home you’ve ever known. You do. In a way that is passionate and consuming and irreconcilable. Everything about it, the serenity, the guarding mountains and the deep woods, the home you’d been born in, that both your parents had died in. You do love it in your way. 

It’s only that every man you’ve ever loved—loved—had always cared more about the place than he’d ever cared about you. 

For the longest time, most of your youth until you’d decided that you officially felt an adult, you’d thought you’d hated your father. There was just so much anger and resentment and the resound of his ever furious words and insults and endless disappointment. The echo of no mother ringing so loudly in your ears that the confounding feelings had all been mistaken for hatred. But with age and distance and life, you’d realized you didn't hate him. You never had. You thought, actually, and this was a very good and mature thought of yours, that you were the only person in the whole world that had ever seen him as only a man and not a god. 

He was only a man, full of greed and grief and missing the mother of the child he’d probably never wanted. Nothing more or less. 

Maybe it was that you felt sorry for him. Not in the way of pity, but in the way of one person feeling empathy for another in a clinical and helpless sort of manner. And a numb, detached sort of sadness. A longing for something that you’d never had and had always wanted but eventually learned to live without. 

Ultimately, his disappointment had turned on him, and now it was all you felt you had for him at the end of it all. 

But, for some reason, and an annoying one at that, you do think that, if you try very, very hard, you could bring yourself to hate Joel Miller. There’s satisfaction in that possibility, vindication—resentment that even now, as practically strangers, you know he’d be able to pull that sort of feeling out of you which could result in hatred. Something strong and overwhelming and not easily escaped. 

Your stomach rumbles, and you smile blithely at all your inherited legacy, filling the hollow with more drink. Three days to behave very badly, as badly as you can. The whiskey is so good, and swishing it around in your mouth, you tip your head back further, gurgling it loudly at the back of your throat. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

You jerk, scrambling to keep your balance, choking a little on smokey apples and your own spit. A trickle of the golden amber liquor drips out of the corner of your mouth as you find him hiding in the dark across the deck. Accustomed to drooling over him, you wipe it away with the back of your hand. 

“Having a party. Would you like to join?”

“Are you drunk again?”

Tough crowd. Ugh.  “Never mind. You’re not invited. Go away.”

“You need to go inside and go to bed.”

You tip your chin at him, putting on doe eyes. “Alright. And are you going to be my new daddy also?” You say in a baby voice.

Fucking Christ, you hear him whisper under his breath, turning away to run an exasperated palm over his mouth. Frustration seethes off of him like sulfur. He’s tired. Of you maybe. Of the whole circus this place has become in the past few days—and rightfully so. 

“What do you want? I’m extremely busy, if you can’t tell.”

“Just thought I’d check on ya.” Courteous, always the gentleman, bullshit. You roll your eyes at him. 

“I don’t need you to check on me.” And you, ever the child. One day you swear you’ll grow up. 

But it can’t be said that you’re entirely selfish either. You have considered the fact of Joel’s own grief at the loss of your father. After all, they’d been much closer than you’d ever been to him for many years. And maybe, in his own cold and removed and superior way, your father had seen this man who you’ve thought yourself in love with since you were a teenager, as something like a son. 

Probably, that’s just your own wishful thinking: that Oswald Kelly had ever been capable of such tender feelings.

Maybe the fact of Joel’s own grief is the thorn beneath your nail bed that’s making you so angry with him, so needing of his attention. Maybe it’s that he’d failed to fulfill your silly and girlish fantasy that upon receiving the news of your only remaining parents death, he’d have been here waiting for you, at this home he’d guarded for you for so long, ready to take you into his arms and console and care for you. 

When instead, he’d been off doing what he’d always done for as long as you’d known him. Protecting your father’s interests, his legacy. 

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“How?”

“You, being difficult.” Driving me fuckin’ crazy— he adds again under his breath. 

“I’m an orphan now, Joel.” You’re becoming quickly addicted to the word. “I think I should be afforded a tiny bit of leeway to drive people fuckin’ crazy,” you mock his Southern drawl. Enough of your time had been spent in Europe over the past two years, kissing Europeans, that you’d sloughed off the last of your American twang; something of a vaguely European lilt peppering your words every now and then that Ellie likes to tease you for whenever the two of you speak on occasion. 

A muscle under his left eye twitches at the jab, and you take another deep swig of the bottle, provoking him with your gaze. Wishing you had whatever it is a woman needs to entice this man. Like the fucking vet. Fucking world renowned, brilliant, highly coveted, beautiful veterinarian. You know about her. You’re sure he thinks he’s been discreet over the years with their whatever they’ve had, Tess, but you know. 

Maybe you’ll be insane and irrational and possessive, taking advantage of your three crazy days, and fire her with your new found power. See what he has to say about that. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha. 

Obviously not. 

Despite your current hysteria, your goal is not to send the ranch head over heels into a tailspin.

But the imagining is soothing. 

“Want some?” You hold the heavy crystal out towards him in a peace offering, held precariously between two sweaty knuckles. “It’s probably worth as much as your truck. Would be a waste for me to finish on my own.” You eye what’s left of it, about half, and give him a sheepish grin. It really is very good. 

He looks at you for one long, solemn moment, always so silent and pensive, this strange enigma of a man. You get to watch in real time as he loses whatever fight it is he’s trying to fight against you, victorious when he shrugs and comes over slowly, resting his butt against the bannister—a carefully respectful distance away from you. 

When he takes the bottle from your swinging clutch, gripped from the base, careful not to touch you in any way, you see the real sad in his eyes. The dim lights bleeding out through the big windows of the family room without a family shine on his face in strips and bursts. A shadow here, golden warmth there. He’s got more lines around his eyes than you remember from the last time you’d been this close to him. Smile lines made bright white in the center and gold burnished at the edges from too much sun. There’s little bursts of silver threaded at his temples now too, a gleam here and there in his dark beard. Forty four years old, he’d turned on your last birthday. 

You dig your nails into the soft meat of your palms, and your belly smolders as he brings the bottle to his lips, tasting the exact place your own mouth had just been moments ago. You press your knees together as hard as you can, head a little woozy with the color of his eyes; the most gorgeous green, caramel hazel. 

You’d graduated two years ago with a degree in art history and had done absolutely nothing with it since. It was just that everything appeared boring and pointless and shallow. Your whole life had one day suddenly seemed just a little silly. Useless, overpriced degree, nothing to be done with extensive knowledge in color theory when your world is expecting such different things from you now. 

But you sure as hell can appreciate the color of his eyes in extensive and meticulous detail. There is that. 

Watching the slow slide of the amber liquor down the bottle-neck, the long pull of his lush mouth, the ripple of his strong throat, and the way his eyes go a little wider, shocked at how good it is. You laugh soft: “I know, right.”

He takes another pull, another swallow. That’s what you want to be—swallowed just like that. “Damn, that’s good.” His mouth is a little wet, bottom lip shiny with thousands of dollars worth of your father’s favorite whiskey, and his eyes are sad. 

You’d said you were going to be bad, but you don’t want to be bad to him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He swallows again, tipping his head towards you, trying to catch your too soft words—he’s got a bad ear, you know why—and turns to peer at you from beneath his low pulled brow, the tip of his tongue peeking out to swipe at the drop of liquor you wish you could suck off his tongue. 

“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

The first time he’d shown you that gentleness of his: You’d fallen from your horse at school in your junior year. Something had frightened the beast, and she’d bucked you, sent you flying ten feet in the air, ragdoll-like, before you’d landed badly on your right arm, a comminuted fracture in your radius that you’d needed surgery to fix. At your insistence, and with only a few weeks left to spare, you’d been sent home for the remainder of the semester. Your father had been incensed but eventually allowed it. He’d been away from the ranch on business, after all, at no risk of being truly disturbed by you. But when you’d been readying to return to Switzerland at the end of the summer, arm healed, courage not, you’d not been able to get back on a horse no matter what you tried. Joel had helped you, before they’d shipped you off again. Trotted the corral with you for hours and hours before you’d finally been able to relax and sit on your own without tears and vertigo. No questions or admonishments, nothing but the quiet burr of his deep voice, guiding you and the mare along. 

It had been a kindness unlike any you’d experienced in maybe your whole life. 

“I’ve been bad.”

“Nah. You couldn’t ever be.”

The second time: “Did today make you think of Sarah?” Years after you’d found that green eyed photograph, he’d shared her with you. 

His gaze turns suddenly sharp, but you’re not worried you’ve stepped in unbreachable territory. “Yeah.” The echo of her name rings around the two of you. 

“In a bad way or a good way?” He takes another long swig, a low whistle through his teeth and a shake of his head before he’s handing the bottle back to you—again, carefully. 

“Both.”

You take your own swallow, slicking your tongue all around where his just was, and you’re drunk for real now. Drunk on a man. 

“Do you ever regret telling me about her?”

“Nah.” He tips his head back, looking up at the thick beams of the deck’s awning. He’s got the longest lashes you’ve ever seen on a man, thick and curling. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard too, sultry, a bedroom voice. A voice for fucking. Your belly swirls and dips, and you want so much you’re dizzy with it. 

Heart beating like it’s about to burst, out of breath on the verge of hyperventilating, you can taste his mouth in your mouth, the imagination flavor of it. This is what it must feel like to die. This is what your father must have felt like three days ago, this agony. 

His Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s so pronounced, the skin of his throat sun pebbled. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t all rough-hewn man. “You needed to hear about her then, I s’pose.” 

Yes. “You told me when I needed you to.” After that lonely graduation, the last time you’d missed her really very badly, longed for a mother. Alone, alone, alone little girl. 

“You were missin’ your momma somethin’ fierce. Needed to know you weren’t the only one that felt like that sometimes.”

You laugh a not-laugh, butt scraping against the railing, slipping off your perch, socked-feet thudding beside his gifted boots. The pleasure you feel whenever you see him use one of the things you’ve given him is indescribable. 

“Silly,” you say with barely any sound, his bad ear reaches for your voice again. “At the time it felt like I was the only person in the whole world that had ever felt like that.”

“We all feel like that at one point or another, I reckon.”

“Will you miss him a lot?” You ask looking up at him, the beautiful profile, the strong jaw. You’ve always wondered how he sees you. If he’s ever thought you were beautiful. Other men do, it’s a common thing, a nothing sort of thing. There are always men, there will always be men. But this singular man—this one is not like the rest. 

“Maybe. Can’t tell yet, don’t think. But it felt wrong earlier, walking through his house without him in it.” His house, not yours. 

“Do you wish he’d been your father?” And he turns to look down at you at that, gaze snapping, and you can tell you’ve shocked him with the question. But you’d always wondered. 

“No. Never,” he says with such assuredness, an uncompromising shake of his head. 

And the answer doesn't necessarily shock you in turn. You don't think anyone could have ever wanted a father like that. But it also doesn't help you understand what it was that lived between them either. 

He sighs, perhaps reading the confusion in your gaze. “He helped me at a time when I needed it real bad. Gave me a place and a purpose and a thing to do and take care of. You get me? It was gratitude—maybe. He saved me in a way, after Sarah. Nothing more.” He thinks for a moment, and then, “Perhaps it was that we understood each other about certain things.”

You gaze across the sprawl of dark land as far as the eye reaches, that point of no return where the earth shoots up into the sky, purple blue behemoths in the shape of mountains. 

From this spot, rooted to the deck of your family home, it seems like the whole world is yours to keep. Also, like you’ll never be able to touch any of it with fingers or taste or meaning. 

Your love for this place is complicated—tied up in the people, the memories, the could’ves and should’ves, the whole dreamscape idea of the monument of childhood and all it’d really never been. The time away had felt eternal, like you’d never really been here to begin with, like the young girl who’d grown up on this land had never really existed. But you’d not forgotten them, this, despite your distance. Your home, the father that wouldn’t want you, Wyoming and all its splendor, the people you’d left behind, Joel and Ellie and shared birthdays that meant a secret world to you. Morsels of small happinesses interloped amidst a largely lonely and sad childhood. That’s what it was at its core. 

“Would you be angry with me if I gave it all away?”

He thinks for a moment, maybe you’re making him sadder, but then finally says with a swallow, “No. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

You eye the quarter of whiskey left, but your belly isn’t hungry for its warmth anymore. You want something heavier now. 

“Could you even do that—legally—sell it or somethin’?”

“Probably not. He probably tied it to my fucking life. Sell and die.” You mime your name in an imitation of your fathers deep voice, frowning at yourself the way he’d always frowned when he looked at you, but it pulls a laugh from him, and the painful memory is worth it. “But I have a billion dollars to spend now. More?” You tap your chin—you want to make him laugh again. “Gotta think of something interesting to do with it all.”

His mouth slides into an easy half grin. Like the moon—that beautiful. And he turns to face you fully. “You’re gonna be just fine. You know that, right?”

You turn to face him too, gripping the bannister for dear life. “What? Will you make sure of it?”

“That’s my plan.”

“How’re you gonna do that, d’you reckon?” The American twang bleeds back into your voice, and you’re all swollen lush on the inside, heart a beating fist in your chest. 

“Haven’t gotten that far, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” God. His eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his mouth. He’s so tall your head has to crook back to look up at him. “I’ll figure something out.” And after another pensive second, and still with that soft, sloped eye smile, he asks, and nicely, “Will you stop drinking now—for me?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you say with the same sort of smile in return. 

And then suddenly, like vomit again but maybe more humiliating this time: “Did you respect him?” Because you don’t know all the things about him that there are to know, but you do know that Joel Miller’s respect is a thing hard earned. 

He clicks his tongue, and you hear the pop of his jaw as he shifts it like he’s chewing on an honesty. His eyes, his eyes, they’re serious, mercurial, warm and deep also. You worry he won’t answer, that he wouldn’t want to disappoint you or something, but then: “No,” said real simple like.

“Why not?”

And the way he looks down at you, you know already, and it makes that falling through the surface of your own life feeling rise up inside you again, makes your ears pop with embarrassment. Ah. “He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.” 

This is reality right here, this is you falling through your life, this is the realization that it wasn’t only you imposing yourself, your existence, on someone with gifts they didn’t want or ask for. Joel had seen. Joel had understood. 

Someone else had noticed that you exist, and it had been him. 

What else had you ever wanted?

And in the blink of a desperate, yearning eye, drunk on a man still, you’re throwing yourself at him, pressing your mouth hot and heavy to his, kissing him full on the way you’d dreamt of since you knew to dream of such things.

Chapter 2; Sugar, Not so Sweet

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IF YOU LOVE ME, LET ME KNOW | jack hughes.

chapter three:

➴ warnings: smut (semi-public, dirty talk, brief thigh riding, lingerie kink, degradation and praise at the same time? just filthy tbh)

➴ word count: 1.5k

➴ author’s note: …i have nothing to say for myself.

sophiamontenegro

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sophiamontenegro 11/11 ♡

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sarahmeddler RIGHT ON MY BDAY TOO LETSS GOOO

billboard 🎤❤️‍🔥

morgan.grace i love u i love u i love u

jackhughes ❤️

lovssoph YESSSS YESSSS LORD YESSS

kyle_79283 @hugo98293 this is probably a good time to tell you that i wanna break up. bye

sophiamontenegro @kyle_79283 @hugo98293 nah that’s wild…

sophialeftboob sing ho!

ilovejackhughes70 WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT JACK BEING ALL OVER SOPHIA’S INSTAGRAM LIKE THAT MAN IS LIKING AND COMMENTING ON EVERY POST WHAT IS THIS BEHAVIOUR

user92893 @ilovejackhughes70 girl CHILL that little guy is a whore he’ll do anything for a girl including being active on social media

WITH all of the things you had to do before releasing your album, it had been almost two weeks since the last time you saw Jack.

Which, if you were to be one hundred percent honest, you were grateful for. Trying to figure out what you were feeling whenever you were around him was already hard enough to do on its own, now doing it with Jack around? Even worse.

You still texted everyday, although you didn’t know what that meant in your… fuck-buddies-situationship. With your previous arrangements, you only texted if one of you wanted to have sex. Besides that? Never.

But, in your ultimate defense, Jack was the one to start it. With simple texts like “hey, how are you?”, he built some type of text schedule between the two of you, and you wouldn’t be the one to break it.

To your extreme horror, you actually missed him: his masculine, clean scent, his warm hands around you, his jokes, his laugh, his kisses and his dick.

You often wondered if he was having sex with someone else during the time you were apart and that thought made you ache. You knew it wasn’t any of your business, and you knew he was technically allowed to do that— and so were you— but it still hurt nonetheless.

“Can we get some warm lighting on top of her, please?” The photographer’s voice brought you back to the present, where you were shooting some pictures for your collaboration with Skims. You never cared much about the Kardashians but damn if those lingerie didn’t look good on you.

Someone moved the lamp around so that the warm lighting was now hitting your face, and you started posing again. It was your last outfit, and you were tired. It was half past nine and after shooting for six hours straight, you just wanted to go home and sleep. But, you still had at least fifteen more minutes.

“That’s great, Soph, you look awesome.” The man complimented you, earning a smile. At least the people there were nice and you felt comfortable enough wearing lingerie around them. “One more for me, please.”

sophiamontenegro

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sophiamontenegro angel in blue

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trevorzegras 🥲🥲

arianagrande jesus !!!!! ♡ 🪄

lovssoph how are u real girl wth

user72228_ GOR GE OUS

jackhughes i like blue

ilovehockey @ jackhughes soldier get up…

morgan.grace Im pregnant

ENTERING your changing room, you felt exhausted. Everyone left to have dinner and you were waiting for Grace to arrive, so she could pick you up. You were still wearing the two piece set, a blue babydoll and panties; your hair was still perfectly styled and your makeup flawless.

You heard a knock on the door, and you scrunch your nose, wondering why Grace would knock. She was against all types of knocking.

Opening the door, nothing could’ve prepared you for Jack standing there, looking gorgeous as always; gray sweatpants, a loose hoodie and blue eyes devouring you.

“Jack? What are you doing here?” You asked, confused.

“Grace told me you’d be here, shooting something,” he said, eyeing your entire body, taking his time. “Geez, I wish she would’ve told me you were shooting for Playboy.”

“It’s not for Playboy, idiot. It’s for Skims.” You rolled your eyes, opening your door and letting him in.

He leaned against the closed door, smirking. “I don’t know who Skims is, but I wanna tell them thank you.”

You giggled, cheeks red.

“Do a little twirl for me, baby,” he asked, voice soft yet demanding. You did, slowly twirling around, showing him your set. “So fucking pretty.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah, Sophia.” He stepped closer, putting his hand on your hips like always. You breathed in, not wanting to confess how much you had missed it. “And you’re all dolled up too, huh?” He briefly kissed you, just a tiny peck, really, which did wonders to you anyway. “I want to fuck you with those panties on. Make you ride me with that baby doll.”

“Jack,” you moaned, feeling your pussy starting to get wet against the fancy fabric of your panties. “We can’t do it here. What if there are people outside?”

He laughed, holding you closer, hands running up and down your thighs and ass, ignoring your wet spot on purpose. “What? Like you care about people knowing how much of a slut you are?” He scoffed. “Please, Soph. We’ve been here before,”

Your mind brought you back to that night at Nico’s place, or that one time you both fucked inside his car, or the day you sucked him off in the Devils’ locker room. Semi-public sex wasn’t exactly a problem to you, but putting on a fight always felt good.

“We have to be quick,” you whispered, giving in. As you always did.

“With you riding me while wearing this? I’m sure we’ll be.” He stated, and you laughed, as you both kissed again, bruising, hard and passionately.

His tongue caressed yours while his hands did the same with your body, fingers finding your clit over the panties and rubbing it once, twice, before moving to your hole, inserting his finger over the panties.

He lifted you with ease, leaving you with no choice but to wrap your legs around his hips, hoping that you wouldn’t leave a wet spot on his hoodie. He sat on the couch that occupied half of the room, with you on his lap, kissing you still. Your head was dizzy, mind going everywhere at once, and you couldn’t help but grind on his cock, indeed leaving a wet spot on his pants.

He pulled his pants down, and you eyed his perfect, hard cock: big, thick and the mushroom head red, spurting pre-cum. All for you.

“Inside me, please,” you mumbled, rubbing your clit on his thighs.

He laughed before grabbing a condom from his pocket. “That’s new. I didn’t know sluts knew how to say please. I guess you are desperate.”

And you were. It’s been two weeks since the last time he was inside you and you were climbing up the walls.

“Jack, please,” your voice sounded way too needy, even for you, but you didn’t care. If begging would get you his dick, then so be it.

“With you asking so prettily, who am I to say no?” He answered before pulling your panties to the side and lifting you up just enough to sit you on his— now— protected cock. You both moaned, you clenching your hole around him, clit throbbing underneath the lace. “Fuck, Soph. You’re milking my cock, baby.”

“God,” you moaned, slowly starting to ride his cock. You knew you both needed to be fast, so you were going to make it quick.

Sliding up and down on his dick, you rode him with ease, searching for your own release, while he pushed his hips forward, slamming into you with precision, hitting all of your right spots.

You two were too familiar with each other’s body, you knew each other so well and the realization made your head hurt and your clit throb.

Putting your hands on his shoulders to support your body, you were moving fast, fucking yourself open on his cock, while his right hand stroked your clit hard and fast, making you squirm and whine.

“Look at you, such a pretty thing, letting me wreck this tight pussy,” Jack whispered in your ear, still fucking you nine days into Sunday. “You’re mine, aren’t you, baby? All mine to fuck and care.”

“Mhpmm, yes, fuck, baby, yours,” you moaned a little too loud, forgetting about the fact that someone could be outside, hearing you and Jack fucking like two animals.

All that mattered now was coming on Jack’s cock and making him come too— which didn’t take long, since you both arrived at the same time a few minutes after that.

Coming down from the high, you both tried to make your breathing steady again, you resting your forehead on Jack’s shoulder, not wanting to leave, not now, not ever, his cock sitting still inside of you, making you feel full and warm and taken care of.

“All great in there, sweetheart?” You heard him whispering in your ear, while caressing your back with his left hand.

“Mhm.”

He chuckled. “Was I too rough?”

Even though it was clear you loved when he acted rough with you, he still asked every now and then. You thought it was the cutest thing ever.

Raising your body slightly, you stared at him, blue eyes reflecting yours, making you smile, tiredly.

“Nothing that I couldn’t handle.” You shrugged, genuinely happy. Exhausted? Yes. Happy? Also yes. “Jack?” You whispered, biting your bottom lip.

“Yeah, baby?” He whispered back, pressing his thumbs against your lip so you’d stop hurting it.

“I like you,”

You weren’t expecting him to say anything back, honestly. Coming to terms with the fact that you liked him was still something you were working on, but it would hurt less in the end if he pushed you away now, before getting your hopes too high.

Smiling right back at you, he kissed your cheeks, your forehead, the tip of your nose and then your lips, gently.

“I like you too, baby.”

[untaemedqueen]

Finding My Pack

Alpha!OT7 x Omega!Reader

Genre: Fated Mates, Omegaverse, Smut, Angst, Fluff

Series Warnings: Omega Abuse (Not By OT7), Fated Mates/Soulmates, Scent Sympathy, Sunshine!FMC, Knotting, Smut, MMMMMMMF, MMMF, MMF, MF, Breeding Kink, Cursing, Dom!OT7, Sub!Reader

Chapter Warnings: Omega Abuse

A/N: This will be the only chapter posted to Tumblr. All future chapters can be found on Patreon~! See you there!

Chapter 1.

"You do not lock the goddamn doors in this fucking house."

The sentence was thick with a growl, one that if I was born correctly wouldn't have mattered in the slightest. Just hearing the sharp hit of his words, my insides clenched and coiled, dying to listen and make sure that he wouldn't be mad at me again.

"Sorry," I whispered softly, looking down at my bare toes that curled awkwardly under my gaze.

"You need to put on your scent blocker and try a little bit harder to fit in here. You're making all your brothers crazy with that fucking smell."

Swallowing thickly, I grabbed the bottle from him with a nod.

If my scent made my brothers crazy, they made me out of my fucking mind with sickness. Every one of them smells like acidic garbage with a hint of overpowering sweetness, y'know, like the way too fake soaps or body lotions you find in those hoity toity stores.

"You're a fucking Pangborn. Please act like it," my father grumbled, wrinkling his nose at the smell of my nervousness. "Jesus Christ. I can't believe your mother made you."

His words were a low blow but nothing I wasn't used to hearing now. Nothing any of the pack said got to me as bad as it used it.

Liar.

Okay, a lot of it hurt but I tried not to think of it all the time. It was my fault, really. I wasn't born right.

To be a Pangborn in Cypress City, you have to be an alpha. The Pangborns breed for one purpose and one purpose only, to give the city more alphas then they know what to do with.

Every Pangborn is expected to be a boy, to be an alpha and to take on the numerous betas that are practically beating down the door for them to be let in. So when I was born, disappointment was ripe in the air. It still is.

A small female omega with no qualities and no purpose.

I'm nothing.

Oh that's fun, what a great thought to have. Even if it hurts, it's true.

Since I was born I've been kept hidden like a secret. There's no fairytale here, there's no pack of alpha princes waiting at the bottom of my incredibly sterile, sad tower. There's no one that cares. Well, maybe Brady and MacKenzie but they pretend I don't exist half the time.

Looking down at the bottle of scent blocker, a sob threatened to well up in my throat.

"Weak omega bullshit." That's what my father would say.

It's so fucking annoying to be different. It's so painful. But the hope that one day I'd be accepted never ceased to creep into my thoughts.

So I sprayed the spray on even though it makes me feel sick.

I could smell him before my door opened. His alpha pheromones were bleeding throughout the long hallway that lead to my room.

He smelled of garbage, lemon juice and the slightest hint of boysenberry. Although the boysenberry is not his own smell. It's a betas.

"Oy!" MacKenzie booms, shoving open the door.

His bright red hair and forest green eyes searched the mostly barren room until he found me in the corner.

"He cornered you again?" he asked softly, stepping into the room like he's witnessing a hurt animal.

"It's okay!" I tried to beam a smile for him but it fell flat into some kind of grimace.

MacKenzie wasn't really my brother, he hailed from the Alban Pangborns so he's more like my very distant cousin but he's pack and that makes him my authority regardless. If he barked at me, I'd end up doing his bidding. Just like all my other brothers do. I'm grateful he doesn't do it but he still could nonetheless.

"You sprayed on the right amount," Kenz praised, giving me a small smile.

The praise made me want to preen, made me want to jump and shout for joy that I did something right but I kept it locked tight within me.

"You'll be pleased to know that your father and some of the others are going on a business trip soon. It'll just be some of us left in the house. You won't have to smell all this alpha shite around, you ken?"

His thick accent made me smile then. When he first came over from Alba I had not a fucking clue what he was talking about but now it almost feels like a secret language we speak.

"I ken," I nodded, setting the spray down on my dresser.

"Just wait a while to come down to get your dinner. The boys and I have been having a beta fucking feast," he wiggled his eyebrows and left the doorway without so much as a goodbye.

I wish I was a beta.

No, actually, I wished I was an alpha. I wished I was born an alpha so that I didn't have to be a disappointment and left out of everything.

Sitting down on my bed, I fluffed the uncomfortable comforter around me to no avail and since I know I'm alone I let out the most pitiful of whines. Whining wasn't allowed. My father told me that alphas hate whining more than anything.

Once I whined during dinner with the Landons and their alpha son looked like he wanted to tackle me from across the table. It was the one and only time I was able to go to dinner with my family. They never let me go again.

I apparently ruined their business merger dinner.

My family made a fuck ton of money. Too much money to count on your fingers, not that I'd ever see a cent. I wasn't worth a dollar to them. They own a vast majority of land across the globe, mostly farms or patches of free wilderness that people are begging to buy from them.

If only those vast patches of land would be able to buy me a soft comfortable comforter. This one is rough and itchy and I don't like it. I don't know much about being an omega but I do know that I don't like the blankets I own.

You see, omegas are rare. Like one in one hundred is an omega rare. Somewhere in history omegas just became a rarity and as such they're terribly hated.

Whenever I tried to ask the pack any questions they all shut me down with a growl and told me to go back to my room.

"Y/N!"

My father's bark was sharp and I tightened my terribly uncomfortable blanket over my shoulders at the noise.

If they are having a beta party downstairs I most certainly wouldn't be welcome to interrupt it. All the beta females that came into the house hated me. I tried to be friendly and smile, tried to make friends with other girls but they didn't want anything to do with me.

Probably feeding into the whole hate omega-kind thing, huh?

When my father shouted my name again, I had no choice but to get up. It was an alpha command now, filled with bite and fury.

If I saw one bare tit I was going to lose my goddamn mind. I'd been having these awful urges these past couple of months. It felt like something was boiling in my gut and itching beneath my skin, just begging to get out of me. What it was, I wasn't sure but it feels fucking awful and devastating just the same.

When I was starting to run a fever, my father would give me a few pills and lock me up in my room until the fever had passed and I was able to carry on with my chores.

My feet took me without thinking. The large home I lived in with the twelve others in the pack passed by in a blur. I tried not to look up from the wooden floorboards, I really didn't want to see anyone mating out in the open like I know my brothers loved to do.

I could hear the audible moans of the betas, probably in various states of undress all around me as I made my way to my father's office.

This had always been my home but I'd always felt like a stranger here. It's not just because my family wasn't welcoming, it just felt wrong. Nothing in this place is where it should be. The pictures on the cabin-like wooden walls weren't at all in the right order, the couches in the sitting room weren't staged properly, even the wood that goes into the fireplace smells horrendous.

Everything about this place made me feel sick.

That includes my father's office.

Once I stepped inside I was immediately smacked with pheromones, ones that made my stomach roll with nausea. I wonder if that's how everyone felt. I wonder if betas got nauseous with their families too.

My eyes scanned the room which was terribly out of order and then they caught on the one picture that sat on my father's desk.

It was her.

My mother. Whom of which I've never met. She was a beta that my father never bonded with but got pregnant anyway. He loved her…I think. But when she had me and I was an omega she was disappointed and left me here. She left me here alone. With these people.

Family.

She left me here with my family.

I hadn't realized I whined until my father cracked his hand down on his desk with a fierceness. "What did I say about that shit?!"

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

"Not that she ever does, eh?" my brother Riley laughed, elbowing me in the ribs as he passed.

Riley was an interesting case of smells. There's the cedar which makes sense because he spends a lot of time outdoors, there's the sharpness of spearmint like a powerful gum that makes your nostrils burn and…boysenberry?

He and MacKenzie have been sharing again. Definitely not uncommon for those two.

"Close the doors. She's gonna scare all the betas away. I'm not waiting another round for Hunter to have an alpha son of his own."

"Keep the lineage alive." That's the pack motto. What a terrible fucking bumper sticker that would be.

I stood there, looking down at my toes as my father and Riley talked and laughed with one another. Probably forgetting I was even in the room. Which happens sometimes.

"Alright, little O?" Kenz cheered, entering the office.

"Don't call her that," my father snapped, finally remembering I was around.

MacKenzie held his hands up in a gesture to soothe any frayed nerves and he sat down with a groan on the couch closest to father's desk.

"Y/N," my father began, not even offering the kindness to look at me. "Your brothers and I are going on a business trip outside of the city. Some of your brothers, like MacKenzie, are staying back because they have a dinner meeting at the house while I'm away."

My head lifts in surprise. Will I be allowed to go?! Can I eat dinner with my brothers?!

"There's many alphas in the pack, we can kill two birds with one stone. This business meeting is incredibly important for us."

My smile was megawatt and I nodded instantly. "Sure, of course! I can–"

"You can," my father interrupted with a sneer. "Make sure you stay in your room, take your pills and keep your scent blocker applied when the Euphoria Pack comes to the meeting. This contract will be our biggest one so far and I will not have your omega bullshit fuck it up for the rest of us. Do you understand?"

The disappointment and sorrow that swirled through me almost knocked me off my feet. "Oh, I see… I understand."

"See that you do. I won't stand for losing this deal because you couldn't handle yourself."

God, I wanted to curl up and die. I'm so pitiful. What a fucking waste. I wish I was never born an omega.

Trying to bury whines and suffering hurt sometimes and in this instance it felt like a red hot poker was shoved down my throat.

"She stinks like sadness," Riley chuckled, shaking out his long brown hair and looking me over with disdain dripping from every pore.

"Lighten up, brother. She's only human," Kenz laughed, stepping in front of me and waving his hand behind his back.

Get out.

That's what he was telling me.

"Dinner will be brought up to you. If you're feeling hot then take your pills. We're leaving in the morning and we won't be back for a few weeks."

Oh, thank God, I could do without seeing my father and half of my brothers for weeks on end. Maybe finally I would be able to walk around without getting yelled at.

Three days of the freedom I thought I would be acquiring went by too fast. I'd been left with my brothers that were the easiest to deal with. Brady, Ronan, MacKenzie, Dash and Hunter were, of course, the easiest to deal with because they never nagged me and they were always too busy fucking betas to really give a shit what I was doing.

The house stunk of sex and carefree fun but more importantly it smelled of my freedom. I was able to go out in the garden to read, to sunbathe, to smell something that wasn't garbage. It was heavenly.

I'd seen flowers I've never seen before, ones that weren't there the last time I was in the gardens. Apparently Leticia, one of the pack chasers, suggested sprucing things up. When I suggested it to my father I got sent up to my room with no dinner and pills because I was acting 'out of order.' I'm a person not a goddamn machine. How could I possibly be out of order?

