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peachdues · 5 months

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COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

#demon slayer #sanemi shinazugawa #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #kny x reader #kny fanfic #kny sanemi #sanemi x reader #kny fic #demon slayer fanfic #demon slayer smut #kny smut #shinazugawa sanemi #sanemi x you #sanemi smut #demon slayer sanemi #kimetsu no yaiba sanemi #sanemi x y/n

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hargreeves-duncan · 1 month

Note

Can I request five x reader (takes place in s2) where reader (five’s partner) gets sent to Dallas around a year before five comes and after he does and reader sees him, she immediately tackles him on the spot and gives him many kisses. Maybe reader manages to work at a casino too

a/n: hi, thank you so much for your request! i haven’t written in a while so i'd love to hear your thoughts, enjoy!!

summary: it's been far too long since you've seen your boyfriend - he learns that the affectionate way.

warnings: reader works at a casino but there’s no actual gambling so🤷‍♀️

word count: 1.4k

You had to hand it to yourself, for someone who’d known next to nothing about life in the 1960s, you’d adapted pretty well. In no time at all, you’d managed to land yourself a job as a waitress in a casino. A very good one. It seemed in this timeline, Jack Ruby thought a casino would be a better investment than a night club - and for your part, you couldn’t say that he was wrong, nor could you complain.

The hours were long, but the pay was good enough and the other girls had taken you in as one of their own. You quickly began to excel. Strolling between the tables and flashing smiles was easy, second nature even. You developed the wit and charisma to charm the casino’s patrons without second thought, which meant you got more drinks served, more loyal customers and bigger tips to go along with them.

Most nights the new life you’d built for yourself was more than enough but sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t help but yearn for what had come before - who had come before.

There was always a dull ache in your chest whenever you caught a fleeting glimpse of a lone, brown-haired man at one of the tables. In those moments, you could never stop yourself from believing for a slither of a second that Five had made it and he’d come right back to you.

You’d waited for him in that dingy, old alley for two weeks straight, because you knew that Five would never abandon his family like that. That something must’ve gone wrong, but it was okay because he’d come back and everything would be fine. That was what you told yourself. You were so sure he’d show up and solve everything in an instant, because that was what he always did. And when he hadn’t, it had almost destroyed you.

The first few months were gruelling, taking your first steps in the new world had taken a while. Grieving Five had taken longer. The obvious truth was staring you in the face. A year without contact from him or any of the other Hargreeves siblings? The probability was that you were the only one who had survived.

It was a truth that you were reluctant to admit, even now. One that led you to where you are today, starting yet another night shift, beside the casino’s bar, to serve a particularly rowdy Friday night crowd of patrons.

As you begin to set up, Mary-Anne, one of the other waitresses on shift, sidles up to you. Her honey-blonde curls bouncing around her ears as she leans against the bar. Trying to stifle her laugh, in her southern drawl, she says, “Has he tried talking to you yet?”

You raise an eyebrow at her, tilting your head to the side, “Has who tried talking to me yet?”

Her grin grows wider as she gestures to a table on the far corner of the room, laughing, “That little boy. Haven’t I said a million times that we oughta get tighter on the security in this place?”

She sighs, resting her hands on her hips, “I went over to him - trying to tell him that we don’t allow minors in here - and what’d he do?”

Deciding to humour her, you smile, looking down at her, “I’ve got no idea, tell me.”

She scoffs, shaking her head as she smiles, “He told me that he more than knew his way around place a place like this and that I had nothing to worry about with him. Can you imagine having the nerve like that at his age?”

The thought made you laugh. It reminded you of Five. His haggard temper in the body of his younger self always seemed to shock people in the very same way. You paused. It couldn’t be him, couldn’t it? You must be jumping to conclusions. After all this time, it’d make no sense if he was here now and yet…

“He said that?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing as you glance between the table and Mary-Anne. You squint, trying to see if you could recognise him.

A part of you felt silly and girlish for still holding out hope but this kid’s description was just too similar and besides, you were a teenager again, you were allowed to be lovesick and entirely delusional. It was practically your god-given right.

Mary-Anne nodded, loading her tray up with drinks of all shapes and sizes to cover her half of the room, “He did.”

Your eyes were locked onto the distant table, practically pleading for the kid to just turn around and let your hopes down already. Still, all that greeted you was the back of his head and the green fuzz of the poker table in front of him.

When you didn’t tear your eyes away, Mary-Anne looked you up and down, her baby blue eyes swimming with concern, “You alright there?”

Looking back at her, you sigh, already pent up at the possibility of Five being so close, “Yeah, I just… What did he look like?” You ask tentatively, biting your rouge-tinted, bottom lip between your teeth.

Mary-Anne hums in thought as she loads your tray for you, “Gosh, I don’t know - he had dark hair, was wearing a suit. It had the funniest, little emblem on it.” She says, tapping her chest in place of where it would’ve been.

Your eyes widen in shock and excitement as you process her words, “An umbrella! It was an umbrella, wasn’t it?”

Mary-Anne grins, giggling, “It was… how’d you know that?”

You couldn’t even answer her. You were already starting to tremble and hyperventilate, entirely overcome with nerves and joy and pure, unbridled excitement all at once. A year of being apart and now he was no more than a few strides away. Your smile brightens up like no other.

You slip your tray from over your head and place it down on the bar as you say, “Hey, cover for me, would you? I’ll be two seconds.”

Without waiting for her answer, you dash across the room - a flurry of giddiness bubbling up inside of you the closer you get. You tousle your hair and straighten your uniform, anything to keep your anxious fingers busy and to better yourself for something you’ve waited for for far too long.

Hearing heels coming towards him again, Five sighs in frustration and turns around in his chair, “Lady, I already told you-“

The breath feels like it’s been stolen from your throat as he turns to face you. It’s really, truly him. Your boyfriend is right there in front of you and you’ve never felt more relief than in this moment.

“Y/N.”

You’re not sure if you want to cry or scream or simply just take him in for the first time all over again. As you look over him, his piercing gaze, his dark hair and the freckle on his right cheek that you can’t count the number of times you’ve kissed, your eyes can’t help but be drawn to his lips.

God, how you’ve missed the feeling of them. You barely have time to think about what you’re doing before you’re cupping his face and pressing your lips against his once more, savouring every part of him in a way you’d never thought to before.

Your hands trail over every callous in his skin, memorising him with your fingertips, and as you pull back, Five’s gaze softens like nothing else as he smirks, “Hello, you.”

His hands reach out to cup your face, gazing over you as if he’s not entirely sure that you’re real. After all your time apart, you’re not sure either. You smile, nodding, “It’s me. It’s you. You’re here, you’re really here!”

You cup his face in return and you can’t help but press another kiss to his lips. He smiles fondly as you do. And so you kiss him again… and again on his cheek… and on his freckle… his chin… his forehead. Everywhere your lips can reach, you press them.

After a moment, he laughs weakly and reaches up to pull your hands away from his face and intertwines them with his own fingers instead, “Okay, love.” He says chasteningly, “Let’s calm down there, shall we?”

Your smile grows shyer as you right yourself, “Sorry.” You say, brushing your hair away from your face.

He shakes his head, brushing your hair back for you and then guiding you by the waist to the seat beside him, “No, don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry. Believe me, I’m just as happy to see you. Really.”

It’s him who initiates the kiss this time. He’s soft, delicate almost, in the way that he kisses you, as if each movement of his lips is a new way of giving all of his love to you and promising that he won’t ever let you out of his sights again.

#fanfic #fanfiction #the umbrella academy #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #request #anon

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trivia-yandere · 8 months

Text

payment plan

your husband and you find yourself bankrupt and dead broke thanks to his gambling problem. his younger brother - successful businessman kim seokjin - offers a helping hand free of charge. unbeknownst to his brother, you would be the one paying seokjin for his charity. @momnomnom @darkuni63 @sweetempathprunetree @minshookie29

valentine’s day masterlist | part 2 (coming oct.12)

word count: 5.509

warning: non-con/coercion, cmnf, smut, dub-con, degradation/humiliation, dominant jin, submissive reader, collaring, affair, unsolicited touching, impregnation kink, thigh riding, oral sex/deep throat, dirty talk, kissing, creampie,

“Your collar…” Jin murmurs, his eyes staring at the pink collar he has given you. It has diamonds wrapped around and in the middle, is a gold shaped heart. “...is so cute.”

“Thank you, sir.” you murmur, your thighs clenching together nervously underneath Jin’s intense gaze.

“Isn’t it sad that your husband is away?” Jin scoffs, a wicked smirk forming onto his lips - rosy and plump.

Kim Seokjin, tall with a slender build. Dark hair and even darker eyes. He’s beautiful - utterly gorgeous. His beauty is often compared to that of a God; ethereal. He carried himself as such, strutting into any room and completely holding the attention from everyone occupying it.

Kim Seokjin, wealthy - one of the richest men in the nation. He owned several businesses that thrived; all of which funded his life. He had enough generational wealth that his great-great grandchildren wouldn’t have to work - and he’d often boast about that fact. Kim Industries were one of the most well known and luxurious industries to be a part of - employees were even looked at as better off just for being apart of the business.

Kim Seokjin, your brother-in-law. The very man who stood besides your husband, his elder brother, while you and he were wed. He gave a speech about the love you and your husband had was that of true love and raised his glass to give you a celebratory toast - “to my sister-in-law, Y/N. Welcome to the family.”

Kim Seokjin, your brother-in-law, and the same man you are having an affair with.

“It is sad, sir.”

Jin tilts his head a bit. “Then why don’t you look it?” he questions. “Maybe you’re happy to be with me instead of your good for nothing husband?”

You swallow at Jin’s harsh words, appearing physically ill at them. Jin doesn’t care, however, and openly berates his brother around you at any given moment.

It was 5 months prior when your husband came to you and confessed that he was completely broke - that you and he had not a dollar to your names. It came as a shock. No, your husband was not as wealthy as Jin - but he was nowhere near broke. Their father had helped start up a business before allowing them out in the world. While Jin branched out and became a big name in multiple industries, your husband was smaller. However, the Kim name had benefits.

“How are we broke?” you asked with wide eyes, not believing your ears. “We have a few hundred thousands saved up for a rainy day.”

Your husband had confided in you that the money was gone - everything that was saved has since been wiped away.

The home you and he bought had to be sold, along with the cars. You were homeless, and the only way your husband was willing to turn was his younger brother.

Seokjin had welcomed you two with open arms and gave his brother a job at one of the many businesses he owned - it was an ego killer. Your husband was the older brother, but yet, the younger one was more successful and thriving. You and your husband moved into Seokjin’s home (even if he did have enough money to lend you a vacation home) and allowed you to borrow his cars whenever needed.

The hours your husband worked were always long, working from sun up to sun down. He came home exhausted and didn’t want to do anything but rest - and you understood. You contemplated asking Jin if there were any available openings in his business for you to work, but your husband shot you down. “I’m the man, Y/N. I have to be the one providing for you.”

As much as you appreciated the efforts your husband set in place, you wanted nothing more than to tell him the truth - that you trusting him got you nowhere. You were homeless, staying in a (large mansion, yes) with his brother, becoming a complete burden on him.

Your feelings were never stated aloud, but it showed in your actions. You loved your husband to death truly, but you didn’t want to be around him. You soon got your own room in the mansion and to keep yourself busy, decided to take on chores. You cleaned from top to bottom and cooked constantly. As much as you were annoyed with your husband, you always assured he had three meals a day that you cooked personally.

“I am happy to be with you.” you murmur to Jin, understanding that it’s what he wants to hear. Despite being highly successful and wealthy, hearing that he was better than his elder brother brought satisfaction over Kim Seokjin.

“I know you are.” Jin brings a hand up to touch your cheek softly. “Isn’t this why you allow me to do whatever I want to you? Because my good for nothing brother puts his lovely wife…” Jin trails his hand down to your collared neck. “...in the hands of another man.”

You swallow the lump in your throat nervously.

“Nothing in this world is free, Y/N-ah.” you recall Jin speaking those very words to you for the first time. You had just gotten out of the shower, strolling into your bedroom in nothing but a robe to find the man on your bed. He sits poshly, waiting for you. “I give my brother a job, a place to stay and in return…” Jin trailed off, having since pushed himself from your bed to come to you and without a warning, hands dipped between your robe.