But now with the three days of freedom gone, I'm once again left up in my room without a single thing to do. Defiance curled in my bones and I narrowed my eyes at the white little pills on my bedside table.

My father wasn't here, he wouldn't know if I took them or not. I'd rather get a fever then take them and feel even sicker than before. Those pills made me nauseous and I felt like reality was so far out of touch that I'd never get back to it. I did end up spraying the scent blocker, though. Just one little spritz, just enough to save the visiting alphas downstairs from my monstrous odor.

They shouldn't be subjected to a disgusting omega. An embarrassment to the family.

The sprawling cabin estate was large before our eyes but it pales in comparison to the mansion we just created on the outskirts of the state.

"I don't like the smell," Jin murmured to us.

The smell was honestly horrific. These alphas seemed to stew in the scents of sex and their own pheromones. You could smell the female betas like they were throwing out a wide casting net to repulse everyone around them.

"Why the fuck did we agree to this?" Taehyung grumbled, folding his arms.

"Because although they're disgusting, they're rich as fuck and they have the land we need to start up the center," Namjoon replied evenly, fixing his tie.

I couldn't seem to take my eyes off the enlarged wooden cabin in front of us. That's exactly what it was: a large, gigantic wooden house. It would be almost comical if it wasn't very real.

"I don't even wanna touch the door," Hoseok hissed, taking to kicking the front door insead.

Even in this day and age everyone lives with the one soul purpose of finding their person, their omega but this pack didn't seem to care about finding one. Not with the way their lodgings smelled.

Now, of course, finding an omega that's right for your pack is like finding a unicorn or finding gold at the end of a rainbow but packs do it. Not all the time but enough to keep packs hopeful, at least.

Once the door swung open, a red headed alpha before us smiled widely. "Gents, welcome! The Pangborn Pack is happy to have you!"

Namjoon gave him his typical killer smile and the alpha seemed to relax at it. Our pack leader was all killer charm and easy going… until you fuck with his pack.

The seven of us have only had each other for quite a few years now and our family depends on one another more than most.

"Thank you for having us," Jimin smiled, stepping into the home first.

His eyes bounced around the interior before nodding. Once I stepped into the entryway behind him, the need to look at the inside faded. In the air, apart from the alpha scents were the scents of dinner and something so deliciously sweet that it made my mouth water.

Fuck! What is that smell?!

"Made us dessert?" Namjoon inquired with a laugh.

So he can smell that too.

The scent was warm and sugary like a fresh out of the oven sugar cookie with vanilla ice cream slowly melting on top.

Why the fuck was I about to nut over dessert?

Casting my eyes to Taehyung, I could see him tugging at the collar of his expensive dress shirt.

It was getting increasingly hot in here, that I could guarantee.

The scent was so thick and practically viscous I could feel it wrapping around my cock and tugging sensuously. My knot was two seconds from expanding and the desire to rut until I was sated was pressing indecently on my brain.

"No dessert here, lads. The betas can barely cook a steak without it burning! We ordered out for dinner tonight! Dinnae ken billionaires like you would be opposed to that, eh?"

"Dinnae ken means didn't think," another alpha offered, slipping in beside the redhead. His hair was long and brown, shaggy even with a boyish smile that could probably charm anyone he laid his eyes on.

"That sounds great," Jin replied, unbuttoning his suit jacket and cracking his neck.

Whatever that fucking scent is, it has us all by the balls.

Namjoon gripped his hand into a fist, eyes glazing over all of us. "To the dining room, then?"

"Getting right down to business! I love that! We have betas to look after anyway," Red chortled, wiggling his eyebrows at us.

When the group of us moved with the two other alphas, my heart started to hammer as the smell became stronger.

I tried to temper my growl that wormed its way up my throat but Joon caught it. "I don't know what it is but fuck, I want it so bad," he agreed.

"Alright there, lads?"

"Just have to use the restroom. Would you mind sending me in the right direction?" I inquired, needing to find the words through a thick haze of want.

"Bathroom on the first floor is occupied for the betas. Second floor up that staircase there," Red pointed to the staircase from where the scent is strongest. "Fifth door on the right."

With a nod, I set off trying not to falter and stumble from the exquisite smell.

"We'll be waiting in the dining room. The pack is excited to make this merger," the brown haired man smiled.

Once they were out of sight I took the stairs two at a time, eyes searching for any indication of where the scent came from.

I let my senses guide me. Following the smell took me past the bathroom and past any rooms that smelt of the alphas. Stopping at the end of the hallway, the door before me was completely different from the others. It was metal, almost sterile in a sense. But the scent was there, it was so heady and present that my cock stood to attention.

"Oh fuck," I grunted, shoving open the door and barreling up the stairs.

The hallway I rushed down was bare of anything home-y and it looks like some sort of clinical hospital ward.

The door at the other end suddenly opened in a flourish and the sweetest little thing I'd ever seen stepped out with curious, glazed eyes.

"Omega," I groaned long and low, stepping toward her.

She was the maddening scent. She was what my pack was going crazy over.

"Oh! I'm so… I've never–" the sweet thing whispered, looking me over with hunger.

The perfect woman. Right before my fucking eyes. Those lips, those sweet eyes, that adorable, if not a little scared smile, that fucking body. Built just for me and my other pack brothers.

Mine, mine, mine! Every cell in my body screamed it with frantic need.

"Why do you smell so good?" she whimpered, lifting a hand as if she wanted to touch me.

Please fucking touch me. Holy shit, I was going out of my fucking mind from this perfect little thing.

"What do I smell like, sweetness?" I inquired, stepping closer.

"Like warm hot chocolate and marshmallows. Not like garbage at all!" she gasped, looking up with wide, innocent eyes.

A laugh tumbled past my lips. What an innocent creature.

"Does everyone smell like garbage to you, sweetness?"

"I just want to…" she groaned, a whimper slipping past her lips.

A purr started in my chest, rattling my bones with how thick and heavy it was. Oh fuck, I'd never purred for anyone before.

"What do you want?" I asked softly, holding my hands up to show her I mean no harm.

She gripped my wrist with a dainty hand probably thinking it had a fierceness she didn't embody. She lifted my hand to her soft cheek and my purr started up once more.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized, not taking her eyes off mine. "I know omegas are disgusting. I shouldn't bother you."

The sweet purr she pulled from me turned to a growl in an instant. "You could never be disgusting. Omegas are precious. Didn't your alphas teach you that?"

She stared up at me, eyes starting to brim with tears.

Oh my God, she was everything I could have ever wanted. My pants were so fucking tight, my heart feels like it was gonna combust and I'm pretty damn sure I just met my fucking mate.

"They're not really my alphas," she whispered softly, keeping my wrist close to her nose.

I wanted to take this gorgeous woman and lock her away where no one but the pack can find her. Holy shit, my brain was turning to fucking mush.

"What are they then if not your alphas?" I asked, stepping closer.

When my chest brushed against hers, she perfumed the air for me and another purr ripped from my chest like it was an instrument being played purely for her.

"Brothers, father," she mumbled, lost in a haze of our own making.

"So you don't have a pack of your own, sweetness?" I whispered, coursing my thumb over her cheek.

"No one would want me. I'm useless," the omega replied so softly I might not have heard her if not for her keeping my attention ensnared.

"I highly doubt that, pretty girl. What's your name?"

"Y/N…"

Beautiful.

"I'm Jeongguk. It's nice to meet you, sweetness."

"I can't take it. I can't take it. I can't take it!" Jimin chanted, rushing into the hallway.

The omegas gasp was loud and frightened for only a moment until she laid eyes on the other alpha. I purred for her, watching her instantly relax at the noise.

"This is Jimin. He's a part of my pack. The Euphoria Pack."

"Oh no, I've…I've ruined dinner. My father will be so upset with me," she groaned, sounding not as upset as she probably would be if I wasn't purring up a fucking storm.

"Scent sympathetic. I thought it was like a fucking myth for people like us," Jimin laughed, stepping up beside me.

He didn't seem jealous or upset at all that my hands were on her. We've never tried for an omega, not really. Unfortunately, most omegas wanted us for our money and not for the connection. Not to mention most of the omegas we met smelled so cloyingly sweet that it gave us headaches for weeks. Most omegas wanted just some of us but not all of us and that doesn't bode well for a pack.

"You smell like calming tea and blueberries," Y/N breathed, blinking up at him.

"And you smell like a yummy dessert, sweetheart. How's such a pretty omega like you hidden up here away from everything?"

"Why are you being so nice to me? I'm just an omega," she whimpered, looking between us.

"'Just an omega'? Don't you know your worth, pretty girl?" I scoffed, tilting my head.

She opened her mouth to reply, only to shut it and furrow her eyebrows.

"I want to introduce her to the pack. I think this is it. I think we found our girl," Jimin beamed at me, allowing her to pull him closer.

She seemed to be a needy little thing. One we certainly wouldn't mind doting on. She also seemed completely out of touch with reality and it wasn't just because she was obsessed with our scents.

"Do you have a nest, sweetness? Would you care to show us?"

A nest is very sacred to omegas, it's one of the only places they can find comfort during heats and in times of stress. It was incredibly forward for me to ask but I wanted to know what she liked. I knew my hopes might be high but I wanted to set up the nest in the new mansion how she would like it. Because she was mine. She was ours. She belonged with us.

"I– What's a nest?" Y/N asked, eyebrows pinching innocently.

"Do not fucking tell me you're kept in the dark up here," Jimin growled deeply, his scent turning acidic.

Instead of turning tail and running, she started to… climb him?

She climbed him like a fucking tree. And the good looking bastard was all for it.

One arm snaked around her waist to keep her up and the other ran up and down her back in soothing motions.

She nuzzled his cheek and neck, whimpering and begging for his scent to be all over her.

"Good girl," Jimin cooed, purring for her. "Take what you want, sweetheart. We'll gladly give it."

There were rules to getting an omega, courting before mating and making sure your omega was happy and well looked after. In some cities omegas even went to Help Centers to find their perfect pack but Cypress City had no such thing. That was what we were trying to change. That was why we needed this deal with this pack.

"I don't know what's happening! I'm so sorry! I just feel so…"

"Overwhelmed?" Jimin offered, pulling back to look at her.

She nodded, whimpering and tucking her face into the crook of his neck.

"We need to talk to the pack," I told him, pressing my chest to her back and purring. I drifted the back of my hand over her bare arm and she seemed to thrive on not only praise but physical affection.

"I can't leave her," Jimin hissed over her shoulder, hugging her tighter at the thought of having to part.

"I don't want you to go! Please! I'm so tired of being alone! Please don't go!" she sobbed into his neck.

A growl ripped from my chest at her sadness and I was storming off before I even knew what was happening.

She's mine. She's mine. She's mine.

"Guk!" Jimin called but I was already barreling down the stairs with a fierceness building in my chest.

They kept that precious omega in a sterile fucking ward like she was some sort of disease. She didn't even know what a nest was! It was a disgrace! She'd been abused without even understanding anything!

She's mine!

If one more sob of hers entered my ears, I thought I might burn their oversized camp cabin down and dance on the embers.

Shoving open the dining room doors, I glowered at the pack that sat high and mighty at the end of the long dining room table. Once they saw me and smelled me, they all stood.

"Been wandering around our home, have you?" Red asked with the tilt of his head.

"Stupid girl can't do anything but get herself in trouble!" one of them sneered.

The insult made a growl rip from my throat and they all stared long and hard at me. I wouldn't stand for this. I couldn't stand for this.

"She doesn't even know what a fucking nest is. How dare you all treat an omega like this! This is abuse!" I boomed, widening my eyes at them.

My packs jaws fell open in shock and suddenly they were standing to surround me, to have my back.

"She's scent sympathetic with us," Jimin assured, entering the room with her still cradled to him.

I was happy she liked him. He's far more easy going and carefree then most of us and she'd enjoy his company.

My pack stepped toward her and she cried sweetly at all of their scents. They purred for her and my heart expanded. No one was left out and she locked eyes with all of them. She jumped ship from Jimin to Namjoon and he nuzzled her hair. He wrapped her legs around him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Would you like to leave this place, pet?" he inquired.

“She'll do no such thing!" Red boomed.

When she whimpered at the alpha bite, we growled in defiance.

"You think your bark is bad? Mine was given to me by the devil. If I have to force you to obey, I fucking will. It's the omegas choice. You can't keep her here like a fucking prisoner!" Joon boomed.

"She's not a part of the deal," one of the Pangborn's hissed through his teeth.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she gasped repeatedly, trying to set herself down.

"Do you want to get down, pet?" Namjoon asked, tilting her jaw to look up at him.

She reluctantly shook her head, burying her face back into his neck.

Oh fuck, she's so perfect and sweet.

"Then you stay exactly where you are," the pack leader whispered, giving her his wrist to be able to tilt his head and glower at the Pangborn pack.

"You expect me to pay? For a person?! Are you out of your small alpha minds?" Namjoon bit out, sneering at her brothers.

"MacKenzie… Dad is gonna flip," one of them breathed.

"I'm tired of always having to sneak Juliet around. Just be rid of her. Omegas are nothing but trouble."

Hoseok growled so loudly, something he never does, that it almost made my chest rattle.

"I know you don't know us very well," Seokjin breathed slowly as the other pack continued to argue. "But if you feel safe with us we'd like to take you somewhere you can be yourself and be happy. How does that sound, princess? You deserve much better than this shithole."

"I won't feel sick?" she inquired, looking up at him with hopeful eyes.

Oh, she's killing me here.

"Do you feel sick in this house?" Yoongi growled, narrowing his eyes at the other pack.

Her nod was slow and sad.

"I'm getting her out of here. Now!" Namjoon boomed, pressing her face into the scent gland of his neck.

She seemed to love being held. We could do that for her. We could give her anything and everything she wants. We could be good for her.

"Give us a million!" Red or MacKenzie called back but Namjoon was already heading for the door.

"Get fucked!" our pack leader growled.

"Wh-Where are we going?" Y/N asked, taking a deep breath of fresh air.

"Home, sweetness," I promised. "We're going home."

[regretmedaisy]

i can see you - tom riddle x fmc/reader

part II

loosely inspired by "i can see you" by taylor swift.

“I've been watchin' you for ages

And I spend my time tryin' not to feel it”

summary: She had always fancied Tom Riddle. It was an infatuation that bordered on love and obsession, that she had secretly grown and cared for, content with indulging in her fantasies and never bold enough to try and make them become reality.

When she meets him again in her adulthood, dormant longings resurface together with a newfound desire to be the object of his own devotion.

As their paths keep crossing, she starts to think he feels the same.

tags: afab mc, use of female pronouns and no descriptors (i tagged it as x reader because i guess it could be read as such if you use the same pronouns), somewhat period-accurate clothing, courtship (just a little because it's still tom riddle), fmc has a crush on tom, she's a bit anxious, a bit of fluff, explicit sexual desire, vaginal fingering, cunnilingus, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, woman is on top.

please note that mc has a crush on tom, therefore the way she refers to him could sound a bit cheesy and exaggerated. i edited this last night and didn't read it again before posting. i'm sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes i missed.

bear with her in this one, she's a little anxious.

words: 6.7K

you can find part I here, I strongly recommend you read that one first.

this is me crawling out of my hole of shame to post this chapter.

i'm really sorry for this very late update, but the smut chapter is finally here after many days of writing (but still in time for smutober lol).

it's not crazy smut, but i hope it was worth the wait.

Part II: And I could see you up against the wall with me

She tapped her foot, pursing her red lips as she jotted a few numbers down on a parchment. She sighed, taking another folder from the pile on her side and checking if the reports corresponded. 

When Serena, her boss, had showed up that morning with two delivery men in tow, she already knew her day was going to take a detestable turn.

Serena had dropped three boxes full of last year's reports in the office and sprinted out of the door before they could say anything and try to stop her.

Apparently she had hired a cheap accountant to save money and now she had to review everything before the Ministry noticed and demanded an audit. Or rather, Serena had asked her to do it.

She was now holed up in the backroom while Will had taken her place in the main office, since Serena didn’t pay her enough to care about customers and save her from bankruptcy at the same time.

She glanced at the clock, noting that it was almost time for her usual break. She chewed the inside of her cheek and returned to the reports.

She wasn’t in the right mindset to meet Tom.

The day she had gone to see him had been like the calm before the literal storm. In the past week it had rained so heavily that she had had to give up on going out and he hadn’t come to post his letters. What had happened between them had been left unresolved.

She had replayed it so many times in her mind, at night and during idle moments in the office, picturing different ways in which it could have ended, desperately wishing she could indulge in his warm lips again.

The first few days she had fretted about it, but as the week had gone by without a word from him, she had just started to accept it as the normal course of things. Perhaps it had just been an extraordinary event, a moment that wasn’t going to repeat itself and that she needed to find contentment in. Perhaps it was supposed to be one of those memories she was going to return to in twenty years, thinking about everything she could have had, or it will sour in her mind, turning into regret while her lamenting soul grieved the possibilities of youth, the chances she had been too scared to take.

It didn’t matter that she was conscious of the anxious butterflies leading her decisions, she still didn’t want to find out if what she saw in him was just a product of her infatuated imagination.

She immersed herself in numbers, refusing to go down that rabbit hole again.

Fifteen minutes after the end of her break, a customer walked in. A beat of silence followed and then Will said, “She’s in the back.”

She almost jumped out of her seat, her heart rate picking up. She quickly smoothed her hair and sat straighter, crossing her legs.

Tom appeared in the doorway, his arm half raised as if he had wanted to knock. She pretended she had just noticed him.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Hello, Tom.” She gave him a mellow smile.

He was so good-looking, with his perfectly styled curls and black coat in the muted light of the cloudy morning. Her heart fluttered painfully.

He looked hesitant as he made his way to her and handed her a folded magazine. It was the weekly crossword.

“Thank you,” she said, taking it as her gaze met his. The way he was looking at her was so compelling it was impossible for her to divert her eyes.

He had been thinking of her, she realised, he had noticed her absence, perhaps even missed her.

“I hope I’m not disrupting your work.” His gaze trailed to the numerous papers scattered on the table.

“Not at all, a distraction is more than welcome.” The distraction of his presence was most desirable.

He drew closer, reading through them as he casually rested his hand on the back of her chair.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Maths mostly,” she replied, fiddling with the parchments to hide her nervousness.

He reached out over her shoulder to grab a folder but she placed a hand on his arm to stop him.

“I’d rather you didn’t. It’s still work.”

He dropped his arm. “You’re right, I apologise. I don’t wish to put you in an uncomfortable position.”

“It’s fine.”

He stepped to the side, tickling her neck.

“I’ll see you later?” he asked.

She had to stop herself from grinning.

“Of course.” 

She watched him with desirous parted lips as he left. He said goodbye to Will and she heard the door closing. It was only a matter of minutes before Will came to pry.

She grabbed the crossword, flipping through the pages. He had bought her her favourite one.

As she got up to put it next to her bag, a small note fell to the ground. It was a plain piece of parchment. But as she picked it up, ready to throw it on the table with the rest of the documents, words started to appear.

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew to whom that elegant and neat handwriting belonged.

She read the note. Then read it again to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. 

“I hope to see you more often in the future.

You look stunning with that lip colour.

T.R.”

She brought her fingers to her mouth, staring at the words until each swirl of ink etched into her mind, terrified they might disappear.

Instead his message remained there, visible, tangible, real. He had taken time to write her a note, to think about something he knew she’d appreciate.

Something warm diffused in her chest, a new version of a familiar feeling, and a giggle escaped her as she realised the ridiculous effect he had on her. 

She was so engrossed in her reverie that she didn’t notice Will standing in the door until he cleared his throat. 

She quickly hid the message in her purse and  he was so considerate not to comment on it.

“How is it going?” he asked.

“Awfully slowly, these numbers are all over the place,” she huffed, returning to her chair.

He dragged a chair and sat across from her. He started bouncing his knee. “I know you’d prefer not to talk about this, but how are things between you two?”

She stopped twirling her quill. “What do you mean?”

Will shuffled awkwardly in his seat. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you but I’d hate to see you hurt.”

She tilted her head to the side, disliking the territory the conversation was heading towards.

He was struggling with his words. “He never- I never saw him interested in a girl. I just want to be sure you know what you can expect from him.”

She averted her eyes. “I have considered all the options.”

“And?”

“And I don’t know, Will!” she bursted out. 

Her flare of annoyance suddenly deflated, making room for embarrassment for what he probably saw as naivety.

“I know I’m probably getting ahead of myself.”

“You are smart, I just can’t stand watching you smile at the things he writes to you.”

She feigned offence and threw a balled up paper at him. 

“When you find someone, you’ll be just as ridiculous.”

He laughed and steepled his fingers in front of him. “I’m curious to know, when did it start?”

She scrunched her eyebrows, thinking about how much she wanted to reveal. “I don’t remember exactly. It was more like a sequence of events, until one day I was anxiously waiting for him to sit at his usual spot at breakfast,” she replied with a smile. Will was smiling too.

“You and half of Hogwarts,” he said.

She chuckled. “I miss those years sometimes. Everything was simpler.”

“I used to worry about everything,” he admitted. “But fears always seem so big.”

They really did.

“What do you like about him?” he asked after a beat of silence.

It was her turn to be at a loss of words. “He’s handsome…and always so mysterious. I think I always liked him because it was easy to imagine him being exactly what I wanted.” She looked at him hesitantly, fearing judgement, but he was just listening. “But I think it’s impossible for me to dislike the real him.”

They shared a small moment of closure. She had always wished for someone she could confide in, someone that could help her see beyond the fabrications of her wary heart, and perhaps she had finally found them.

The bell chimed and Will got up. 

“Do you want to come for lunch on Sunday?” she asked.

“I’d love to. I’m sorry for earlier, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

His gaze shifted between the door and her. “Just make sure you both want the same thing.”

He went back, leaving her at the mercy of her insidious brain and foolish heart.

Throughout the afternoon she had opened the note at least three times, giggling like a schoolgirl everytime she read his words.

Her mind kept straying to what he had said.

“I’ll see you later.”

She wasn’t sure what he had actually meant. Was he just going to stop by or was he going to wait for the office to close? She wasn’t even sure she could see him today, since she expected to stay late to solve Serena’s mess. 

Will popped in. “I have to check something at the owlery. I’ll be back in a while.”

“Alright, I’ll see you later.”

The door opened and closed and then she was submerged by stillness. It was soothing almost.

She had found out long ago that she enjoyed being alone, it freed her of any kind of expectation.

She turned up the heating with her wand and took off her jacket. Since they couldn’t light a fireplace in a room full of paper, they had refined a spell that kept the room warm and the humidity away.

It was a few minutes after the usual closing hour that the door opened again. She knew who it was.

He walked in, his cheeks slightly flushed from the cold and his lips reddened. 

“Are you still working?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m afraid it’ll take a while before I’m free to go.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said, grabbing her crossword and a quill and sitting down on a chair, bending one leg so that his ankle rested on his other knee.

Her face heated as she watched him but she didn’t say anything.

As she returned to her work, she realised that silence was a strange assistant. It felt like every sound was heightened and she was becoming keenly aware of everything that was happening. The scratching of their quill on parchment, paper being flipped as she checked the numbers or he looked for a crossword he liked, his soft breath threatening to pull her close like a magnet, her absentmindedly chipping her nail polish.

She kept throwing glances in his direction and she could feel his eyes on her from time to time.

An unspoken craving was growing between them again. She had waited long enough.

She slowly got up, gathering her reports and stacking them in a neat pile. She then took them and walked over to the shelves, conveniently passing by Riddle in doing so. 

As she stored them, his chair scraped on the ground and she felt him draw closer. She deliberately turned around, meeting his eyes.

His gaze was deep, like he was trying to read every thought that crossed her mind just by looking at her. She wasn’t going to lay them bare for him. 

He raised his hand, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Did you get my message?”

“I did,” she replied, stepping forward and trailing her fingers down his suit jacket, feeling the fabric. “You keep mentioning it but this is the first time I’ve seen you all week.”

“It was storming all week,” he pointed out.

She tilted her head, finding his eyes again. His eagerness was palpable. “Still,” she said.

He grabbed her waist, pressing her body flush against his. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”

She had thought about that moment since then.

“Tell me what you desire the most.”

What could she tell him? That she had been pining for him for so long she couldn’t imagine herself with anyone else? That she was jealous of even thinking about him with someone else? Will’s words played in her mind.

She leaned closer, murmuring against his ear. “Not until I know why you’re here, Tom.”

She left a kiss on his jaw, phantom lips brushing against his flawless skin.

“It’s a really uncomplicated answer,” he said, caressing her back.

“Explain it to me, then.”

Tender amusement tugged at the corners of his lips. “Do you really think I came here because I don’t own an owl?”

His words pulled at her heartstrings with raw delight and her mind went blank. Adrenaline was rushing through her as she listened to her impulses. It was enough, at least for now it was enough.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and tangled her hand in his hair, involuntarily tugging at the strands as she leaned closer. She could feel his warm breath as he pulled her in, gripping the silky fabric of her blouse.

She met his lips halfway, the burning touch consuming her as he pressed her against the shelves, one hand lost in her hair, the other splayed around her ribcage. 

She bit his lower lip, smiling as it elicited a groan from him and the kiss became more demanding.

It was a moment frozen in time, where she wanted to stay forever, like the scenery in a snowglobe.

“Hello?”

A man’s voice abruptly pulled them apart. She was breathless as she realised she had forgotten to lock the door. Was this a conspiracy? 

Tom was slightly panting and she left a small kiss on his neck.

“Don’t leave,” she whispered.

She used a finger to fix her smudged lipstick and went to see who had just dared to interrupt them.

There was a man standing in the office.

“We’re closed,” she said.

“But I saw the light on.”

There was a twitch in her jaw. “We are closed to the public. I must ask you to come tomorrow morning.”

He rolled his eyes and she ignored his grumbling as he left, locking the door behind him. When she went back, Tom was leaning against the table.

He turned his head towards her as she languidly got closer. She forgot pleasantries, immediately grabbing his face to kiss him again. He was quick to react, wrapping his arms around her.

His mouth trailed down, kissing her cheek, her jaw and then pressing against her neck, soft lips and the occasional scrape of his teeth. 

He grabbed her waist and spun her around, flattening her back against his chest and brushing her hair away from her neck to bite and lick her skin. His hands travelled down and he started gathering the fabric of her skirt. 

Merlin, it was finally happening. 

He caressed her inner thigh, tracing patterns and snapping the nylon of her stockings as his fingers moved excruciatingly slow.

Finally he pulled her underwear to the side, feeling the wetness between her folds with his fingers as his other hand cupped her breast.

She threw her head back against his shoulder as he stroked her clit, eliciting a sigh out of her, and she grabbed his thigh for support.

“I won’t drop you,” he murmured, amused, against her ear. He rubbed his palm over her clothed breast, the friction causing sparks to jolt through her body.

None of her fantasies came even close to what she was feeling right now.

“Should I trust you?” she asked, biting her lip to suppress a moan as he sunk one finger inside of her, his thumb still applying pressure on her clit.

“Such a great timing to ask me that,” he replied. She felt him smile on her skin.

“We don’t really know each other, Tom.” She dug her fingers into his flesh as he slipped in a second finger and started fingering her, stretching her as pleasure morphed her features. 

“And yet you are letting me do this.” He squeezed her breast, lewd wet sounds filling the room as he kept moving his fingers inside of her. 

She leaned her body weight completely on him, her legs unsteady as it was precarious the beating of her heart. 

He let out a low moan as she yanked his hair to catch his mouth, biting his lip hard to gain better access, their tongues tangling together.

He curled his fingers inside of her, an unrelenting wave of pleasure washing over her.

She stopped to imagine what it would be like if he dropped to his knees again, if he started kissing and licking her, if she could watch him at her mercy between her legs.

She realised in that moment that the fall down the precipice was inevitable. Tom had threatened to push her but she had allowed him to succeed, jumping into an abyss that felt unending but that could only allow two conclusions to her story.

What she had told Will was true. She loved the fantasy, all the glances, conversations, gestures that had never happened, that she had delighted herself with when the reality was harsher, but as she kissed him she knew that falling for the real Tom was unavoidable. Not if he kept touching her like that.

It was bound to happen, it was part of her story, the decision she was brave enough to take.

She focused on him, on the circles his thumb was drawing on her clit, on the indecent sounds falling from her lips, on his groans on her reddened skin, on him growing harder against her back. 

He pulled her hair back, tilting her head to meet her gaze. His eyes glimmered with rapture while hers were heavy-lidded, tension building inside of her. 

He didn’t take his eyes off of her, as if he wanted to memorise each detail of her, the way she looked at him, the way her lips parted slightly and the way she panted as she was nearing her orgasm.

“Just like that, darling,” he murmured, a pleased smile on his lips as he noticed she was still blushing.

She threw her head back, losing herself in the motion of his fingers, surrendering herself as blissed moans spilled out shamelessly. She squeezed his soaked fingers, and he kept moving, stroking her throughout her climax.

She panted, coming down from her apex in a flurry of emotions and flustered thoughts. He raised his wet fingers to her lips and she opened her mouth, tasting herself on her tongue as she sucked on them, never breaking eye contact.

“Good girl,” he said, holding her jaw and kissing her.

It was a slow kiss, meant to explore her depths in a different way from the breathless and unrestrained passion from before. She leaned into his palm, her hand closing around his wrist.

His arms snaked around her waist and he turned them around, pushing under her thighs to lift her on the table.

The kiss transformed again.

Teeth and tongues met with vehemence, burning urgency guiding their movements as he brought her legs around his waist and she quickly started to unbutton her blouse.

But at the third button, she stopped. 

Tom noticed the shift in her demeanour and drew back, observing her. Her eyes flew to the clock, as she had just remembered about Will.

She noticed with disappointment that they had no time.

“What is it?” he asked. She didn’t miss the urgent tone of his question.

“Will will be back any time now,” she replied, leaving a peck on his lips. 

He cleared his throat and stepped back, composing himself. She got off the table and

cool hands unexpectedly reached her again, adjusting her clothes and stockings. She shivered at the contact.

He smoothed her skirt and put his coat back on, watching her as she scribbled something on a piece of paper and gave it to him.

“If you want to stop by one of these days.”

“I remember where you live,” he replied, reading the address she had written down.

She shrugged, holding out one finger to wipe away the lipstick at the corner of his mouth.

“Do you have to go back to work?”

“I was supposed to meet with a potential supplier, so yes.”

“I’d stop by the bathroom before,” she advised, gesturing for him to go as she herself needed to compose herself again.

She braced herself against the threshold, leaning her head on the hard wood as she watched him unlock the door and leave. 

Then she was alone, finally finding an answer in the cluster of hypotheses that had tormented her mind.

Two days later, as she was returning from her meeting with Serena, she found Tom waiting for her.

He was talking to Will and they both turned to her as she entered, feeling tremendously self-conscious.

“How is Serena?” Will asked.

“Dim-witted as always,” she replied, earning a laugh from Will.

Her eyes trailed to Riddle, holding an unspoken question. 

Will seemed to notice because he stepped forwards.

“It’s quite late, you can go if you want, I’ll close.”

Tom didn’t wait for him to repeat himself, pushing down the handle and holding the door open for her.

She mouthed a ‘thank you’ to him and followed Tom outside. Once in the street, she huddled herself in her coat and took the arm he was offering her. 

“May I walk you home?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said, a little breathy, still not immune to the chivalrous manners he always had with her.

They strolled through the streets, passing by scarcer and scarcer people as the stores emptied and everyone returned home seeking a tranquil evening.

She held his arm tightly, her fingers tracing delicate patterns on the fabric of his coat.

The first time they had walked together it had felt like an accident, a singular mistake in the already waved threads of her life. This time, she yearned for so much more than she wanted for the error to repeat itself; she was willing to cut the strings herself and tie them back together, as messy as it might have looked. 

They crossed the road and he gently put a hand on her waist, pushing her away from the pavement. 

“Would you fancy dinner?” he asked. There was a foreign quality in his voice and when she turned to look at him, he averted his eyes. She blinked bewildered. Was he nervous?

“I’d love to,” she replied and she noticed his chest rising like he had just begun breathing again. “But not tonight.”

An almost imperceptible smile cleared his expression at her answer and she leaned her head on his shoulder, basking in his mere presence.

When they reached her front door, she looked for her keys with embarrassingly clammy hands. 

As she lifted her head to ask Tom if he wanted to stay, she found his eyes impatiently boring into her bag. 

“Would you-”

His gaze snapped to her, serious and scorching. “Don’t even ask.”

Something coiled between her legs at the way he was looking at her. She nodded and walked up the few stairs to her door, unlocking it.

“Second floor,” she said, more to fill the silence than anything else.

They stepped into the building, the sound of her heels and the soles of his shoes hitting the stone ricocheting through the empty hall.

She turned to gesture to him to follow her when he grabbed her face, kissing her as he pushed her against the wall by the foot of the stairs. Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging at it just as she suspected he loved by the way he always pressed himself harder against her. 

He curved his palm around her cheek, better angling her face as their tongues met.

“I have a nosy neighbour,” she said after they pulled apart to catch their breath. “She is probably spying on us through her peephole.”

Tom didn’t think twice about it, taking her hand and leading her up to the second floor. She stifled a laugh as she unlocked the door, Tom’s lips skimming against her neck as she did, and was left breathless when he closed it unceremoniously behind them, resuming from where they had been interrupted.

As she dropped her bag and grabbed his waist, walking backwards into her living room, she remembered there were clothes somewhere - perhaps in the bathroom but she wasn’t sure - that she had forgotten to put away yesterday.

In any case, Tom didn’t look particularly interested in how tidy she was.

They quickly took off each other's coats and discarded them on the floor.

He sat on her sofa, pulling her down with him.

She was straddling him, her knees digging into the plush cushions as his hands appreciatively caressed her back, moving up and down and occasionally squeezing. She lit the fireplace with a wave of her hand.

She rocked her hips, rubbing against him and eliciting a long awaited moan from him. She grabbed the collar of his shirt, their lips collading so hard she was sure she cut him.

She helped him out of his jacket and vest and undid his tie, smoothing her hands on his white button-down.

“I’ve waited too long,” she said, quickly unbuttoning his shirt and grinding against him. Her hands disappeared under his undershirt and ran over his pale chest, lightly scratching his skin.

“Slowly, my dear. We will get there,” he replied between kisses.

His palms kept tracing her thighs and his face buried in her neck, nibbling at the thin skin.

When she was a small girl, before she discovered sex, Tom Riddle was just a boy she liked. During puberty, sharing stories and questions with her friends, she started to understand what was the sensation that passed through her everytime she was close to him, the one that made her cheeks redden and her mind go somewhere she wasn’t yet comfortable with.

As an adult, sexual relations weren’t unfamiliar to her, but this carnal longing, the need of a physicality that went beyond her skin touching his, was.

He opened her blouse, revealing her silk slip and bra underneath.

She wanted to touch his soul, to hold it and comprehend it.

Her eyes fell on the tattoo on his forearm, black tendrils of ink in the shape of a serpent slithering out of a skull.

“Does this have a meaning?” she asked.

He followed her gaze, blinking surprised at her question. “It does.”

“Am I prying too much if I say I’m curious to learn it?”

He bit his lip, opening and closing his fist as if he was scrambling for words. Or perhaps he was just determining if he could trust her.

“It’s a reinterpretation of the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail,” he finally said. “It symbolises eternity and the renewal of the being after rebirth.”

She traced her fingers on his skin, following the outline of the snake. “And what does your interpretation mean?”

“There is time to talk about it later,” he whispered, his teeth biting her neck and sinking lower, kissing her collarbone and her sternum, moving the fabric covering her breasts to the side.

She let go of the subject. She knew what it meant not being comfortable sharing your life.

He held one breast between his fingers, latching his mouth over the other, sucking her nipple and twirling his tongue around it.

She moaned, rolling her hips faster as he revered her bosom, the cold air hitting her moist skin and making her shiver as he took her other nipple in his mouth, lightly tugging at it until she reached the point where pleasure and discomfort mixed.

“Since we are in the mood for confessions…” she said between moans. He raised his head and looked at her waiting for her to continue. She hesitated, collecting all her courage.

“Why did you pursue me?”

His eyes softened, glimmering with fondness. He brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

“Because there is something extremely valuable in your devotion.” His voice was an intimate murmur, a confession no one else could hear.

She freezed, turning her head to the side to hide her mortification.

He took her chin, searching for her eyes until she finally gave in.

“Don’t be embarrassed, darling, I respect it, I understand it. Obsession keeps us alive, it’s what drives us.”

She swallowed the lump of embarrassment in her throat. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Being the object of the desire of such a woman? Of a witch? I do,” he replied, and he was so direct and earnest that her heart swelled.

He lifted her to sit on the sofa, sliding down on his knees on the floor and taking off his shirt and vest. She remained silent as he rolled down her tights, his lips gliding down her smooth skin. He unbuttoned her skirt and helped her out of it, tracing patterns on her inner thigh as his other hand felt her damp underwear.

She tensed, something tightening in her lower abdomen and her eyes fell down to his trousers.

He kissed the crease of the thigh, like he had done that one time at Borgin and Burkes, but this time she wasn’t letting anyone interrupt them. 

He took off her underwear, his movements deliberately slow, and kissed her everywhere, except there.

His lips felt hot on her skin, searing her flesh like she had often dreamed about, carving his way into her body the same way he had done with her mind and heart, until her entire soul was consumed by him, until he could finally close that fist and feel her in a way nobody had before. 

Her breath hitched as he delicately kissed her mound, spreading her legs apart. She leaned her head against the backrest, licking her lips with anticipation, and she couldn’t contain a whimper as he felt his tongue dragging down her slit, sweet and cruel.

He took her clit in his mouth, sucking on it as his hand splayed on her abdomen to keep her still.

She squeezed her eyes shut, overwhelmed.

“Look at me, darling,” he murmured against her folds. His breath was warm and pleasant.

She obliged, meeting his devilish grinning figure between her legs. She was incapable of looking away as he resumed his work, she didn’t want to look away. She wanted to watch him, finally allowing herself to fully indulge in him, in what he wished to do for her.

She observed his curved eyelashes, the way his perceptive eyes followed her reactions, refining his movements to please her better.

He sucked her labia and she moaned loudly, the idea of him enjoying this as much as her being exhilarating.

He threw her leg on his shoulder, resulting in her figure sliding down the cushions and him gaining better access to her. 

His tongue probed her entrance as he coated his fingers in her wetness. He slipped one finger in, working her thoroughly as she gripped his hair, keeping his head in place.

He inserted a second finger, his tongue on her clit moving accordingly to the delighted sounds she emitted.

“Tom,” she cried urgently as she tried to press herself harder against him.

He curled his fingers inside of her and her hips jolted upwards, arching her back to an uncomfortable angle as she reached her orgasm with lascivious bliss, her obscene moans matching the wet sounds he produced by licking her until she came down from her climax.

“Tom,” she said again, so breathless her voice was a raspy whisper.

“I know,” he said, kissing her leg and inhaling deeply, like he was trying to commit the moment to memory.

He brought his fingers to his mouth, licking them clean as she let her watch.

She gently pushed him onto the carpet, bracing her hands on his shoulder as she sat on top of him. The fire was burning, enveloping their almost naked figures in warm orange light, heating their already scalding skin.

She took off her blouse with quivery hands, his gaze tracing her naked form that was slowly revealing itself. She hooked her fingers into the straps of her slip, pulling it down and then getting rid of it altogether. His hands on her waist tensed as she did the same for her bra.

Her lips parted as he touched her breast with both hands, kneading the soft flesh, tracing her areolae. 

She undid his trousers, pulling down the fabric until they were both completely naked. She took him in her hand, her fingers closing tentatively around him. Her hand started sliding up and down, her pace getting quicker and more confident as moans escaped him. She brushed her thumb on his tip, her eyes admiring what was in front of her. His lips were swollen, residue of her lipstick still on them, his hair was tousled, curls falling disorderly on his forehead, his eyes heavy-lidded as he looked at her. She felt a rush of satisfaction in knowing his current state was her doing, that she had enough power over him to ruin his flawless exterior, to make him want her to do it. 

His lips caught hers and he gently pushed her hand away. 

What happened after felt like rehearsed choreography, something so familiar it was impossible to forget. Their bodies moved together, their movements responsive to each other, doing and touching exactly where it mattered.

She pushed herself up on her knees, slowly lowering herself until she sank down on him completely, shuddering breaths escaping her lips.

His jaw was tense as she placed a hand on his shoulder for support, positioning herself better.

She didn’t break eye contact as she rolled her hips, soaking in the hazy blue of his eyes, in every twitch of his jaw and emotion he was feeling as she increased her pace, in his voice murmuring her name against her ear as his hands squeezed her tights and traced her back.

Skin slapped against skin, his touch inebriating as he felt every part of her, caressing her, massaging her, kissing her until she couldn’t take it anymore. Almost.

His hand dipped between her legs again, stroking her clit as she rocked her hips, eliciting groans from both of them.

Sentiment and pleasure fused together in an exhilarating moment, seared in her mind and flesh forever.

She kissed him again - she could never get tired of that - and bit his lower lip roughly as his other hand went to her breast again, pulling at her nipple. 

She threw her head back, letting his mouth scrape over her neck and chest, leaving behind scorching wet kisses. Or perhaps those were marks reddening her skin, she didn’t particularly care.

He gripped her waist, thrusting upwards as she held onto him tighter. Her nails drew half-moons into his back and she bit his neck, the fibres of the carpet scratching her knees.

The lights in the flat fluttered momentarily.

His fingers increased the pressure on her clit as his thrusts grew in intensity with one purpose in mind. 

She bit her lip, trying to hold back, to prolong this instant of pure bliss before she inevitably plummeted onto the other side.

She arched her back, moving accordingly to his rhythm, her hips bucking erratic as she rubbed against his pelvis. 

And then she fell down, unrestrained, her walls closing around him as she moaned uncontrollably. He didn’t stop, drawing circles on her sensitive skin until her breath found a semblance of steadiness again. 

“You did so good,” he whispered against her forehead, brushing a strand of sweaty hair away.

She slumped against him, her hands grabbing onto his biceps as he chased his own pleasure, his movements turning frantic, losing his rhythm.

She found herself murmuring against his skin the same things she had never had the courage to say out loud, not even to herself. She wasn’t sure he was even listening to her, engrossed as he was, but it didn’t matter.

He squeezed her tights once and she understood, rolling to the side as he deftly touched himself, fast strokes that culminated in white spurts all over his hand. She watched him mesmerised

He turned to look at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly. The fire casted shadows on his gorgeous face. 

They stayed like that for a long moment, gazing into each other, trying to guess what the other was thinking, making sense of what remained of themselves after what had just happened.

Did it have the same momentous effect on both of them? Or was it just her that knew she couldn’t go back to being acquaintances after this?

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” she asked. Her voice sounded faint and husky to her own ears.

“I do,” he replied without a second of hesitation.

They didn’t get up, instead resting against the foot of her sofa. She curled up against him as his hand traced indistinct patterns on her skin, remaining in this haze of indiscernible unspoken feelings they were both still trying to find a name for. 

When she woke up the next morning he was gone. As she took in the cold sheets and missing clothes, her heart threatened to crack.

She got up groggily, conclusions already forming in her mind, building the most pessimistic of pictures.

She felt anxious as she wore her robe and opened the door, heading straight for the bathroom. Halfway down the corridor, the sound of someone flipping through a newspaper halted her in her steps.

She stepped into the kitchen, finding Tom sitting in a chair with his legs crossed.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she said back, adjusting the belt of her robe. 

She noticed he had made breakfast, a steaming coffee pot, kept warm by magic, and some pastries she had never bought waiting for her on the table. 

She turned to take a mug from a cabinet so that she could hide her smitten smile. When she closed the cabinet, she found him looking at her.

There was no need for words.

“Where did you get that?” she asked as she poured herself some coffee, referring to the newspaper. 

“I stole it from your neighbour, I hope she won’t mind.”

She laughed. “So you know how to make a joke.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She sat next to him, crossing her legs. She perhaps needed to rethink her choice of slippers.

“You were always so serious growing up.”

She put a spoonful of sugar in her coffee. 

“That never seemed to deter you.”

“It doesn’t.”

He took a sip of his own coffee. “Good.”

“Does it deter you, knowing how I feel?”

He blinked. “It never had. It makes it more interesting if I have to be honest.”

She blushed, scared to ask the next question.

“How long have you known?”

He got up, brushing his knuckles on her cheek.

“Long enough to see you for who you truly are.” 

He bent to give her a chaste kiss. “I should go, the shop opens in half an hour.”

He put on his coat and grabbed his leather gloves from his pocket. She turned in her chair, treasuring the last few moments of him in her apartment.

“There’s still a lot you haven’t learned yet.” 

She refused to be an open book to him. There was so much about her that was still incomprehensible even to her and too much she wanted to show him on her own terms. She wanted to be enigmatic, to drive him mad.

“I know.”

Her disappointment was visible on her face as she was met with his silence. She had wanted to continue that conversation, to learn what he had observed.

Instead he opened her front door, throwing her one last glance, heavy with unsaid intention she hoped she wasn’t imagining, before leaving. 

She had almost finished her breakfast when she noticed a small note under the newspaper he had left behind. She grabbed it faster than she was willing to admit, almost knocking over her cup in the process, and unfolded it.

“Dinner tonight?

I’ll pick you up at eight.

T.R.”

the last part is a bonus scene i wanted to write to apologize for my tardiness. tom is a little different, but I hope he isn't too out of character.

i honestly had so much fun writing this short story and exploring a different tom from the one i usually read and write about. i hope you enjoyed this and thank you for reading!

[reputationbarbie]

❝sweetest pie❞

posting on weekends, other joel fics

─⋆♡ summary: Gordon Ramsey has nothing on Joel Miller. The owner and head chef of a Michelin Star-worthy restaurant couldn't have predicted anyone would give him a bad review. But, the baker who hates his food saw a perfect opportunity to bring him down a notch.

─⋆♡ main tropes: Pre-outbreak!Joel Miller x Fem!Reader, Chef!Joel x Baker! Original Character, Chef x Baker, Grumpy x Sunshine, Joel x Black FMC

─⋆♡ series warnings: smut, fluff, angst, 18+ black!writer, language, mentions of death of parents, fighting, alcohol, physical descriptors (brief), rip sarah, characters affected by symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Faceclaims ෆ Spotify Playlist.

Tracklist:

prelude I II III IV V VI

VII - coming soon VIII IX X XI XII XIII

Singles:

The first date - between III and IV

some of my characters are clearly affected by symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. because i want y'all to be healthy and take care of yourselves while reading, here are some resources

take care of yourselves, plz. xoxo, barbie ⋆˙ᵕ˙

[oh-koenig-my-koenig]

Thanks for over 100 followers <3

Two announcements *ding ding ding*

Firstly, I finally managed to get the first chapters for Fit for a King in order and I'm gonna post them on AO3 during the holidays. Two chapters are already up - the second one is an extension of random scene #3, so there's also gonna be stuff you haven't seen yet - plus in a chronological order that actually makes sense 😏 (as someone who always writes their stories wildly jumbled up, this is a challenge)

Thank you so much, if you decide to drop in <3

Secondly, I'm gonna start posting more random snippets and stuff that don't fit into the theme of the established fic, with some x reader stories, AU content, stuff about young König, etc.

Also - even though the sideblog is centered around the big boy - there are gonna be stories with some other COD characters as well - especially looking at Keegan and Krueger 👀 (apparently I'm obsessed with COD men whose name start with a K)

I'm just gonna start writing like I always do, experiment with some stuff and see where it takes me. And I hope you'll like it as well.

The big guy and I appreciate you peeps 🫶🫶🫶 mwah!

[ladylamrian]

Fragile

Female Main Character: Alexis (Alex)

Pairing: F!MC×NikRyder

Summary: Thomas's wraith was defeated by Alex. But the battle wasn't easy. She was now fighting between life and death.

Word Count: 6.3K words

Rating: Teen/Mature

Warnings: Angst, Heartbreak, Hospital, Health...

-> My complete Nightbound Masterlist <-

Taglist: @lilyoffandoms ; @secretaryunpaid ; @blackcatkita ; @liviusofpella ; @peonierose ; @jdstar88 ; @hopelessromantic1352 ; @tessa-liam ; @mxdanni ; @infactnoimmasitinthemiddle ; @mariemarieohcontrary ; @rosepetals1 ; @stars-are-within-me ; @dutifullynuttywitch ; @thosehallowedhalls ; @bri1234 ; @artbyalz ; @choicesaprilchallenge24 [Prompts: "What happened?" ; "Shut up!" ; "I'll take care of you." "Just relax" & "Wake up." ] @choicesficwriterscreations and whoever wants to join...

Comments via Reblog wholeheartly welcome

Author's note: Nightbound rewrite of last scene.

Nik's girlfriend, Alex was lying on the hospital bed, injured, unconscious and not waking up. Nik held back the tears that came to his eyes. Tears he didn't think would appear so easily for a tough man like him. He watched her for a long time and then kissed her forehead.

"Don't worry, rook. Everything will be alright, I swear. Just don't leave me. Wake up, I'm here. Your Nik is here with you and never left your side.", his voice trembled as he whispered. After a little pause, he continued.

"I... I think... I love you... I never thought that I would ever fall in love so deeply with you. Never imagined the thing I would fear the most would be losing you. Hell, I can lose everything but not you. But oh, not you. Please... Wake up."

He sat quietly by the bedside holding her hands, and couldn't help but keep talking to her even when she was unconscious.

"What I would give to hear your voice again...", he stroked her silvery-black hair, remembering their happy moments, their first meeting, their first kiss. Wiping away the tears that kept coming to his silvery-gray eyes, he thought he should have protected her better. He failed. Not ready to lose her like he once lost his birthparents and Elijah. He failed again. He couldn't protect her from the bloodwraith which attacked his girlfriend. Now she's fighting between life and death. Struggling.

"That Thomas bastard... Damn Lady Fate who couldn't fight that bastard before all this happened before. Powerful Fate? The hell with that!!! Thomas's gone now, but at what cost...?", he muttered as his eyes burned with anger and revenge.

Even though Thomas and his bloodwraith who tried to kill Alex and all the supernatural elite, were finally defeated at the Mardi Gras event by Alex's mysterious powers. But before its defeat, the bloodwraith just had to attack her. Its claws sank into her body, making her lose so much blood that the wraith itself ended up bloody. She lost so much blood, but it was somehow a miracle that his girlfriend was still with him. For now...

After a moment later, a doctor entered the room to check Alex's status and vitals. For his luck, the doctor was a fae, disguised from the human sight through the glamour spell. He wouldn't question much about the happenings and already knew that this was the work of a supernatural being. The bloodwraith, a killing machine. And since Alex was partly fae, he would understand her better than the rest of the doctors. Nik got up from the chair where he was sitting and approached the doctor.

"How is she?"

The doctor turned his attention to him and appeared a little worried.

"I'm afraid her situation is rather delicate, she's still unconscious. She's in a coma, her condition is serious but stable. She's been intubated and connected to many machines that keep her alive. I can't give you a date when she would wake up... it could be tomorrow or it could be in several days... I'm absolutely sorry, sir."

Nik was visibly shaken.

"And she will survive this right? Right?!!"

"The truth is... I can't know for sure. We just hope she'll pull through without any further complications.", the fae doctor informed without meeting his eyes. He paused before he continued. "We need to run some tests to know more."

Nik's body suddenly trembled slightly and his fists tightened into a ball. Taking a deep breath, he tried to remain calm.

"But in the meantime, there must be something you can do for her right?"

The doctor felt sorry, looked at her condition on the monitors and then adjusted some of them.

"She's a half-fae, right? She appears to be stable, for now. The most important thing we could do for her is allow her body to rest. And we will perform several tests so please if you want, you can be with her during the tests."

The young nighthunter nodded and watched his girlfriend. Her long hair was so beautiful, her face full of peace even when unconscious, she seemed so still, so fragile. She was now his Sleeping Beauty, waiting for her to finally wake up because he couldn't bear thinking of the worst. He gripped her hand tightly, feeling her warmth and how her skin was soft as silk and whispered to her. For him, she looked like an angel on earth. Peaceful.

"Please wake up rook, don't leave me alone..."

The doctor left the room to give him some privacy. Nik kissed her on the forehead and held onto her hand. His face is completely devastated and broken. Every fiber of his being was being torn away by this pain. Tears kept flowing down his face, his heart felt like it was about to explode and shatter in many tiny pieces. His thoughts were so chaotic and filled with dread. He blamed himself for everything. If only he could have protected her better. If only his last memory with her was a happy one. If only he made sure that Thomas and his bloodwraith were really really dead and defeated. The young man felt so powerless in this situation. He wanted to do something for her. His helplessness was torturing him, but there was nothing he could do right now. He could only wait. Nik's head whirled, his hands trembled and all that he could do was to keep holding on to this only connection he had left with his beloved.

Weeks passed and Nik Ryder was still sitting next to his girlfriend's bed. He hasn't left the hospital room since the deadly bloodwraith tried to kill her. He looked exhausted and his eyes were red as if he hadn't slept in days. He had barely eaten anything and just couldn't leave her alone. The doctor and the nurses tried to urge him to leave the hospital for a while, but he refused. Every time they suggested he go rest at home, he shook his head, because he was afraid that the second he left her, she would slip away to leave him forever. A tear ran down his cheek as he saw her lying motionless, so pale and so fragile on the bed. She looked like a small and innocent child. Alex had lost so much blood, but he was grateful at least that she was still here with him. But the fact that she was so vulnerable and helpless... Just seeing her like that cut him with a knife to his soul. He couldn't imagine what he would do if something worse happened to her. He held her hands again, and couldn't help but be overwhelmed with fear.

"I'm here love. I'm not gonna leave you. I swear.", he felt his own heartbeat as he whispered to her.

Again, weeks have passed and Nik was still sitting at her side. Every single day, holding her hand. He has barely eaten anything in all this time and now looked very pale and tired. His eyes got even more red and swollen from all the tears and exhaustion. He never left her, not a single moment. Every second he spent beside her bed because his only concern was her. If only she knew that too. He watched her with the same devotion as if they had just met and he had fallen in love. She was so peaceful in sleep, she looked so cute to him with her delicate face, her hair still so soft and shiny. But he only wanted her to wake up. If there's a god in this world then please let her wake up, he thought. Please. He would even die for her.

"It's me, darling. I'm here. Come back to me. Please.", he whispered as he stroked her silver strands and gently kissed her forehead.

"Wake up, love. Wake up, my rook... Alex, my love... You're everything to me and I need you. Wake up, please."

He stared at her, not taking his eyes off of her, looking at her face with a mixture of love, affection and fear. The silence in the room killed him and was only interrupted by the faint noise of the machines that tried to keep her alive.

Hours later. Nik was still next to her, holding her hands, caressing her hair, watching how she was in this state of deep sleep. His Sleeping Beauty. He hasn't left her side for a second and for all this time, he has barely eaten anything in the last week. Still devastated and exhausted, everything he was going through was overwhelming him. Nik Ryder was broken. His face was covered with wrinkles, and his silvery-gray eyes looked even more lifeless and swollen. He looked very pale and even a light beard began to grow. All his fears overcame him and the doctor did not give him any hope. His heart was in agony. He leaned over her and looked at her face again. So peaceful and pure with closed eyes as if she was a sleeping angel. He caressed her soft hair with devotion, his eyes were full of pain and fear. He spoke to her in a hoarse voice.

"Please wake up love. I need you. I need you so much."

"Nik, I..."

Nik sensed words coming out of her mouth and froze. Did she just say her name or was he imagining this? Did his brain start to play tricks on him since he hadn't slept for days? But then he heard her again and a spark of hope was ignited in his heart. He leaned over her and watched her lips carefully, waiting to hear her again. His hand trembled a little bit and his heart raced in his chest. Beating fast. The man took a deep breath in anticipation of the next word she would speak. He whispered to her with excitement and hope.

"Yeah? You wanna say something, love?" He was watching her lips intently to try and discern what she was trying to say and he was desperate to know if she was alright and that it was all just a bad dream.

Alex opened her eyes weakly and was struggling to open her mouth. She couldn't speak. The machines attached to her were beeping louder which made Nik immediately rush outside to call the doctors and nurses. They quickly followed him back inside the room where Alex was lying. The doctor came over to help her raise her head a little. Nik watched her lips and managed to capture the last word "You". What was she trying to tell him? He kept trying to listen to what came next, as she kept struggling to move her lips to try it again. It really looked like she wanted to say something. She managed to mumble a couple more words, but Nik couldn't understand what she was trying to say. He leaned down very close to her to listen to her words. She kept repeating the same words which sounded like "you and me". The rest he couldn't understand the rest and requested her to stay silent and not lose any energy. Nik watched as the doctor and nurses worked on giving her medication. Nik was relieved that she was showing signs of improvement now.

But she's still confused and disorientated. There were a lot of machines and tubes around her. She tried to speak again. Her voice is even more hoarse but this time she managed to murmur a few more words. This time she tries to say "I'm scared, what's happening?"

She seemed desperate to get up, not understanding why she couldn't move and why her body was still so weak. The nurses and the doctors kept checking her, giving her medicine and trying to soothe her. Nik whispered to her with empathy.

"My rook. What do you want to say?"

"Nik? Is that you?"

Nik smiled immediately at the mention of his name. He caressed her cheek with affection while feeling a lot of relief. His heart pounded fast, it was her! She's finally starting to regain consciousness!!

"Yeah It's me, I'm here love.... ", he whispered in a warm voice and smiled. He caressed her cheek and hair with more tenderness. He wanted to hold her but he was too afraid to move her since her body was still so fragile and weakened. At least, he was very happy to hear her sweet voice again.

"Yeah rook, it's me. You're alive!!"

"Nik...", she got emotional and began to sob. He softly wiped away her tears and stroked her rosy cheek.

"Hey, calm down. Don't cry. Just relax, you're safe here." He wanted her to feel safe and loved. Almost holding his breath, he also had tears in his eyes, felt very touched and so much love for her.

"Where am I? What happened?", she asked and he noticed her confusion.

He held her close to him and he wiped away her tears.

"You're safe now. We're in a hospital. Everything will be alright, don't worry."

"Nik, don't leave me here alone."

"I won't leave you alone, I swear. I've been here with you every day since this happened.", he sighed with sadness and held her hand tightly without taking his eyes off her. Nik wanted to experience every second she was awake to be able to comfort and support her. She's everything for him. There was silence between them while the doctors and nurses were working in this room and all Nik wanted to do was stay by her side. Then he noticed that she silently kept looking at him. Her face suddenly washed with sadness as if she just remembered something very important. Her break-up with Nik.

"Rook, try to rest, your body has gone through a lot. Let me stay here with you, I won't leave your side.", he promised, not being aware of what she was currently thinking. A few seconds later Nik watched her as she silently fell back asleep. Her body was so exhausted from what it's been through and she couldn't withstand being awake for a long time. Nik felt like a part of his soul was slowly being taken away with every moment he saw her in bed with the machines keeping her alive. He was still so worried and afraid. His whole body shook with fear and desperation. Taking a deep breath, he continued looking after her. Stroking her hair gently, holding her hand to never let go, he stayed there with her in silence. Only the sound of the machines that kept her alive filled the room.

Days later, finally at home.

Nik was carefully carrying her from his Black Range Rover to his apartment. Finally home. He was still holding her in his arms like a baby. Her body was so light and fragile that seemed as if he was carrying something much more delicate than a human being. He entered his apartment and took her to his bed, placing her gently on it. He watched her with tenderness, a lot of love and concern for her state of health.

"You're gonna to be okay and you'll get better, rook. I'll take care of you."

"Are we home?", she whispered, still dazed. Without noticing she accidentally said the word "home" as if she accepted that she and Nik live and belong together, sharing a home.

"Yeah, we're finally back home.", he kissed her gently on the cheek which confused her and got back to her senses.

"But... But Nik, why? Why kissing and loving me? I thought you broke up with me."

He now felt ashamed of himself, looked down to the floor for a moment to avoid her eye contact and cleared his throat before speaking.

"I... I had to think things over, and calm down, but when I realized that I'd lose you forever. I couldn't let you go anymore. I know a little sorry won't be enough to make it up, but you're so damn special to me and I never felt like this to anyone before. I still love you, my rook. I want us to be together. I want to hold you. And kiss you again. I want to feel you against me and your skin on me. To hear you breathe. To hear your heartbeat. Wake up with you every morning and sleep at night. I need you. I need you more than ever needed in my whole life. You changed me to a better man. The rules I made in my life... I broke my rules just for you."

"Nik, you broke my feelings. You hurt me. It won't be easy anymore.", she scolded him which made him feel very guilty. Ashamed, he looked away without being able to hold her gaze. She was very disappointed in him and it probably won't be the same anymore. Nik thought that he had been very selfish and unfair towards her, yet this was something he had to say, knowing the pain it could cause both of them.

"Rook..."

"Shut up, I'm not your rook!!!", she almost yelled.

"Sorry, I mean... Alex. I was a coward, but please let me explain, I swear that I'm damn sorry. I can explain..."

"Nik, I want to rest.", she decided to change the topic before she burst into tears in front of him. She didn't want to cry, feel sorry, look weak and little in front of him. She knew that Nik was taught since childhood to move on which was harsh, but it hurt her so much. She would love to be happily together with him because she never felt that way to anyone but him. Their love was so deep, strong and passionate, but that sadly didn't last for long. She wanted to be back with him, but she couldn't.

"Yeah, of course. Rest now, but later we need to talk and fix things. Or just at least hear me out to understand why I did this?", he begged for forgiveness.

"We'll see.", she answered coldly which filled him with desperation and guilt.

"I promise you that I'm gonna make it up to you and I understand your anger. Hell, you're allowed to be angry with me. But please don't...", he couldn't finish his sentence because she immediately moved away from him as he squeezed her shoulder for support.

Nik was shocked by the fact that she did not let him touch her or even get close to her. He noticed that she had gotten very distant from him which broke his heart with every move she made away from him.

"Please don't be like that. Don't push me away."

"You pushed me away first, Nik."

The man nodded, accepting his true guilt, but he couldn't argue with the fact that she was right. He also knew that for every word he said, the situation would only get worse and cause her more anger and pain. He watched her sadly, with no words left to say. A wave of guilt overwhelmed him and he felt truly terrible for what he's done. He stayed silent for a moment and faced the floor with his face full of agony. The man didn't know what to say anymore and regretted pushing her away that night before Thomas's wraith attacked her. When Nik wanted to sit on the bed near her, she immediately stood up which broke his feelings. That distance. He froze and just watched her in silence. He couldn't handle the silence and her cold attitude towards him anymore. Nik wanted to see her looking at him again, but instead, she tried to walk away. Taking a few steps forward got difficult for her because she still felt weak. Nik saw her losing balance and his natural instincts kicked in. He quickly ran towards her and placed his hands on her arm. His touch was so delicate, his grasp so gentle as he held her. He got concerned.

"Gotcha, rook. Are you okay? You were about to fall. Here, sit down, lemme me help you."

"I feel a little dizzy, nothing else."

Nik analyzed that her condition had worsened and he noticed that she got very pale, her eyes were almost closed and her body was now leaning more to one side. He held her gently by the waist and tried to help her to sit down. The nighthunter looked into her eyes with worry and was very concerned about her health. He sat her down on the bed slowly and held her, afraid of letting go. The girl was so fragile. He had taken care of her every day since she came home from the hospital. The doctors were surprised by her recovery but told him to expect some weakness for several days. Nik was very careful with her, carried her in his arms everywhere he could and not letting her out of his sight. He felt so much guilt about everything that happened. He couldn't bear to even look at the scars and all the bandages. Knowing that she almost died broke him. Alex was not yet ready to talk because of her weakness which she didn't want to show. She hated to be weak, helpless and belittled.

"Nik, I..."

"Don't pressure yourself. I'm here and I'm not gonna go anywhere. You can recover at your own pace, I'm not gonna push you, I just want you to get better, rook."

They were silent. Now looking very peaceful and relaxed after closing her eyes. Nik was glad that she was at least resting and not thinking about anything that stressed her. They stayed like this for a long time until Nik broke the silence speaking softly to her.

"You are stronger than you think. You will get back on your feet soon, I have faith in you."

He smiled as he looked at her. Nik felt a new inspiration to fight for her and was more determined than ever to give her whatever she needed. He stayed with her and was patient.

"Nik...", it took a lot of effort for her to speak.

"What is it?"

"Why? Why are you doing this for me?"

"Because I love you. It's as simple as that. Why else would I be doing this? I don't want you to be alone, or be sad or in pain. I just want you to be happy, and if I have to go through every obstacle and take every step, I'll take it, as long as I can see you smile again someday. I love you, Alex. I love you so much."

"Are you sure? You're not just loving me because I almost died?? Because if this wouldn't have happened you might..."

"No!!! Hell no, I loved you before too and still do. Before all this... this death thing happened. You broke all the walls I've built and opened me up a bit. I never felt this before. Never felt like this towards anyone before. I love you, Alex. You're so special and it would kill me if something happened to you because everyone close to me died horribly and I wanted to prevent that. Keep you safe by separating each other. What a damn mistake I made. I couldn't even keep you safe from my bad luck by breaking up with you and you still died. Almost. I love you still. Since the beginning."

She wasn't responding very much to what he just confessed, but at least she didn't seem to be angry anymore. Just tired and weak.

"So this is the only reason why you're helping me? You weren't offered some extra money or something like that, huh?"

"No rook, damn the stupid money!! You're more important than money. You're not only a job to me, but something more. More than a job. Alex, you have become so dear to me. I care for you and you're everything I have left now in this darn, cruel world. You mean so much to me. I love you, Alex."

She felt like her heart skipped a beat when she heard her name coming from his lips in such a gentle tone. She gazed at him for a moment before responding.

"You're complicated, Nik."

Her words reminded him that many people have told him this before and she was sadly right. His emotions which he always kept hidden from the world were like a tornado which confused him too. For him, choices weren't always easy like black and white. But right now, it's hard for him to explain himself to her in this state. The young man just wanted her girlfriend to get better, so he spoke with tenderness and sympathy.

"I know you're tired and everything confuses you right now. But later, I will explain everything to you."