Jin never forgot to remind you that you lived in his home - that you husband (though his brother) worked right under him and if he truly desired, could fire him at any given moment just because.

Maybe that’s why you never told Jin no - that you allowed him to touch you. In the beginning, it was only that; touching. He would come up behind you while you washed the dishes and press himself firmly against you, his hands gripping your waist before they rub up your sides - but then he’d leave you be.

But of course, with you never stopping him - it escalated. Jin was no longer satisfied with just touching you because what was the fun in that? Your husband's work load became longer until he had no days off - and he never went against it. That only meant that you were alone with Jin more often.

“You keep clenching your legs together.” Jin notes. “Are you rubbing them together because you want some type of friction?” he then shakes his head with a scoff. “Just like a whore would.”

Jin turns away from you and ventures into the bedroom - his bedroom. You swallow, now remembering that you and he were just in the hallway of the large mansion. “Come.”

And you do, following him into his bedroom. You never been inside his room before - he always came to yours. But it’s large and as luxurious as the rest of his home. His bed is large - possibly a California king - and it sits right in the middle of the room and behind it is a large window that takes up nearly the whole wall. It’s snowing, the trees outside are covered in beautiful white snow and the amount of it covers the ground completely. You are in awe at the view that Seokin has just outside his window that has such beautiful natural light that there wasn’t any need for one inside the room to be on.

Your eyes scan over the rest of the room and it’s then you notice just how it’s covered in mirrors - even on the ceiling. You wonder if this is a room Seokjin sleeps in, or just takes whatever flings he has.

“Come.” Jin repeats, venturing towards the left of his room to a cushioned seat - it’s gray and matches his bed perfectly. He takes a seat, eyebrows lifting for you to come to him. “I’m glad you wore the lingerie I bought for you. Pink is so cute on your skin.”

Jin’s complement causes your body to flush with heat. You could never grow accustomed to it - maybe it’s the way he speaks. He’s always so smooth and his words come out so natural.

“Sit.” Jin commands and you venture over to him. His eyes lower to your crotch, satisfied with himself that he got crotchless lingerie for you to wear. As much as he enjoyed your naked figure, there was something about the pink hue against your skin that he loves to stare at.

“On my thigh.” Jin commands once more and you know where he’s getting at. You swallow once more, seating yourself on his clothed thigh.

Jin loved when you were naked - or nearly - and he was fully clothed. There was something about getting you out of your clothes that drove him crazy, even if he was able to mask it perfectly - and you never fought him about it, either. You were the perfect submissive woman he needed - and the fact that you weren’t his woman made it better.

“Don’t just sit there shy, Y/N.” Jin speaks. He widens his legs, manspreading to get comfortable on the chair. “Go ahead and rub yourself on my thigh. It has to feel better than squeezing your legs together.”

You don’t fight Jin - you never do. Your hips begin to buckle. You never liked when Jin’s eyes were on you - they were so dark and voyeuristic; always watching you whenever he saw fit. However, there’s nothing you could ever say to him about it - he made sure to remind you just who signs your husbands paychecks.

Every Time you do this with Jin - cheat on your husband with his brother - it always ends with you regretting it. But, in the moment, you don’t allow yourself to ever deny him - you tell yourself because your life depends on him, but there was another side of you. The reality of it all that you were enjoying this - secretly enjoying the affair and how scandalous it was. You enjoyed the way Jin would touch you, sometimes even sneaking touches when his brother was around.

“You’re so wet, Y/N. You’re ruining my suit pants. It’s expensive - far more than anything your husband can afford.”

You think Jin enjoys talking down to his brother but cannot understand why. Your husband never does, you note, and when they’re around one another they appear to be close; often laughing and sharing stories of their childhood.

Jin places a hand on your thigh to squeeze it. “Go faster.”

You do as you’re told, a low groan releasing from your lips. You bite your lips to hold back another, but Jin slaps your thigh. “Stop hiding your moans. I want to hear you.”

You moan a little louder, the friction against your clit feeling just right. You begin to rock your hips in circles, whining at how good it truly felt - and how pathetic you were for allowing this to happen.

Jin’s eyes darken and he licks his plump lips. There was nothing like a woman - someone like you exactly - grinding against his thigh and chasing her own orgasm. You were considered off-limits - not only a married woman, but a woman who is married to his brother. You were like a forbidden fruit, something so tempting but he shouldn’t have; out of his reach.

But, you weren’t that. Nothing was out of Kim Seokjin’s reach - not even you. You wore the collar that he gave you willingly, along with the lingerie and now, your pussy is drenched and staining his suit pants. “Go ahead and cum for me, Y/N. I know you want to.” Jin says, squeezing your thigh even harder in encouragement.

Your pussy is so warm and wet; it drenches through Jin’s suit pants and he can feel just how excited you are on his own thigh.

Jin loves to watch you - loves to watch you come undone just for him. You grind against his thigh harder, whimpering freely as your eyes begin to roll in the back of your head.

Jin slides two fingers beneath your grinding pussy to have a feel of your wet clit and it takes everything in him to not groan at the juices that coat his fingers. “How slutty.” Jin’s voice is raspy as he responds to you.

Your body shudders with goosebumps with how deep Seokjin’s voice becomes. You’re now grinding against Jin’s fingers and you cum almost instantly, a shrill cry releasing from your throat.

Jin places his fingers into his mouth and hums. “How sweet you are, Y/N, cumming all over the place.” he pops his fingers from his mouth. “I let you cum, Y/N. I want you to do the same.”

“Yes, sir-”

Jin is already pushing you off of him and forcing you to your knees. Your eyes open instantly when your knees hit the cold floor, but you don’t protest.

Jin shakes his head while a smirk forms onto his lips. “You’re so obedient, Y/N. You do everything I tell you to do without question.” he then places a hand against your cheek. “Isn’t that right?”

You nod your head. “That’s right, sir.” you respond.

Jin hums, his eyes zoning in on your face. His thumb traces your lips softly for a bit, and you’re confused as to what he’s doing and what the hold up was. “I was thinking about giving your husband a raise. He’s been doing such a good job lately.”

There’s malice in Jin’s tone as he speaks; spite. He scoffs a bit after he says it and you swallow at what he’s about to say next in anticipation. “Depends on how well you treat me, Y/N.”

And there it was - you’ve known as much. Jin wasn’t doing anything out of the pure kindness of his heart; he was sleeping with his brother's wife after all. This was nothing but a game to him - whatever issues he had with his brother, you’d never know.

There’s nothing for you to say in response to Jin. You only nod your head, your hands tangling with his suit pants to take him out. Jin watches you with fierce eyes, never leaving you once.

Your hands are trembling under his gaze, but this isn’t something that you need to mess up.

It’s sad - and you cannot be upset with anyone but yourself. You’ve allowed Jin to grow comfortable with disrespecting your marriage - you allowed him to talk down about your husband to the point that he does it constantly, even in moments such as this. There’s a part of you that hates yourself for allowing yourself to be used by this man.

But then the other part of you is attempting to give yourself grace. The other side of you wanted to blame your husband for losing everything in the marriage; so much so that you felt like you needed to do this with Jin so the man wouldn’t grow spiteful - so you could remain in his home while your husband continued to work in his brother's company.

Jin notices your internal dialogue as you begin to remove his cock from his underwear, but he doesn’t bring himself to care much. After all, he never heard a no from you - you gave him what he wanted without a fight.

Jin was no monster - but you weren’t a saint either. You moaned for him loudly when he was inside of you. You begged for more when you were drunk off of pure pleasure. Your fingernails scarred his back and your juices would stain his clothing.

You wanted this just as badly as Jin did - you were just a married woman who, at the end of it all, had to look herself in the mirror. He didn’t have a wife he had to look at after fucking you - and he could care less about looking his brother in the face.

“You’re doing this for your husband.” Jin says to you, your hand wrapped firmly around his erect cock. His plump lips offer you a smile - that looks more like a smudged smirk - but all he wants to do is make you more comfortable.

Your lips wrap around Jin’s tip, tongue swirling as if it was a lollipop. There’s pre-cum on it, your tastebuds swallowing the salty substance.

‘You’re doing this for your husband’ Jin’s words ring through your ears as you do, your hands pumping the shaft of his cock. You couldn’t be so sure you were doing this for him anymore - as selfish as it sounds.

Losing everything in a blink of an eye has you constantly fearing going through it once more and the selfish side of you was enjoying the attention you weren’t getting from your husband, but from his brother. You were enjoying the expensive gifts that he’d give and the random money he would wire into your account - even if it did eat away at you to accept them.

You continued to suck harder, taking Jin deeper into your mouth. He winces, his hands clenching slightly. Licking his lips, Jin tilts his head at you. “There’s my Y/N.” he moans, hooded eyes watching how purely whorish you appeared taking him fully. “There’s my girl coming out.”

His Y/N - Jin told you time and time again that a part of you - the side that accepted the affair - would come out. This was the side that would moan freely, would hug him closer and the side that would beg for more. This was his Y/N - the Y/N that was determined to make him cum by any means necessary; that would fuck him like her life depended on it (and of course it did).

Your eyes glance up at him and for a moment Jin is stuck. His cheeks flush at you - and it wasn’t something he needed you noticing; he had to have the ultimate control at all times.

The solution? Forcing your head down, taking him even deeper. Your nose hits the cleanly groom patch of hair on his pelvis, his cock hitting the back of your throat. You gag - but it only edges on Jin further.

“Don’t do it for your husband, Y/N. Do it for yourself.” Jin says, his head firmly on the back of your head to keep you in place. “Maybe that would make you act a little better.”

Your tongue lays flat as you suck, your head managing to lean back so only the tip is in your mouth, and quickly before Jin could react, you take him back into your throat, sucking with all your might.

Jin hisses, his toes curling inside his dress shoes. The noises that echo off of his room are filthy - his moans mixed with your slurping and gagging.

“How selfish my Y/N truly is. You like having a cock in your throat as long as the cock is providing for you, huh?” Jin squeezes his hand into your hair to keep you firmly in place, panting at just how good you were taking him. “I guess I’ll have to spoil you after this, huh? Not like your husband could.”

Your eyes begin to water, but you refuse to stop your sucking. Jin’s hips are moving a bit, and he’s cursing low to himself. He wants to tear his eyes away from you - but he’s mesmerized. There’s drool running down your chin and your eyes are watery and to him you look absolutely beautiful - how could he not want to wire you thousands of dollars after this?

You pop off of Jin’s cock with a loud ‘pop’ing sound, saliva connecting your lips to his cock. Your hands immediately wrap around his length to jerk him vigorously, your tongue twirling on the tip for him to cum.

“Oh, fuck.” Jin groans, right as your eyes and his connect. You were jerking his cock with need - as if you were the one that was cumming. He begins to whimper, his thighs trembling. The familiar bubbling in his abdomen is returning - like it did time and time again when he was with you. “So good for me, baby.”

Jin’s praises shouldn’t be getting to you, but they do. They always do. He could be demanding while you and he were intimate, as well as degrading. However, there were times in which he did speak to you nicely; complimenting you at how good you were to and for him. He’d often call you beautiful and assured that you would always be taken care of regardless of the situation you were in - in the end of it all, you took it as nothing but pillow talk.

However, you were now in the moment just as Seokjin was and you were determined to make the man cum. You bring the tip of his cock back into your mouth and you continue to suck, your palm jerking him to cum. Doing this, Jin begins to pant, his speech cut off. His head hangs back and his eyes are rolling with pleasure - such a beautiful sight, you think. Even when convulsing in pleasure did Kim Seokjin look beautiful.

Jin groans - a groan that comes from deep in his throat. He wants to praise you and tell you just how good you’re doing; but maybe that was the side of him that likes you. That, of course, he can’t. He’s unable to form any words and all he can focus on is the pleasure that runs through his body entirely. It was as if his brain was shutting down and fuck did it feel amazing.

Jin’s thighs are quivering and he’s cumming, his breathing coming out in hushed stutters. He cums so much, thick white robes painting the inside of your mouth. It’s so much that it surprises you that it begins to seep out of your mouth, but you assure yourself to swallow as much as you could.

You release Jin’s cock and heave, the air hitting your throat refreshing. You’re sure you looked a mess; tear stained cheeks, blurry and red eyes and drool (and cum) mixed on your lips. But you don’t dwell on the fact - it wasn’t anything Seokjin wasn’t accustomed to seeing already.