Again, days have passed and she felt much better but still had some weakness for not being able to walk alone. At least she could sit on her own and she seemed to be more energetic. She was even able to hold conversations for several minutes without getting tired or bored. But she still seemed angry, didn't let him touch her and she just shortly answered him. However, he was still trying to show her that he had changed and that he was going to make amends for what he did.

Nik, the nighthunter discovered her sitting on the white sofa, reading a book. Her face is expressionless with no trace of the beautiful smile he once knew. He missed the good and romantic times with her. She seemed very distant from him and it saddened him to see her this way. He knew the reason behind her behavior was him and he couldn't blame her for that. Taking a deep breath, he approached her gently. He stood in front of her and he spoke softly and with a lot of sadness, honesty and determination, willing to take whatever came, even if he had to suffer. At least he tried to make up for what he did to her in the Mardi Gras Parade. The break-up. He cleared his throat and tried his best to express himself as honestly as he was.

"Rook... I mean, Alex... I know you're angry and you're upset because I left you. Because I wanted us to go separate ways and move on, but listen, I was a coward and I was afraid to tell you the truth. Since childhood I was taught not to trust anyone, to be alone and to move on. I made you believe that I no longer felt the same way I felt about you before, but that was never true. Alex, I never stopped loving you, and I will never stop loving you.", he paused, hoping that the words he was saying had some effect on her and so that he could understand the damage he did to her. She remained silent and looked at him indifferently which hurt him just looking at her that way. The young man didn't want to pressure her and he knew that for now, he had to be very patient with her.

"I... I'm really sorry for hurting you, for making you think that I don't love you.

"Alex, I can't find excuses for what I did. It just wasn't the right thing. I'm sorry..."

He knew it would be very difficult for her to forgive him for the heartbreak he caused her. Still, at least he got her to listen to him and had a brief conversation. That's the start he needed, now he just had to keep his promise that he was serious about making it up to her and that he would show her how much he really loved her.

"Listen, Nik... Thank you for taking care of my health and getting me back on my feet, but I think it's time for me to go."

A wave of sadness hit him when he heard what she just said. His heart sank and he felt desperation welling up within him.

"What are you talkin' about?", he asked, looking at her with eyes full of longing and a kind of fear that perhaps his last attempt to have her stay with him has been lost.

"I will go back home where I came from, Nik."

"But you're still not in a condition to do this alone. Who's gonna take care of you at home?", he was suddenly taken aback.

"Nik, you broke up with me. I can't live with you like this"

Nik sighed sadly and faced the floor. He knew that he had no right, as this was a natural consequence of his own actions. He was upset and depressed for causing this break-up and for losing her true love, but he had only himself to blame.

"I'm trying to fix everything between us, I swear. I don't want to lose you again. I love you and I can't imagine my life without you anymore. Please, I beg you to stay."

"But Nik, can I trust you? Will you prove yourself? How will I know you won't change your mind again?"

It seemed like a small window of hope was still open to him and he felt like he actually had a chance to convince her to trust him again. He thought for a few seconds before he spoke, this was probably one of the most important moments for him. He gazed at her directly in the eyes with a serious expression and he spoke with pure honesty.

"I know my words alone aren't enough for you to trust me again, but I can assure you that I'm serious about fixing the mess I created and proving I can be a better man for you. So, what do you say? Wanna start our love story again?"

"Nik, it feels good to hear this. Thanks, but I need time."

The blond-haired man was very understanding when she confessed that she needed some time and he knew that he had to be patient and give it to her. He smiled at her with kindness and sincerity, but his smile also hid a sadness in him because of all the pain he had caused her.

"I don't want to rush anything, I know I have to win back your trust little by little, so just take the time you need. But, please, do me a favor... Just don't close me out, okay? I know right now we can't act like we used to, but lemme be here for you. Lemme help you. Lemme stay by your side, please."

Nik knew that she still had a lot of anger towards him, but he also hoped that in time, he could find a way to make her see that he was indeed a changed man.

"Hmmph, I try my best.", she muttered.

He tried not to show impatience, tried to be patient and to respect her decision. Patience and tolerance. She was also making an effort to at least stay calm and listen to him, which was also a good sign for him, even if she hadn't forgiven him yet.

"Thanks, Alex. All I ask you is to not give me your back. Lemme be here for you, that's all I want."

"But I can't live here with you just like that without any relationship, right?"

"I know... I don't expect you to trust me 100% in your present circumstances. That's why I'm telling you that we should take things slow and that you need time to regain your confidence. However, I do expect that you let me continue to help you."

"I know, but... But Nik, I don't want to bother you."

He chuckled and his response was honest and spontaneous as his natural personality returned at the sound of his humorous side coming back.

"Don't be silly, rook. How are you bothering me? Quite the opposite actually, I'd be bothered if you didn't let me help you..."

Nik's laughter felt heartwarming which made her smile a little. Though it was still quite small, he felt his heart skip a beat at her sweet smile and his affection for her grew even stronger. She was like a small kitten he wanted to cuddle and protect.

"See? Now, that's a cute smile more like the ones I like to see on your face...", he confessed which made her blush.

"Thanks", she whispered as her cheeks turned softly pink.

Nik and Alex's relationship has progressed over the past weeks, despite the slow pace they had, she let him stay near her and help her. She became more receptive to his help and she even showed some affection with her attitude, though sometimes she was still very distant and a little cold towards him. He knew that the break-up was very painful for her and she was still struggling with her anger, but he was determined to help her. Both would get through this difficult situation and still work hard to build something strong again.

A few days later, Nik was in the kitchen helping her clean the dishes, as he had done with her these past few weeks. She looked a bit more comfortable and smiled a little bit more. However, she was still tad cold with him as she couldn't easily forgive him yet, but he was patient and tried his best to make her realize that this was all in the past and he was determined to win her affection and trust and heart again.

"Woah!!", she shouted as she was about to slip. Nik quickly rushed to catch her before falling. He pulled her close to him. Alex looked down at the fallen dishes from her hands and realized that he caught her just in time. She gazed at him with a surprised expression upon realizing he was there for him.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Nik, I..."

He held her close to him and couldn't help but feel an increased affection increase as their eyes met each other's.

"Alex, are you feelin' weak again? It's okay, I'm here for you."

His tone was affectionate and protective, which could give a hint of his growing feelings for her. He could see that her condition improved a lot over the past few weeks, but she was still a little fragile. He held her close to him, feeling her body pressed against his and she didn't even protest about it. They stood there for a few seconds like this as if the time froze. He was still holding her with affection. She was in his arms and felt his gentle touch which felt comforting.

The physical proximity between the two brought them closer on an emotional and sentimental level, which was evident by the soft glances he gave her. His gaze spoke of affection, it gave a hint of an awakening feeling that was becoming more sincere and profound. They stayed like this for a few more moments. His arms were tightly wrapped around her and he was almost holding her close to himself. More affectionately than he should, although his intention was only to comfort her as much as possible.

"You can lean on me as long as you need. I have you..."

She looked at him with surprise and appreciation and she was finally able to feel this affection that he had been expressing towards her. A hint of emotion started to form in her eyes and she couldn't help but feel comfortable with his touch. Safe and protected next to him. Her heart beated faster with satisfaction and she couldn't resist the feeling of affection towards him that began to form within her. She leaned her head slightly against his shoulder and allowed herself to feel sheltered.

"Nik, I missed us."

Her words made him emotional. He missed the relationship they had before too, loved the bond they had and now he saw its spark reigniting.

"Me too... I missed us too... My rook."

[acciothirteen]

I've been having wayy too much fun editing this lmao

picrew link

[netherfeildren]

FABLE OF THE DOG : 2. Sugar, Not so Sweet

Series Masterlist; Chapter: 1,

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol Use; Allusions to Attempted Suicide; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Parental Neglect; Angst and Fluff; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Possessive Behavior; Brat Taming; Extremely Bossy Old Man; Past Teenage Crush; Yearning and Longing Galore; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: This is a deeply, deeply unserious chapter, and I make no apologies—I was taken away by whimsy!!!!

Apologies however, for the French people slander, I went on a truly heinous date with a oui oui baguette loser last month. I’m still working through my anger.

Word Count: 13.4K

Read on AO3

2. Sugar, Not so Sweet

They appear at the break of dawn, the young man and the boy. 

“How many heads’ve you got total?” 

Joel appraises him, the fresh-faced look, a boy just crossed over into the cusp of manhood—though he’s large and strong and earnest in the eyes. He’d be a good hire, if not for—

He glances over at the young boy sitting on the bunk’s couch, snickering quietly with Ellie as his brother tries to barter a place for the two of them. 

“Near to thirty large about now. We’re fixin’ to breed, but we’re pushin’ our limitations.”

“So you need hands,” he says eagerly. 

“We do,” Joel returns slowly, chewing on the mint he’d plucked from out front. His stomach is in knots, has been since—days and days and days ago, last night, and so much worse now. There’s a sick heat settled deep that he doesn’t know how he’ll scourge out and quick. 

“Listen, I know it’s unconventional, but—”

“Where’s his parents?” He tips his chin at the boy, and Ellie peers slyly over her shoulder at him. He’ll get hell for this later, he knows, she knows. 

“Our momma’s down south—by way of Odessa. She cowboys during the summer too, and—”

Joel sits up in his seat. “Texas?”

“Come on, Texas,” Tommy slinks behind him, sneaking an arm over his shoulder to thump Joel roughly on the chest. “Just say yes.” He lets out a gruff sound masking a cough, fucking Tommy, and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ellie rise from the sofa and leave the bunk quietly with a parting pat on the boy's head. 

“You’re from Texas, too?” The young man asks brightly, that look of hope in his eyes that Joel’s about to quash. 

“We’re from Austin,” Tommy says from the coffee pot, his mustache spreading wide over a shit-eating grin. “Southerners way up here, we gotta stay united amongst all these Yanks’,” his brother puts on the drawl heavy, and Joel rolls his eyes. Clown. 

“Listen, Henry,” he says, trying to turn the conversation back to business. He looks at the boy again, the back of the small head bent and silent and something that could, perhaps, be thought of as guilt pulses through him, but to be honest, there’s so much of that moving about Joel’s system right about now, that it’s just one more drop of poison filling his cup. It doesn’t matter. He needs to do what’s right.

For who? He can’t very well tell yet.  

“I’m sure you’re a hard worker, son, and I’d not hesitate to give you a place were we in different circumstances, but I just don’t see how this would work—”

Henry leans forward in his chair too, ready to plead his case, fight for his brother and the generously paying jobs the Kelly’s are famous for. There’s something about the boy newly turned man that reminds Joel of himself. Perhaps during that young and fragile youth of his twenties, when he’d been alone with a newborn baby, trying to figure out the whole world and himself. 

“I know it’s unconventional, but he’s a good kid. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, and it’d only be for the summer, sir. We head back down for the start of the school year. It’s difficult, but it’s harder for my momma to get work with a kid than it is for me.” He trips over his words with the speed at which he’s spitting them at Joel, trying to convince him, and he knows that the fair thing would be to take them in. To give this man a chance the way Joel had been given one so many years ago, the mercy of safe harbor. But he’s got a finite amount of goodness in him now, he’s got to save it all for only one person. There’s none left for anyone else. And Joel doesn't want trouble, he’s got enough of that around here right about now. “He’s got his books and his summer worksheets, and he knows how to manage on his own while I work. I swear, he won’t be in any sort of way. You can—”

And then, amidst the young strangers' rambling plea, Joel's heart falls through his stomach. Here comes that trouble anyways. 

“What’s going on here?” In that soft, lovely voice that haunted his dreams last night. 

All the cowboys rise from their seats at the sound of your presence. 

From over your shoulder, Joel sees Ellie’s face twisted in a grimace at him, the flash of her middle finger and then her tongue. 

“Goddamnit, Ellie,” he growls low. 

You look exhausted, eyes red rimmed and swollen—as if you’d been crying all night, and Joel’s tongue is a swollen, poisoned thing in his mouth—a husk of guilt is all he is. He swallows convulsively, trying to find his words, trying to not scream at the thought of being what’s made you cry, trying not to look down the length of you and failing. Silky sleep shorts end way too high up on the long length of those too pretty thighs, an oversized pullover with Yale emblazoned across the front, a little hole at the neck and a large dark stain marr the front of it. You’ve got on a too big robe, dark and plaid, draped over your shoulders with your hair all a mess. He can see Ellie’s trying to pull it into some semblance of a braid behind your back discreetly while you stare at him with those eyes that, and he’s being damn honest now, fucking terrify him. Those puffy, ridiculous tan boots women wear, the impractical ones that become a sogging mess in the snow or wet despite the fact he understands they’re supposed to be worn in winter, are on your feet, two mismatched socks peek out above the tops. 

He’s pretty sure one of them has bombs with a capital ‘F’ in the tiny centers printed over it. The other, some sort of Easter bunny carrot print. Absolutely ridiculous, and he can’t help it, he notices it all. 

And worst of all, in your grip is that World’s Best Dad mug you’d sent the old fucker for Christmas several years ago, a little holiday fuck you from his best daughter. It’d been one of the years he hadn’t let you come home for the winter break, forced you to spend the holiday alone at that boarding school of yours. The whole ranch had known and whispered about it, and he’d felt embarrassed and offended on your behalf, that they’d all gossiped about the girl you were behind your back when they should’ve respected you for the woman you’d become one day, the one that’d eventually pay all of their earnings. 

And the jackass had the audacity to use the mug all the time afterwards. Joel was pretty sure it’d been his favorite. 

“We were just wrapping up,” Joel says, clearing his throat, finally finding his voice. It’s almost physically painful to look at you directly in the eyes, and the heat of shame and regret claws its way up his throat at the hollow look he sees there. You’re so angry at him, and he deserves it. 

“This is the new Kelly,” Ellie tells Henry, cutting him off, pressing you forward with her hands wrapped around your shoulders. Your shorts are way too short to be in here right now, and Joel feels something else, even hotter than shame, stirring inside him. “If you want work here, this is who you need to talk to. The big boss.”

“Miss Kelly,” Henry says reverently, pulling his cap off to press against his chest. “It’s a mighty fine honor gettin’ to meet you. I was just telling your foreman here,” he motions the cap towards Joel, and he feels like a bear who’s about to rip it out of his grip and stuff it down his throat. Fucking Ellie going and snitching on him. “How me and my brother Henry travel for the summer. I’ve got letters here, I’ve worked at the King before, and have a number your man can call if he needs more references. I’ve got lots of experience and—”

“What will you do with him?” Your gaze is on the little boy, has been the entire time. Joel steps forward and over the back of the couch he sees the kid, Sam, has a comic book in his lap he’s been reading this whole time, while adults who should have no bearing on his life decide what will and will not be for him. “While you work—”

Joel looks back at you, and he knows already what it’ll be. 

Henry’s smile is wide and gleaming, putting on the charm. What he doesn’t see, what Joel does, is that bleak sadness in your gaze that he’d put there himself last night. He needs to speak with you, to explain, to make it right between the two of you. 

“He’s good at entertaining himself. I promise he won’t be in the way or nothin’. He’s got books and summer work, and he’s learning to play the guitar. He won’t be in the way,” Henry says again. 

“What about school?”

“We only travel during the summer. We’re back in Texas for the school year.” And at that, you finally look back at Joel, and his heart shoots from his belly to his throat, ready to be spit up at your feet. 

You watch him for a long searing moment, and there's such sadness there. He doesn’t know what would have been better, what would have been the correct recourse, how to make that look go away. To give you what you want? To do what he thinks is right or what should be right? He’d never thought, never considered anything like this. It’s all too much too fast, and he feels suddenly lost and childlike in the face of you and all you stand for. 

“They stay,” you say only for Joel. 

Henry lets out a whoop of victory, rushing forward to thank you profusely, but Jesse, who’s standing by the door, blocks his rush forward with a hand to his chest before he can get too close to the new boss. You’re for protecting now, above all else, it’s the unspoken word they all suddenly understand keenly. 

You stare solemnly at Joel for only a second longer, those sleep sloped doe eyes, before you’re turning without another word. 

-

“He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.” 

The cricket song is a symphony of sound around the two of you, and you’re suspended for a second, he sees it come on—a rose hued haze, and then blink-of-an-eye donning a look that spells nothing but disaster. He’s thrown off course by it for a single second, that girl fantasy glow, before you’re launching yourself at him, and then it’s nothing but a soft wet mouth, smoked fruit and fired oak, the slick of your tongue against his bottom lip as you kiss him.

You’re kissing him. 

He’s a frozen solid husk, eyes wide open as he stares down at the look on your face—something like agony. The tiny frown between your eyebrows, concentration, and a single diamond tear caught in the web of your lashes, and he can’t help but notice the soft press of your breasts against his chest, you’re not wearing a bra, before he’s shoving you back by the shoulders, scrambling to get as far away from you as quickly as he can.

His back hits the railing before he can get far enough. “What the fuck are you doing?” He spits, but can’t help but lick his tongue along his bottom lip, tasting where you’ve just been. 

His stomach is suddenly hot.

You swallow convulsively, bleary eyed look turning to hurt, pressing your palm to your belly, twisting your fingers in the fabric of your sweater there. “I don’t— I didn’t—” Your eyelashes flutter shut, closing the hurt, confused look away from him for one blessed second. You press your other palm to your forehead, gripping yourself as if you’re trying to hold your very skin together. 

What do you think you’re doing? He enunciates each word like the lash of a whip, and then licks his lips again to soften those same blows for himself. 

Something is about to go inexplicably wrong here. Something already has. A tragedy worse than the death of a father

“I just thought that—” You blink your eyes open and they’re wet, and he’s about to bark at you to not fucking cry or he’ll lose it completely, but he swallows it or loses the thought to madness. He feels incomprehensibly insane, inconceivably triggered. 

This is like nothing he’d ever imagined, and it tilts him on his axis, skews his vision, headlights blinding you in a dead-on collision. 

What are you doing—thinking?

“I— I watched you grow up. I watched you—” You take an anxious step towards him, some word on your lips he can’t even make out because his hearing has gone out, and now he’s all of a sudden deaf in both ears instead of just one. He hardens his voice further. He makes sure you understand. “This is fucking wrong, and you need to get away from me right now,” reversing his movements, taking a threatening step forward, stomping his heavy boot against the floorboards beneath so that you’re jumping, skittering backwards like a frightened little rabbit. 

And Joel, the beast, crushing her beneath his foot. 

You wrap both of your hands around the delicate column of your throat; he imagines you’re holding in your hurt sounds, and it makes him even angrier. 

“Listen to me—” he starts again. 

But you cut him off, shaking your head, the confused sleep-look being blinked away so that now it’s spitting fire that is awake and angry in your gaze. “But you didn’t,” you say. “You barely know me. We’re almost strangers.” A scoff, and then switching again to soft, to girl-like, to hurt: “And I’m all grown up now, Joel.”

“I don’t know what you reckon is happenin’ here between us. Or what you think— what you—” He looks away, can’t bear the sight of it, you, fuck, he spits, again, fuck. “If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry, but—”

Then in a broken little voice grasping for straws, “But we were born on the same day,” and you say it like a question. Like it should mean more. Like, and he realizes it now, like it means the world. 

He turns back to look at you, and he feels full of everything but mercy—too much regret. “And what? What do you think that means? That we’re connected—meant to be?” His voice sounds full of cruelty. “Don’t be delusional. It’s also the day my daughter died. D’you know that?”

A blink. “What?”

“She died on my thirty-fourth birthday.” 

Again. “But… Wh—at?” Broken up word, and your chin does a little wobbling dance, jutting this way and that, and you have a dimple in your cheek that comes out when you’re happy, but also when you’re sad. When you’re about to cry. He sees it now, and starkly. 

He’s ruining something sacred. 

Joel steels himself. “Whatever it is you’ve made up in your mind about us, it’s a fantasy. Something not real that you need to let go of. Are you hearin’ me?”

“I— I think…” You won’t stop blinking, your hands look like they’re about to strangle you, and he steps forward as if to stop you or save you from yourself. “Why didn’t you ever say?”

But instead of saving, “Why would I? Why would I ever tell you that?” He does not want to hurt you, and yet he cannot help it, and Joel wonders if this is how your father felt every time he failed you—like a lesser man. “Wasn’t for you to know—it doesn’t mean the same thing to us.” That day. He makes himself clear: “Whatever child’s fantasy you’re still holding onto, you need to let it go.” 

-

He rushes out of the bunk after you, a growled, you little shit, at Ellie as he passes her. 

“Man, what’d you fuckin’ do?” She calls after him in that tone that tells him that of course she knows what’s happened. You two’ve never been able to keep a single thing from each other. Asshole! She shouts at his back as he catches up to your slowly retreating form. Your movements are sluggish, exhausted. 

He calls your name and tries to moderate his tone from being as aggressive as he feels right now. “We gotta talk.” He follows after you, hot on your heels and then jumping back like a scared mut when you spin around on your ridiculous boot to face him. 

“Speak.” It’s a high-handed tone, that one. One that says he’s the grunt here, and you the queen, that you’d both forgotten it last night, but the battlelines are clearly drawn now. There’ll be no more forgetting. 

And it’s all his fault. 

“You can’t—” His heart thumps and thumps and thumps like a pitiful thing. “You can’t undermine me in front of the boys like that. There’s a reason I was saying no.”

“Which is?”

“That the kid’ll be in the way.”

And you flinch and Joel prays for a gun to the back of the skull. Fucking Christ, but this is difficult.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he gruffs. “You know what I mean. This is hard work we do here. I don’t want the kid gettin’ hurt, I don’t want to be responsible for that. What goes on here is on me. The people who get hurt, it’s all on me, and I take that responsibility damn serious.”

You tilt your head at him in that queer, inspecting way of yours. The one he’d watched you pull like a weapon against your father so many times. He finds he hates it now, detests it, being wielded against himself. You ignore his words, “What was your arrangement here—with him? How did this work with the ranch?”

There has been that thought always, and obviously, of you as something higher, that symbol of the family or the safe haven this place has been for Joel. The not-respect he had for your father, but surely the understanding—you've always been all wrapped up in that. He's at times felt grateful for your existence, perhaps, in ways. That something as good, as better, as you could exist in the same world Joel exists in. Perhaps he’d admired you in ways, even as a young girl, for your goodness, your sincerity. But he finds now, at this look of disdain you’re wearing against him, that he hates the feeling of being less than you, of not being good enough to even stand in your presence. 

He’s done wrong, marred it all in ugliness. He’s put himself in this position somehow, by hurting you, by confusing you, by wanting—

“I do what I need to, what the ranch needs. Whatever decision I need to make, I call it and it’s on me. Monthly reports to him and that was it. He understood that what happens out here is different to what can be told and sometimes you can’t plan for certain shit. He focused on the business, I focus on the ranch.”

By wanting what?

Bringing the mug to your lips, you take a long sip, humming. It’s all a taunt. Joel realizes, suddenly, and with painful clarity, that this has all been a grave miscalculation on his part.

As uncomfortable as it is for even him to admit, you are, and undeservedly, a person used to not being wanted, used to rejection. Joel understands this with the quick fire blink of an eye. And he has, in his shock, or— or… he doesn't know—instantaneous awakening—unintentionally alienated you, made an enemy. 

I see, you murmur quietly coupled with a bitter cough of laughter that doesn’t sound anything like the sweet sound he’s used to hearing from you. Yes, a very bad mistake has been made indeed. “Well, you’re practically king here, aren’t you then? Quite the partnership the two of you had.” You smile wide, all bright teeth. 

The coffee sloshes in the mug held in your unsteady hand, and he worries there’s something stronger in there too. 

“Not at all. I’m just good at what I do.” He shoves fisted hands into his pockets, trying to keep patient. Trying not to throttle you, check your drink for himself. 

“And is this how you’d like to continue going forward? I mind my own business, and you do as you please?”

He shakes his head slow, grinds the pulverized mint between his molars, “I want whatever you think’s best. You’re the Kelly now, after all.” You get a look on your face like you don’t like the sound of that at all, and he turns to spit the greens between his teeth, coughing roughly. 

“Yeah, I’m sure of that,” you say with teeth bared, and then whipping your head away from him as if you can’t bear the sight of him a second longer. The coffee sloshes the other way, splashing against your wrist. He hopes it’s not burning you. “You know, you’ve got some fucking nerve, Joel. You—” 

The robe—all of a sudden, saturated by the dark liquid, it grabs his attention. It’s in a plaid print, expensive looking, like something you’d see an older man wearing. A man’s robe? He cocks his head, “Whose robe is that?” Cutting your tirade short. 

What? You spit, all sass, his stomach burns, turning to look back at him as if he’s gone idiotic, grown a second head.  He feels a little bit like he’s in the process of doing so—wracked with growing pains. “It’s my ex-boyfriend’s. Can you focus, please? I’m trying to have a fight with you right now.” And you scrunch your nose too adorably for him to find anything besides endearing. Certainly not intimidating. 

He grunts, displeased. 

“I know you don’t want to hear it—”

“Then keep it to yourself.” You turn, continuing on your way up to the house, coffee flies with your spin, boyfriend’s robe whipping out in your wake as he follows like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. 

A little desperately, like a dog, too. A begging for scraps imitation game he hadn’t intended to play but feels obligated to now, and by his own doing. 

“But I want to say—about last night…”

You turn on your heel out of nowhere again, and he stumbles to not rush head first into you, to not touch you. 

The look on your face is all heartbreak. “Do you remember—when I was away at school—and I fell off the horse? When I came home with that broken arm and couldn’t get back on and you helped me? Do you remember that, Joel? How you reminded me how I was supposed to do it—”

He coughs, uncomfortable, shifting like that same scared dog. “You remember these things different than I do.” The words feel cowardly spilling from his tongue, but he should be honest. Shouldn’t he?

This is what he should be doing, isn’t it?

“I remember that you were kind. That you cared. That’s what I remember.” Your eyes are glossed again, and now it’s Joel that has to look away. 

-

“I didn’t care. It was my job to serve your father. To do as he’d want me to. It was a responsibility.”

It’s happening again. A tale like any other you’ve too often heard. You know he’s not lying, and yet everything he says feels precariously close to it. 

“Why are you being like this?” And you ask it very practically, like you really want to know, like you’ve asked the same sort of question to the same sort of figure before, and so now you’re extremely well practiced, an expert even. 

“You remember these things differently. Wrong—That’s not how I meant any of it—whatever you’re thinkin’. It was just a kindness.”

“No, but I— but you…” That’s the point, you want to say, a kindness, but the words stick. You look away again, colored in shame, can’t bear the sight of him. “Maybe you’re right,” you whisper with that very remembered kindness of your lonely childhood thrown back in your face now. “Maybe I do.”

“Listen to me—I’d like for things between us to be— I’m not… I don’t now what to fuckin’ say to you.”

“Honey—” Dina calls from the porch, your father’s assistant, now yours by inheritance, you suppose. “We gotta go soon—gotta get you ready.”

“I have things to do with Dina. I don’t have time for you—for this. Do what you want, run it how you like,” the ranch, “But the kid stays. That’s final.”

You won’t look at him again, you decide. You’ll learn to want a new thing. You’ll learn to love a new thing. 

If you had it in you, you’d laugh in his face. 

Have you been in love with him? Probably not in any way that could’ve been called mature, it was the girl-fantasy of a neglected child latching on to a man who’d always seemed nothing but steady and kind.

So you’ll learn to grow up now, no choice left in the matter, let the fantasy go.  

-

Despite your desire for debauchery and the three days of bad behavior you’d promised yourself, you’ve got shit to do. 

An hour after your ridiculous non-conversation with the ridiculous man, you and Dina are stepping back  out into the summer sunshine when your phone rings with a call from another ridiculous man for what promises to surely be another even more ridiculous conversation. 

Jacopo.

You’d met through the friend of a friend at the party of someone or another in Monaco. Come from an Italian mother and a French father, you should’ve known he was going to be an arrogant asshole from the get go, but he’d been beautiful and momentarily distracting—things you knew you didn’t really want but told yourself would suffice. Really, all he was, was boring, the same as everyone else, wanting something from you without having to truly return anything in full. 

Jacopo the jockey—sounds like a goddamn cartoon. 

You liked to call him Jack, like he were the same sort of plebeian he saw all Americans as, and which he absolutely loathed with the sort of passion only an uppity French man could possess. 

In the distance, you can see Joel, Frank and Bill propped up against the corral watching as Jesse runs Ellie atop a gorgeous chestnut Quarter. Sometimes she likes to compete, when she can get Joel to stop complaining about it for a second. 

Dina makes her way towards them, “Tell them we’ll take the Ghibli,” you call after her to which she throws a thumbs up. At the sound of your voice he peers over his shoulder, finding your eyes immediately, catching there—fish on a burning hook. And then turns full around, leaning back to rest his elbows on the iron grate as you take French boys call, settling in to watch you. 

“Hi, Jack, sweetie. How’s it hangin’?”

“I do not know what this means.”

Bore. “What do you want, Jacopo? I’m busy.”

“My love, we must speak. I have heard of your father. You should have call me, I will come to be with you now. Tell me where you are.”

“Why the hell would I want you to come be with me? We broke up. Remember?”

Joel watches you as the French idiot prattles on about how he loves you and how you need him and how the two of you belong together, blah blah. Odious man, you don’t know how you ever let him inside of you. 

Across the lawn, he isn’t looking away, and his gaze burns where it touches. You feel—humiliated, hurt, rejected, so angry it’s a physical ache. 

Not surprised. 

Perhaps in some way, his rejection was what you’d wanted, had been looking for. Perhaps, it was your subconscious search for the easy way out. Because, and really, what else had you thought would happen when you’d thrown yourself at him half drunk? That he’d suddenly stop seeing you as the child he’d known you for always, take you as a woman, want you, fuck you right there on your newly dead father’s front deck?

Ridiculous.

You can’t even think about the birthday—about her. It’s a snipped lifeline, a crushed tether. 

“Cherie, I must tell you I am feeling very neglected now by you. You don’t call. You do not love me no longer, or what is the problem?” More nonsense and really, this fuckin’ guy needs a boot in his ass pronto. 

And the one still watching you—something even worse. He’s got his mangy brown cowboy hat pulled low over his brow, the one for the ranch, not the lovely dark one for escorting orphans to the funerals of dead fathers, and his jaw works the mint leaves you know he’s got between his teeth, slow and steady. You should hiss at him. Instead, your tummy smolders with heat and butterflies.

 Stop looking at me, you horrible man, you want to shout. 

Humming and hawing at the annoying voice coming through the phone, you smooth your palm over the silk of your dress. You’d wanted to look nice today, your first Kelly meeting. You wanted to look better than you feel, which is like shit, quite frankly. 

There are tiny green paisleys patterned over the deep blue of the dress, a shock of dark red maroon for the cashmere knit of the cardigan tied over your shoulders, and a little silken kerchief wrapped around your throat, something from your mother’s things you’d gone through last night after Joel had ordered you to bed with your tail tucked between your legs and tears in your throat. 

Twenty four years later, and your father still had all her things preserved in their bedroom as if she’d only stepped out for the afternoon. A veritable mausoleum right there in your house-not-home. 

You’d never even stood a chance. 

-

He watches you begin to pace across the deck, but the look on your face tells him you aren’t quite listening to whatever it is the person on the phone’s saying to you. 

The gold and silver bangles that slide around your fine boned wrists jingle a song of temptation. Siren song, bird song, death march, something he’d follow with blind eyes, recognize deaf. And heavy gold and jeweled rings along your fingers that shine almost as bright as the spilled silk of your hair. Swathed in shades of jewel, you’re all woman, done up and ready to go out and devastate. 

He doesn’t know how any man could ever look at you and not want you. 

He doesn’t know how he’ll ever be the same from here on out. 

“Who’s she talkin’ to?” He asks Dina, tipping his chin over at you. He can hear you raising your voice, something about you fucking French moron, and he doesn’t like the hunch he’s got about who it is.

“Boyfriend,” Dina says while she watches Ellie work the horse with hearts in her eyes. 

“Thought he was an ex.”

She peers up at him suspiciously at that, a queer little smile tipping the corners of her mouth upwards. “Well maybe now that he knows how much she’s worth he’ll be coming back, huh?”

Joel swears all these fuckin’ women are conspiring against him, trying to send him to an early grave. “He steps foot on this ranch, and I’ll shoot him in the goddamn ass.”

She laughs, throwing her head back which inevitably draws Ellie’s attention. “You are literally so dramatic.”

“What’s he bein’ dramatic about now?” Ellie calls from behind, trotting up to the corral edge. 

“Ohhh, nothin’. Just Joel being Joel. Right, old man?” Dina bumps her hip against his and he grunts, refusing to be goaded. He’s not being dramatic, it’s his responsibility to take care of you now, to watch over you. 

That’s all.

“I’m never dramatic,” he tells them very seriously. 

On the porch, the spat reaches a crescendo and they all turn to watch the show. 

Why don’t you shove the whole Eiffel Tower up your ass, you fucking dipshit. And don’t you ever call me again!

“Little girl’s got a mouth on her,” Bill murmurs. 

Ellie lets out a long whistle. Deserved, Dina adds. On the porch, you let out a strangled little screech, stomping the high heel of your boot as if you’ve got half a mind to throw a fit. 

Joel feels hypnotized, speared through the gut.