It takes a few moments for Jin to compose himself. His eyes are closed and his thighs gently tremble until they stop completely. His mind is flooding with just what he has gotten himself into with you - an act he does each time you manage to make him cum.

“Sir?”

Jin snaps his eyes open and looks at you. You’re on your knees - where you belonged - and looked at him with a tilted head.

Jin leans forward, licking his plump lips. “You’re so obedient.” he murmurs to you, the Jin you knew coming back like a full circle. “The collar suits you.”

You yelp when Jin snatches said collar and yanks it harshly. His lips meet yours in a rushed kiss - an action he’s never done. You and Seokjin don’t kiss; it’s an act far too intimate for two people having an affair. He never initiated it before, and neither have you. Yet, kissing Jin felt right and there's electricity running through your veins. His lips are warm and soft to the touch and though you never initiated a kiss with the man before, you don’t find yourself pushing away from it.

Jin is amused (and satisfied) when you softly protest when he pushes you away from him. “You look like a kick puppy, Y/N. When was the last time you kissed your husband?”

Jin snickers when you glance away - you did because even you didn’t know. Jin kept his hours long (intentionally, now you know) and there was never any time for you and him to ever be alone. And even though you loved your husband for wanting to be better and get out of the financial bind he put the two of you in, there's a sinister side to you that still despises him for putting you in that situation to begin with.

“Come.”

Jin yanks at your collar and has you standing to your feet along with him. He pushes you towards his bed and you fall back with a low yelp.

“Open your legs.” Jin demands and instantly, you comply. “Good girl.” he murmurs.

Between your legs was Jin’s favorite place to be - being inside you or his tongue buried in your pussy. Your pussy is always wet for him; warm and inviting. You gave it up to him so willingly and each time he took it with gratitude.

Jin couldn’t get enough of you - and it had to be a deeper reason. You weren’t his woman to have, but he took you selfishly. He buries his tongue deep against your clit, not taking another second away. He laps against your pussy eagerly, eyes glancing up to see your shocked (yet satisfied) face - brows knitted and mouth agape as a moan draws out.

Jin’s hands place themselves on your outer thigh, allowing you to slightly cage him in between them - because that could never stop him from having his taste of you. He has no choice but to bury his face deeper into your pussy, suckling even harder against your swollen clit.

“F-Feels so good, sir.” you wail and Jin knows this. His eyes never leave your face as his tongue continues to lap. “G-Gonna cum already.”

Jin snickers - you were always so quick to cum when he had you like this. Like the perfect little whore you were, he thinks. He knows his brother could never please you the same way he does - you always walked around so uptight and shy. Your legs clenched together for whatever friction because his brother was far too busy to pleasure you.

Now, you had that glow to you. Jin assured that you’d cum each and every time you and him were together - just like now.

Jin slams your legs open, pinning them against your shoulder. The position is as lewd as his actions, but that doesn’t stop him. He devours your pussy entirely, tongue ravishing your clit so loudly that his suckling is dancing off of the walls.

“S-Sir, slow down-”

Jin didn’t want to hear anything you were about to say. You didn’t tell him what to do - he was Kim Seokjin. If he wanted to lick your clit until you were squirting against him he would - because he was Kim Seokjin.

Jin’s hands hold your thighs apart even tighter to assure you have no way to escape him, his tongue sliding against your clit entirely and entering in and out of you. Your eyes snap shut, squeezing so tightly. You were being swallowed up by the black hole of pleasure. There’s whimpering coming from you as well as the familiar moisture at the corner of your eyes.

Jin shoves you away hastily. “I’m going to fuck a baby into you, Y/N.” Jin says suddenly - an act that is just as shocking as him kissing you.

You don’t get time to protest before Jin is flipping you onto your stomach and forcing your ass into the air. He’s behind you, positioning himself at your entrance.

Jin enters you without hesitation, needing no time to prep you because of how wet you are. He starts off rough, cock so deep that it brings back the familiar black hole of pleasure.

Jin is brutal as he fucks you - but he was a man on a mission. He’s clouded by his own lust and selfish desire that he doesn’t hold back any of his own thoughts.

“You’d want that, wouldn’t you?” Jin asks harshly, pulling both of your hands behind your back to hoist you up. “For me to fuck a baby into you?”

“Y-Yes, sir!” you wail, far too gone in pleasure that you don’t completely take in what Jin is saying.

“You’re so drunk off of dick that you’ll say anything. There’s my Y/N.” Jin cracks his hips deeper and deeper into you, hitting your sweet spot with each thrust. Your juices are leaking down your thigh and staining his bedsheets, but he would never care. “I’m going to get you pregnant and watch my pathetic brother raise the child as his.” he laughs gleefully, his plan completely insane.

You’re pushed away from Jin and you fall completely against the mattress. Jin hikes a leg up so he can go deeper into you.

“But don’t worry, Y/N. I’ll make sure our child has the best of the best.” Jin groans, eyes focused on the way your ass bounces against him. “And when they’re of age, I’ll tell them the truth. That the pathetic father they thought they had was not really their father.” Jin leans down, both hands firmly against the mattress for support. “And they’ll inherit millions from me. It’s better than having nothing like my pathetic brother.”

“Feels so good!” you moan into the mattress and all Jin could do is laugh - because you were far too gone to notice anything he was saying; and just how real his plans for you are.

“Yeah?” Jin manages to flip you again and now on your back, he allows you to wrap your legs around him. “So good for me, Y/N. Such an obedient little whore.”

Jin connects his lips to yours again and instantly, you wrap your arms around him. You were determined not to let him go this time - and he allowed it. Kissing you felt right; even when it was wrong. Not only because you weren’t his woman (because he was well aware of such and didn’t give a fuck) but because it was a sign of affection.

“Want you to fuck me all night.” you plead against his lips, holding him so close that you coild feel his own heartbeat.

So dick drink, Jin thinks, but he doesn’t respond. He’s unable to, far too focused on giving you exactly what you want.

Jin ponders how his brother wasn’t fighting him to have more time off of work. Your pussy is amazing - carved from the Gods. You’re gripping him so tight with a pussy that’s so wet that if he was in his brothers position, he wouldn’t be at work now - no, he’d be fucking you into the mattress.

But Jin wasn’t your husband and he was doing exactly what he should be doing to you.

“Squeezing me so tight, Y/N. Gonna cum already?” Jin taunts, but even he was ready to cum inside of you.

The thought of getting you pregnant is stuck deep in Jin’s mind; watching you grow heavy and round with his seed. He would have a deep bond with the child, assuring that he would be loved far more than his brother would be with the child. He would be impressed with how large your breast would be as you grew with his child and how beautiful you’d look pregnant.

“Shit,” Jin’s forehead presses against yours. He plunges his cock inside of you with need now - the need to impregnate immediately - and to do this as many times as it takes for you to conceive.

Warmth floods deep inside of you just as you’re reaching your high. You squeeze Jin, hugging him closer to your exhausted and convulsing body and never wanting to let the man go.

You and Jin fucked for hours in various positions you’ve never been in. You had awoken suddenly, body exhausted in a bedroom that didn’t belong to you. Jin wasn’t there, you noticed, and that was your cue to take your leave.

Doing the walk of shame back to your bedroom was something you’d have to look yourself in the mirror about later. Your body was aching and all you truly wanted to do was have a soothing bath and then go right back to sleep.

You opened the door to your bedroom and stopped in your tracks. Your eyes scanned the room entirely.

Balloons littered the ceiling entirely - all red, white and pink. Your bed - king-sized that sat in the middle of the room, sat rose petals shaped neatly into a large heart. In the middle of it sat a small envelope, but that was the least of your concerns.

Flower bouquets are surrounding your bed - all roses of different colors - and there’s dozens of gift bags waiting to be opened.

You enter your bedroom and close your door behind you. You ponder did your husband do all of this for you - and if he did, just how did he manage to do so without wondering where you were at the entire time?

Your heart sinks at the thought of your husband doing this for you and you were cheating on him with his brother.

You grasp the small envelope on your bed and open it. It’s a card - something simple written inside of it but it causes your heart to swell with realization.

My Y/N.

Happy Valentine’s Day

-Seokjin

part 2 (coming oct. 12) | teaser to part 2

#payment plan #yandere bts #bts smut #btswritingcafe #brothers girlfriend #trivia-yandere #trivia:yandere #bts writing #btswritersclub #btswriterscollective #bangtanwriters net #Seokjin yandere #jin yandere #jin smut #jin x reader #seokjin x reader #seokjin smut #bts affair au

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yestrday · 5 months

Text

: ̗̀➛ ALL OR NOTHING. yan! aventurine / gn! reader

it's a nice feeling to finally be on the winning side, feigning fairness when all the winning cards are in his hand. but it's not like you can fault him for cheating. after all, you who has nothing chose to challenge him, the one who will gain everything.

( overarching theme of sl4very, anim4l cruelty, anim4l death, bl00d, graphic description of violence, hinted obsessive behavior, im unoriginal and stole kafkas spirit whisper for reader ) + 7.5k words

"It's just a bet," he suggests, as if this gamble won't cost you your everything. "Juuust a bet. Exactly what are you so scared of?"

He sits laid back in his plush velvet chair, twirling a cocktail as he enjoys the finest luxuries in life. He is clad head to toe in the finest clothing, dressed like a peacock waiting to impress. You, on the other hand, feel more like the peahen— dreadfully drab in your rags and no choice but to watch as the peacock flaunts his feathers. You are knelt on the ground, but your eyes show no submission.

"I'm not crazy, gambler," you bite. "I know the IPC. They are full of shit. And you, Aventurine." Your eyes set on him with hatred. "You're the smelliest of the lot."

Aventurine, the gem of lies and luck, sighs dramatically. "Pup, you know I don't like it when you're so vulgar, y'know? I'm giving you a chance at freedom, so you ought to at least treat me at least a little bit nicer. I'm not the one who shackled you, so I don't understand what the aggression is all about."

"You're the reason why I'm here in the first place!"

"No, Jade was." He presses a finger to your lip and you'd bite it if it weren't for the annoying bind you were under. "Jade came across you and thought you and your talent would make for a nice gift. You were a gift and I'm just the receiver. So don't go barking up the wrong tree, pup."

"So." He leans back into his couch and shoots you a sly grin. "Up for round one?"

You are lost.

The meaning of Paths and their symbolisms are lost on you. You don't care for Aeons— no one on your home planet was. You were busy diving in dumpsters for a scrape of food, tricking your 'friends' into sacrificing themselves for you, and killing whatever was left of your humanity just to make it to another day. You walk on no Path but yours.

You don't even know which way you're going. So you are lost.

You think Aventurine is lost too.

He has every detail of his facade practiced. His gait is relaxed enough to not be intimidating, but not sloppy enough to be called out as bad posture. He talks in a smooth voice that eases fools and makes enemies wary, his smile is charming to sway the opponent into another gamble, his hair is fixed to frame his pretty face, and he chooses words that cannot be turned into loopholes. He is Aventurine. But he is not himself.

He does not care for the Preservation, but he rejects the Elation. He is on his own Path too, but he knows the destination he must reach— his 'End'. In that way, he is different from you, because you know not your journey or your ending. Still, he is just as lost as you.

But he makes a darn good show of not seeming that way. Right now, you watch as he throws the dice on the table, and the whole table watches with bated breath as they turn. A six and one— he lost the bet to the other's six and five. They cackle gleefully as they collect their earnings from Aventurine. They have chips upon chips on their side of the table while Aventurine's winnings are cut in half.

"I think I'll call it a day, pretty boy," the gambler cackles, greedily eyeing his earnings and possibly dreaming about the cash he's made tonight. "Even a gambler knows when to call quits, right?"

Aventurine pouts. "Aww, so soon? C'mon, the night's only begun! Who knows, play another round and you might just end up with more money than you have right now~"

The man laughs again, obviously not fooled by his pity act. "Boy, I'm not as addicted as you are. I know when to stop instead of letting you bleed me out dry." But Aventurine isn't fazed; rather, he snaps his fingers and you lower your head as you step to his side.

"Well, we can't have that, can we? [Y. Name], be a dear and persuade this gentleman into another round with me."

A glow of your eyes. Then you fix the man with an eerie gaze as you say, bright and clear, "Hey, you: Play another round with my master."

As if in a daze, the man's eyes cloud over and sit right back. Another round later Aventurine wins all his losses back and more, leaving the other gambler's side naked and bare of chips. The man is barely out of his stupor when he realizes what just happened— that he's fallen for a trick and now he's ended up with no money to even cover his lodgings— but you and Aventurine have sauntered out of the casino doors by the time he's begun cussing you out.

"Ha! That was fun." Aventurine shrugs off his jacket now that you're in the car and raises an empty champagne glass to you. "You're a good partner, [Y. Name]. Honestly, that Spirit Whisper of yours is such a nice trick. Just like that Stellaron Hunter, right?"

"... Kafka?"

"Yes, her. Enigmatic woman, isn't she? A bit ironic how those with such a powerful ability ended up as slaves. Her as Destiny's, and you as... mine." He gives your collar a little tug and you growl in warning, but you inch closer to him anyway. "So. Gambling. You up for that round?"

You scoff and grin at him with all teeth and no mirth. "You really think that a Cornerstone would bet on their slave's freedom?" Aventurine's own grin grows wider. "C'mon. Even Pteruges-V has better lies than you."

"Ah, right, your homeworld. No wonder you're so brazen all the time, even to your superiors. I forget that fear is a foreign concept to you people. Still," he raises your chin with a finger. "If you're so fearless, why not bet on a gamble? It's not like you're scared."

"There may be fools from my planet that you can trick with that taunt, peacock, but I'm not one of them. I'm fearless, not stupid. And with the way you're so eager to involve me in this bet, I'm beginning to suspect that you need this more than I do." You push him away. "So, no, master, I won't indulge you. I'll bide my time and look for an escape. Just like I've always had."

"And what?" He looks at you from behind his sunglasses. "Will you kill me to gain that freedom?"

You flash him a sharp grin, now amused. "Of course you'd think that, master."

The smile on his face is wiped clean. You really are a brazen thing, you.

Jade has always mentioned how soft Aventurine is on you. A dog of your attitude should merit a little more disciplinary action and even the good Doctor has told him this once or twice after seeing your arrogance despite the collar around your neck. "Your dog bites more than it deserves," Ratio scoffed while you made an action of biting him behind Aventurine. He frowned in displeasure. "You ought to make it learn a lesson or two."

"Now, now, doctor," Aventurine had laughed. "Not everyone shares the same sadistic tendencies as you." An image of you collared and shaking on your knees flashes through his mind, and he finds himself gulping. Ratio looks at him like he doesn't believe him.

It's not like he hasn't thought of it, of chaining you to the wall and starving you so that you learn that your attitude has its consequences. You shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you, not when he's been so good to you. But that... that was exactly the line of thought his old master had. That wicked man who put a brand on him and sullied his hands with his wretched man... he couldn't risk turning into a monster like... that.

Aventurine is weak. Unable to let go of past sentiments and memories, he makes it up with his grand display of bravado and high-stakes gambles. He gambles even as he spoils you, laughing at your audacity and even rewarding you for it sometimes, not knowing whether you'll leave him or if you'll stay with him. It is a gamble indeed, but you were worth every risk.

"What do you think of me, [Y. Name]?" The cityscape beyond the window is glowing with Pier Point's nightlife, and his suite provides him a good view of the world beneath him. He glances back at you, stirring his coffee for him. "Your dear master Aventurine. What do you think of me?"

"Annoying, stupid, a fool, an addict, and pathetic." You don't hesitate to badmouth your master. "You lie too well, you think that luck of yours will never run out, and you try to be someone that you can't."

"And who is that someone?"

Your eyes flash. "Someone strong. Someone confident. Someone who isn't afraid to admit his weaknesses and hope that things get better."

"I didn't peg you for an optimist, dear pet."

"Hmph. That's not optimism. I may not know what exactly fear is, but I know that what is holding you back isn't it. You do not fear things, gambler. You stake it all and bet on something so intangible as luck. That can't be fear."

"Then what is it?"

The stare you give him sets his heart off, looking straight into his eyes and giving a grin so devilish and knowing like that facade of his never mattered in the first place.

"You're a coward. A plain, old coward. Nothing more, nothing less."

That conversation had always popped up in his head in the most inconvenient of moments, especially when he was about to get some sleep. His heart beat faster every time he recalled that knowing gaze of yours, invading where he didn't want the world to see and baring his soul right before your very eyes. His facade doesn't work on you.

He could care less. You were the one person he didn't want it to work on, though he'd never admit that out loud.

This meeting with the other Ten Cornerstones could not interest him any less, and it seemed to be that way for the others too. Jade is saying something on behalf of Diamond, again, and everyone is busy doing their own thing. Only Topaz seems to be the one paying at least some attention, and even then she gets distracted by Numby from time to time. Aventurine glances at the clock.

He wonders how his pup is faring while he's away. Ecstatic, perhaps.

"— All evidence leads to an underground network that is scattered among numerous planets, though thankfully all of them are within the same galaxy. I'll be forwarding an email to you all with a detailed report on each of these. Just know that most of us will be likely deported to these countries to break up the—" In the middle of Jade's tiresome monologue, the security alarms start to blare and two officers slam through the doors with looks of urgency. One of them scans the room until his eyes land on Aventurine, and they quickly approach him.

"Sir!" They say, desperate and alarmed. "Your do— I mean, slave! They've– They've escaped!"

Surprise streaks across the faces of the Ten Cornerstones, even Aventurine's. He collects himself when he catches Jade's knowing smile and chuckles to himself.

"Well, I guess this is the master's consequence for not disciplining their pet."

Did he really think you were fucking stupid? Taking on a bet for your freedom... what a bunch of bullshit. He can proclaim about how much he loves a fair gamble, but you know that's only reserved for the people around the table. You are his slave, the one he demeaningly calls 'pet'— you don't have the chance to make your own dealings.

"Halt! In the name of Qlipoth, you better stop while we're giving you a chance." These IPC henchmen were slowpokes, the lot of them. You weave in and between salary workers, crashing trolleys full of wares and coffees and hopping between levels just to shake them off their tracks. By golly, they might be incompetent but Aeons damned they were nothing but persistent.

"Ha, the Devil Hunters were more annoying than them," you mutter to yourself, skidding around the corner only to come face-to-face with two IPC henchmen. They raise their polearms to strike, but with a chilling grin stretched across your face, you say: "Hey, you: Jump."

You don't look back to see whether they made the seven-floor drop.

This reminds you of the nights you spent back in Pteruges-V: making fools out of the prissy rich, jumping across buildings to shake of the Hunters, and using whatever you had to make things go your way. Not everyone had Spirit Whisper, but those who had made good use of it and you sure as hell wouldn't miss a single chance to use it.

Your mind runs with plans as you continue to run away. Maybe you'll find a nice ship to stow away on, hopefully, one that leads to a nice planet that isn't so stuffy and rigid. Maybe like Homberto-σ, out of sight from the IPC and where everyone minded their own business.

For what felt like forever trying to shake your followers off, you finally came to a stop when you realized that only the sound of your footsteps could be heard in this labyrinth of hallways and corridors. Finally having shaken them off, you sigh as you climb up the stairs to the rooftop. 'Just jump down and sneak off to the nearest hiding place you can find.' You tug at your collar and scowl. 'When I escape, not even this collar will matter anymore. Not when I'm somewhere they won't reach me.'

You've escaped so many life-or-death situations before. Escaping slavery is no different.

"Slave [Y.Name], subordinate of Cornerstone Aventurine, you are surrounded!" A voice blares through a megaphone the moment you step onto the roof deck. You hiss as multiple glaring lights settle on you, shielding your face from them and the helicopters' onslaught of wind. "Surrender now before we are forced to take extreme measures."

Through the gaps of your fingers, you can barely make out the men in black pointing their guns at your head, the red hot of the laser making you a point-blank target. You click your tongue. Those bastards tricked you into thinking you were safe. Fuck. You couldn't even be mad. This was all on you.

"Oh, little pup. I guess I really should have listened to them when they told me to discipline you." Aventurine's seedy voice sighs behind you, smirking as he nonchalantly strides up to you. "Did you really have to do all this instead of taking the bet? Do you really hate the thought of playing with me, hm?"

"Fuck off."

"No can do, little one, you know how much I'm obsessed with you, right?" He chuckles, catching your chin between his thumb and index and forcing you to look into his eyes. Those Sigonian eyes are covered by the cloudy purple of his glasses, but even you can tell just how much he's enjoying this mess you've put yourself in. "You know I don't have a need for your skill. I could easily persuade anyone without trying, but I still let you stick around. Pup, I can't just back away from you when you know how much I want you."

You smile darkly. "That's cuz you're a sicko who likes tugging on the chain instead of being in it."

Those pretty eyes of his darken for a moment, embittered by the snarky comment at his past, before his hands trail down to your collar, hooking it with a finger and pulling on it. "Dear, while I usually have the patience for your tirades, I'd rather not do it today. You've humiliated me enough in front of the entire Corporation. So—" Pulling once again on your collar, he starts to lead you to the door. "— Let us depart without much hassle, okay?"

Humiliation sears your nerves like a hot metal, a warning growl eliciting from your mouth as he continues to tug you away from the rooftop. Close, you were so fucking close. Here you are breathing in the fresh night wind, a jump away from freedom, but then these IPC idiots all had you fooled. You don't care how many bullets will embed themselves into your skin, all you just needed to do was get away from this grip Aventurine has on you.

You grab the wrist pulling on you, yanking him towards you. His eyes widen before narrowing again, as if not believing that you still had the energy to fight like you don't have red laser points on your forehead. "[Y. Na—"

"Hey, you: S—"

You couldn't even get another syllable out. Your collar beats a few pulses before it starts squeezing your neck, crushing your windpipes and forcing you down on your knees as you choke on your blood. It sears hot around your neck and you collapse writhing on the ground as you sob and gurgle on your screams and congealed blood.

'WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY ME—' You can only curse and scream inside your head as you painfully thrash on the cement. '— A BILLION BASTARDS IN THE WORLD AND IT HAD TO BE FUCKING ME.'

Darkness is pushing in on you and the pain is making it too hard to go on, but you've always been a fighter. Even if you think that your squirming is pathetic and futile to the onlookers, you continue to tug and pull on the collar like you have a chance. Your ears are ringing and your eyes are too fucking blurry to see with, but the fight doesn't die down.

Aventurine places a soft palm on your hair. Even through the tears stinging your eyes, you can barely make out the faint expression on his face. Damned fucking bastard, damned Signonian, hypocrite and the fucking devil—!

He even has the audacity to look sad for you, as the light slips away from your eyes.

The first round is simple. Play a round of poker with him.

Aventurine hums delightedly as he shuffles the cards with clean and practised movements, looking right at home at the dealer's table he has sitting in his suite. You blankly look at the cards, not even an inch of a reaction from your side. He chuckles as he deals your cards.

"C'mon, look alive, dear." It's almost like he genuinely wants you to cheer up. "Look, I even poured out alcohol for you. It's not everyday that you get to taste Pier Point's most exquisite wine!"

You continue to stare blankly. You haven't given up yet, of course not, but... you can barely bring yourself to move.

When Aventurine is done dealing all the cards, he leans back on his chair and studies his opponent, just like he always has in the past. If you were acting normally, this would have been an easy win. After all, you always wore your heart on your sleeve and abhorred being told to control your emotions. You acted the way you felt— you curse when you anger, you boast when you're feeling smug, and you press your lips together and blush as he praises you for another job well done.

But now. Well. Bandaids cover the seared marks on your neck as well as your head after you've slammed it against the pavement during your delirious fit on the rooftop. Your arms are littered with purples and blues, the aftermath of a disciplinary session that went on throughout the night. Despite the abuse that Aventurine has (rightfully, in his mind) dealt to you, he had made sure to tend to you afterwards.

Settling your head on his lap, combing through the strands as he placed an icepack on your bruises. He hummed you an old children's rhyme from his home planet as you lay limp across the couch. You could barely move, mind unable to process the pain and despair of having an inch of freedom being ripped away from you. He had wiped away the tear that would fall from your eyes.

You couldn't feel comforted at all.