He wants to know what the ex-boyfriend said. What his name is. Where he’s from and who he is and what he does and how he is and every single thing about him and how it was between the two of you. 

He is suddenly desperate to know everything there is to know about you in a way that makes his throat feel swollen with guilt. In a way he didn’t ever think he’d want from you. 

All the things you keep close, all the small intimacies that make you this person you are now, that’s what he wants. 

You stomp down the steps, making your way towards them, eyes directly on his, and you’re too fucking beautiful for his own good, watching you feels like a sin. 

Makes him feel in danger, like prey. 

“All men should die,” you yell over. 

See. 

“I agree,” Dina says cheerfully.

“You know you can have a baby with the junk in your bones from another woman now,” Ellie adds helpfully.

“The junk in your bones?” Joel says. 

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Yeah, like really we don’t even need you for shit anymore.”

“They should all be put in a hole in the ground in the middle of Nebraska and only be let out when a girl wants to bone.”

“To bone—Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Ellie.”

“I love that idea,” you say, finally coming to stand right before Joel. He swallows hard, stays silent—feels like the cat’s finally caught his tongue. 

“Why Nebraska?” Franks asks, puzzled.

He’s got to stop looking at you, he’s got to get away from the sight of your eyes, feels like the colors of you seem to pulse brighter, and he feels it all like a touch against his skin. He turns to look at Ellie over his shoulder and with a huge, shit-eating grin she says, “Cause who the fuck knows where fuckin’ Nebraska is, huh?” Her eyes flash to you and then quickly back to Joel, winking, cheeky, knowing. He feels the noose tighten.

They’re definitely conspiring against him. 

The three of you cackle—at his expense. 

“Where’re you two headed?” Bill asks with a frown when the three little hyenas settle. 

“She’s got a meeting in Jackson,” Dina tells him. “First part’ll be quick—she’s just gotta kick some pushy jackass to the curb and tell him we’re not leasing mineral rights to him no matter how hard he begs or how much money he throws at us. Then…” she trails off, throwing you a worried glance, but your eyes are on the far off mountains now, and Joel watches a shaky swallow pass through your throat.

“Then we’ve got the will reading,” you say. 

A sharp ache starts up behind Joel’s left eye, all the easygoing laughter of a few moments ago sucked away with a few words and a single reminder. That you’re not the girl you used to be, laughing and playing with Ellie, that your father is dead, that you have a world of responsibility to face now. 

“You shouldn’t have to go all the way into town. They should be comin’ to you here.”

“I want to get out—see his office.”

“S’only been a few days, honey,” Frank says gently. “You should take it easy.”

“Thanks, Frank,” you reach out to squeeze his arm, flush of emotion across the bridge of your nose. “I’m okay, promise.”

Joel takes you in, in full. You’ve got something shimmery swept across the highs of your cheekbones and glossy lips, the fine grain of your skin—pristine like you're made of sugar and everything good in the world. The silky wisps of baby hair at your temples that look softer than anything he’s probably ever touched in his whole life. And you’re so beautiful it almost hurts the eye to look at you, beautiful in a way that makes men cower at the sight, like you’d be the strongest thing in the whole world. But he sees all the rest too. The delicate curves of your shoulders, the fine swoop of your collarbone and the quick-fire beat of your pulse beneath the fragile skin of your throat. There’s fear all around you in a way, a desperate sort of sadness. 

He wishes there was more he could do for you, that he could bear the burden of all this entirely in your stead, that he could be all you need and want him to be without having to sacrifice his soul to give it to you. 

Your eyes flash back to his, and he worries for a second that you can read his mind. 

Behind you, Jesse pulls up with the sleek black of your father’s favorite car. Of course you’d choose this for today, bets you’ll find a way to turn it into a pretzel before the days end. 

“Take Jesse with you,” he says low at your back as you turn for the car. 

You look over your shoulder at him and his spine throbs. “No.”

Following you around the front of the car, he pulls the door open for you. “You’re not moving around alone anymore. He’s going. Jesse—” he whistles, “You’re going into town with Miss Kelly.”

“Yezzir,” he smiles with the sunny easiness only he possesses.  

“Excuse me,” you turn to frown up at him, stomping your foot again, and you’re a little bit of a brat, he’s realizing. “There’s no room in the car for him. He can’t come.”

“He’ll take a truck,” he says, leaving no room for discussion, but then gentles his voice again, “Things are gonna be different now. You’re the Kelly, you can’t go on all gung ho about your new reality. You need taking care of. Can you not fight me on this, please?”

“What I need—”

“Is to be protected.”

You give a delicate little huff through your nose that he finds to be just about the cutest damn thing he’s ever seen in his whole life. “Then it’ll be my choice how and who.”

“It’s easier if you just do as I say.” Grasping, grasping, praying for patience. 

“You overbearing d—”

“You’ll be okay meeting this jackoff? Don’t need me to come with you?”

You glower at him.

“I’m bein’ serious with you. I know you’re capable,” he puts his hands out, palms up in a conceding gesture, “But this is new, and there’s no shame in asking for support.”

At that, you get a confused little pinch between your brows, softest rose shaped mouth he’s ever seen—felt—all pursed up, and he thinks it’s wrong now, trying to be sweet to you after last night, looking at you this way and seeing the things he’s seeing. He should stay away, go away forever, find a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere to bury himself in like you’d said, but he worries now, and quite desperately really, that he won’t ever be able to leave your side again after all this. 

“I have Dina.”

“I know, but—”

“Can you please just… not. I think— I think it’s better if we just steer clear of each other. If I need something,” you look away now, hazy look from last night back in your gaze again, like you’re remembering, like you’re wanting something else he’s not willing, not capable of giving, “I’ll ask for it. Otherwise you can focus on what’s important to you.” 

Gut punch. 

He soldiers on, can’t help it.

“You feelin’ alright?” 

Your eyes flit back to him for a fleeting second and there’s honesty in your gaze now, maybe something extremely vulnerable too, and then shuttering again, looking away again. He’d demand your gaze if he had the right, insist you tell him everything there is to know with just your eyes if you were his. 

But really, he’s got no right to ask anything. 

So instead, “Tell me what’s wrong,” he begs, praying you don’t say him. 

What’s wrong? A laugh and—nothing. Like your father isn’t dead, like he hadn’t hurt you as he had last night, like you’re looking for answers etched into the mountains or the sky. You bring your thumb to your right temple and his own aches in response, digging there for some unseen pain to be gouged out. “Tired—was having bad dreams.” Your voice sounds full of air, and you’ve got a huge emerald on your ring finger, an even larger turquoise stone beside it, other hand is covered in a row of opals—you’re a treasure of a girl, all the way inside and out, and it’s like he’s staring at a work of art, knowing that if he were to touch, it’d all be ruined. Your voice full of air floats in his bad ear and booms out the good one full of forlorn want. 

It feels like you’re the only two people left in the whole of Wyoming, standing here together under the sweet sun, maybe the whole world, and he’s ridden in guilt, wants to tell you he’s sorry again, beg or something, and thinks that God should give you the chance to rewind time when you’ve made someone feel this bad without meaning to. 

You whisper at the Tetons, and he’s all but forgotten, “I feel a little bit like I’m the real nightmare.”

“You couldn’t ever be, sweetheart,” he tells you and means it with his whole heart. 

It’s all agony swimming in your eyes, and if you don’t stop him, he’s going to take you into his arms right here in front of everyone. You need more than protecting, it’s clear, you need caring for, you need loving—the sort of something he can tell you’ve never had in your whole life. 

“Ready to go, honey?” Dina calls from the other side of the car, her canoodling with Ellie finally come to a pause. 

You’re snapped out of your reverie, looking down at your feet, impractical boots again, these ones sexy and tall and not for his admiring, blinking away the wash of heat that’s bloomed across the bridge of your freckled little nose. 

“Did she eat?” He asks Dina over your head.

“Ehhhhh, but I brought a smoothie,” she pulls out a thermos from her large bag and smiles all beaming and large. 

“A smoothie ain’t food. Get something else in town.”

“You're so prepared,” Ellie sighs dreamily beside her. 

“You’re annoying me,” you grouch at him, tossing your bag into the backseat, sliding into the luxuriously leathered interior as he shuts the door gently behind you, bending down to brace his palms against the open window. 

“Drive careful. Call me if you need anything.”

“You’re kinda a helicopter mom. You know that, Joel?” Dina tells him with that sweet smile of hers. 

“Do not entertain his nonsense,” you snap. 

“She’s just grumpy because Vogue France posted a piece on her and the funeral—the heiress to watch, they’ve called her.”

“I don’t know who they think I am—Kendall fucking Roy? This isn’t HBO, it’s my goddamn life.”

“It’s fine, drink your smoothie, here,” Dina soothes. 

“I don’t got a clue what any of that means,” Joel says. “And do up your belt,” frowning at you and pulling away just in time when you speed off with half the admonishment still on his tongue 

-

The bar is loud and sweaty and crowded enough there’s room for your spite, which he knows, is all this night out is. 

The day had gone from terrible to horrible to heinous, and he’s officially reached his limit now. You’d returned from your late morning in Jackson toting a gray cloud that’d settled over the entire ranch and everyone in it. All work had come to a slow and grinding halt, the mood morose, knowing that the lady of the manor was grieving and angry. 

And then a few hours into the evening, you, Ellie, and Dina had spun into the bunk, already giggling on drinks he was certain were too sugary and way too strong to end in anything good. Looking to rile up the boys into heading back to Jackson and finding a bar to terrorize. 

And so here he now finds himself, stepping through the door of The Mushroom, ridiculous name for a bar if anyone asked him, eyes searching for the gleam of your hair, that tiny fucking outfit you’d draped yourself in. You were hunting for trouble, to aggravate him, trying to hurt him with your, you’re not invited, Joel—no one wants you to come.

Angry, angry as a spitting fire. 

He’d felt like shit about himself and your upset for a second, and then had thought: Well, are you going to cowboy up, Joel? Or just lay here and bleed?

Now, there’s something sick in him that wants more of it, to take everything you’ve got to give, to see how far you can go, to push you just a little bit further too.

A masochist, is what he reckons he might actually be.

He finds Ellie’s bent head whispering into Dina’s ear, giggling and dragging her fingertips up the other girls bare arm, and he feels a thump of fondness for the two—happier than he can say that they’ve finally worked it all out after months of their will-they-won’t-they struggle.

Making his way over to them, he catches Frank in the distance, dancing to the countryfied Abba cover of Chiquitita the local band’s currently playing while Bill stands nearby, serious and menacing, keeping anyone from getting too close to his partner. 

No sign of you, and the backs of his knees itch and burn. 

“Where is she?” He demands when he reaches Ellie at their place against the bar. 

“Oh, dude. She’s gonna be soooo pissed.”

“Where, Ellie?”

Get you anything to drink, sugar? The bartender calls and Joel shakes her away, panic thumping in his gut the longer he doesn’t have eyes on you.

Dina knocks her head towards the end of the L-shaped bar, closest to the throng of dancing patrons, and there in the last seat and partially obscured by someone’s shoulder and ridiculously feathered hat, you sit. 

“Who the fuck is that?” 

“Can you please just leave her alone. She needs to blow some steam off.”

“Yeah, Joel, we’re watching her,” Dina adds, always the peacekeeper.

Or blow someone, Ellie adds in a snicker, and he gives her a death glare. “You need to quit the asshole act,” she tells him, purposefully thunking her beer hard enough on the bartop that some of it sloshes over the lip of the bottle onto his hand braced against the edge. 

Real mature. 

“Changed my mind,” he tells the bartender when she heads back their way, “Shot of Jameson.” 

Beside him, Jesse appears, beer in hand as he leans against the bar to watch you also. “That might just be the most beautiful girl I’ve seen in my whole life, honest to God,” he sighs wistfully. 

Joel sees red—this is just too much. “Quit fuckin’ lookin’ at her,” he snaps. 

Ellie snickers knowingly, and Frank and Bill join the group, picking up on the topic of conversation. 

“That little girl can drink a grown man under the goddamn table,” Bill says. 

“And looks good as hell doing it too—”

“Eyes off, you little shit,” Joel sends a threatening glance at Jesse again. 

Ellie ignores them both. “He’s a finance bro or some shit—from New York—here to play cowboy dress up with the group he’s with. Nothing I can’t handle, and you need to cool it and leave or have a drink and let her have fun.”

“She’s vulnerable right now, Ellie—”

“Yeah, you would know.”

Joel’s turn to do the ignoring, “And she needs someone to watch her back.”

“I’m fuckin’ watching it, man. You’re so annoying, and I’ll have you know that—” The fucker’s got a thick lock of your long hair trapped between his probably manicured fucking fingers, smoothing it between his thumb and index and then looping it around and around, drawing you in closer.

Joel’s about to start howling.

You’ve done something to him, knocked something askew inside him, and he needs you to set it back to rights. Let him out of this saw trap he’s been caught in. 

The man says something that has you throwing your head back in an overly eager laugh, loud and melodic in the most hypnotizing sort of way, meant to draw the eye or seduce or send his gut to twisting and aching. 

Ellie’s saying something about how you need to have fun, how you need to find yourself, and all Joel can think is that he can be the one to give you that, to help you do all that while still making sure you’re alright, taken care of. 

Over the wannabe cowboy’s shoulder, he sees your eyes land on him, and you give him one of those serenely beautiful smiles he knows means he’s about to lose his fucking mind and cause a scene. 

A provocation of a smile is what it is. 

You cross one long leg over the other, a flash of hot pink his eyes can’t help but flash to beneath the obscene hem of your skirt and lean in to whisper something, glossy lips right at his ear, and a tick starts up below Joel’s left eye. The fuckwit pulls you in closer, and you tip into him, hand on his shoulder—your eyes never leave Joel’s, and then you’re pulling him off the barstool and leading him into the throng of dancing people. He’s desperate to know what the back of your hot pink underwear looks like—string of lace wedged between the cleft of your ass, or silk wrapping around the full cheek like a perfect present? The man pulls you into himself, spinning you around, and you’re made up of blues and purples and pinks, shimmering like something that shouldn’t exist here amongst all the rest of them. Slinky little top made of silk like water and sparkles, your cheeks, flushed with drink or heat, but he’ll tell himself it’s because of him, because you’re still angry at him, thinking of him, and it soothes the tempest that’s brewing in his gut. 

He spins you towards himself, the man Joel’s about to beat senseless, shooting the Jameson without really tasting anything but the insane jealousy souring to irrational fury on his tongue, it pulses in his throat once, twice, and the fucker tugs you into himself again by a handful of your ass in that too short skirt and sticks his tongue in your mouth. Joel slams the glass on the bartop, not seeing red anymore, something like dark spots now, he’s so fucking pissed off. 

Ellie yelps his name, her and Jesse scrambling after him, but they’re too late and he’s there already, pulling you away, and gently because he might be feeling a little bit like a demon right now, but he knows what you are and how to handle you no matter what—and slams his fist into the fuckers nose, the satisfying crunch of broken bone and a pathetic cry sounds as he hits the sticky bar floor. The people around peer over in nothing more than mild curiosity, this is a cowboy bar after all. 

He watches the man for a second, making sure he stays down, and then turns to look at you and isn’t at all surprised when he finds that look of victory on your face. 

“Ready to go?” Voice all sweet innocence. 

You’re going to kill him. 

Spinning around on the toe of your boot, the hem of your little skirt flutters with your movements and he catches a flash of cheek, mystery of your panties still unsolved. 

“You’re a real dumbass, you know that?” Ellie snarks as they pass the group of them. 

He chooses to ignore that observation. “Don’t stay out too late. And let Bill drive back.”

Following you out into the night, he tries to take control of himself, to lie away the heat he feels sitting heavy in his stomach. 

He wishes he had a mint leaf to pulverize between his molars, he wishes he could pull you over his knee and spank your ass for being such a bad girl. And looming behind you, he knows you’re not even a little bit intimidated by his size as you dance and prance across the parking lot towards his truck.

“I know you’re ticked off because of last night and today, but you can’t lash out just because you’re angry with me.” 

All he gets in response is that head-thrown-back wind chime laughter—the real one, which is something. 

“You need to stop misbehaving,” he breathes down your neck.

“Hmm, I don’t think I will,” you singsong. 

“Are you drunk?” Refusing to be distracted, he’s going to stand strictly on business, he promises himself. 

You spin around again—always catching him off guard and pissing him off—hooking yourself on his shirtfront, pulling yourself into him like you’re trying to dance some fucked up dance he doesn’t know the steps to. 

“Not at all.”

“You need to not be touching me right now,” he warns, the threads of his control dangerously close to snapping, walking you backwards without putting his hands on you. Chest to chest, he feels like he could breathe fire if he really set his mind to it. 

“Yes, sir,” you say sweetly, dragging your palms down his chest and belly before letting him go, skipping ahead of him, humming an off-key rendition of whatever kitschy, poor excuse for a country song they’d been playing at the end in there. 

The even poorer excuse for a skirt bounces along the curve of your ass, driving him fucking mad—he’s goig to have a heart attack, he’s middle aged, he can’t handle this shit anymore—you. 

Stop that, he growls.

“God, you don’t like anything—you’re no fun,” you pout. 

Coming to the truck, he yanks the door open for you. “Get in the damn truck.” And he makes sure to turn away and not ogle your ass as you hop in, his palm hovering in the vicinity of your elbow if you need him. 

The prospect of an hour and a half of the dark drive and the scent of your musky sweet perfume and sweat soaked skin has his heart pounding. When he pulls his door open, you’re turned in your seat expectantly waiting for him, folded knees up on the seat and pink triangle right there to taunt him. 

“Sit right—put on your seatbelt.”

“You’re so bossy.” An exaggerated sigh and your voice is so fucking sassy, a tiny bit of a needy whine threaded through it, he feels his patience snap. 

Grabbing hold of your damp cheeks he squeezes hard enough to force your full mouth into a pout and giving your head a little shake he says, “And you need managing, little girl. Put your fucking belt on, or I’ll put it on for you.”

Eyes all pupil and gone blurry, you lick your lips and he can smell the sweet fruit scent of your breath. He groans, pushing you back—mistake, mistake, putting his hands on you at all—and peels out of the parking lot, and he is not hard in his jeans for you. 

“Are you mad at me?” You ask after several moments of forced silence. 

“No.”

“Not even for last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Why not?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it either.”

“Well, now I’ve changed my mind.”

Jesus, he mutters. “There’s nothing to discuss—already told you what I think and how it’s going to be and that’s final. You need to let it go, you hear me?”

You give a little groaning screech through your clenched teeth, turning away from him, still not wearing your goddamn seatbelt, never doing as he says. 

Toeing your boots off roughly, the little skirt hitches high enough on your thighs he catches a glimpse of the smooth glowing skin of your hip, eyes trying to watch the road and your thighs at the same time. 

“You’re horrible,” you say through a grimace, but your voice cracks a little bit at the end, and you’ve still got your face turned away so that he can’t tell if he’s made you cry or not now. 

“Are you cryin’?” He demands.

“No,” you sniffle, wiping your cheek on a lifted shoulder 

“Yes you are, liar.” Fuck—fuck, fuck.

“Well you’re bein’ mean,” you whine, finally turning to look at him again, and you’re all rose glow, cheeks flushed and eyes glossy, lips red as a cherry. 

No man should be tested like this. It’s wrong—unnatural.

He tries to gentle his voice and steady the pounding of his heart, pressing down on the gas, wishing the road would disappear from beneath the tires of the truck and that he could have you home and away from him already. “Not bein’ mean, sweetheart. Just—just…” He sighs, “Goddamnit, just don’t how how to handle you,” he curses, losing the grasp on his gentleness. 

“See—you are angry with me!” A tear slips down your cheek, and Joel’s mouth waters. 

His heart kicks up another notch, hypnotized, “You make me fuckin’ crazy—is that what you wanna hear?”

“Yes.” You turn full in the seat to face him, bent knees against the center console block his view of the apex of your thighs. Fucking Christ. 

“Sit right. You’re flashing your bits,” he tries and fails to focus on the road. 

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause I want you to see them, stupid.”

Jesus. “How much did you have to drink?” 

“Only one High Noon.”

“The hell is that? And quit lookin’ at me like that.”

“Like what?” Your knees shift against each other, and he’s gripping the steering wheel so tight he feels like he could rip it out of the dash. 

“You fuckin’ know like what.”

“Well if you hadn’t been such a cock block earlier, I’d be looking at someone else like this right now.”

And the teasing is too much. The bare legs and the tiny skirt and the hair and the lips and the sound of your voice, the kiss last night replaying in his mind over and over and over again like some lovesick taunt, the look of hurt he’d put on your face and the idea of you bare and slick, taking some other man that isn’t him. It’s too much. 

He jerks the truck roughly onto the road shoulder and into the grass, wheels spinning and gravel flying. Joel—you squeal, being jostled in your seat so that all he can see are soft thighs and pretty tits bouncing in his peripheral. He puts the truck in park, ripping his seat belt off, reaching over to tug you roughly forward by the nape, his fingers twisting in your hair in a hold he knows is too hard for something so delicate, his other hand grips below the bend of one knee squeezing hard. 

“If you think I’m gonna let you spread your legs for anyone fucking else—” he growls.

“Anyone else?” You laugh in his face, eyes spinning with something a little maniacal.

He thought he’d been worried for his soul, that taking you would be the undoing of everything he’d tried so hard to mend back together after Sarah. And really, he had tried so hard—to be good, to be better, to atone for all he’d not done before her, all he’d done after her. He’d tried to make himself into something that was respectful of her memory and the second chance Kelly had given him. 

But right here, and again because anytime he looks at you, is within a mile of your vicinity, it feels like you’re the only two people on the whole goddamn planet, he doesn’t think he really gives a fuck for being good or atoning or souls at all. Not even a little bit. 

He follows your lead from last night and kisses you, is sure to take your tongue this time. Forcing his thumb and forefinger between the line of your molars, he presses down hard enough to hurt the baby soft skin, spreading your jaw open wide so that he can lick into your mouth deep and wet. He wants to scare you, cow you, intimidate you into behaving with this hunger that seems to swallow him whole—remind you that he’s let you have your fun thus far, but the both of you know who’s playing games and who’s not. 

You let out a shocked little gasp onto his tongue, fingers twisting in the fabric over his shoulder, and he tightens his grip under your knee, tugging you just that little bit further forward, and when he pulls back to look at you, spit slick, swollen mouth and wide eyes, tits about to spill out of your top, you push his face away roughly, dragging your nails down the skin of his cheek with a tiny snarling growl. 

Spoiled little brat.

“Don’t be fuckin’ childish,” he snarls back, and pulls you roughly over the console and into his lap. 

“I can’t stand you,” you pant, settling above him, coming in to kiss him again, and he can’t deny it anymore. He’s hard as fuck for you. 

You moan into his mouth, high and throaty at the same time, girlish little sigh at the end that has him gripping your hip tightly, trying to stop himself from thrusting up against you.

“Can you taste him?” You lick his tongue. “He kinda looked like you, didn’t he? That’s why I chose him.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He’s going to stop this now, at any moment. He’s going to push you away and tell you this is wrong and that the two of you can’t do this. 

Instead, you wrap your arms around his neck, pressing your tits high against his chest and grinding your lace covered little cunt against his cock. 

He groans into your mouth, pushed straight over the edge and free falling, cupping your ass to lift you off of himself a little bit, he just needs a second, before he takes a breath and presses you back down harder, rolling your hips against his lap. Little animal sounds, an ah, ah, ah and an oh, coupled with his mewled name. Cupping the soft of your ass in the palms of his hands, his calluses scrape against silken skin, and you fit him as if he’d dreamt you up just for himself; perfectly lush curves he can squeeze as hard as he wants because you’re not getting away from him now that he’s caught you in his snare. He drags his fingertips up the roundness of your asscheeks, and the mystery’s solved, it’s a thong. Catching the lace between his fingers he pulls the flimsy string upwards and tight against your pussy, a pained moan when he pulls even harder, making sure the fabric digs against your skin.

He knows if he cups you there you’ll be wet for him, for him, no one else but him. Knows he could bend you face first over the console, pull the soaked lace aside and suck on your wet little clit, make you come in his mouth. 

“Fuck, baby,” he groans. 

Joel, Joel, Joel, you hum in a dream voice. 

He can feel two little dimples at the low of your back, imagines what they’d look like with his thumbs gripped there as your ass takes his cock. 

He can’t say it enough—he feels fucking insane. 

“Touch me,” you beg, sliding and pressing against him, long hair like water slipping all over and against him too. 

Oh my God, he whisper moans when you spread your knees as wide as the seat allows, rocking your hips in short little hitches against the ridge of his cockhead. He knows your little clit is right there, cunt a knot of indescribable heat against him, and you pull your mouth away from his, letting your head fall back, hair a tangled curtain. He drags his nails back down your ass hard enough he hopes he’s leaving marks, leaning forward to lick along the salt tracks of your tears, watching you use him. 

“Do not fucking come,” he orders. He can’t—he can’t watch you do it and not be inside you when it happens, and the two of you absolutely cannot take this that far. 

He pulls your hips up again, forcing your movements still and you huff at him, whining. 

“We gotta stop.”

Noooo. “No, Joel. Please,” you cry, trying to pull yourself towards him—your mouth is so swollen—trying to escape his hold and get what you want for yourself. 

Grasping at the last vestiges of his sanity, “Fuck— No. No more.” He lifts you off his lap and back into your seat, sitting back to press himself against the door and adjusting the throbbing erection in his jeans, so hard it’s making him a little nauseous. If he doesn’t stop, he’s going to stuff his cock inside of you right here and now. He tucks the thick head up under his waistband, trying to find any sort of momentary relief. 

There isn’t enough oxygen in this truck. He needs air, space, to taste you. 

“Fine,” prim little nose in the air. You stretch one leg out across the console to dangle over his groin and let the other drop to the cab floor. “That’s fine—I’ll just take care of it myself then,” you tease provocatively, fingertips dragging up the inside of your thigh.

He shoots forward to stop your movement, gripping your wrist in a vice—baby bird bones beneath his fist, and you moan at his touch like the little wanton he’s coming to realize you are, writhing in your seat. “Don’t you fucking dare. I swear to God I’ll put you over my knee.”

“Jokes on you, I’d like that shit,” you sass back, ripping your wrist out of his hold, little socked foot kicking towards his face. He catches it, holding it in his grip and squeezing. “And I don’t really care if you’re not mad at me because I’m mad at you.”

“I know you are, sweetheart,” and the mood changes, smolders into something more serious, more honest.

-

“Why didn’t you go today? The lawyer asked you to—” You’d wanted to find him as soon as you’d gotten home earlier, demand he give you an explanation. Cowardice had won over that desire, and going out to find a drink and a replacement man had seemed the easier alternative. 

“Wasn’t my place.” Spreading his thighs wider in his seat to accommodate himself, he presses his hips forward, and you can make out the heft of his cock beneath his jeans—your belly twists all full of heat and bubbles. 

“Did you know he was leaving you something?”

He laughs a bitter bark of a laugh. “No—never thought—” the words die in his throat and he stares out the window, lost to the memory of your father. “No, I didn’t think he was leaving me anything before I got the call.”

“It’ll make a good nest egg.” 

“Don’t want it.”

He won’t turn to look at you now, and you know that this conversation in the aftermath of touching you shames him. 

“You’re taking it. You don’t have a choice.” His eyes flash fire at you and then flit away. “He had all your banking information, it’s probably already there.”

Fucking Christ, he spits the murmured curse, bracing his elbow against the curve of the steering wheel, cupping his palm over his mouth as if to keep his anger and frustration in. The bulge of his bicep beneath his dark hoodie distracts you for a moment. 

You’d spent enough time watching him over the years that you’d learned all the things you knew he tried to hide in plain sight. That gentleness, that patience, that heart—that he is an inconceivably good and honest man. Things that are ultimately impossible to hide. 

Your eyes flash to the temple where a gristle of scar tissues is slashed across his skin. The meaning behind a scar like that, coupled with his bad ear and his green eyed photograph—it’s hard to hide. People can always tell when you’ve tried to kill yourself, you know. 

Which all goes to say—and you’re quite certain of this—that yes, the two of you are strangers, in ways, but in others, or in your own way, you know this man. You understand his nature. You know he wouldn’t have ever wanted it—that he does not want it and never will. He isn’t the sort of man who’d ever look a million dollars in the eye and feel moved by them. 

His humanity means more to him than his life, you’d heard Tommy say about him once to your father when you’d been an eavesdropping little girl. You hadn’t understood at the time, but now you do. 

The dark pullover and jeans, incongruously boyish, the scuffed boots—he’s so himself and so fucking hot and you want him so, so badly, and looking at him sitting here now, gorgeous, hair mused by your fingers, and your slick smeared across his jeans—you look down at your own twisted fingers in your lap, a little ashamed now too—and you can’t fathom why or how he’d ever look at you and feel moved by the likes of you either. 

You’re ashamed that you’re even angry at him for it at all, resentful of this gift your father has given him when really it is not only resentment, maybe not even truly that at all. More so, it’s a complicated mixing pot of feelings that these two men seem to have always been twisted up into knots together inside of you. Resentful, not because you don’t want him to have it. You want him to have everything he deserves or could ever think to want and more, but perhaps, because this was the final nail in the coffin scrap of proof that your father had cared about him in a very real way that you’d never experienced—in a way that was entirely Oswald Kelly’s own choice and not because of dead mothers or obligation or legacy. 

“It’s good he left it for you,” you say gently and mean it. 

He looks at you out of the corner of his eyes, looks away, from under the cover of his palm says, “S’not fair to you.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me. This is about you and you deserving this, and I’m glad he gave you your due. He should’ve left more.”

His eyes flutter shut, sighing deeply and shakes his head. “You’ve made me into something I’m not. You need to see that.”

“You’re not some sort of cautionary tale, Joel.”

“You don’t know a thing about it,” voice like he could he angry but is being very careful to remain not. “You don’t know the things I’ve done, the reasons why I came here. You should look at me and see nothin’ worthwhile.”

“My father saw something,” you argue. “You let my father see that something. And I do too, no matter what you say, no matter what you do or how hard you push me away; I’m used to it, and you won’t change my mind.”

He gives you a look like you’re hurting him, like your truths hurt him. “We’re goin’ home. This is enough,” he gruffs, pulling the truck into drive again and peeling out of the grassy knoll. 

Fight dying in your throat, you feel suddenly exhausted, shivering coldly, belly an ember of unsated lust, your orgasm is tight and wet between your legs and you don’t want to argue or impose yourself on him anymore. You don’t want to feel like you’re imposing yourself now when he’d never made you feel like that before. 

The night is a pitch dark blur falling away behind your glazed over eyes, and huddling into yourself against the door, you hide your face away in your shoulder, belly swooping with nausea. 

“You drive too fast, I’m dizzy,” you mumble, and he  immediately slows, foot easing off the gas.

“You gonna puke?”

“Yes, all over your face.”

“I’m serious, darlin’. Need me to stop?”

“No. I just want to be home,” said in as small a voice as you can manage, hoping he won’t catch your words, and soon he’s turning off into the long drive to the house. 

When he pulls to a stop, you scramble to grab your boots before he can say anything else, but he’s unnaturally quick for such a large man, out the door and around the nose of the truck, pulling your own door open before you can even get a single boot on. He pulls them from your grasp, and then tugs you bodily out of your seat, slinging you over his shoulder as if you were some sack of nuisance prone potatoes. You screech, flailing, trying to knee him in the gut, but he bands a strong arm across the backs of your thighs, pinning you in obedient place. “Quit.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” You howl, hitting him repeatedly on the ass, trying to wriggle and make his life as difficult as you possibly can. 

This man has absolutely no consideration or respect or sense of personal space!

Technically, neither do you—but that’s neither here nor there. 

You scream like a hyena, shrill and long and he pinches your ass hard, right at the inner crease of your thigh and ass cheek, too close to your still wet pussy for comfort. “I said quit.”

“Everything alright out here?” You hear Jesse’s voice call from the direction of the bunk, they must’ve beat you two here while you’d been trying to seduce Joel into making you come. 

The snap of Joel’s fingers and then, “Mind your own fucking business.”

“You are so rude.”

He bumps you on his shoulder, jostling you on the soft of your belly and making your cunt go even tighter. You hate him. “Quiet, you.” 

Letting himself in the dark of your house, he makes his way up the stairs while you hang quietly upside down now, a little astounded, a lot turned on by how strong he is, lugging you all the way upstairs without even a change in his breathing. 

But as soon as he steps foot into your bedroom, now set to rights from yesterday’s disaster, you feel the change come on him. The shift and deepening of his breaths, the expanse of his ribs going wide and winglike as he sucks in a big gulp of air. You press your palm flat to the center of his back, feeling the whistle of his breath go in and out of him until he’s slipping you off his shoulder to bounce gently backwards onto your soft bed. 

He stands above you for a quiet moment, and you take in the broad shape of him backlit by the moonlight of your open drapes. He’s huge and imposing cast in this darkness, something out of a dream.

Literally—out of your own teenage fantasy dreams. 

Has anyone in all the world ever wanted someone as badly as you want him?

You can feel the press of his left knee against the inside of your right one, and you wish he’d put it between your thighs, join you on the bed.

“Can I ask you something?” You reach your fingers out and he tangles his hand with yours and it’s a small victory. 

“Yeah.”

“Would you come to my funeral?”