"This will be the first round out of four. Today, we'll make this a bit simple. Five quick rounds of Indian poker. If you're confident that your card is higher than mine, you can bet as much as you like. Not confident? Fold, and that won't count as a round. Loser has the lower card." He raises his glasses to his hair and smiles at you. "Understood?"

"Understood," you grunt. "I'm not a fuckin' idiot."

Aventurine only smirks. It irritates you, but you don't have much fire in you to snap at him.

The room is silent save for the clinking of chips against each other. The two of you cast a chip to the middle of the table. You raise your card to your forehead.

You cast two more chips. Aventurine casts three. You stare at the printed picture on his card and throw in another chip. He throws in another five. You frown.

"Fold."

"Ah~ You should've been more confident in yourself!" Aventurine chuckles as he begins to shuffle the deck to deal another round. You scowl at the Ace of Clubs in your hand, mocking you at your relinquished defeat. "Is a little intimidation all that's needed to make you submit? You weren't this docile before."

"Shut the fuck up and let's play again." He decides to stifle his laugh for the sake of your nerves.

"Raise." Your win, six of hearts to three of spades.

"Raise." Your win, queen of spades to jack of hearts.

"Fold." Could've been Aventurine's, ace of spades to king of spades.

"Raise." Aventurine's win, eight of clubs to six of hearts.

"Fold." Could've been yours, queen of hearts to 10 of clubs.

"Raise." Aventurine's win, nine of clubs to seven of spades.

Aventurine's practiced hands thumb through the cards as he begins to rearrange them again. His glass wine is almost empty, while yours is untouched. The man knows that you don't drink, so why would he...?

"Last round before one of us wins," Aventurine's voice lilts as he throws you your card. "How about we make it exciting? No one is allowed to fold this round." You frown at him but don't say anything. You cast another chip to the table, and he follows suit.

He has a 10 of spades pressed to his forehead, and your fingers dig deep into your skin.

'Oh please, there's other cards higher than a 10.' You remind yourself, but you gulp down your dry throat as your vision zeroes into his card. 'Jack, Queen, King, Ace. Anything. Please.' Aventurine notices your hurried breathing and smiles knowingly. You gulp whatever cowardice is rising in your throat and throw another chip.

"Raise." Fuck it. If this is the last round, then let's just ball.

He cocks his head, finding the motion unnecessary in this last round. But he sighs with a smile and plays along, casting his chips into the fray, "Then I'll raise too."

"This is the last round," you say, more so to remind yourself.

"Yep." He leans forward on the table and the fluorescent lights cast a shadow over those alluring eyes. "Nervous?"

'How could you say that? How could you taunt me like that? When you were just like me?'

You strengthen your resolve and glare up at him, the fire lighting back up in those blank eyes. "I hope you go to hell."

You throw your card to the middle, with the rest of the chips.

Jack of Clubs.

Aventurine cocks his head at you, smiling as usual.

"Congratulations, pet."

One would expect that Pier Point was the peak embodiment of wealth and luxury, being the base of the Interastral Peace Corporation. But the brightly something shone the darker its shadows.

Aventurine just so happened to like those shadows, even shrugging off those fancy clothes of his just so that he could find solace in those sleazy bars and play rounds of poker with dead-eyed salarymen and recently fired hopefuls.

The surroundings didn't fare any better. Amongst the dying neon lights, Pier Point's worst neighborhoods featured a just as nasty environment. Drunkards lying beside dumpsters with shattered beer bottles around them, cats hissing at each other in a fight for survival, and abandoned children peeking at them around the corner as they lay in wait for an opening.

Aventurine has shedded his elaborate peacock coat in favor of a simple white button-down and slacks. Despite the simplicity, he still looked out of place amongst the rags, though it made people think of him as a fearless idiot rather than run away at the sight of the IPC's elite.

"Mmm, that robin is indeed very plump," the blonde idiot remarks out of nowhere. "Quite out of place for this kind of area."

You pay him very little attention, mindlessly kicking the broken half of a bottle with your heel. It bumps into a smelly bastard who shoots you an irritated look, but quickly cowers when you return it tenfold. "Maybe it's been feeding on the leftovers of you prissy IPC folk," you spat, taking a look at the fat robin for yourself.

He takes no notice of the slight towards his kind and instead cocks his head at the cat slinking around the corner. "Well. Its health has attracted a rather unwelcome predator." He turns to you, with a mischievous smile. "How about we make this round two? Who will die first, the cat or the robin?"

Seriously? You were betting your freedom on something as stupid as this? You consider the cat— snarling, insipid thing, balding and thin as a stick— then the robin, tweeting fearfully at its perch on the graffitied wall. "Am betting on the cat. Could eat the fat thing while you go on another gamble."

He laughs, sliding on his shades as he walks into the seedy bar. "Then I have no choice but to bet on the poor robin. Let's have some fun before we see the results of our bet."

The cat is lying on the ground, heaving its last few breaths. Its yellow eyes are barely peeking out from its eyelids, probably delirious and starving in its last moments. You poke it slightly with your foot.

It meows pitifully. You instantly feel bad.

It might just be the ugliest thing you've laid your eyes on, but even the ugliest creatures deserve some sort of companionship in their last moments. It hisses weakly when you draw your hand close, but it can't do anything but relent as you stroke its hairless head. It purrs a bit, ragged and breathy, but the heaving of its ribbed chest slows as it relaxes.

"Don't do that," you murmur. "Just... just be quiet. It's okay."

The quiet steps of leather shoes stop beside you, and Aventurine watches on in silence as you comfort the dying thing. His gaze moves from the cat to the robin, still perched on top of the wall with his fat little chest and beady eyes. It hasn't moved from its position at all, just... staring and staring.

"So—"

"I know," you murmur, focus still on the poor thing. "I know, okay?"

The fat robin chirps again, tittering with its mocking chirp, before it flies away into the sky.

Your cat closes its eyes shut, and its skinny chest finally slows to a stop.

Aventurine stays with you for a while as you find a nice spot of earth to bury it.

No matter how much you want to believe your preconceived image of the blonde gambler— irresponsible, materialistic, money-wasting— you can't just make up lies about him in your head when all of his missions end on a win for him. Right now, he's heading for another mission in a galaxy far away again. And like always, he's dragged you along whether you like it or not.

"Come on, you like sightseeing other planets!" He laughs on the space warp going there. "Makes your blood pumping, scouting out the possible planets you can run away to."

"If I can run away," you grumble, not wanting to acknowledge him as you stare out the window and into the starry expanse of galaxies and space. This sight has always unnerved you— a reminder of how small and insignificant you are. How small and insignificant this collar hand on your life.

"It's not like you to be such a downer," he huffs. He pats the empty seat beside him. "Come, come. Drink with me. Ah, but no alcohol though. Don't want you trying to bite my entourage as soon as we get off." He's referring to the time that you had two sips of the lightest alcohol the ship had in stock before you absolutely wasted and decided that running away to the next planet was a good idea.

You grunt but sit on the floor next to his feet. He doesn't dare to correct you but only regards you with amusement before handing you a glass of sparkling water. You've always had this weird insistence of maintaining your master-slave status quo, despite abhorring your status as a slave. You followed his commands to the tee no matter how dangerous but refused to budge whenever he insisted on treating you like an equal.

"Don't get me wrong," you had snapped at him angrily one time. "As long as I'm in this stupid collar, I am not your fucking equal. So don't go around treatin' me like one, got it?!"

"You got the briefing, right? I'll be dismantling an underground operation on our next planet, so I'll be making good use of your Spirit Whisper." You sip your drink and make no reaction. "I'm sure you have no complaints about that, right?"

"Like I have a fuckin' choice."

He laughs into his cocktail. "Right. How could I forget?" Your eyes narrow into slits when he threads his thin fingers through your hair, but you don't make any move to remove them. "Unfortunately, this isn't an operation that I can just charm and gamble my way through, so you'll be doing a lot of heavy lifting. But so long as I have you, my dearest pet, I'm sure we'll be done before we know it."

You fight the urge to give into his tender touch, massaging your scalp as he combs your strands, though your eyelids are drooping now. He chuckles fondly when you rest your chin on the sofa, right next to his thigh. Adorable, how easily you succumb to the smallest of physical affection.

"Just take a nap," he hums. "We'll be there before you know it."

Aventurine's lavish outfit is a stark contrast against the nitty and gritty environment of the gambling den the two of you are staking out right now. Some of the men leer at him when he passes by, their faces painted by sweat and malice, and the promiscuous women bat their eyes at him with painted-on sweet smiles. No one bats an eye at the collared servant trailing behind him.

You try not to wince as you accidentally make eye contact with another slave, them kneeling on the ground with only rags to cover them and you have the luxury to look away as you grip the sleeves of your ironed button-down. You decide to just fix your eyes on Aventurine's back for the rest of the journey.

The next room you enter— less room to be honest, and more... coliseum-y— features a fighting ring where the crowd cheers on two dogs circling each other under the fluorescent spotlights. The other one, bigger and scarred, is baring his teeth while bearing a deep red gash across his body. The smaller one is shivering but giving the same energy back, snarling in intimidation while also sporting a noticeable limp. Despite the darkness of the room, you don't miss the way Aventurine's face contorts into disgust as he looks at the fight and surveys the crowd of spectators.

"Disgusting," he murmurs. You don't say anything back, though you doubt he could hear you amidst all this cheering. You used to bet on dogs too, back in the day. It was quick and easy money, and you had better things to worry about than the fate of some mutt.

While you're focused on the pathetic dog show in front of you, he steps to your side and nudges you with his elbow. "Willing to bet?" He asks, eyes focused on the show. "As our third round."

"From the look on your face, I thought you hated this kind of thing."

"I do, but I'm not putting money in the pot like the rest of them. This is strictly between you and me with no money involved." He turns his gaze to you. "So, what about it?"

You study the dogs. They've been circling each other for a while now, and the crowd's been growing more and more agitated by the lack of fighting. You think of the dogs you've bet on before, how the smaller ones had just an equal chance of success at winning as the bigger ones. Unconsciously, you tug at your collar. It matches perfectly with the stupid dogs down below.

"Bet," you huff. "I'm taking the smaller one."

You don't know why. It'd make sense to just bet on the bigger and badder, but maybe it's that ferocity in his eyes even if it's overshadowed by the growling menace that has you feeling for it. It's stupid, you know, betting your freedom on a hunch and emotions. But...

If it could have a chance at winning... then why can't you?

...

... Are you destined to die, just like it?

... Are you destined to die as a slave for another IPC slave?

... Will your death be just as morbid and pathetic as the mongrel, his innards spilling onto the pavement while the winner is pulled away by the collar, with no prize but another day of freedom?

This is round three out of four. You've only won one so far.

The very next round could kill you. Could completely sign away your freedom.

Shit shit shit shit shit. Why'd you have to go feeling sorry for the stupid shit? Why'd you have to empathize with its futile fight? Why'd you have to go see yourself in it? Now you could very much share its fate, dying pathetically serving for people who never cared about you in the first place.

Shit shit shit shit shit. The pressure of the bet has always been at the back of your mind, niggling at your brain. But now you can feel its heavy weight squeezing around your heart, in perfect rhythm with the phantom choking of your collar. If you don't win the next, you could very much—

Something light touches your shoulder and you lurch back like you had been stricken there. It disgusts and scares you, sending both repulsion and fear through your body like maggots wriggling into your system.

With a faltering outstretched palm, Aventurine's eyes widen behind his glasses. He sees something on your face, enough to make him bite down whatever cocky shit he has to say, and turns his back towards you.

"Let's go," he says, just barely audible above the crowd. "We still have a mission to complete.

"This is some silly joke of yours, isn't it?" Aventurine maintains his cool facade, but even then there is disgust in his tone as he speaks to Jade. "Giving a slave to another... you must think this is hilarious."

"Amusing, maybe, but this little one is too precious to let loose in the wild." Jade strokes your head, and while you curse in warning, you don't move to attack. "A user of Spirit Whisper, a rarity even among those in Pteruges-V. Don't you think it'd be better if they served the Amber Lord rather than going back to their pretty crimes?"

"Then give them to someone else." Aventurine turns his back on you and Jade. "Since when did I need help closing a deal?"

"Well, I just thought that you were lonely."

"And you think gifting me a slave of all things would help me?"