His fingers jolt— “What?”

“If I died.”

“Don’t say shit like that.”

“Tell me that you would—” You tug him forward and he lets himself come, bending over your prone form, braced on one arm and still holding onto your fingers with the other. “—That I wouldn't be alone even there.”

“You’re not alone.”

“Would you?”

“Makes me angry when you say shit like this—as if you don’t believe I’m going to take care of you.” 

“Please tell me, Joel. Promise me—” and you reach up to gently touch the scar across his temple. 

He goes frozen and understanding. “I’d come,” and you know it costs him something to give in to such an imagining and it makes you all the more grateful for it. 

Fingers sliding back into the curls at his temple, silver speckled, you know, you pull him further towards you until he’s close enough to press a softly hot kiss to his mouth. The two of you hold there for a moment, another, another, you can feel the wash of his heavy breathing through his nose, the flutter of his long lashes tangling with yours—you hope he’s searching for you in the dark—and you lift your knee up onto the bed, bending to open yourself to him. 

He pulls back, hand shooting to your jaw to grip you tightly in place, breath ragged, animal being hunted. 

You smile.

“Not gonna fuck you,” he says low.

“Why not?” It’s what you want, you deserve to have what you want. He squeezes your face once, presses another hard, too quick kiss to your mouth and then flips you over onto your belly, turning your skirt up over your ass to expose you. He tugs once on the string of your thong, drawing his finger along the lace wedged between your ass cheeks and then pulls his hand away for a moment before he’s spanking you hard and quick. 

Owwww, you whine, hitching your rump towards him, wanting more despite the sting. He bends his head and bites you even harder at the inner corner of your asscheek, teeth digging hard and long enough to leave a mark. You whine again, high and mewling, trying to escape his meanness and he smacks you again on the other cheek. 

“Go to bed, little girl. I’ll see you in the mornin’.”

And he’s leaving you, broad shouldered form slipping out your bedroom door and leaving you aching and angry to scream into your pillow.

You’re pretty sure you hear his deep laugh before the slam of the door sounds below, and you’re slipping your greedy fingers into the ruined wet of your panties, petting away the ache he’s left. 

-

The late May night is cool, despite the daytime heat, and Ellie shivers in her Carhartt, watching as Joel slips out the back kitchen door of the big house. 

“The hell is going on with those two?” Jesse says beside her, pulling long on his beer. The litter of yellow cans around them speaks to his mullish whining that he’d not been able to pull tonight. Sometimes he annoys her, but in that sort of endearing little brother way that makes her want to kick his ass and protect him at the same time. 

“Nothin’, they’re fine—just gotta fuck it out.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Naw—just smarter than you, man.”

“They like each other?”

“God, Jesse, you wouldn’t see an obvious thing if it were a tipsy bison barrelin’ towards you full speed in the middle of the day.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he says a little pathetically. Moping men—Ellie really can’t be assed to deal with them all. 

“It’s fine. You don’t need to understand. I do—I see all, I know all. You mere mortals wouldn’t understand.”

“S’kinda weird, no? Them two—him bein’ so much older, her bein’…well, you know— her.”

“Nope. Makes perfect sense—they need each other, you see.”

He shrugs, I guess—“You’re fuckin’ weird, too. You know that?”

She takes a swig of her beer now also, hoping the two idiots she loves most in the world, after Dina of course, figure each other out before the whole ranch has to suffer for it too. 

“Wrong again, Jesse. Wrong again.”

Chapter 3; Little Freak

Netherfeildren’s Masterlist

Updates Blog

[lovecla]

IF YOU LOVE ME, LET ME KNOW | jack hughes.

chapter five:

➴ warnings: fighting, misunderstanding, mentions of cheating

➴ word count: 3.2k

➴ author’s note: shit hit the fan yall… who the hell is going to fix this mess..

YOU woke up at ten to two after sleeping for seven hours straight. One thing about stressed you, is that you'd sleep for twenty-four hours if given the opportunity.

But you were thirsty and you needed to get your hands on a glass of water before you died from dehydration.

So, you got up, and made your way to the kitchen, only stopping when you saw your phone blowing up on the counter.

Frowning, you picked it up, confused with the hundreds of notifications on your lock screen.

You completely forgot about your need for water. With your heart on your mouth, you sat on one of your stools, unlocking your phone and texting Grace.

Usually, you didn't care about gossip. You'd always just joke about it on Twitter with your fans and move on.

People liked to invent things and you couldn't exactly stop them. So you just let it happen.

But apparently, Jack was involved in this too. Which left you confused because people didn't know about you two. Or at least, that's what your media team would say, whenever you had a meeting with them— a weekly occurrence, ever since the album was announced.

Typing your name on Google, you didn't have to dig too deep: an article published five hours ago was the first to show up. "Former Flames: NHL Star Jack Hughes Moves On with New Flame After Breakup with Pop Singer, Sophia Montenegro".

What the fuck?

Opening it, you could swear your heart would stop any moment. Hands shaking, you read every line, thinking of everything and nothing at the same time.

It seems love off the ice is just as fast-paced as the action on it for NHL star Jack Hughes. The hockey player, known for his fierce plays and competitive edge, is making headlines for his personal life as well. After a low-profile breakup with pop sensation Sophia Montenegro, Jack Hughes has already moved on-and he's not keeping it a secret.

According to our anonymous sources, the athlete and singer had started dating back in April, after they met at the New Jersey Devils [Jack Hughes' team] charity gala, and kept everything in the dark for six months straight: nothing more than a few Instagram comments and likes to prove anything.

However, despite the chemistry, the relationship ended after Jack was seen with one of his exes last night, Ava Mitchell. Jack Hughes is known for his short-term relationships so it wouldn't be anything new.

We hope Mrs. Montenegro is okay, after her second break-up in less than two years. Maybe our sweet girl, Sophia, has bad luck with relationships.

You didn't bother reading the rest, locking your phone and gently placing it on the counter again.

The rational part of your brain was telling you that none of that was true, and that this was just a gossip magazine doing what’s supposed to be doing, but you recognised the girl in the photo, it was the same girl on Jack’s lap yesterday. And that was obviously Jack, holding her hand like some kind of loving boyfriend.

You sighed, running your hands through your hair. You knew that something like this would happen. All of the good moments you had with Jack apparently were just that: good moments. And now, bad memories.

You knew what you had to do. Keep going, just like you did when Harris broke up with you over text after cheating on you the night before. Keep going, just like you did when your name got dragged into the mud because of that.

But doing that with Jack, for some crazy reason, was harder than you thought it’d be. Maybe because you had a lot of expectations and watching them getting crushed right in front of you sucked.

Your phone buzzed in front of you, Grace’s picture shining. You sighed, before picking it up. “Hi,” you whispered, remembering that you were still thirsty and this was the first word you said in seven hours.

“Hey, baby, how are you?” She sounded worried, and you understood her. This was the first somewhat scandal you’ve had in months. So yeah.

“I just read it…” you took a deep breath. “Gosh, what the hell. What happened after I left?”

You heard Grace move something around before she started speaking again. “Honey, I wish I could tell you something entirely different but… I did see Jack leaving with that girl. I am so sorry. Like, genuinely.”

Your entire body felt like it weighed three times more. Your heart shrank to the size of a pea and you could feel your hand tremble a little bit.

You had seen the picture, you knew that Jack had left the party with the girl but still. It hurt.

“Did you talk to him?” Grace asked, voice worried.

“No, I— Grace, I don’t know what to do,” you whispered, feeling something tickle your cheek. You wiped it with your hands, just to realize that it was tears. You were crying. “I like him so much. I had finally accepted it, I told you— I thought he felt the same.”

“I did too. I don’t know what happened. Maybe… God I hate to say this but maybe you should talk to him?”

You let out a wet laugh. “No way in hell I’m talking to him. I made that mistake with Harris. Every time he’d do something shitty, I’d go after him and talk to him, accept his excuses, his behavior. I’m not that Sophia anymore.”

“I know, I know… I just…” she sounded uncertain. “God. Why are men like this?”

You wiped your tears, smiling for the first time in hours.

“I don’t know.”

“Also, that song you sent me… is it about him?”

You were confused just for a second, before remembering the song you wrote last night— morning?

“Yeah,” you mumbled, feeling just the tiniest bit of embarrassment. “Couldn’t get it out of my head. What’d you think?”

“It’s perfect. Just like everything you write,” you could hear her smiling. You smiled too. “I love you so much, Soph.”

“I love you too, Grace. Don’t worry, I'll be fine,” you sounded like you were trying to convince yourself, and not her. “Let’s just focus on the album and the launching party, right? Fuck Jack Hughes.”

“Yes, you’re right. Fuck him and not in a good way!”

You laughed, feeling the pain inside your chest ease up a little bit.

It was going to be fine.

— ♡

JACK called you three times in the past three days.

You felt shitty not picking up any of his calls because you knew he was away for the entire week, but honestly, you weren’t ready to hear any of his excuses.

So drowning yourself in work was the answer for all of your problems. Day and night, you went to photoshoots and interviews, none of the questions being about you and Jack, thankfully. You knew it was all your team’s doing but still, it felt nice to talk about yourself and your work, and not about men who did nothing but make you hate yourself.

Grace thought you had to at least hear Jack out. But you knew that if you did that, the chances of you forgiving him were high. Higher than they should be. Because you’re still very much in love with him and want to be with him at all times.

“Good work today, guys,” Russel, your choreographer, shouted, everyone clapping together. You were all rehearsing for your launching party, a mini-concert with only a couple hundred people, something to introduce your album.

“Thank you, guys, love you.” You breathed, remembering how you should go back to the gym because singing and dancing at the same time required a lot of effort.

You headed back to your house, staring at the sunset through your car’s window, sighing loudly at the traffic in front of you. It was seven p.m. and you were tired and famished, thinking about all of the take-out options you could order when you got home.

“What the…” you muttered, when you tried entering your garage, but was unable to since there was a car there already. A car that you unfortunately knew very well. “The hell is he doing here?”

Jack was leaning against his car, a crazy thing to do during winter but whatever, wearing a beanie and a Devils hoodie, while looking at something in his phone.

He was supposed to be away. For a week.

Opening your door, you welcomed the cool breeze on your skin. The workout clothes felt too tight on your body and the bag on your hand felt too heavy but you held it tight. He still hadn’t noticed you so maybe you could walk past him without him noticing you?

“Hey, baby,” and yes, of course that didn’t work. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

You looked at him like he was out of his mind, but he just kissed your forehead and grabbed something from inside the car. A Five Guys takeout bag. Fuck him for knowing your favorite burger place.

“I got us food but I think the guy there messed with my order on purpose because he recognised me and he was wearing a Rangers pin which I thought was forbidden during work hours? But I never had a nine to five job so I can’t really tell.”

You continued to move, asking yourself why the hell Jack was so talkative today. Usually, he’d just answer your questions and leave it at that. But he must’ve spent too much time with Luke because damn, this man was a yapper now.

Opening the door, you let him in, not really sure why. Maybe Grace was right and you did need closure, but you expected to have this conversation with him through texts, and not face to face like right now.

He looked so dreamy. He’d shaved, so he looked eighteen years old all over again. His hair, hidden by the beanie, looked longer now and you desperately wanted to run your hands through it. He was standing there, cheeks and lips red, blue eyes looking directly at yours.

Why did he have to be so handsome? It’d all be much easier if he was ugly.

“You’re so quiet today, did something happen?” He asked, yanking you out of the train of thoughts about how handsome he was.

And suddenly, you were back in Harris’ living room, one year ago, watching as the man cried on your lap, apologizing over and over again, saying that he’d never lie to you and that he’d never let you down.

Your stomach was starting to hurt and you felt yourself breathing faster.

“I ran this conversation in my head a thousand times, but I never once imagined you’d just not talk about it and move on, y’know?” You mumbled, heart racing in your chest. “Was it worth it, Jack?”

His confused face made you hurt even more because, somehow, it looked genuine. “What are you talking about? Was what worth it?”

“So you’ll keep denying it?” You raise one eyebrow, feeling the sorrow being replaced by something uglier, something heavier. Something like anger.

“Denying what, Sophia?” He stepped closer, hands reaching to your body, which you dodged. If you’re going to do this, you’ll need every ounce of space in your house. “Sophia, what—”

“I know I have no right to be mad at you for this, because I know we were just fucking,” you smiled, but it didn’t reach your eyes. “Hell, I was the one who said I didn’t want a relationship first. So I understand why you didn’t reach out to me, why you’re not apologizing, why you’re playing dumb, but—”

“Sophia,” he cut you off, his voice one octave deeper. You shivered, watching as he frowned at you. “I don’t know why you’re saying all of this shit. What the hell happened?”

You looked at him, analyzing his face and, once again, seeing nothing but pure confusion in his expression. You found it hard to believe that he didn’t know about the article, didn’t know about how people were saying that no one stayed with you for a long time, didn’t know about his ex announcing to everyone on her Instagram page that they were together again.

But unfortunately, you also knew that Jack wasn’t a liar. He’d never been, and probably would never be.

“So you don’t know about the article?”

“Article?” He furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you talking about gossip pages on Instagram? Soph, you know the only thing I do in that fucking app is like your photos, watch the weird ass reels you send me, and send pictures of ugly animals to my brothers and say it looks like them,”

Pulling your phone from your pocket, you google the article that you had every word memorized by now with how much you’ve read it. Showing it to him, you saw his face go through all stages of emotions: confusion, anger and understanding.

“You didn’t know about this?”

“I don’t read the articles people write about me. I don’t give a fuck about people’s opinions,” he growled, handing your phone back to you and taking his beanie off so he could run his hands through his hair. “I don’t know who the hell sent that information about us.”

“Can’t you see that the problem here isn’t people knowing that we were fucking?” You snapped, almost crushing your phone with how hard you were gripping it. “The problem here, Jack, is you leaving that fucking party with your fucking ex, after she spent half of her night on your lap.”

“The hell is wrong with that, Sophia?” He snapped too, looking angry and annoyed at the same time. “You left with fucking Quinn and didn’t even say goodbye to me. Me leaving with Ava isn’t any fucking different.”

“‘Isn’t any fucking different?’ Fuck you, Jack. Fuck,” you touched his chest with your index finger. “You.”

“Sophia, what is going on? You’re mad at me because I left with Ava? She was fucking out of her mind, drunk as hell, and I just took her home!” He raised his arms, like that was enough of an explanation. “It’s not my fault someone took a picture of us leaving and wrote a fucking article about that.”

“I’m not mad at you, Jack,” you whispered, staring into his eyes, losing yourself all over again, just like you did six months ago. “I’m mad at myself for falling in love with you.”

You were both taken aback by your statement. You had zero intentions of telling Jack how you felt about him because that would just be too much humiliation to handle but now the shit hit the fan and he knew.

“It’s…” he stared, biting his lips and averting your gaze. “It’s not like I cheated on you, Sophia. We aren’t dating.”

Oh.

Right.

You knew something like this would happen and still. Your heart hurts all the same. It isn’t that serious, your brain was yelling at you, get a fucking grip.

“I know,” you whispered, trying to count your breathings. “I know that, Jack. You don’t need to tell me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He stepped closer. “About how you feel?”

“Was it going to change anything?” Your voice quivered with sadness and you hated yourself for it. The plan was to tell him to fuck off and leave him but now you were almost crying and losing your shit in front of him.

“Yes, Sophia, fuck,” he put his hands on your arms, squeezing you slightly. “Of course it was!”

“Jack, no,” you freed yourself from his touch, walking around your living room, with your hands on your head. “I didn’t tell you that just to watch you pity me, I was trying to make a point. Don’t start lying now just for the sake of it.”

“Lying? I’m not fucking lying, Sophia,” he sounded angry now. “If you had told me this before, I would’ve—”

“‘Would’ve’ what?” You raised your voice too, tears now streaming down your face freely. “Would’ve said you’re in love with me too? Would’ve abandoned your whore days just to be with me? Fuck off, Hughes, we both know that isn’t true.”

“Just because you like to paint me as the man whore of the Devils it doesn’t mean that that is true,” he snapped, again. “I’ve been with you for six months now, and I never, not even once, touched another woman, or even thought about doing it. Because I just wanted you, Sophia, can’t you fucking see it?”

You sat on the couch, covering your face with your hands, trying to hide the fact that those words affected you more than you would ever admit.

“I get it that your fuckhead ex-boyfriend fucked you up and I am sorry for it, baby, I really am, but I’m not like him—”

“Jack, no,” you stopped him and removed your hands from your face, not caring if you looked ugly or destroyed. “Just leave. It’s better this way.”

“Leave? Are you insane?” He raised his voice. “No, I’m not leaving. I’m telling you that I am in lo—”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Hughes,” you got up, walking until you were toe to toe with him, looking up until your eyes met his. “I don’t want to hear it. Leave, please.”

“What the hell, man, you’re— you’re not even hearing me out!” He sounded desperate.

“I don’t want— I don’t need any more of your lies or pity. Sorry if you lost a good fuck, but I’m sure you’ll find someone else to get your dick wet.” It hurt you saying this but you needed to hurt him in order to make him leave, even if only God knew how much you wanted him to stay.

But the people you loved, the men you loved, never stayed.

Eventually, if you both started dating, he’d get tired of the routine and he’d find someone else. He’d start lying and cheating and apologizing just to do it all again, stepping on your heart like he did to the ice.

So you needed him to leave.

“So you think that you were just that to me?” He scoffed. “A good fuck? I took you to my parents’ house. I introduced you to them. I talked to my friends about you and I made time for something else besides Hockey. I wanted you in my life and now you’re telling me that it was all just sex to me?”

His eyes have never looked bluer. Your entire body felt cold, and you knew it wasn’t because of the weather. It was because you could feel Jack distancing himself from you, and it hurt.

“Leave, Hughes.”

He stared at you for a full minute, the room quiet. Then, he nodded once and twice, before stepping back and making his way to your door.

Opening it, he turned back and looked at you again. “I hope you know that you can’t keep your heart locked away forever, Soph.”

Wanting nothing but to be in his arms, you stared at him until he softly closed the door. You don’t know how much time you spent looking at the wooden entrance, feeling like you just watched your forever walk away.

[angstigone]

listen... listen... what if I wrote a 'the glory' au with aki?

BECAUSE I FEEL THE MIGHTY NEED.

[regretmedaisy]

i can see you - tom riddle x fmc/reader

part I

loosely inspired by "i can see you" by taylor swift.

“I've been watchin' you for ages

And I spend my time tryin' not to feel it”

summary: She had always fancied Tom Riddle. It was an infatuation that bordered on love and obsession, that she had secretly grown and cared for, content with indulging in her fantasies and never bold enough to try and make them become reality.

When she meets him again in her adulthood, dormant longings resurface together with a newfound desire to be the object of his own devotion.

As their paths keep crossing, she starts to think he feels the same.

tags: afab mc, use of female pronouns and no descriptors (i tagged it as x reader because i guess it could be read as such if you use the same pronouns), somewhat period-accurate clothing, courtship (just a little because it's still tom riddle), fmc has a crush on tom, very light foreplay (fem!receiving, clothes stay on), a bit of fluff, explicit sexual desire, mention of masturbation.

please note that mc has a crush on tom, therefore the way she refers to him could sound a bit cheesy and exaggerated. i edited this last night and didn't read it again before posting. i'm sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes i missed.

words: 5.9K

More smut in part II

Part I: You brush past me in the hallway

She couldn’t recall when her obsession with Tom Riddle had started. Perhaps she had always felt that way.

She thought about him as she got ready for school, walked to breakfast or sat in the Great Hall to study, her heart fluttering every time his eyes wandered in her direction. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t actually looking at her - the fantasy was enough.

She felt herself blushing every time he walked past her in the corridors, her gaze sometimes daring, sometimes hesitant, careful not to look at him for too long in case he realised her feelings, but enough to not come off as completely indifferent. Just in case he felt the same.

She had become an ever-present shadow, one he could have moulded into whatever he desidered, as her heart, easily-fooled by an irresistible pretence that had shaped her passion and longing, didn’t know any other affection.

She ignored everything there was to know about him, as he only existed in her fantasy, beautiful and clever and mesmerising. She started following him everywhere: watching him as he sat reading in the courtyard, getting detention when he was the one supervising. 

They had once talked and he had smiled at her. Oh, what a moment that had been. She had laid in bed, her face in the pillow, giggling as her roommates asked her what had happened.

But she had never wanted him to know. She liked to dream about him but never expected him to make those dreams come true.

After they graduated school, she felt empty. Her fantasies were vacant of their predominant character and she had spent a few nights crying about never seeing him again, although she didn’t like to wander in that part of her memories that much.

Then, through a series of coincidences she liked to think were fate’s doing, she had gotten a job at the post office. 

She had been on her way to deliver a missive to Flourish and Blotts - a favour she did to the old owner - when he had walked past her.

Time had stopped.

She couldn’t hear or feel anything. Not the wind brushing through her hair and cooling her cheeks nor the jumbled chatter of the street. Everything was muted and still, except for him.

He was dressed in a tasteful black suit, his jacket buttoned, and his stride was long and confident. He stopped in front of the newspaper rack, picked one up, paid and left without a glance to her or anyone else. 

It was only when he had disappeared down the street that she had snapped out of it, realising she had been crumpling the letter in her hands.

Back in the office, she had discreetly asked Will - who had been working there longer than her - about him. He was almost certain Tom had been working in Knockturn Alley for a while and an errand in that part of the city had confirmed his presumption. 

The next day, as she was trying not to shout at a customer that if he wanted his package delivered to France in one day he could’ve delivered it himself, she had seen him walk by through the glass door.

And the next day as she was busy sorting through the deliveries.

And the next one again.

On the fourth day, she had taken her break around the time she had calculated he was going to pass by. She had to suppress her giddiness when she saw him.

Since then, she duly waited for him as he punctually went to buy his newspaper. 

“Isn’t it a bit cold to be outside voluntarily?” Will asked one day, standing up from his seat to return to the storage room as she went back inside. She hung her coat and scarf, fixing the collar of her jumper.

“I like the fresh air.” She sat down at her desk, getting back to her tasks. It had been an unexpectedly slow morning, leaving her time to write the report she usually needed to cram between customers. 

She leaned back against her chair, absent-mindedly twirling her quill between her fingers as her mind went back to the same subject that had filled her younger years.

Since that fortunate day of September, her infatuation with Tom Riddle had returned to burn like a wildfire, but it had also felt different. It wasn’t the childish crush of a teenager anymore, unbridled in her fantasies and hesitant in her action. It was a different type of fixation, more subdued, more restrained, perhaps more mature. He felt familiar and new at the same time, and she was content with watching him, appeased by his mere existence.

But lately she had felt the compelling need to to draw closer, to enter his orbit without actually being pulled in by it.

Those were desires she succumbed to during other times of the day. 

She anxiously drummed her fingers on the desk, her eyes urgently checking the clock as the man in front of her couldn’t bother to fill out his form. If she wasn’t going to do it today she wasn’t sure when she’ll find the courage again.

She hurriedly signed it as he handed it over and retrieved her coat.

“I’m going on break!” She didn’t even wait for Will to answer before stepping out in the street. 

She could feel her heart beating in her chest as she walked, her heels clattering on the cobblestones. Perhaps high heels weren’t a good idea, her legs felt less steady than she had anticipated. She adjusted the silk scarf around her neck and smoothed a hand over her curls as she went straight to the magazine rack.

Alright, she needed to stay calm and look relaxed. Nothing of importance was happening. She was just there to buy a magazine. 

She browsed through a few, incapable of actively reading the headlines since her mental capacity was too occupied waiting with him.

Minutes passed inexorably, her tension growing imposing until it exploded into a million butterflies the moment she noticed him. She didn’t turn, instead subtly moving in front of the stand where they sold his newspaper, pretending to skim, deep in thought. 

She could hear him walking closer until he was right next to her.

He was wearing his coat, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched to read the headlines. His presence was impossible to miss and became even more breathtaking when he scooted closer to her, his arm stretching out to grab a newspaper right in front of her. His side brushed against her arm and she couldn’t stop herself from taking in all she could. His scent, his warmth, the mere occasion of being so close to him. 

Her eyes moved to find his of their own volition. His expression was slightly surprised, like he wasn’t expecting her to consider him. He held her gaze for a second, his blue eyes glinting in her morning light, lively like she had only occasionally seen them.

He pressed his lips together and nodded to her in greeting, folding the newspaper under his arm before entering the store to pay.

She was breathless. The wind had picked up, biting against her cheeks that she knew must have turned flush. She forced herself to divert her attention, deciding on a crossword magazine just as he left the store. 

“Five letters, it starts with an S,” she read, “It can be found at Hogwarts.”

“Stars?” Will attempted, his voice muffled from the thud of some boxes he was moving.

It had been a few weeks since her last encounter (if it could be called that) with Tom. Since then, once a week she would dress more attentively and get to Flourish and Blotts in time to wait for him. She would choose a different magazine or newspaper every time, although crosswords were her favourite to waste her time between customers. 

She had come to the conclusion that one trip a week was enough to satisfy her persistent yearning without drawing too much attention to herself. The rest of the week she spent her break outside, unperturbed by the changing of the seasons and the chilly weather.

“Yes, because stars are a prerogative of Hogwarts,” she jested. She could hear Will grumble something through the open door that separated them.

“I think it’s ‘Squid’,” she said triumphantly, writing the word down. She held up the paper like she was reading it for an entire audience. “Next, it tells you the truth you might not want to hear. Eight letters.”

“Veritaserum!” Will enthusiastically suggested.

“That’s eleven letters. Honestly, did you even go to school?” It was like this every time, he would just throw out the first thing that came to mind. It was still funny, though. 

“Honesty maybe? No, it’s seven letters. Let me get the dictionary.”

Sometimes she wondered how he had managed to run the office alone until they had hired her.

“Synonyms with eight letters, let’s see.” She could hear him quickly turning the pages. Why did he have a dictionary in there she could not say.

“I don’t think it’s an-” She lifted her gaze as the doorbell chimed and her sentence got cut off by a sudden rush of heat that didn’t allow her to think clearly for a few seconds.

Tom Riddle crossed the threshold. He took off his leather gloves and turned down the collar of his jacket.

She was embarrassingly wide-eyed as he approached her desk.

“Hello,” he said.

She blinked a few times, trying to remember the customs of the society she got raised in. 

“Hi, how can I help you?” She gave him her usual bright customer service smile. Thank Merlin habits were stronger than feelings.

“I have a letter to post.” He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out an envelope.

“Sure,” she said, her tone professional and experienced. “Just fill out this form, please.”

She offered him a quill and her eyes lowered on his long slender fingers as he skillfully gripped it. She could have watched him write all day, but instead pretended to be busy sorting through a cabinet.

Will came out of the backroom, holding his beloved dictionary. He gave Tom a tight cordial smile and set the dictionary in front of her, pointing to a specific word. “Morality”. 

She glanced quickly at Tom before focusing on Will.

“What does that have to do with the truth?” Her tone was an aggravated whisper. 

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but it has eight letters,” he whispered back. She held in the laugh that threatened to escape her as she looked at him. 

She gestured for him to leave before Tom reported them as unprofessional and turned to him as he handed her the signed papers.

“Thank you.” Why did her voice suddenly sound so shrilly? She cleared her throat, trying to regain some dignity.

She checked the address and noticed it was in England. “It will be dispatched with the afternoon owls and will probably reach your addressee by tomorrow.” She was not required to give him this information, but she just wanted to keep him there a little longer.

He nodded and smiled warmly at her. Butterflies bloomed again like flowers. “Perfect, thank you.”

“Have a good day,” she said. 

“You too.” He turned but then halted, like he had just changed his mind about something. “It's ‘Prophecy’ by the way.”

She frowned, confused on what he meant, until she remembered the crossword. “Oh, thank you.”

She watched him open the door and leave. And then watched him some more through the window as he returned to Knockturn Alley, something warm diffusing through her.

“I knew it!” Will's exultant voice broke her reverie.

She whipped her head around. “What?” By the way he was looking at her, his eyes gleaming like they had just witnessed the most engaging of gossip, she could guess exactly what he was talking about.

“When you asked all those questions I thought nothing of it, but you spend all your breaks outside, and it’s so windy in this part of Diagon Alley! I knew there was a reason. Especially after you started coming to work looking very lovely.”

“So, since I care about my look and spend my break outside, you deduced that…what exactly?

He leaned against the doors with his arms crossed and raised an eyebrow. His expression was so self-assured she knew she couldn’t deny her way out.

“Are you telling me you don’t fancy Tom Riddle? Because if I liked men I would definitely fancy him.”

“Don’t even start,” she sighed, covering her face.

If someone had told her years ago what would have happened in the next few weeks, she would have thought they had more imagination than her.

Aside from Will forcing her to buy another crossword, since the one she had chosen was part of some sort of divination conspiracy - his words.

“What does it have to do with the ‘truth you don’t want to hear’?” he had said. “Divination is just a scam, let me tell you.”

Tom had been coming and going from the post office. The response to his letter had arrived three days later and he had personally showed up to collect it.

She had always assumed that Riddle and the people he corresponded with had their own owl, but perhaps she had mistakenly presumed who he was exchanging letters with.

In school she had often dreamt of receiving a letter or a simple note from him, something to keep next to her bed and occasionally reread, wishing for things she didn’t have the courage to take for herself.

An insidious thought had crept into her mind after the first letter, instigating jealous feelings she had never felt. In school he had never shown interest in romantic liaisons, but his intentions could have changed since then.

The morning after, checking who he had sent the letter to was the first thing she had done once she had stepped into the office, professionalism be damned.

It was now a gloomy day, kept bearable by the prospect of talking to him.

“Good morning,” he greeted her as came in half an hour later, closing his umbrella and leaving it by the entrance. The sound of pounding rainfall on the street filled the silence. His coat was dampened around the sleeves and shoulders and his curls fell haphazardly on his forehead. “I believe you have something for me.”

She smiled at him. “Let me just get your letter, I think it arrived today.” She got up and reached for one of the shelves next to her. She knew he was coming today, so she had worn her nicest pair of work heels and a flattering skirt. Her curls had also turned out prettier than usual.

She perused the envelopes but didn’t find any addressed to him.

In the backroom, Will was reading a book with his legs crossed on the table. She searched through the newest delivery but couldn’t find it.

“Where is the letter?” she asked under her breath.

Will lifted his eyes from the page and adjusted his glasses. “What letter?”

“His letter, Will,” she hissed. “I saw it earlier.”

“If it isn’t there I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps he switched up the dates.”

He noticed her accusatory expression and prudently held up his hands. “I’ll send a note to see if the owl got lost. Will that help you relax?”

Her features distended. “Yes, thank you. I’ll tell him to come by later.” 

“Did you ask if he wants tea as well?” 

She rolled her eyes laughing, relieved he wasn’t mad at her - she was feeling guilty for her unfair distrust - and went back to Tom, who was flipping through a brochure.

She threw him an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid we had some troubles with the owl carrying your missive.” 

She couldn’t read his face as he listened to her.

“It’s fine, I’ll return before you close.” He grabbed his umbrella, completely unperturbed.

“We are really sorry,” she said, resisting the urge to start chipping away her nail polish.

His eyes bore into her. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault.”

Lightning struck in that same moment, a blast of wind slamming against the windows as thunder made her swallow her redundant apologies.

“Let’s hope it will stop raining by then,” she mumbled more to herself, watching the raindrops fall quickly and heavily.

After lunch, Will brought her the envelope she had been desperately looking for. The paper was surprisingly pristine, not even a drop of water or a crease on it.

“It just arrived,” he announced with a wink.

“You’re telling me an owl flew with this rain?”

“I always told you I believe those animals have superpowers.” He shrugged and returned to his duties.

She stacked it on top of a pile of papers, smiling involuntary. She was embarrassed by herself.

An hour later, Will stepped out of the office with his coat and scarf on. 

“I’m leaving for today. Do you want me to wait for you?” he asked. Rain was still pounding on the glass. 

“You can go. Hopefully it will stop.” He nodded, retrieved his umbrella and disappeared among the flock of passersby. 

She glanced at the clock, wishing time could just run faster so that she could go home. The light had dimmed over the afternoon, engulfing the office in a dull atmosphere with drowsy undertones. She was drawing a flower on a piece of parchment when the bell chimed. She already knew who it was.

He gave her a small smile and her heart fluttered. 

“Here it is. The poor owl lost his way in this storm,” she said, holding his letter. He grabbed it and signed the usual form. 

"Are you always this accommodating?" he asked casually.

She felt her cheeks heat at the question as she cleared her desk. "It's my job."

"Do you live far from here?" 

She faltered as she was reaching for her coat and cleared her throat. 

"Why do you ask?" She followed his gaze to the empty umbrella stand. 

"Oh."

“I don’t mind escorting you home, if you’d like,” he said promptly. 

Was this actually happening? She was sure she had fantasised about something like this once. 

“I wouldn’t want to impose.” This was what she was supposed to say, right? 

“I insist.”

She surely wasn’t going to let him change his mind. 

“Alright, then.” She smiled coyly as he took her coat from her hands and helped her with it. His hands brushed on her arms in a gesture that was oddly intimate in the fading light of the office. He opened the door for her and waited for her to lock it. 

Around them people hurried to get to their destination, but she was in no rush. He offered her his arm and she took it, a little out of breath. She hid her hand in the crook of his elbow, hoping it would not betray her nervousness and gently guided him in the right direction.