"Oh, just give them a chance. I'm sure you'll like this one. Look." Jade raises your chin with a finger, lifting your bruised face to the light. You shoot her a glare, plotting murder in your head, but you don't try to fight back. You might have tried once, probably, and learned your lesson. "Don't you love the fire in their eyes, even after being collared and brutally beaten?"

It is sick. It is sick how Jade can just easily muse about your past abuse to his face. To him. It is sick how the IPC thinks that Aventurine would even be happy about this... gift, let alone accept it.

"I appreciate the... thought." Jade smiles at the barely held back distaste in his voice. "But I'd really rather not."

"Oh, I see..." Jade hums, tilting her head to scrutinize you. "But no one else will accept you since you're too feisty for their liking. So I guess..."

"We'll just have to kill you."

Your face pales. Aventurine has never been quick to turn around.

"Fine. I'll accept," he says with gritted teeth and narrowed eyes. "I'll accept your gift, so just..." He sighs, massaging his temples and waving Jade off. "Go away and let us be."

"Is this some sort of savior complex you have going on?" Despite being a slave, you haven't really learned how to hold that spiteful tongue of yours. Half of the fault lies with Aventurine, seeing how he's never bothered to scold you for it. He looks away from the reports in his hand and smiles at you.

"Oh, whatever do you mean, my dear pup?" Your bitter scowl is pushed down even further at his sweet tone and you scoff.

"I mean," you say, gesturing all around you. "You never scold me, you give me good food, you do all these nice things for me. You don't beat and lash at me like others do. Are you feeling sorry? As one slave to another?"

"Personally, I've never heard of a slave complain about treating this well."

"It's weird." You frown. "It's weird and creepy. All these niceties yet I can tell that you don't even mean half of 'em. Your heart isn't in it. You're just doing it for the sake of being nice. So I don't get it." You cross your arms and lean on the couch, deep in thought. "If you don't even mean it, why even bother?"

Aventurine hums, studying your silent and pondering figure before returning to his papers. You don't follow up your complaints with anything else, and the two of you are left to stew in the silence.

... Why even bother indeed?

"Last round and you only have one win, pup." His sickly sweet voice croons, tapping his perfect nails on the table as he watches your expression. "Are you excited?"

Normally you'd bite back, but today you thickly swallow. The looming sense of doom continues to hammer into the back of your skull, spiking your nerves with every beat and shaking your senses. You can barely feel your fingers. You can barely feel except for the fear coiling around your heart.

"... Yes." You can't even barely say a syllable.

Through the rushing blood of your ears, you can barely make out the sound of your master rummaging through something. Something metallic clicks into place and he slides it to the center of the table. You will yourself to look up—

A shiny revolver lies on the table.

A surprised cry elicits from your mouth and you jolt back. The sight of a weapon is enough to startle your poor nerves now and even more so the expectant look glinting in Aventurine's eyes. He smirks and leans forward.

"How about I make an offer you can't refuse?" Not that you were in a position to do so. "Since this is the fourth round, how about we go all in?"

"Russian Roulette. Whoever wins stays alive—"

—And the other lays dead in a puddle of their own blood.

It goes unsaid, but the moment you locked eyes with Aventurine, it was clear that the both of you were thinking of the same thing. You could ponder upon why the Aventurine would stake his own life over something so trivial as your freedom, but you aren't thinking anymore. All you want is your freedom. All you want is to get away.

You don't think further as you wrap your fingers around the handle of the gun and press it to your temple. You pull the trigger. Only a clean click follows, the chamber changing cases. You slide the gun over to him.

He calmly picks it up and slots it to his temple too. "Why are you so desperate to get away from me, pup?" He cocks his head. "I would give you everything you ask for, should you just ask. I treat you with care and as a friend. Is being with me so bad you'd put your life on the line for your freedom?"

He pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. He slides it over to you.

"Even if you go back to your old life, what would be the point? You'll go back to stealing whatever you can off nobles, treating your fellow street rats like fools and pawns before dashing off to your next victim. Would that give you happiness? Fulfillment? Is that the life you prefer instead of being next to me?"

"Sh... Shut up." You sound drained, but he presses on.

"You can have it all, in the price of a collar. Does it not sound good enough to you?"

'Why... Why of all people is he...'

"Do you really hate being owned by me?"

"Why are you..." You choke on your words, grip around the handle trembling. "Why are you saying those things?"

Aventurine has never seen you cry. Not once. Not even when he had to punish you for running away. You could be weak and beaten, but you never willingly cried. But now...

He raises a hand to cover his smile.

"I thought... I thought you of all people would understand." Tears drop to your lap and your hand lowers the gun from your temple. "The pain, the humiliation of being a slave, of being owned. It doesn't matter how nice you are to me. I just want to be free. Shouldn't that be enough?"

Silence overtakes the room as Aventurine takes in the unfamiliar sight before him. Here you were, his greatest treasure, the most vulnerable than you ever were. Sobbing and weeping with a gun in hand, the pressure of the bet finally getting to you.

He moves. "... So this is it? For your pride?"

You wince, looking at him in betrayal. "You... I thought you of all people would at least understand..." You stay silent, the words forming on your tongue but too afraid to sound them out. Then your expression twists into anger, then resolute determination, before you wipe away your tears and glare at him like you always did. "I was wrong. You're scum. Just like the rest of 'em."

The moment the head of the gun points at his head, the collar clamps down and chokes you till your throat cracks and bleeds. The current of electricity crackling your nerves is just as painful and torturous as last time, but you grit your bloodied teeth and press the gun further.

Aventurine looks dazed, staring up into your bloodied face. If you weren't in such agonizing pain you would have laughed at how stupid he looks.

"[Y. Name]..."

"I hope you go to hell," you hiss through the bloody pain. "And I hope that when I get there, I'll never have to fucking see you again."

You pull the trigger to that beautiful face of his, but nothing happens once again. Fuck. It falls to the ground as the pain overwhelms you and you finally stagger. It lays among the specks of blood on the carpet, along with its empty... case...

Your eyes flick to Aventurine, still caught off guard and staring at you with wide eyes. Hesitantly, he reaches out to your convulsing body and cradles your head. "[Y. Name]..." He says, still sounding dazed. "Why would you..."

"Fuckin'... coward..." You grit out. "I was right... from the very start..."

Aventurine watches as you succumb to the pain and collapse in his arms. Despite being unconscious, the collar continues to shock and choke you, and more and more blood spouts from the side of your mouth and into the carpet. He tries to wipe it, despite it continuing like a fountain, before giving up and stroking your hair as the pain continues to intrude on you in your sleep.

"I know," he whispers, pressing a kiss to your eyelid. "You know it as well as me." He presses a kiss onto the other.

"You were never a bet I was willing to wager."

#yandere honkai star rail #yandere aventurine #yandere hsr #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #hsr aventurine #yandere x reader #yester.writes

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anakinstwinklebunny · 3 months

Text

MAFIA!ANAKIN HEADCANONS

TW: at some point it contains sexual content, so if you're sensitive to that or don't feel comfortable with it, please do not read for your own safety and comfort. Kinda violence, ani is a criminal, italian phrases/words (i do learn this language but if there's any mistake, im so sorry), mentions of drugs and gambling, ani with troublematic childhood, ITS VERY LONG!!

Mafia!Anakin who didn't know happiness until he met you. Yes, he had money, he had luxurious life but when you appeared in his life, you filled an empty hole in his heart

Mafia!Anakin who spoils you like crazy. You want something, you'll get it the same day, unless your behavior is out of place

Mafia!Anakin who keeps you away from most of his business for your own safety. He'd not forgive himself if something would happen to you because of him/his job

Mafia!Anakin who taught you how to use a gun so you could protect yourself when he's not around;

"No, again," his voice cut through your thoughts, firm and authoritative. Normally, Anakin was carefree in your presence, but teaching you how to use a gun was a different matter – he took it very seriously.

"What's wrong now?" you retorted, rolling your eyes in annoyance. You had been doing this for hours, with nothing but mistakes and failures, and your patience was wearing thin.

"Your grip...again," he said firmly, stepping closer behind you. He reached out to adjust your grip, his hands guiding yours. "You need a firmer grip, angel."

"I already have a firm grip," you retorted stubbornly.

He couldn't help but let out a small chuckle "Not as firm as it should be," he gently corrected "it's not a puppy you're holding in your hand, dolcezza." His hand wrapped around yours, adjusting your fingers and gripping them even tighter, forcing you to hold the gun properly. "This is what a firm grip looks like."

He pulled away, fixing his gaze on you again, searching for any mistakes. You tried your best to keep still, clutching the damn thing in your shaking hands. Generally, you didn't like such objects, but with Anakin, it was slightly easier. You knew he was doing this out of concern for your well-being.

"Your feet are too close together." He observed, moving in closer. "Having such a small base gives you less balance, which you don't want. You need a steady position in situations like these, angel. Otherwise, things can go very wrong."

He gently pushed his knee between your legs, widening your stance. You involuntarily stirred a little at his action, but he continued "You need to be sturdy, firm. But at the same time, flexible"

"You don't stand like that when you use a gun," you pointed out

he chuckled again, his breath warm against the back of your neck. "That's because I've been holding one ever since I was a kid, angel. You're just learning, sweetheart. You need to learn the proper stance first. We'll get to my type of stance when you have the basics nailed down."

He gently adjusted your stance, his hands steady on your hips. "Keep your feet hip-width apart, and relax your shoulders. It's all about balance and control."

Mafia!Anakin who's obviously possessive over his treasure, his pretty angel. If any man dared to look at you in a way that made you uncomfortable or made anakin question the man's behavior, anakin would make sure he would never look at you again

Mafia!Anakin who takes you to casinos which are filled with rich guys and lavishly dressed women. The place where crimes begin. He'd most of the time let you sit on his lap while he plays gambling, asking for your favorite number for his own luck

Mafia!Anakin who makes sure everyone knows that you're his and only his. Multiple marks on your neck from his lips, his hand on your waist and much more was just basics to publicly claim you

Mafia!Anakin who speaks to you in change between Italian and english, often calling you tesoro, dolcezza but also angel, baby, sweetheart

Mafia! Anakin who finds you and his close friends that he works with as his only family

Mafia!Anakin who shows you the world; takes you to different places in other countries for vacation

Mafia!Anakin who's absolutely in love with your reactions to his gifts for you; your wide smile, your sparkling with excitement eyes, your endless 'thank you' between your kisses

Mafia!Anakin who keeps you away from any drugs his friends bring since he wants to keep you away from such things

Mafia!Anakin who would throw himself on train for you. Who would take a bullet for you if he'd have to, if it meant to keep you safe and happy. Who would do anything you want. Even deprive someone of their life, since he did much worse things

Mafia!Anakin who has a habit of using new things on your delicate body;

you both laid in his king-sized bed as he worshipped your body with his plush, pink lips, gently pressing kisses against your stomach. Between his slim fingers he held the tweezers to occasionally add more radiant diamonds inside your belly button

"I love using them on you. You're just so hot," he murmured against your skin

"So irresistible," he continued with a huskier tone "Such a pretty girl..so beautiful..so gorgeous."

He moved his lips to yours, gently brushing them against each other "You would never leave me, would you?"

You shook your head defiantly, locking your gaze with his blue eyes that you could so easily drown in

"Good girl"

Mafia!Anakin who would never dare himself to treat you like he treats others. You're his favorite girl, his pretty angel and he'd be damned if he even dared himself to adress to you with such coldness or disrespect

Mafia!Anakin who loves the sound of your voice. You could just talk about nonsense, or about the book you've been reading and he'd be completely mesmerized by the sweet, gentle sound of it

Mafia!Anakin who finds you as his only source of comfort. After a rough day all he'll do is clinging to you, burying his face in the crook of your neck, savouring your scent. In your presence he could easily calm down, easily forget about the earlier events, at least for some time.