“How was your day?” he asked after a few steps, just as nonchalantly as before.

“It was good, perhaps a little boring.”

“Do you enjoy working at the post office?” He turned his head, watching her with those rich eyes of his.

She shrugged lightly. “It’s better than other jobs, and I like my colleague.”

“I met him the other day. You weren’t there when I went to post my letter,” he explained in response to her surprised look.

“Oh yes, it was my free afternoon.” She couldn’t believe Will hadn’t told her about this.

Tom nodded as if it was a fact he wanted to remember.

“Do you like your job?” she asked, greedy for anything he wanted to share with her.

“It might seem strange but I do.”

“Where do you work exactly?” Not even Will had been able to tell her what it was that he did.

“Borgin and Burkes.”

“The antique shop?”

He chuckled. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

She mirrored his grin. “How would you describe it?”

“You can call it that if you’re into cursed music boxes and a wide selection of skulls.”

“Perhaps I am,” she replied foxily. “I’ll come and take a look one day.”

“Are you?” The inflection in his voice told her he didn’t quite believe her.

“You don’t really know me, Tom.” 

As her words were met with silence, she turned to him. She had never seen him look at her like that, his lips slightly curved and his eyes glinting with intrigue.

“So I gather Diagon Alley wasn’t in your ambitions?” he asked after a while. He must have seen her discomfort at his question because he immediately apologised.

“Don’t, please.” She put her free hand on his arm before registering what she was doing and he followed her motion as she composedly dropped it. 

“You’re right,” she said with a sigh, averting her eyes. “I don’t know what I expected from the future.”

“But?”

“But I suppose it could be worse.” That’s it, that’s all she had to say. No big dream everyone required her to have.

“You could make it better, you have endless possibilities to choose from.” He sounded so sure, but of course he was. He had the world in his palm and he could change the course of existence at every moment.

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think that’s true.” 

She steered him to the right to cross the street. They were now out of Diagon Alley, walking through the small inhabited island that separated Muggle London from the commercial area. He rested his arm on her back and respectfully pushed her away from the street, switching their places. She pretended it didn’t affect her.

“You could have had any job after graduation,” she pointed out. 

“I chose the one that I believed would give me more benefits.” 

“Did you choose correctly?”

He smirked. “I did.”

She wanted to ask more but didn’t dare and a comfortable silence fell between them.

She noticed Tom was extremely careful and observant. He tilted the umbrella to the perfect angle to shield her completely and moved to the side every time she needed to sidestep a puddle.

It was the first time she had had the opportunity to be close enough to him. His arm was firm and she could sense his warmth through the layers of his clothes. She thought of how good it would have felt to nestle against him.

It felt like something it wasn’t, an intimate routine, and she soaked in the moment. His body heat, the coarse wool of his coat against her hand, his soft breath, the pumping of her enamoured heart, the swaying movement of their figures as they walked, the raindrops hitting the asphalt.

She wanted to drown in it.

“We are almost there,” she announced, sadly noticing they were nearing her neighbourhood. 

“Do you live alone?” 

She nodded. “I used to have a roommate but then I moved to a smaller apartment. I enjoyed the quiet more.”

“I suppose you don’t have a lot of guests, then.”

“Will comes for lunch sometimes, he’s also alone.”

“And your other friends?” 

She hid her surprise at his question. She didn’t expect him to remember any details about her. 

“I hardly see them nowadays, we kinda lost touch over the years.” There was a soreness that couldn’t quite go away everytime she thought of the companions she drifted away from. No matter how hard she had tried to fight against the currents, there had been an insurmountable wave between them. Everyone said it inevitably happened with age, but no one ever talked about the solitude that it brought with it.

His finger grazed against her wrist, capturing her attention.

“Being alone isn’t always a curse,” he murmured.

“Are you alone?” She couldn’t remember a day when he wasn’t surrounded by his friends or admirers. She had always considered he enjoyed the attention of people hanging from his lips, but perhaps she had judged him wrongly. “Or do you still see your friend sometimes?”

His expression was clever as he answered. “The two things can coexist.”

She looked at him, ardently wishing she could figure him out. It was her torment, never quite managing to step into his field of attraction long enough to decode him, forever relegated to a bystander. Why was he telling her that? Why was he there with her? 

His profound eyes searched for something and the idea of being just as incomprehensible to him made her shiver. 

"Are you cold?" he asked.

She fiddled with the sleeve of her coat. "I'm fine. We are almost there." 

They walked the last few metres to her front door and stopped in front of a set of stairs. 

"Thank you for accompanying me." She didn't mention she could have easily apparated. 

"Don't mention it."

She made to step away from him but he hesitated to let go of her arm, his fingers lingering over her skin. She watched as he raised his hand to her face, tenderly brushing a loose strand away from her face, curling it with his finger. 

"Thank you," she said, her voice breathy.

His hand dropped and he stepped back. She didn't want him to go. 

"Do you want to come in?" 

She only processed what she had said after the words had left her mouth. Was she being improper? It was pouring and he had made her the courtesy of walking her home. The least she could do was to invite him in, it was a display of gracious manners. 

If she was worried he might have misinterpreted, he instead looked unperturbed. 

"I think it is best if I get back. It's getting quite late." 

She didn't show her disappointment. "Of course. Have a good evening." 

He returned her wish and waited until she unlocked her front door before leaving.

Within the cosiness of her home, she spent all night thinking about him. She replayed her whole afternoon while she was sitting in the bathtub, brushing her hair, making dinner. His feathery touch lingered like a phantom hand, the memory of his gaze followed her in everything she did, and, as she laid in bed, the ache of his rejection - that she knew to be insignificant - turned into fear she had ruined everything, a creature threatening to devour her as her mind grew tired and the night grew darker, the ticking of the clock an incessant reminder of everything she could crave but never have.

She looked at the dangling sign, the golden letters carved into dark wood, and entered the shop trying not to look at the stuffed fox by the entrance. 

The interior was just as sinister. She ignored an undoubtedly haunted portrait and passed in front of an array of body parts she was sure had belonged to Frankenstein at one point.

“Those are for the more eccentric customers,” Tom said, coming out of the backroom and spooking her. 

“I’m not going to ask what they need them for,” she replied with a nervous laugh.

He stopped to take something from a shelf and showed it to her. “I think you’ll like this more.” 

It was a wooden cube with a glass surface on the top. Inside there was a simple maze and a small marble. She took it and tilted it to the side, trying to make the ball roll forward. The light reflected on the glass and when she looked again the puzzle was different and the marble was in the opposite angle. She inclined it a few more times and the maze kept shifting repeatedly.

“How am I supposed to finish this?”

“It is designed to create a sequence. You have to understand the pattern to know where the marble will be everytime and move accordingly.”

“If I don’t go mad first.”

Tom pressed his lips in an amused smile as he took the cube back and placed it on a random shelf.

She lost herself in his mesmerising gaze as he drew closer like a shadow. The tension between them was tauter.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said, his voice a smooth whisper.

“I told you I was coming to take a look,” she replied, her lips expertly curling into a sweet smile.

“Is that all?” He stretched his arm to remove a speck of dust on the shelf to her right, enclosing her between his body and a ladder leaning against the bare wall.

She tried to remain poised as she took something out of her purse. “This came for you.”

He took the letter with a frown, turning it in his hands to read who sent it.

“Who writes to you?” She already knew there was no name on the envelope. She wondered how the sender had managed to mail it.

“I’m just as clueless as you are.” He carefully ripped the paper as she stared at him wide-eyed. He read the signature at the bottom of the message and folded it back, putting it in the pocket of his jacket.

Of course he knew, it was obvious she wasn’t able to mind her own business.

“Who do you imagine writing to me?” That captivated gleam lit up his eyes again.

“Malfoy looks like a prolific writer.”

“But Malfoy always signs his letters.” 

“Is there someone in your life that prefers to remain a secret?”

She shuddered as he trailed his fingers down her arm, gently holding her wrist. “Like a secret liaison?” he asked.

She swallowed. “Is there anyone?” There was no turning back after this.

His fingers brushed against hers and she let out a small sigh. She didn’t miss his pleased smirk as he stepped forward, her figure moving back until she rested against the wooden rungs of the ladder. They were standing behind a wall that hid them from any peering eyes, concealed by the shadow’s silhouette.

“Perhaps there is,” he murmured, taking her handbag and setting it down. “Perhaps I should reply to her promptly.” He started to slowly unbutton her coat. She could not take her eyes away from him.

“But the fact is, I am not sure what I should tell her.” He locked his eyes with hers and got down on his knees. Her breath hitched in her throat.

She stared down at him, her stomach knotting as a familiar yearning pervaded her. She had thought of him in that position, she had wanted him like this. Her heart was thundering.

“How do I fit in all of this?”

“Perhaps,” he said, holding her calf to push her foot on the first rung, “you could advise me.” She followed his movements until she was propped on the first step and grabbed the ladder, watching him. 

“You could start by writing what you like about her,” she suggested. He started massaging her ankles, his hands slowly drawing over her nylon tights from her heel straps to her calves.

“I like her beauty,” he replied with ease, tracing his finger over her seam on the back of her leg.

“I wouldn’t start like that.”

“How so?” He looked amused as his hands reached below the hem of her skirt and he brushed his lips over her knee.

“You will never win her over if she thinks you only appreciate her for her beauty.” Her lips parted as he looked up at her, strikingly handsome, and she ran her fingers through his hair, feeling the texture of his curls. They were softer than she had expected.

“What should I tell her, then?”

“Do you see her often?”

“Not as often as I’d like.”

“You could mention the small details of her person that you miss.” He languidly pushed up the fabric of her skirt, exposing her tights. 

“Like what?”

“Like the way she does her hair or how she holds her quill as she writes. Or something that made you think of her.”

“You do like the details,” he muttered, more to himself than her, looking transfixed as he hooked his finger into the band of her stockings, giving her the physical contact she had painfully craved.

“What about her intelligence?”

She nodded and tried to swallow but her throat was parched. “That too. Are you impressed by her?”

“I am. She looks remarkable.”

“Could she rival you?”

He smirked and undid her garter, tugging the nylon partially down. “I’m waiting to find out.” He pressed his lips onto her skin, kissing her bare leg. She brought her head back against the hard rung, letting out a whimper she didn’t want to contain.

His lips were slightly chapped from the cold weather but his breath was warm as he left a trail of open-mouthed kisses all over her scorching skin. Her hand found his hair again, pulling it as sweet breathy sounds came from her lips.

He focused his attention on her other thigh, digging his fingers into her flesh like a starving man and pressing his mouth harder into her skin. 

She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze. There was so much she wanted now. It was urging, impossible to ignore. She was looking down the edge of the precipice, unable to tear the gaze away from the looming danger. Someone was behind her threatening to push her. She was sure it was Tom.

As he kissed the inside of her thigh she felt the need to tug his head further up. He was hers for a moment, one secret moment, surrounded by a still silence that could not betray them.

He grazed his teeth over the sensitive spot and bit softly, hiking up her skirt and her suspender belt with an urgent motion. She gripped his hair tighter, ready to lead him where they clearly both wanted to be. 

She shifted her weight, the wetness between her legs so pressing it was becoming uncomfortable. 

“Tom,” she breathed as his hand gripped her waist and his lips reached right under the crease of her tight.

“Tell me what you desire the most,” he murmured, bending her knee and putting her foot one rung up to gain better access.

You.

She couldn’t tell him that. She would have never told him that, yet she was sure he already knew. Perhaps he had always known, and he had savoured each furtive glance and each stolen detail preparing for this moment. 

The thought was less mortifying than expected.

“Right now I just want-”

The bell chimed, followed by the creaking of the door opening. Tom immediately got up, letting go of her leg and concealing her with his figure until she made herself decent again. Then he scurried to assist the new customer.

She collected herself and pretended to scour the shelves for a while, waiting for the flush on her cheeks to fade and for her heart to slow down. Tom’s eyes met hers as she left, carrying anticipation and a promise.

As her hands dipped between her legs that night, she wondered if he was doing the same. 

Afterwards, questions crowded her restless night. Had he always known what their encounters were going to lead up to or was he just as surprised?

He had been hers for one long burning moment. She yearned to touch him again and she knew he desidered the same, to protract those flames until skin glowed and flesh smoked, until he could squeeze her beating organ. But how long was it going to last until he decided to crush it?

sorry for the cockblocking.

[theboarsbride]

random asf but seeing Hannibal fanart reminded me of my (kind of?) Hannibal fic (and this blog's namesake lmfao) and it's making me think about how I want to turn it into an original book-

[reputationbarbie]

❝on my cloud, i got some space for you.❞

read the rest of the series before this chapter or you’re getting spoilers.

A/N: alright, i listened to the poll. this isn’t edited so ignore any mistakes. please leave feedback in the comments ★ ˙ᵕ˙ liv

Chapter Summary: the sweetest baker is surrounded by love on the anniversary of her parent's passing.

Chapter Warnings: language, alcohol, slight age gap (F!MC and Joel are 6 years apart), symptoms of anxiety and depression, panic attacks, grief, fluff, comfort, lmk if i forgot something.

Series Tags: chef! Joel, single! father Joel, no outbreak! Joel Miller, slow burn, dual-pov, fluff, flirting, friendship, eventually established relationship, eventual smut, original character, black!fem!MC, no y/n.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ series masterlist, joel masterlist ⋆ spotify playlist ˖ ݁ 𖥔.

My throat croaks out a couple of notes as I hum along to the song in my ears on Wednesday. The calming smell of lemons wafts through the room reminding me of my mother. She always used to bake lemon cookies and cakes. Now the smell of sugary citrus envelopes me like a hug. 

I take a break, reaching for my water bottle when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Abandoning my attempts to take a sip, I take out my earbuds.

When I turn around I see Chloe standing behind me, looking past my body at what I’m making. “I'm not trying to be rude but are we rebranding or something? Everything's lemon-flavored,” she points out with her thumb towards the front of the store.

Perspiration instantly begins collecting on top of my skin. “Oh, shit. No, I’m sorry,” I apologize, wiping my hands on my apron. “I don't know why I did that,” I murmur and my eyes drift behind her.

I’ve been in an odd daze all week, unable to focus and even Joel has noticed. I’m pretty sure he told Ellie to take it easy on me this week since she hasn’t been around much. Then again, she has been hanging at the Austin a lot more since the whole Thanksgiving fiasco. I can’t put my finger on it, but he promised he was going to take off and help support me all day today. I wonder if he likes lemon cakes. 

Chloe waves her hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my thoughts. Her brows knit and concern washes over her face. “Are you okay?” she questions.

I nod, stepping past her to wrap up in the kitchen. “Yeah. I don't know what's up with me today. I just feel weird,” I remain vulnerable with her.

Chloe approaches the island I’m standing at, putting her hands on the table and leaning forward. “Ginny, love,” she looks at me as though I should already know what’s going on.

I pick up a sanitization rag and wring it out to begin cleaning the tabletop. “What?” I snip. I hate suspense.

She bites the inside of her cheek, hollowing out her mouth. An awkward silence fills the room and I curse myself for sending the others home so early. “You usually don't work today,” she points out.

I work every day, that’s the perks of owning your own bakery. “What are you talking about? it's just Friday,” I point out when the double doors to the kitchen smack open, letting in a cold gust of air.

Leo stomps in with his arms crossed, wearing black shoes and a matching tie wrapped around his neck. “Why are you working?” he chastizes, as he gets closer.

My once slow movements of cleaning pick up in frustration. I begin furiously scrubbing a stain in the metal that will realistically be there forever. “Why do people keep asking me that?” I groan.

My eyes return to focus on the stain. The fucking stain has to come out. Right now, right now, right now. “Imogen,” Leo sighs kindly. He puts his hands on my waist, pulling me backward from the procrastination. “Let’s go chat, hmm?”

I sigh, passing the cleaning products to Chloe and following Leo into the front of the bakery. He heads straight for my favorite booth, secluded in the back of the bakery towards the widows. 

“You're scaring me,” I divulge, sliding into the Tiffany blue pleather seat. 

Leo’s eyebrow raises before he seemingly realizes his facial expressions, reeling it back in. Men. “Relax. Have you talked to Joel today?” he questions.

“Yeah, this morning. He said to call him if I needed anything today.”

Leo leans forward across the acrylic table. “Ginny, it's December 18th,” he rasps and his words hit me like a truck.

December 18th. The day that my parents were crushed between two trucks on Interstate 290. It was unexpected and their business ties to Europe left me suddenly alone and having to clean up their shit for myself.

It took months to secure an end to it all. Although I wasn’t as close with my dad as I was with my mom, I still miss him just as much.

They say after traumatic events there’s an increase in marriages, divorces, and disappearances. As soon as I got the call, I quit and became fully invested in doing only the shit I wanted to. One of which included opening my bakery. I divorced nursing, disappeared further from the north side, and married baking.

You knew. Of course, you knew. That’s why you’ve been feeling weird all day. My head innately tilts as I stare off into space. 

My spiral of cataloging my every movement to assign guilt to them begins. I should’ve known and now half the day is gone without me honoring my parents. “I’m calling Joel,” Leo’s crip voice snaps me out of my thoughts. 

My head begins to shake. I don’t want to worry him for no reason. I just need to take some time away from the bakery, that is all. “No. It's not that big of a deal. I don't want to bother him,” I plead with Leo to spare the poor single father.

Leo ignores it and pulls out his phone, unlocking the device with the face sensor. “You're not bothering. Poor guy is probably just giving you space and waiting by the phone,” he explains.

Leo’s fingers tap on the tempered glass before he puts the device on the table. I look down, seeing it’s already on speaker and the ringing fills my ears.

Joel answers after two trills, per usual. “Hey. Ginny need me?” he suggests, voice dripping with honey.

I open my mouth to decline but before I do, Leo speaks up, “Yes.” If I weren’t so short I’d reach over the table and smack his head. So instead, I scold him, “Leo!” Why the fuck would he speak for me?

“My bad, Joel. She didn’t know we spoke before I came in. Yes, she does need you. I have a meeting at 1 and I need you to come by. Maybe cook her something,” he requests and the corners of my mouth quirk up in a smile. Despite what I said on the first day of our meeting, I love everything that Joel specifically cooks. 

Leo pauses and her eyes look me up and down judgingly. “She doesn’t look like she’s eaten today,” he adds and I scowl at them both.

This time, I’ve had enough of Leo’s bullshit and I kick him beneath the table. He lets out a groan, shooting daggers in my direction with his eyes. But, skipping breakfast due to anxiety isn’t a cause for concern.

Joel doesn’t skip a beat, immediately answering, “Be there in 10.”

“Thanks, man,” Leo exhales, probably glad to be relieved of his suicide watch duties for the day. Maddie and Leo stayed with me during the emotional rollercoaster of this day last year, and although they’re my best friends, I don’t expect Leo to want more. Especially when I have a partner now.

He clicks the red circle on the screen and I practically collapse on the table between us. “God, Leo. I'm going to kill you,” I groan into the hard material.

“He's your boyfriend. He's supposed to be the one comforting you and not me, right?” he questions and I can’t say I disagree.

“You’re right,” I complain one last time before lifting my head and fixing the mess of curls around my head. “Okay, you can go. I’m just going to change my clothes.”

“Are you sure? I can cancel this meeting,” he placates. No, he shouldn’t. And that’s okay. I don’t want his life to stop just because mine is currently.

I try my hardest to plaster on a fake smile, but it causes me mental anguish. “Positive. I’m going to get comfy so Joel can snuggle the shit out of me,” I tell him my plans. 

He grimaces, probably from my gushy words. His dark brown eyes search my face for any sign of discomfort. Once he’s satisfied, he nods. “Alright, I’ll call later. I’d stop by but you’ll be getting fucked as a distraction,” he smirks, before standing from the table and darting out of the bakery.

My jaw drops in shock. I most certainly won't be screwing my boyfriend on the anniversary of my parent's death. But maybe tomorrow, like early tomorrow. As soon as the clock hits midnight. 

How can I even be horny at a time like this? There’s gotta be some unnatural demon inside of me. I drag my hands down my face, trying to pull myself back into reality before standing from the booth. Walking over to the counter, I lean over to talk to Chloe. There are still patrons in the bakery and I don’t need them hearing about my personal life. “I’m going to retire upstairs. Let me know if you need anything. Joel should be here soon and you can send him up,” I list, quietly.

Chloe nods before taking my hands in hers. “Don’t worry, I got it. This is why I’m your manager,” she eases my anxiety.

I nod, bidding her goodbye before walking towards the back of the bakery. Tears start to collect in my eyes again and I repeat my favorite mantra. No crying in public, Ginny. You just have to get upstairs then you can let it out.

But it doesn’t work.

By the time I’m climbing up the staircase, the tears are already streaming down my face causing an uncomfortable burn on my cheeks. When I reach the top, I slide the barn door open to my living quarters at an alarming rate.

The wood smacks into the door frame and I rush into the space, careful not to let the mewling kittens out behind me. I softly shut the door, watching out for their tails with strained vision.

Okay, you’re alone Ginny. Let it out.

I don’t know what I expected to happen. I couldn’t foresee myself ever falling to my knees and sobbing on the living room floor, but that’s exactly what occurs. My chest becomes tight as I choke on my own spit, babbling niceties about my mother and father.

I don’t know how long I’m crouched on the floor when I hear my living room door slide open. My knees feel sore from the hardened floor beneath me but my tears don’t stop, creating a wet stain on my grey top. “Damn, sugar,” I hear Joel say before he slides the door shut behind him. 

I look up to find him rushing towards me, joining me on the floor. His typically messy hair looks freshly cut and I can tell he's used the start of the day to visit the barbershop. His green flannel shirt is opened nice and low, hugging his biceps deliciously. “Deep breaths. Know it’s hard but you can do it,” he encourages, rubbing warm circles onto my back. 

His words barely register and as I try to get my breathing under control, hiccuping in between breaths. With each uneven breath, I attempt to keep a hold on my digestive system and not let out a sad fart. Or worse, vomit in his lap.

“After Sarah died, I had panic attacks too. Still get ‘em sometimes,” he divulges. 

His hands trail up my spine to the back of my neck. His thumb traces soothing designs into my skin, effectively grounding me. My rocketing heartbeat slowly starts to steady and I allow myself to close my eyes knowing that Joel is here to catch me if I fall. His arms envelop me from behind, pulling my body so I’m sitting in his lap.

He softly caresses my hair and I tune him out as he begins whispering affirmations in my ear. I stare off into space and I jerk slightly in his hold when Joel presses a soft kiss to my neck.

I know where I am, but the last 30 minutes feel like a blur. Disassociation is a bitch.

When I finally feel aware again, Joel is still murmuring into my neck, but this time he’s talking about our future. “We’ll always be here. Me 'n Ellie through whatever,” he promises, pausing to take a breath.

I nod to let him know that I’m actually back this time. He rubs my back and I hear a soft meow coming from the floor. Toph is looking up at me with her green eyes, seemingly afraid. “We’ll have to get a bigger place for the 5 of us,” Joel adds, and I chuckle, scooping the orange kitten into my arms.

“Thank you for coming and just,” I start before gesturing to his body with one hand. “Being you,” I finish before a hiccup roars through my chest.

Joel positions himself more comfortable on the floor so he’s sitting in front of me. “I mean it. Every word,” he emphasizes, pressing a quick kiss to my wet cheeks. I smile at him, grateful for his presence.

Toph paws at my chest, snuggling into my body. Like always, Katara becomes jealous of her sister's attention, and she comes slinking behind the couch up to Joel. She struts up his leg, plopping down in the middle of his lap and shutting her eyes. 

“They’re fuckin’ somethin’ else,” Joel sneers, stroking Katar’s grey fur. I snicker in agreeance, setting Toph down in the sunlight on the floor in demonstration. Joel accepts the permission to remove my cat from his personal space, following suit carefully.

I glance at Joel’s face, admiring the constellation of freckles beneath a layer of dark circles. His hair is pushed back neatly with pomade and god, he looks edible. My heart quickens when I realize, I probably look a mess with makeup running down my face. 

He catches me staring and he licks his lips before asking, “What do you want for lunch?”

My brain mentally catalogs all the groceries Joe’s bought and stocked in my fridge. He figured if he’s going to make every meal, he might as well have what he needs. He insists he’s content with us staying in our respective lanes. After all, he’s just as excited for the dessert surprise at the end of the meal as Ellie is. 

Figuring I can’t be picky since I’m not cooking, I decide to let him choose. “Whatever you want. I’m going to go clean myself up and get changed,” I inform him, frowning at my appearance.

Joel seemingly notices my self-judgment and sits up, pulling my face closer with my hands. “I think you’re gorgeous, sugar,” he compliments before pressing a chaste kiss on my forehead.

My skin tingles from the warmth and I can't help but smile into the sign of affection. However, my insecurity doesn't drown, grabbing my hair and pulling me back from the gorgeous man I call mine. “You’re a liar, but it’s fine,” I murmur, using his shoulders to stabilize myself as I stand.

His strong arms wrap around my body holding me close. “I wudn’t lie to you,” he promises, and I nearly become weak in the knees from that accent.

I hum in reply, deciding it’s my turn to steal a kiss from him. I haven't tasted him in a couple days when I visited him and Ellie, and I’m starting to feel like I'm forgetting a piece of him. My body lowers until we’re at eye level, and the air between us zaps. 

He never fails to make me feel this way. Thunder rumbles in my stomach and lightning strikes low in my abdomen. It’s confusing, but I welcome every second of it.

Joel becomes impatient with my hovering and he brushes our lips together. The kiss is sweet and I smile into it before parting my lips. He swirls his tongue around mine while cradling my body into his. 

We continue for a few moments before I need to come up for air, and I disconnect immediately looking down at his reddened lips. I press one final peck to them before getting up, for real this time.

Joel pats me on the behind as I walk out of the room before he stands himself with a grunt. Toph trails behind me into my bathroom, brushing up against my leg with a purr as I look in the mirror.

My reflection makes me want to start crying again. My throat fills with ache as I try to stuff the oncoming tears out. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only unattractive person I know. 

I push the thought out of my head and for my headband, securing my hair away from my face. After pumping face wash into my hand, I hum while massaging my face. The sticky layer of tear stains rinse down the drain and I feel a sense of relief.

Once my face is clean, I reach for my towel to dry it off when I feel something particularly fuzzy. I open my right eye, peering at the counter to see Toph's tail underneath my hand. “Fuck off, cat. No counters,” I scold my shadow, lifting and setting her on the floor with wet hands.

She wines as her paws hit the floor, and I grab a clean towel from the drawer. Why did I get two cats?

After patting my face dry and discarding the towels in the hamper, I walk out towards the kitchen. As I tip-toe down the hall, I can hear Joel shuffling about. When I round the corner, I lean against the wall with my arms crossed. It’s nice to admire him in moments like this, although he’s bound to look up towards my bathroom any minute.

As if the universe hit the play button on my vision, his eyes snap to mine. “Come,” he waves me over with a welcoming grin.

I stroll over behind him before I snake my arms around his waist. My front presses into his back and I catalog every flex of muscle in his body. His arm begins sliding with precision, perfectly cutting the potato in front of him into thin slices. “Fries?” I question out of curiosity. 

“And a burger your way,” he glances over his shoulder at me before returning to his chopping.

I press myself up on my tiptoes, placing a kiss on his shoulder blade. This man is perfect for me in every way. Caring for me, cooking for me, and giving me countless orgasms. My relationship with Ellie is just the cherry on top. Even if Joel and I ended things, I’d still want to be in her life.

The realization hits me like a truck and without thinking I stammer, “God, I lo–”  before cutting myself out.

My body chills to ice and the oxygen is sucked from my lungs in an instant. Joel pauses his movements and stands frozen in place. I take a step back from him, turning away from him.

I need to do something to distract him from the fact that I almost just said I love you.

I reach for the kettle to set some water on for tea, fumbling about with the top of the lid. “What’d’ya say, sugar?” Joel asks from behind me.

I shake my head, feeling the hole he’s staring in my head. If I confess right now, he might leave me like everyone does. He’ll call me a crazy person and forbid me to see Ellie.

Joel’s warm hand covers mine and I jerk, before peering down. I blink rapidly at the water spilling over the top of the filled pot. “Fuck,” I swear, turning off the water and dumping a bit out of the metal container.

I shake my hand dry before my eyes meet Joel. “You sure you okay?” Joel questions with furrowed brows.

I nod, putting the lid back on the kettle. It’s a mistake, him seeing me like this. All overwhelmed and in disarray. I obviously can’t even string together a cohesive thought.

My hands fiddle around with the stove, pressing buttons until the electric burners turn red. I set the kettle down on top, turning back to face Joel. 

My face turns scarlet when I see he hasn’t moved. He has instead settled into a position with one hand resting on top of the counter and the other on his hip. “I won’t call you a liar. But whatever it is, ’m here when you’re ready,” he offers lowly. 

And as if nothing happens, he moves back to preparing the potatoes. I finally exhale the breath I didn’t know I was holding. Thank god he’s not hell-bent on embarrassing me today.

Deciding to take the glorious out he’s presented me, I slide into the bar seat across from him, ready to watch my favorite pass time: Chef Joel Miller cooking in my kitchen. His brows furrow and his tongue sticks out of the side of his mouth when he’s intensely focused.

A lightbulb goes off in my head and I realize, I haven’t checked up on his Michelin Star journey. “Have 3 stars to your name yet?” I ask as he turns to fill a pot with water.

“Not quite. Heard rumors we’ve already got 2 visits though,” he explains and his voice bounces off the large window in front of him.

I nod and the corners of my mouth turn up. All I want is for those around me to succeed and he’s one step closer to his goal. “That’s great, that’s only one more left. It can’t be long now,” I chirp.

Joel leans on his left leg impatiently and I focus on his back. He inhales a long deep breath and I can tell he’s not as confident. “Yeah,” he grunts.

I brush a stray curl out of my face before observing, “You don’t sound so sure.”

He sighs before turning off the water. “I am. Thought about what you said that day and ’m worried my employee's customer service is being affected by my words, Gin.”

Fuck, he’s never called me Gin before. What I said must’ve been weighing on him. Shit, shit. Code red, Ginny. “Joel, it's fine. You’ve made the changes and the reviewers will see that,” I blabber out.

Joel carries the pot over to the stove. “I know, ’m just stressed and all,” he says while fiddling with the same buttons I was moments ago.

My body begins involuntary twisting and turning in the bar stool. Joel takes notice of the fact that I've used the tea water as a diversion, switching off the kettle as he goes. I snort and shake my head at how well he knows me.

“Wait until you actually get the stars,” I emphasize the horror of his future.

Joel picks out a pink towel from the drawer beneath his waist, quickly whipping his hands off.  “Yeah, I’ll be busy as hell."

“And it’ll be nice to have Ellie back in the bakery more,” I add excitedly.

Joel sighs and shakes his head. “I’ll have to get her into an afterschool program of some kind,” he responds.

My brows knit on my forehead watching him begin to prep the burger patties. “Why?” I ask.

He sets a bottle of seasoning down with a thunk and I know he means business. His deep chestnut eyes connect with my hazel ones and I know I’m no longer talking to my sweet, timid, Joel. I’m interacting with Chef Miller. “Cause you shouldn’t have to be responsible for her,” he grits through his teeth.

My lips purse and I cross my arms, slightly offended that he’d suggest I can’t handle hanging out with Ellie. “I think I can manage,” I theorize.

“I’m serious, Gin,” he argues.

“So am I. Ellie is the closest thing I have to a daughter. We already–” lied to the principal and staff at her school about our relationship. “Erm, she’s already here until close. What’s a few extra hours?” I finish as smoothly as possible, but I’m not sure Joel is buying it by the look on his face.

He raises a brow and his head tilts ever so slightly. “Are you sure?” he asks and I roll my eyes. If he asks again, my answer may be different.

There’s no reason for Ellie to join an afterschool program when she’s already comfortable here. “Positive. You are my boyfriend, Miller,” I conclude, quite finished with this conversation when the aftertaste from my words hit. “Partner,” I correct myself, looking down shyly.

“I love it when you call me that” I hear him say, causing a chuckle to slip from my throat.

We sit in comfortable silence for the remainder of the time Joel spends cooking. He occasionally glances up at me while bustling around the kitchen. Every time we make eye contact, my skin sets ablaze and I have to look away.

It seems childish to look away when your partner catches you staring. But he’s so goddamn sexy, I can’t help it. If I don’t look away, my carnal desires will replace my grief, and I’m not ready for that.

I wonder if Joel ever felt extremely horny and inappropriately happy in his grief. There’s only one way to find out.

I clear my throat, rapidly blinking away the fuzz of my thoughts. “Joel,” I murmur to get his attention.

He looks up from the set of plates, giving me a half smile. “Hmm. You ready to eat, sugar?” he asks, probably assuming I’m rushing him for food.

I don’t move from my spot to not give him the wrong idea. “Yeah but uh,” I start, pausing to pick at my nail polish.  “Can I ask you something?” I question softly.

Joel pops a French fry he dropped on the counter into his mouth. “Anythin',” he utters.

He slides my favorite meal over to me and I just about see stars. It takes everything I have in me to focus on the task at hand and not swallow the burger whole.

“How long did it take you to stop feeling guilty about being happy? You know, after…” I trail off, not wanting to bring up Sarah’s passing so bluntly.