Mafia!Anakin who has a heart of ice but for you he'd burn the world

Mafia!Anakin who killed a man with the nearest object he could find (a book) just because he dared himself to touch you

Mafia!Anakin who hates to argue with you but when it happens, it always ends in the bed with rough love making

Mafia!Anakin who made love to you in every room, every small or bigger place in your shared penthouse

Mafia!Anakin who sometimes, if you're okay with it or insist yourself, takes out his frustration and indignation on you in bed;

"they're just so stupid" he growled in anger and annoyance, letting it all pour on his rough thrust "They can't do one thing correctly.. I swear to god if they mess up another goddamn thing, I'm going to kill them all. Every. Single. One of them"

"they're so useless. So pathetic." he leaned to kiss your neck "They can't do anything right, can't follow a single simple order to save their lives"

Each thrust in and out seemed to go even deeper, hitting this sweet spot that made you see those delightful stars as moans slipped through your mouth. Your eyes kept fighting to stay open, to see this desperate, awfully beautiful expression on his face. This sweaty curls, all messy and getting to his sharp blue eyes, this clenched jaw, his muscles that ripped and were, especially now, looking more defined and flexible than earlier. Gosh, the sight was enough to bring you over the edge

His eyes turned more soft, his own thrusts becoming more gentle. He was proud of himself, making a complete mess out of you and every time he loved to see you like this. All breathless and with marks all over your skin

"But at least I have you to help me release all this pent up anger.. you're so good at it, tesoro. So good for me...Only you can undo me, angioletto" he whispered, his breath growing ragged with each movement of his hips. "Only you can save me from my anger"

Mafia! Anakin who is a switch; yes, he can be a dominant one but he can easily turn into a submissive boy from only you being on top of him;

"Ani..it's so big.." you mewl, trying to adjust to his size in a new position

your words made him let out a low, pleased moan. He couldn't leave his pretty girl all helpless now, could he? His hands roamed towards your hips to help you move on his lenght "You flatter me, principessa" he groaned "Feels too big for you, does it? Too much?"

As much as his words could be true, you didn't want to admit it. You didn't want to stop it "mh--no..just.. perfect" with his help you lifted and slammed down on his cock

Your actions caused him to throw his head back and dig his long fingers to your soft flesh

"you feel so good..." he mumbled. Seeing you accustom to his size, he moved his hands through your body, feeling the need to squeeze, grope and touch every spot

"Dio, you're gonna be the death of me..." He whispered, driving himself deeper into you to feel more friction

Feeling his member pulsing against your walls only gave you another reason to tease him more, to bring him over the edge in the most pleasant way (for you)

"Oh gods..." he mumbled, his teeth gritted as he felt you increasing your movements "You're gonna...drive me... insane, c-cazzo.."

"you're gonna be a good boy and fill me up?" you moaned, watching his screaming in pleasure face

A shiver run down his body after he had heard your breathless words. There was something about seeing you turn from a sweet girl to a taking charge woman that absolutely turned him on more than he would like to admit

"Y-yeah.." he panted, his eyes opening to fix on her face, "I'll be a good boy for you, I'll fill you up... I'll do anything you say... anything to please you, bella"

Mafia!Anakin who goes absolutely crazy when you surprise him with new lingeries, costumes for cosplays; it all drove him insane

Mafia!Anakin who gives you the experience of three times in a row (making you finish for the three times);

his lips gently pressed against your neck, going up to whisper words in your ear "You tell me if you need to stop. You're so tired, I don't want to go too far and hurt you, ok?"

And you, all weary and sensitive after all what happened, could only nod in response. When his lips were going down your body, to your specific spot, your hand went down to grab at his curls, tugging on some strands around your fingers as he finally wrapped his lips around your clit-all with his eyes on yours

"You'll be walking with a limp tomorrow, mio piccolo coniglio" he mumbled between your flesh

Even if you were already tired, the shockwaves of pleasure went through your body, causing your moans to get louder

"Ani.." you whined breathlessly

The sound of his name leaving your lips made his entire body shudder. He loved the way you'd moan, whine and cry out his name. It was like a drug to him, and he craved it, craved the way you sounded and the way you tasted "Gods I love you" he breathed against your core

"the dearest god..." you moaned as his tongue lapped at your folds, making you arch your back

"You taste so good, sweetheart..can't have enough of you, never can.." he speeded his movements which was enough to make you scream

Mafia!Anakin who often talks to you about his traumatic childhood which obviously made a huge impact on his future

Mafia!Anakin who's basically a criminal; wouldn't hesitate to kill someone if that person was in his way

Mafia!Anakin who finds comforting in teaching you Italian. Just loves hearing you speak that language, even if you may suck at it

I've never really thanked you guys for being here, with me. For all your support, for all the lovely sweet comments. For reaching out to me in my inbox/dms..thank you for 301 followers! Really, love all of you with all my heart. Sending big hugs and kisses!

TAG LIST: @kingdomhate @ysrjune @divineani @erosmutt @emmaloo21 @haydensprettyprincess @mistress-amidala @catnipaddictt @fuckmyskywalker

(if you want to be removed or added then don't be shy and let me know 💋)

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pupkashi · 1 year

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in which gojo realizes you truly see him

a/n: just a little thought i have i want to comfort him and hug him always <3 thank u to the amazing wonderful lovely @vagabond-umlaut for helping me w this fic <33 would’ve been hot garbage without u i love u xoxo <3

wordcount: 720

masterlist

Gojo Satoru had only known life through his many titles.

Gojo Satoru, head of the Gojo clan.

Gojo Satoru, holder of the Six Eyes and Limitless.

Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer.

satoru hated titles. he hated being known and labeled for the things that didn’t even make up who he was. no one after suguru came close to trying to get to know him.

his fellow sorcerers always too busy or intimidated, viewing him as a spectacle.

there was a sense of longing in his heart to find someone who really wanted to know him. someone to ask him all his favorites, someone to ask him what he wanted to be as a child, what his fears were, if he had a middle name, what animal he’s always wanted as a pet.

but there was never anyone who got past the surface level questions.

until he met you.

you who upon meeting him gave him a kind smile, not a clue of who he was, telling him he could sit with you in the booth of the much too crowded coffee shop.

“they really should get more chairs around here” he mumbles, looking up at you with a small grin when you laugh in agreement, glancing up from your laptop.

“seriously! half the time it’s a gamble if I’ll be able to get some work done or if I’ll have to drive back home” you chuckle, gojo smiling at your words.

you both spent some more time talking, sipping on your respective drinks and getting to know each other.

satoru found out you had no clue about Jujutsu, given by the way you’d never heard of jujutu tech or of him. he couldn’t stop himself from giving you a charming smile, scribbling his number on a napkin before saying goodbye, a smile on his face as he walked out of the coffee shop.

you who on the second date asked him what animal he thinks he could fight and win, asking him his favorite songs and if he’d ever been to a concert before.

you who on the fourth date had him giggling, confessing how much he liked you and telling you all about his life because he wants this to work out so bad and it can’t start off as a lie.

you who a week later calls him, asking him to answer truthfully when you ask him what animal he could really take in a fight, laughing when he answers with ‘at least a cow’ his lips curling upwards at the sound.

he’s laying on the couch with you, your hands lost in his hair as the movie plays in the background softly, your voice is quiet as you speak up.

“do you have a middle name?” the question is simple, some might think it silly. but to satoru it’s like his whole world is flipped upside down.

because here he is, in your warm and homey apartment that’s nothing like his cold larger one, with you, who brings him all the love and joy he could’ve ever imagined. he’s looking at you with glimmering eyes, heart stuttering at the sight of you in his shirt that you’d stolen with a smile.

it’s with that question that he’s realizing he’s finally found someone who really wants to know him. who doesn’t care for his power or status, but cares for his terrible jokes and interests.

“toru?” you asked, pulling him out of his daze and back to reality.

“sorry” he smiles sheepishly before shaking his head ‘no,’ a look in his eyes you can’t quite place.

satoru finally finds himself with titles that mean something to him. titles that he cherishes and holds close to his heart.

Gojo Satoru, who eats anything and everything that was sweet, claiming they’re no match for the sweet taste of your lips.

Gojo Satoru, who had an insane secret obsession with romcoms. an obsession you were sure was just to get you to cuddle him until you found him up at 3 am watching a terrible hallmark movie all on his own.

Gojo Satoru, who couldn’t stand when you were mad at him, going to drastic measures for you to forgive him.

Gojo Satoru, who considered himself lucky enough to hold the title of your boyfriend, your confidant and your favorite sorcerer.

#gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru fluff #gojo satoru drabble #gojo x reader #gojo satoru #gojo satoru imagine #gojo satoru one shot #gojo satoru x reader fluff #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo fluff

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bethanydelleman · 5 months

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Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession; but spending freely, what had come freely, had realized nothing. But he was confident that he should soon be rich: full of life and ardour, he knew that he should soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that would lead to everything he wanted. He had always been lucky; he knew he should be so still. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have been enough for Anne; but Lady Russell saw it very differently. His sanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently on her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil. It only added a dangerous character to himself. He was brilliant, he was headstrong. Lady Russell had little taste for wit, and of anything approaching to imprudence a horror. She deprecated the connexion in every light.

It's interesting to me, Persuasion is the last novel Austen wrote and she had this trend prior of "W" being a villain (Wickham and Willoughby) and this paragraph about Wentworth makes me think about her other dubious men. He's gambled or spent all his money away, just like the other two, he's confident he'll get more. Wentworth and Henry Tilney are the only heroes with wit, but only Wentworth has this magnetic charm that seems to draw every woman in the room. Very Wickham of him, recall how drawn every female was to him when he came into Meryton. Wentworth feels a lot like Austen's villains, especially at first.

It makes me feel that Lady Russell was right to be worried. This sort of magnetic person, with very pretty words but no substance to back it up. It could have been a Willoughby-esq whirlwind romance and left Anne with nothing.

#jane austen #persuasion #captain wentworth #we know he isn't like that #but it's easy to see how he seems like it

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bhaalble · 10 months

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Back on my Wyll script doctor because I was talking about it with a friend. Specifically imagining a version of Wyll's big Character Choice that felt like it had some actual teeth.

Imagine a world where instead of a cartoon evil hot lady Mizora and Wyll's relationship actually had some complexity to it and like. some genuine push and pull which gives him temptation to stay. I just keep thinking about this 17 year old who his whole life wanted more than anything to be a hero, who got his chance to do something heroic and selfless and save the city from certain doom, and his reward is getting kicked out because he did it the "wrong way".

Imagine if instead of forcing his silence, Mizora instead comforted him. How unbelievably cruel of your father! Well...since you've nowhere else to go, why not stick with me? We make a pretty good team, as it turns out, and I can get you a whole list of monsters who need killing. Plenty of devils and demons loose in your world targetting all sorts of innocents. Our interests can keep aligning, and you get a place to sleep when you need it.

Wyll makes his peace with it, because he has nothing and no one. And Mizora's not GOOD maybe, not by Ulder Ravengard's definition. But she's fun. She delights in his growth. And she does certainly keep direct him at greater evils, devils who really do need killing. And if she spies on his every waking moment, well, she worries. If she sends him after the occasional innocent, well, she had people who she has to answer to as well. She's a devil, how much can he fault her for her nature? She's always seemed like she knew where the line was...

Karlach (and the player) express their doubts, of course, but for act one at least he's defensive. Yes, she punished him and he hates it and its miserable but....he was in breach of contract! She's NEVER gone outside its bounds, she's always stuck very closely to their agreement. Wyll, who wants so badly to trust others and believe everyone has the chance for good, can't find it in him to believe the worst even of a devil.

And Mizora is FOND of Wyll, loves him even in her way. As a cherished pet, as a trusted tool, as a best-laid plan. Never enough to choose his own well-being over her own agenda, never enough to see him as his own person. He's her little project, the long shot noble brat she gambled on when Tiamat decided to get too big for her britches. And it paid off! Wyll always pays off, currying her all the favor from Zariel she so desperately craves. And who are you, or anyone, to come between them? She's treated him well. As she's quick to remind him, she wanted him when no one else did, aided him while the rest of his city slept snug in their beds. And if Ulder Ravengard didn't want a son with a whiff of infernal, then do you REALLY think he'd want you with lovely horns and Avernus in your blood?

You discover his father's been taken. Beyond igniting a lot of old feelings, it brings up a question of succession. Of course, Florrick isnt giving up on him, but if not...there aren't currently any likely candidates to take over the Flaming Fists. Not trustworthy ones. Florrick will take the position, but everyone knows in the back of his mind Ulder never really stopped planning for it to be Wyll. With the city in chaos and a cult army on the rise, they may need an answer sooner rather than later. Wyll feels the call of the Gate, but knows just as well that Mizora wouldn't want him to return in such an official capacity.

For the first time ever the leash starts to chafe in a way he can't keep pushing through.