His eyebrows raise and he leans back as if he was physically impacted by my words. Shock etches over his tan face and I immediately pick up a couple of french fries, awkwardly stuffing my mouth full. “Two years and Ellie was the first person I let in. Then you came along shortly after,” he confesses.

I quickly chew my food before gulping harshly. “Oh,” I murmur.

“Oh?” Joel counters with a tilt of his head.

I nod, picking up another fry. “Yeah, it’s not bad. It’s just that I don’t think I have two years,” I think out loud.

My eyes scan the counter for Joel’s signature barbeque sauce, anxious to dip try it with the crispy potatoes. “Be patient, sugar,” he scolds.

Joel seemingly notices my attention is elsewhere and suddenly, a tiny bowl of the brown condiment is set in front of me. I blush and give him a silent thank you with a half smile. “Never been too good at that,” I admit.

Picking up the burger, I examine it to see which side is the best for the first bite. “Oh I know,” I hear Joel say before our eyes connect. He tilts his head with a mischievous smirk on his face that sends fire into my cheeks. 

I shake my head at him before taking a huge bite of the juicy burger. The flavors dance on my taste buds reminding me of summer barbeques. “Mmmm, this is orgasmic,” I compliment my sexy chef.

He swallows his bite before asking, “Changed the seasoning. Taste alright?”

I nod, already ready to inhale the entire meal. “Joel, I didn’t know your burgers could get better. This is amazing,” I express.

“Well, if my toughest critic says it’s good, I’ll trust it,” he jokes and I chuckle.

Delicious food, passionate sex, and god's gift to humanity. I am the luckiest woman on earth.

The door flies open sending my eyes flying open and me jerking into Joel’s stomach. He groans before smoothing my curls with his palm. “It’s just Ellie,” he informs me she’s back from school.

I sigh, cuddling further into his body now that my anxiety has eased. “Hey,” his teenage daughter grunts when she comes into view.  

Ellie begrudgingly kicks her shoes off and drops her backpack to the side. If her body could talk, it would scream. “Bad day at school?” I observe.

She nods, picking up Toph who’s sitting in her spot on the couch. “Mmhm,” she grunts out just like her dad as she takes a seat.

“Well,” I start, tossing her the remote. “I’ll let you pick,” I offer her the once-in-a-lifetime chance.

She snickers, “No, you won’t.” She gives me a pointed look and asks, “What are my options?”

I purse my lips. She’s right, I’m just shitty she knows me so well. “Grey’s or SVU,” I answer.

Ellie nods, extending the remote in her hand to click through the app. Joel begins practically petting me again. “Sugar, you sure? Don’t wanna see you cryin’ no more,” Joel growls lowly as if seeing me cry and him not being able to control it pissed him off.

I can understand if he needs control over something, but today isn’t that day. “Positive,” I reassure him.

He nods, before placing his hand under my head and gently lifting it. “Sorry, sugar,” he grunts as he stands.

He turns towards the L-shaped couch with his hand on his hip, accentuating his slender waist and I practically start drooling. “What do you two want for dinner?” he questions, looking back and forth between us.

I prop my head up in my hand and look at Ellie who looks particularly glum. She’s curled into the couch, holding Toph like the animal is her lifeline. I sigh, feeling the urge to punch someone for hurting my baby creep into my veins again. “El, you can pick. I already had my favorite for lunch,” I urge her.

“Grilled cheese and tomato soup,” she requests, not even looking up at her father.

Joel clears his throat and raises his eyebrow. Ellie looks up and her eyes dart back and forth between me and Joel. I raise my eyebrow at her because she should know what he’s looking for.

It only takes Elle a few seconds when she gets it. “Please?” she adds, looking at Joel for confirmation.

He nods and walks off to the kitchen, away from earshot. I look over at Ellie whos depressed body language hasn’t changed. My hand pats the couch next to me. “Why are you so far away? We both know this is the best TV-watching spot,” I invite her over.

When she comes over, she’s usually right next to me giving me all the school gossip. But maybe it’s because Joel is here. She slides over, sinking into the cushion. “What’s up, El? You look all…” my voice trails off and I mimic her body language.

She huffs and rolls her eyes. “Dina,” she answers.

“Okay, what about Dina?” I ask. Fuck, teenagers are hard. I wish they’d just tell you the problem the easy way.

Ellie’s head snaps in my direction. “She has a crush,” she snips.

My eyebrows raise and I tilt my head. “And I’m guessing by your body language and your fucking tone,  you’re not her crush,” I lightly correct her.

She looks behind me and I assume she’s checking to see if Joel is still making us food. “No,” she states and her entire body shrivels. The rejection washes over her face and I want nothing more than to hug her.

My respect for her boundaries overrides my need for comfort. “Who does she have a crush on?” I counter.

Ellie gnaws on her lip for a moment like she’s reluctant to tell me. I understand, after all, Dina is working downstairs for me right now. “Jesse,” she tells me.

I rapidly blink, stunned by the news. “Jesse, delivery boy, Jesse?”

Ellie nods and my mouth forms an ‘o’ in response. I nod, understanding the gravity of this queer love triangle. Her shoulder hunch over even more and I decide it’s time to cheer her up with some words of encouragement.

“You know when I was a teenager, I had a crush on a girl who was dating our guy friend,” I divulge some of my past. Although she doesn’t know it involves Madi and Leo, she doesn’t need to know that to get the point.

“Really?” Ellie asks dumbfounded.

 I answer tight-lipped with a nod, “Mmmhm.”

“What happened?”

“I let it play out between the two of them. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” I tell her.

Ellie’s face scrunches and she looks weary of taking my advice. “Look, you don’t know if Dina likes you back right?”

Ellie shakes her head no. “Right, so don’t mess with the universe. If you’re meant to be, you’ll be. You never know, maybe a girl will come into the high school and shock the shit out of you,” I theorize.

Ellie rolls her eyes and scoffs, “I doubt that.”

“Keep your options open, El. Until you put a ring on someone’s finger,” I advise her. She’s a hot commodity and I’m going to tell her that every time she needs reminding. 

Joel’s head comes into view as he bends down to press a kiss on top of Ellie’s head. She lets out a blech noise, shrugging as far away from him as possible.

I laugh at the interaction while Joel simply shakes his head. “Dinner’s ready,” he alerts us.

When I peer over my shoulder, I see a delicious spread laid out. As always, Joel has beautifully plated 2 servings of grilled cheese and tomato soup. “Ooh, that looks good,” Ellie compliments her dad, setting Toph down and shooting up from the couch.

She darts into the breakfast nook, diving for the sandwich first. Her head tips back and she groans with satisfaction. “Good?” I slightly shout from the couch.

She nods her head, already moving on to try the soup. Joel chuckles and extends his hand to me. He knows I typically climb over the back of the couch and ever since my foot got caught on the couch that one time, he’s insistent on helping me over.

“Thank you,” I purr lowly, leaning in to press a quick kiss on his lips. 

When I lick my lips, I taste savory remnants of tomato from him tasting the soup. I blink rapidly at him stunned, feeling a similar wave of emotion as earlier. My butterflies erupt in my chest and my heart skips a beat, stumbling over the current.

Yup, that's definitely love.

I love Joel Miller and everything that comes with him. I love his deep raspy morning voice and the way his nostrils flare when he can’t quite get a recipe right. I love his southern twang and the furrow in his brows when he’s angry. 

The type of love I feel for him possesses every fiber in my body and takes over my brain. It wraps around my nervous system, acting on its own. It takes away all control I have and I don’t mind at all.

I adore Ellie and consider her to be one of my daughters. We’ve become so close these past few months and I can’t imagine a day without them in my routine. They’re the only two people I can stand around me all the time.

Joel clears his throat, bringing me back to the present. Reality smacks me like a truck and I blush. “You alright there, sugar?” Joel questions, voice laced with concern.

The corners of my mouth curve into a smile. “Yeah, I genuinely don’t know what just happened. I look at you and my mind goes blank. I think I'm going nuts,” I chuckle, slightly lying. 

When I look at him, my eyes turn into hearts and pop out of my head with my tongue rolled out like the red carpet. When our eyes connect, he makes me feel like I’m the only person he’s ever been interested in romantically. Which can’t be possible considering Sarah came from somewhere.

We join Ellie and the kittens playing by her feet at the breakfast nook and a comfortable silence falls over the table. My mother always said you know the food is good when it’s silent, and we’re not much for dinner conversations around here.

Joel reaches forward and pours me a glass of wine before pouring himself some. “Guess you two are staying the night?” I ask, pointing out that whenever Joel drinks with me, they usually end up crashing.

Joel raises his eyebrows as if he’s daring me to contest, taking a sip of his wine. “If that’s okay with you?” he questions, probably trying to hide the fact that he’s not going to leave me alone tonight.

I pick up my spoon, dipping it into the soup. “It is, but I was thinking I’d come to yours tonight. El has school in the morning,” I attempt to compromise.

Ellie rolls her eyes and groans, “That sucks, my bed here is more comfortable.”

Joel begins prepping to eat and I’ve never seen someone be so meticulous about such a thing. He lays a cloth napkin into his nap and I raise my eyebrow, wondering what hell of a closet he dug those out of. 

“It’s not your bed, Ellie. We don’t live here,” Joel corrects her and I shovel the soup in my mouth. It’s the perfect amount of savory and sweet. 

Joel picks up the sandwich and takes a bite, nodding at the taste. While his mouth is full, I decide to insert a suggestion, “No, but El, next time you’re here, you should bring some clothes just in case. That way you don’t have to wear my clothes whenever you want to stay over.”

Ellie responds without skipping a beat, “Sounds good.” 

I turn my attention back to my meal and my mind mentally drifts off. Christmas is soon so maybe I can tell him then. I don’t want to trauma bond with him right now and Christmas is a happy time. “I cleared a drawer out for you already,” Joel announces and I nearly choke on my sandwich.

“You what?” I blurt, my mind swirling with information.

In my peripheral, I see Ellie’s head going back and forth between me and Joel. “That too much? I’ll fill it back up. ‘s just some of my long sleeves,” he stammers.

“No!” I shout a bit too loudly, my body becoming hot when I realize the gravity of my tone. “I mean no, the drawer isn’t too much. I think it’d be too much if I moved in right now,” I add.

Joel nods, content with my answer, returning to his meal. “When you two move in together, can we move here?” Ellie asks, refusing to read the weight of awkwardness in the room.

Joel clears his throat and he straightens his posture a bit. Sensing his uncomfortability, I step in to talk for the both of us, “We haven’t talked about that yet, El. But when it comes to it, I’d be happy to have you here.”

“Yay!” Ellie celebrates and I take a bite of my grilled cheese. It has the perfect amount of pull and my eyes are probably sparkling with admiration for Joel at the moment.

I chew and swallow before adding, “We’ll have to move eventually though. We need a house that we’ve all picked.” I would never sign a dotted line on a new place without Ellie and Joel’s approval at this stage in our relationship. I think we’ll be together for a long time, so I want to be considerate.

Ellie perks up again, “Really?”

I nod, glancing at Joel who has completely stopped eating at this point. “Mmhm, by then you’ll be 18 and you can have this place,” I continue my conversation with Ellie, knowing he’ll holler at any time he feels I’m overstepping.

Joel’s jaw clenches as I fight a snort, assuming he’s started stewing. “The bakery?” she asks, voice laced with confusion.

I set my spoon down and give her a knowing look. “No, El. Do you like baking?” I quip.

She shrugs, dipping her sandwich into her bowl. “Eh, it’s not my calling,” she admits before taking a bite.

“Exactly. I was talking about the apartment. You can have it when we eventually move out,” I foretell, motioning between me and her father with my hand.

“Gin,” Joel pulls my attention to him. When I glance down, his hands are balled tight into a fist, one wrapped tightly around a stainless stem spoon.

If he squeezes any more, he’ll bend my cuterly. And it’s completely unnecessary. “Joel, I’m not letting your child pay $1,000 in rent when we’ll have at least one empty apartment that’s completely paid off. Try again,” I dare him to argue.

Joel sighs but his body stays wound up. “She’s gonna be spoiled.”

I whip my head in Ellie's direction. “I don’t think you’re spoiled, are you, El?”

“Not in the slightest,” Ellie says through a shit-eating grin.

My head whips back toward Joel who isn’t the slightest bit amused by our display. “See, she gets the apartment, we get a new house,” I pause waiting for his face to change. When it remains stone cold, I add my secret tactic by purring, “alone,” into his ear. 

When I straighten my back, his eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his head. Anticipation flickers in his eyes and I know I’ve hooked him to the idea.

Joel’s body slowly starts to relax, but Ellie puts the cherry on top. “And everyone’s happy. Maybe Dina would move in with me. Holy shit this is gonna be awesome,” she practically bounces, and the wood beneath her creaks.

“Slow your roll, kiddo. You’ve still got 4 years,” Joel warns and I kick him lightly under the table for taking the excitement out of everything. I want her to keep a hopeful possibility of romance with Dina and he’s ruining it.

Ellie opens her mouth but I step in before the pair can start arguing. “Speaking of totally awesome, what do you want for Christmas, El?” 

“I’m getting something for Christmas?” asks dumbfoundedly. 

“Umm, yeah. Why wouldn’t you be?”

Ellie shrugs and a rain cloud of trauma drifts in over her head. I watch as the sorrow rain falls on top of her head and my heart drops to my ass.  “I don’t know. Guess I’m just not used to it.”

I bite my lip, trying to keep it together for her. No child should have to go a December without a gift. I try my best to plaster on a fake smile to perk her up. “Well, I already have most of your gifts but I thought I’d ask you,” I tell her.

As if on command, the cloud of depressing memories is swapped for a blazing sun. “Really?” she gleans.

“Really. I love Christmas. It’s the busiest holiday for the bakery though.” I mentally curse the upcoming bustle, taking a sip of my wine.

Ellie chomps the last of her sandwich down, chewing slowly like she’s in deep thought. A sparkle comes over her eyes when it looks like she’s finally got it. “Well, some new paintbrush sets would be nice. I saw some watercolors on Instagram that are cool,” she hints.

“Send them to me,” I request.

“Okay,” she smiles, reaching into her back pocket to pull out her phone.

I smile at my hunky boyfriend, ready to point out the receipts of Ellie’s personality traits. “See, Joel. That is not a spoiled child. Madi would’ve asked for a Gucci bag and a stamp on her passport when we were younger.”

Ellie’s head perks up from her phone. “Wait, that’s an option?” she clarifies sarcastically. 

“No,” Joel barks at the same time as I offer, “Ask Madi.” 

Joel frowns in my direction and I quickly add, “We don’t have that type of money but Madi does and she’s always ready to spend it on someone. If you want something really expensive, she’s the one to ask.”

Joel's elbows come down on the table quite hard and he puts his head in his hands. “Gin,” he groans.

“What? Madi’s like her aunt or whatever now. She’s obligated by girl code to help her out,” I inform him, picking up my spoon. At this point, the utensil is useless. The food’s so good, I’m ready to drink the rest of the bowl down.

“Spoilin’ her ain’t helpin’,” he scolds me.

I blow the steaming liquid in front of my face. “No, but Ellie knows the value of money to know the difference between dinner at the estate versus dinner at the breakfast nook,” I say before taking a bite.

“Yeah, this sucks,” Ellie sarcastically grumbles, before picking up the soup and slurping the last bit of it.

I snicker, dipping the last of my sandwich into the soup. I never thought I could be this content after my parents passed but here I am, enjoying the anniversary of their death with my two favorite people.

I peer under the table at the sleeping cats and smile. I need to focus on the two people that I have a future with and a life with, not the two who are long gone. It’s what my mother would want for me, anyway. The girl that hooked me onto the man that I love. Fuck. I’ve got to find a better time to tell him.

[megatraven]

Silent Night

Pairing: Arin x FMC Summary: Arin needs her; they always do. A/N: This is not a christmas fic.

Posted after sitting on it for months because @arinlangdon told me to vuv <3

_

Their hands are shaking.

Not from the cold, though it certainly is chilly out, but from the pressures they face, the anxiety tying their stomach into knots, the same as the tangled roots of a tree. It’s a little bizarre, and they would laugh if they could- but it aches too much. They’re not ready for the full responsibility of being Guardian, with no one to guide them.

They can’t do this alone, they can’t-

Warm hands envelope theirs, squeezing tight so there’s no room left for them to shake.

“Arin,” she says, reaching out to them beyond the fog that fills their mind. They blink a few times, and her image solidifies in front of them. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“...We’re okay,” they repeat, though it sounds too empty, even to them. And that makes them feel guilty, that they can’t even pull themself together long enough to be strong in front of the others- in front of her. They avert their eyes, but only for a moment when she reaches up and cups their face in one hand.

“We are. Or, we will be.” She smiles, and it brings a spark of warmth back to them, chasing away some of the numbness they feel. “I promise.”

They nod, trying to speak, though the words get stuck in their throat, too thick and painful to let out just then. They swallow the words down instead, opting to be quiet.

She’s quiet, too, but they can tell she’s holding her tongue, biting down on what she wants to say. It’s different than them- she’s bold, and so sure of herself, even without her full memory. When they don’t know what to say, she always knows exactly how to make the best of a poor situation. It’s one of the many reasons they love her, and it inspires them to try.

“I... can’t do this alone,” they admit, closing their eyes, all energy seemingly drained right from them. Their voice breaks, “I- I can’t.”

“You don’t have to, Arin.” She leans into them, radiating comfort and security, the same way she always has. “You have all of us- my brother, our friends. You have me.”

They appreciate all of them, of course. But there’s only one that makes them feel any better.

“Don’t leave me.” They turn their face into her hand, kissing her palm. “Not yet.”

She shakes her head, her hair ticking them. The ring on her finger- the one still holding their hands, that matches the ring they now wear- matches their own.

“I won’t. You have me as long as you need me.”

That earns a watery laugh.

“I’ll always need you.”

“Me, too,” she murmurs, raising herself up enough to kiss them on the cheek. “Like the Earth needs the moon.”

“And which am I?”

She smiles.

“You already know.”

[ladylamrian]

Female Main Character: Alex (F!MC)

Pairing: F!MC×NikRyder

Summary: Nik prepared a surprise for Alex.

Word Count: 3.3K words

Rating: General (Fluff, Romance)

Warnings: none

Author's note: Inspired by this F!MC×Nik art commissioned by the sweet @stars-are-within-me and made by @artbyalz

-> My complete Nightbound Masterlist <-

Taglist: @infactnoimmasitinthemiddle ; @peonierose ; @secretaryunpaid ; @jdstar88 ; @blackcatkita ; @lilyoffandoms ; @liviusofpella ; @mxdanni ; @mariemarieohcontrary ; @tessa-liam ; @choicesficwriterscreations ; @hopelessromantic1352 ; @rosepetals1 ; @dutifullynuttywitch ; @choicesficwriterscreations ; @choicesmonthlychallenge (March Challenge Prompts: Wildflowers, Nature) & @choicesaprilchallenge24 [April Prompts: Wildflowers, Nature, "You know, I may be a terrible dancer, but I've got great moves in bed." ; "You must be tired because you've been running through my mind all day." & "I'm not great at math, but we're a perfect match." ]

Comments via Reblog wholeheartedly welcome

"Nik, I'm back home!!!", Alex, his girlfriend announced in the evening as she entered the apartment which she was sharing with her boyfriend, Nik Ryder. Nik was delighted to see her.

He moved closer to her and wrapped his arms around her to greet her.

"I hope you had a good day, rook. I've been thinking of you all day."

"Really? I'm just tired."

"No wonder you must be tired, you've been running through my mind all day. Do you want to lie down and relax? Or would you like me to make you some tea?", he chuckled.

"No, I'm fine.", she whispered without meeting his eyes.

"Everything all right? Did something happen?"

"No, nothing."

"Come on now, don't lie to me, rook. I know when something's not right. Tell me.", he requested while trying to make eye contact with her.

"Nik, we don't spend much time together anymore which is sad."

"I know, baby, but you've got to understand that both of us have big responsibilities at work. While I protect the city at night, you're handling Lamrian at day. But don't you worry, that's gonna change someday and we'll have all the time we want again like before.", he wasn't sure but still tried to assure his girlfriend.

"Thanks, I hope so too."

Nik kissed her again, more passionately, and caressed her cheek before answering.

"I love you, Alex.", he whispered. While holding her by the hand, he walked inside the living room with his girl, hugging her from time to time.

"Hey rook, are you hungry? I made pasta for dinner."

"Yummy, pasta!!!"

He smiled widely at her cute reaction.

"I know you love pasta. Wait here, let me go prepare everything."

After some time preparing dinner and setting the table, both were seated at the table. Nik served her some pasta, then he served himself. Both silently ate until she spoke.

"You know what day tomorrow will be?", she asked.

"Tomorrow's Friday. Why are you asking?"

"I know it's Friday, but it's a special day."

"What day are you referring to, baby?", he asked her while looking a little puzzleed.

"Think!!"

After a moment of silence, he realized what she was referring to and he smiled gently.

"Of course, tomorrow is your birthday!! You're turning 26. I can't believe it's already been one whole year, rook."

"You remembered my birthday!!"

"Of course, I remembered!! But thanks for reminding me again, I was thinking about it this morning and the past few days. Can't believe it just slipped so easily out of my mind. So yeah, I haven't forgotten your birthday, babe. I love you and it is a special day for you!! I have something prepared for tomorrow, just wait and see, Alex."

"But you still forgot something. Nik, tomorrow isn't only my birthday, but also our very first anniversary. I met you one year ago for the very first time. We may not have been dating at that time then, but don't you think we should celebrate that too?"

"Damn, I forgot about that?! Now, I feel terrible for forgetting the date of our celebration. Sorry, forgive me. I'll make it up to you, I swear. Tomorrow there will be two parties in one!!", he laughed a little, but still felt terrible about forgetting their very first and special day.

Alex was now silent and continued finishing her pasta. But there was something about her silence that bothered him. The past few days were rough for him and decided to confess something.

"Rook, I'm really happy with you and I feel really lucky. I'm not great at math, but we're a perfect match. You're my soulmate. But we haven't been spending so much time together anymore and it's starting to worry me too. I hope you didn't think that I wouldn't notice, but you always looked so busy and tired and there are times when, to be honest, it feels like... like... I'm a bother. Am I imagining this, or do you...?", Nik looked very upset while confessing.

"Oh Nik, you're never a bother. I love you. You're my heart, my soul, my everything."

"Are you serious, rook?"

"Yes, baby."

He sighed in relief before answering back.

"Damn, I was starting to overthink things. It's just that when I see you tired and overworked... I just wanted to make sure you didn't feel pressured by me. Because if that was the case, my love, it would break my heart."

"Oh, I'm so sorry you thought like this. It's not because of you. I'm soooo sorry to make you feel that way. Please forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, my love. You mean a lot to me and I'm sorry if I've been annoying to you. You know that you're important to me, I just wanted to clarify that with you. But now everything's fine, you don't have to worry anymore. Now let's just focus on having a great anniversary tomorrow... Okay?", he gently whispered in her ear while caressing her cheek.

"You're not annoying, Nik."

"Thank you, babe. I love you, Alex.", he confessed then planted a quick but gentle kiss on her cheek.

"So, are we good now?"

"Of course, we're good now, my love. There's nothing more in the world I want than to see you smile."

"Thanks, Nik. You're the best."

He smiled, took her hand and pulled her gently to his chest.

"No, you're the best, my dear. You're beautiful inside and out. I'm so lucky to have you in my life. I love you so much."

"Love you too!"

He pulled her even closer to his chest and kissed her hair.

"I'll make sure you have the best day tomorrow."

I feel so lucky with you, Nik.", she confessed which made him smile even more while he caressed her cheek.

"I can say the same for you, Alex, but it's not a thing of luck, it's meant to be. As I said, you are my soulmate, my dream woman, my partner and the love of my life. You're the reason why I get up every day with so much motivation to face the world. Don't ever forget how much you mean to me, okay?", he pulled her to him again and kissed the top of her head, very lovingly. Then he spoke again.

"It's getting late, tomorrow we have a big day, and we need to get some rest. What do you say?"

"I agree! I can't wait for tomorrow."

He let her go and both headed toward their bedroom to sleep. Nik was very excited, he had prepared a surprise party for her. Will he be able to sleep tonight at all with his excitement? Both were looking forward happily for the next day.

Nik just put the final touches on everything. His planned surprise for his girlfriend must go perfectly. He requested her to come earlier today from Lamrian so they could celebrate together. A knock on the door made his heart beat faster. He ran to the door and opened it, revealing the love of her life who looked more beautiful than ever. A big smile appeared on her face. He was stunned by her beauty. Speechless he couldn't take his eyes off her. Both stepped closer to each other with a tender look in their eyes. While Nik Ryder was wearing a suit, Alex wore an elegant dress with matching high heels.

"Nik...", she suddenly stumbled as she entered, but Nik quickly grabbed her to prevent her from falling.

"Are you all right, darling?", he anxiously asked.

"Yes. Hello, Nik!!", she smiled.

"You look amazing, I like that outfit on you. I can't believe you decided to wear the maroon-colored dress with the golden body chain that I once bought for you. My Maroon Majesty."

"Of course. Thanks!! Nik, you have great taste and I love this dress. By the way, you look very handsome, Nik.", she sweetly giggled.

"Ah thanks, I know I am. But I'm a bit nervous, I want to make this day perfect for you. The truth is that I was dying to see you. Hope you like what I've planned, my rook."

Then Nik leaned forward and kissed her. He caressed her cheeks and pulled her even closer to him. His eyes met hers while whispering in a low tone in the ear.

"I've been waiting all day for this moment. You must be tired because you've been running through my mind all day.", he chuckled then.

"I'm glad to hear it, that makes me happy.", she giggled then too.

Like a true gentleman, the boyfriend helped his girlfriend take off her coat and took her hand to go sit down.

"Please, come on, let's have a wonderful dinner."

Taking her hand in his, they walked to the dining table. Nik seated her by pulling her chair, then he sat down on another chair in front of her. The candles illuminated him and made him look even more handsome. There was a romantic atmosphere and as the two of them gazed at each other, he squeezed her hand tenderly.

The young man hesitated before he continued.

"I know we've been dating for a year now and we've been doing great but... I wanted to tell you something that's been in my head for quite a while and I can't keep it secret..."

"What? What it is?", she suddenly became surprised about the sudden turn. She worried, held her breath and waited for him to continue. He looked very serious at her.

"The truth is that I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want to know what you think about the idea... I want to know what you think, do you think you'd ever want to marry me?"

"What??!!! But you never wanted to marry, Nik."

"Look dear, I know I told you from the beginning that I wasn't interested in marriage. It's true, but with time some things have changed. I'm surprised by myself too, but... When you find the right person, you change, and in my case... I've found you.", he confessed, gently took her hand and kissed it sweetly which made Alex's heart almost melt.

"Oh, Nik... Am I dreaming or are you saying this?"

"Well, you pushed the wall with the bricks I've built. You just couldn't stay on your goddamn side cuz you're are too stubborn, dear. So I want to marry you someday. Not now, but someday. I want you to be mine and only mine. I get jealous when other people try to flirt or even try to impress you. I want you to be mine only and I only your's. I want you to be my wife one day. But... Not now."

"And what about children?", she teased.

"Uhhh, well. I... Alex, I... I thought..."

"Nik, don't worry. I was just teasing. You've made me already so happy with the marriage confession, dear. Thanks for making this day even more special than before. That's great news and I will patiently wait for the day or night when you will finally propose to me because now I have hope."

"Unless I change my mind."

"No!!! Don't you dare, future husband!!", she warned him which made him laugh.

But let's go ahead and eat.", he suggested, serving her meal first, then himself. Both started eating, looking at you with a satisfied smile and with eyes full of love.

After dinner, it was time for a sweet dessert.

Nik took her hand and led her to a big table decorated with a romantic cake, candles and flowers surrounding it. He gently cut a piece and fed her.

"Mmmhhh, yummy. I feel like I'm in heaven. So creamy.

"Glad you like it."

"Nik, sid Cal help you with the cake?", she raised her eyebrow while staring at him.

"How... How did you know? I mean, I... Yes... Yes, you caught me, rook. Wolf guy helped me with the cake, but I swear I did the rest all by myself.", he panicked which made her just giggle.

"Well, Cal gave a lot of treats so my pretty brain immediately sensed that it was one of his excellent creations. Mmmmh, the buttercream.", she swooned a little.

"Yeah, Cal is great at baking and all. I get it, I get it. Now let's just focus on both of us, okay.", he rolled his eyes. He just wanted to turn their day into something special and only about them.  But Nik was still thankful for Cal's help. He definitely wouldn't have arranged a cake on such short notice since he was already busy with other preparations. Maybe next time he'll order earlier, directly from a cake shop.

After each ate a piece of cake, it was time for the next surprise.

Nik led Alex into their bedroom which was beautifully decorated. She was stunned by the view. It's a room with their bed covered by a romantic canopy and many candles around it. The ceiling had red heart-shaped balloons attached to it and there were red roses spread everywhere. He pulled her into his arms and watched her with tenderness.

"Just for you dear, I have prepared everything.", he whispered and planted a quick kiss on her cheek.

"Nik, this is so romantic. Roses are my favorite flowers. And rose petals on the bed? Wow, so gorgeous!!! Thank you, my sweetheart!!!!"

"Now, shall we spend a little time here alone, my love? After dessert, we could burn some calories together on bed.", he winked.

"I love your playful side, my love."

He took her by the hand and led her towards their double bed. Gently pushing her playfully back, he let her sit on the bed.

"Oh, before I forget... I bought a gift for you."

He opened a gift box for her, revealing a beautifully, bejeweled necklace.

"This is for you, honey. I hope you like it."

"Eeeek, this is so pretty!!! So sparkly!! Thanks, but it looks too expensive."

"Expensive? For the future Duchess of Lamrian?? Hey, you have to accept. I bought it for you only. Don't look at the price but at my love."

"But Nik, I..."

"Rook, please."

"Nik..."

"Look, the price was nothing for me. Remember the six figures I got from protecting you? The million dollars? It was only because of you, that's why I decided to spend them all on you and your happiness. They're yours. It's our money, baby. You're worth it."

"I see, but still."

"Seriously? You know, you're the most stubborn person I have ever met.", he was about to lose his patience.

"Okay, okay, I accept. Sorry, I was just... It's so pretty. So sweet of you, Nik. I suggest that we should invest or save the money for our future. But for now, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Nik. Thanks, but I sadly have no gift for you right now."

Nik shook his head as he caressed her neck and pulled her close.

"You don't need to give me a gift, because seeing you happy and beeimg with me is my best gift. But just so you know, I'm not done yet with the surprises. You know, I may be a terrible dancer, but I've got great moves in bed.", he winked.

"Oh..."

Later, after a passionate moment in their bedroom, it was time for the last surprise. He lead her outside. Tonight was a beautiful night, the moonlight created the perfect atmosphere for some romance.

He looked her straight in the eyes, holding her hand.

"We're going to a special place, so you gotta close your eyes for a sec?"

Nik waited for her reaction with anticipation, hoping she would trust him and agree to close her eyes. He couldn't contain his happiness and satisfaction by getting her to agree to close the eyes. With closed eyes, she waited for the next step.

"Okay, great! Now hold my hand and just keep walking, keep your eyes closed but don't open them at all until I tell you okay? And most importantly since I know you very well... Don't even peak!!"

"Okay, fine. I won't open my eyes till you allow me, I promise."

He led her a little further and she could feel a gentle breeze on her face. After a few minutes, he suddenly stopped. The sound of birds and a stream of water running were to hear. Alex waited a few seconds, Nik caressed her cheek a little and after a while, he finally told her to open her eyes. A romantic and very beautiful spot in the middle of the forest. A quiet place, with a waterfall running over the stones and making a sound that gave an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity. The moonlight illuminated the water and reflected its light. Colorful wildflowers everywhere. The entire place was filled with flowers. The aroma in the air was divine. A very romantic atmosphere perfect for two loving people. On the fresh grass, Alex discovered a blanket.

"We're in the bayou, Nik. Your favorite place on this planet and where we shared our first kiss.", she recognized.

He leaned forward, kissed her softly on the lips, and then whispered.

"That's right, rook. Where we both kissed for the first time. Happy Birthday to you and a very Happy Anniversary to us."

Later, Alex decided to give her boyfriend a gift too since he worked so hard to make her happy and their day memorable. A little gift for her beloved Nik. Sadly she hadn't bought anything for him and shops were already closed, so she decided to quickly slip into their bedroom and then return to him. Nik was patiently waiting for her in the bayou, not aware of her plan. She finally returned to him with her loyal violin in her hand.

"Should I play for you?"

It caught him by surprise at how unexpected it was. Then he glanced at her face, a look that let her understand how much he liked the idea.

"Yeah, I would love to hear you play."

Nik sat Alex on a large rock near the small river and leaned on the rock himself next to her, with curiosity and expectation in his eyes. He watched her with tender affection, waiting.

The way Alex played her instrument touched a deep cord in him as if he seemed to be transported in his world by the melody. Even though she played a romantic song, she noticed that the rhythm was more slow and melancholy now. He looked at her with adoration and admiration, enjoying her music fully. Until finally, he whispered.

"You're the most beautiful woman on earth and I love you."