Act 2 rolls around. Mizora sends up the Warlock signal. After potentially some encouragement from the player, Wyll (NOT THE PLAYER. I DONT KNOW WHY ITS THE PLAYER IN THE GAME ITS WEIRD) hesitantly proposes that maybe, if he does this....they can do a renegotiation of his contract. Not break it, he assures her quickly! Just....reopen the terms, take a looks at the agreement. Maybe discuss an exit ramp? After all....I mean, neither of us truly thought I'd be doing this forever, did we?

Based on Mizora's reaction. Yeah she did.

But fine. She agrees. And Wyll's not mad that it turns out you're rescuing her, not a nameless "operative" for Zariel. He would've done that on his own had she asked. Its the fact that she apparently didn't feel like being honest, that she let him fret and worry about potentially handing Zariel back some runaway for basically no reason. Its the fact that she came here to check in on the cult that abducted his FATHER just to see if Zariel could make any use of them. And its the fact that she seems surprised and annoyed that ANY of this bothers him.

All this builds, of course, to the final confrontation. The basic elements are the same. Mizora outside the coronation (this time needling at Wyll, "I'll be at camp if you're not too high and mighty to consort with the likes of me anymore"), Ulder tadpoled and fighting it. Mizora makes her offer. I can end the contract now, and you're free to go running after daddy (who won't want you btw! not like I do!). You'll lose all your powers, all my aid, all those juicy quests to chase down the greatest monsters in the hells. Take on your father's job and settle in for a life of misery and compromise and only doing as much good as the nobles will let you. Or: pledge yourself to me, eternally. I'll give you a boatload of new powers and eternal life to boot, so long as you serve as my sword and shield.

From there I think three endings branch out, and with it three classes for Wyll. If he stays with Mizora, accepts a relationship where he will never be an equal or a free agent in exchange for the affirmation he wants so badly from his father, he remains a Warlock, with some juiced stats and extra spell slots, along with shiny new gear. If he pledges to follow in his father's footsteps, he instead becomes an Oath of Devotion paladin, pledging himself in service to Tyr, if with a sense of doomed finality. The Blade of Frontiers is officially retired, and along with it any identity he has outside of being his father's son. Or the third path, break the contract without taking his father's role. He will look for his father, yes, but whether or not you find him he's going back to his roots, travelling around to do some good in the world (as the Blade of Frontiers) or kicking ass in the Hells with Karlach (as the Blade of Avernus). In this timeline he becomes a fighter, with a default preference for Eldritch Knight.

What's important: if he breaks his contract then Mizora is NOT hanging around camp. She will leave in a fury, accidentally bound by her own word to withdraw her influence completely if he breaks his contract. She may still approach the player some night to sleep with the player, framed for high approval/romanced players and her trying to take something back from Wyll. But Wyll will have to learn how to define himself without her breathing down his neck, without keeping her happy dominating his every thought. Its nervewracking, and even lonesome at times...but its freedom. And, perhaps, that's worth a little bit of lonesomeness.

#long post #again i want to be clear because i think wyll fans are a little understandably defensive of him #this is not about wanting wyll to be a bad person #its about wanting him to have an arc that parallels the rest of the companions #and be more firmly centered on HIS feelings and choices #ive done my best to preserve wylls canon temperament here #just give the circumstances more teeeth #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #wyll ravengard #mizora #ulder ravengard

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thecoochiefairy · 4 months

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𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖔𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖊𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖞

━━ 𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑟𝑒 .ᐟ toji.

warnings 𑄽𑄺 11.5K word count. toji zenin, married toji, wedding, honeymoon, deflowering, main character is a virgin/celibate, third person omniscient pov, black woman, vaginal penetration, sweet sex, rough + maybe a lil angry sex, lot of sweet talking, hair pulling, squirting, creaming, oral [f] [m], choking, praising, LOTS of dirty talk, condomless sex, kissing, spanking, aggressive toji, lil bit of sweet toji, minors aren’t welcome!

song to play while listening; 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑔 ; 𝑟𝑖ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑎

━━ 𝒄𝙤𝒐𝙘𝒉𝙞𝒆𝙛𝒂𝙞𝒓𝙮 𝙩𝒉𝙤𝒖𝙜𝒉𝙩𝒔 .ᐟ idk why i’ve been craving the thought of marriage lately, or maybe just a wedding in general. i just love people in love. enjoy :) 💐

EVERYTHING WAS MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SHE EVER IMAGINED. Blooming red roses cascaded all around, gold trim wrapping around the flowers. Platters of gold chandeliers filled the brim of the backdrop, soft emerald leaves whisking beneath the baby breath’s. The delicate ivory plants represented sincerity, purity, love.

She stood across from the man she was deadly in love with. His large palm squeezed firmly around her small one, eyes falling to the tattooed rosary that crawled around his fingers, dark crucifix slanting over the veins flexing with each movement he made.

It was every woman’s vision, being able to perfectly create their dream wedding. Her heart was completely filled with love. Her entire family stood in the crowd of people, dark wardrobe to match the wants of her catholic-wedding. Just like a man completely head over heels, she had it her way, no matter what cost.

Toji stared over the woman he was about to marry. Her soft almond shaped eyes that slanted when she smiled, brown irises he could drown in anytime he looked into them. Her dark hair was in a low bun, pulled back to showcase a strident face. Edges curled and styled along her forehead to perfection as it was halfway covered by her large veil. The alabaster lace cascaded all the way out into the bottom step of the stage, showcasing the virgin-mary within the custom design.

Her tawny-brown skin complimented the gold encrusted nose ring, plump bratz-doll lips shining. Her honey freckles spruced all along her nose, traveling out to her cheeks and face, even with makeup. Low eyes were covered by fluffy lash extensions. He loved her with or without her makeup, never seeing another woman more beautiful than her. She was erotically pure to him, completely condescending thoughts, he knew. But that’s exactly how he envisioned her. The corset of her dress clung to her frame, a low dip within the front of the dress that swirls between the heart of her chest, sinking down at the right side of her hip. The construction at the top modestly covered her breast, hugging all around her waist, striking out to the sinful poke of her hips and ass that drips white pearls and gold Swarovski crystals.

She fell out of her trance again, locking her eyes back with the scarily dark steel grey of his pupils. Yet nothing scared her about him—at least, now. When she had first met this man, he was the complete opposite of who stood in front of her. A womanizer, a gambler, all of the worse things a person could think of—an asshole. But Selaphiel was a force to be reckoned with. Her feisty nature and unwavering determination—especially her ‘not for the fuck-shit’ attitude—had inspired Toji to change for the better. He was now a loyal and dedicated fiancée, a far cry from his womanizing and gambling days.

Toji grinned, his grip on her hand tightening. He had never been so happy in his life, not until he met Selaphiel. Her eyes shimmered like the stars, and she had a beauty that could only take one’s breath away. The way her fingers interlocked with his own, the way her lips curled into a smile when she saw him… he knew he was completely enraptured with her. She played no games with him, letting him know from the jump that she had a faithful promise to god, keeping her body for the man she planned to marry. She just didn’t expect that man to be him.

Selaphiel, a name of one of the seven archangels, had grown up in a religious home. It didn’t make her entirely a Bible thumper, having her explorative escapades in college— her parents pulling their hair out at the thought. But as she was now twenty-eight, working towards her doctorate in orthodontics, she wanted nothing more but someone to call her own. Toji was her home if she didn’t have anyone else.

She’d met him while doing her studies in medical school, learning that he was also going for his doctorates to be a Pathologist—studying fluids, tissues, or organs taken from the body after death. He was completely successful within his career, but his personal life was different. She had essentially tied all of his loose ends—she couldn’t disagree that he hadn’t done the same.

But as the pastor strung his voice out to the crowd, Selaphiel’s hand slightly went limp within Toji’s palm, realizing there was something she was afraid of when it came to him. It sounded stupid. Hell, maybe even childish. With her celibacy, it was hard at times to keep from breaking her promise, Toji not only a man, but an experienced one within the bedroom. She could see in that shit-eating grin that he knew could have her at the palm of his hand. She melted by even just a soft kiss on the neck, fingers slamming upon her ass when she walked past him, to the erotic words that fell from his lips.

Yet, Toji respected and valued Selaphiel’s decision to remain celibate until marriage, recognizing it as a personal choice. He had no desire to pressure or rush her into anything. Their relationship focused on building a strong emotional connection, based on trust and respect. But Toji being the man he was, his deep appetite for her had grown stridently in his stomach, animalistic and ready to catch his prey.

“You may kiss your bride,” the pastor then says.

Sela squeals softly as Toji pulls her forward, nearly raising her off of the ground as he pulls her into a deep kiss, tonguing her down irregardless of who watched. Her face goes red as everyone around cheers.

His groomsmen let out a deep howl, her bridesmaids clapping and gleefully smiling, seeing as Selaphiel laughs happily, trying to hold back the sob of joy she wants to let out. She almost breaks as she raises her thumb to Toji’s face, briefly wiping the tear that nearly falls. She knows he’d rather die than show his emotion, her heart swelling as she felt his emotions radiating off of him.

The reception had finally arrived, everyone seated in their assigned chairs, being assisted by the waiters and waitresses that serve the five course meal they have to offer. The first and second course varied from baby kale salad with cherry tomatoes drizzled with honey and avocado dressing, or garden salad with raspberry vinaigrette. The entrées contained Filet Mignon or stuffed chicken breast with pesto cream, desert being vanilla and dark chocolate cake with almond buttercream.

Everyone enjoyed their meals, watching in the middle of the empty floor as the couple stood there for their first dance. Selaphiel’s arms wrapped around his neck, Toji’s palms laid along her hips as she leaned her face against his chest to hear his heartbeat, the both of them sinking into each other as they swayed softly as japanese denim plays. She was glad that everyone was enjoying themselves, but she felt herself slowly just wanting to be alone with him.

She mutters to him, “My social battery is running out.”

Toji’s deep chuckle rumbled against her cheek upon hearing Sela’s comment. He knew how much she valued her alone time. He lowered his head slightly so that he could speak softly in her ear “I understand, baby," he replied affectionately, “How about we step out for some fresh air? You deserve some time to recharge. Get away from our hectic ass families.”

The thought of now being alone with him scared her. She knew at times that he almost lost himself, wanting to have his way with her devilishly. She felt with them officially being married, that urge was now pushed to a thousand.

She shakes her head briefly as she says, “It’s okay. This feels nice. This dress is also tight as hell,” she sighs out.

Toji noticed the slight change in Selaphiel’s demeanor and the hint of fear in her eyes. He knew everything about her. He held her closer, his grip firm yet gentle as they continued to sway to the music.

"You look fuckin’ stunning," Toji rasped, his lips brushing against her ear. "This dress was made to turn heads, damn near makes me wanna break a motherfuckers neck for you. I'll find a way to get you out of this dress as soon as possible if you’re uncomfortable in it.”

She ignores the way her heart drops to her ass at the mention of him, ‘getting her out of the dress.’ She nods her head, raising her eyes up to meet him as she sweetly asks “You love me?” knowing it was a dumb question.

Toji tilted his head, his gaze meeting Selaphiel. A small chuckle escaped his lips before he gently cupped her cheek, his thumb grazing the soft skin.

"Love is too small of a word for what I feel for you," he murmured, his voice filled with sincerity. "You are the air that fills my lungs, the very essence of my existence. There are not enough words in the world to describe my love for you."

“Corny ass.”

“You liked that shit, didn’t you? That was good,” he smirks, bringing his palms down to her ass, groaning lightly as he squeezes the flesh. Selaphiel giggles as he raises her up to where her heels sit atop of his shoes, playfully spinning her around.

They both separated from one another as Toji sat at the table with his groomsmen, it being a long time since they were all together in one room. Some of them already had families, built businesses or worked their way through school. It felt nice to be around his friends considering his actual family wasn’t at his wedding.

“Tell us how long you’ve been holding out for Selaphiel,” one of them asks, holding his beer as he takes a swig of it, the other groomsmen chuckling, patting the shoulder of their nosey friend.

“C’mon man, we’re your bros. You can tell us if you’ve been getting some pussy on the side,” another one says on the other side of the table.

“Nah. Sela got his ass wrapped around her pinky finger, holding on tight!”

“Shitt, damn near the whole hand!”

The entire table uproars in laughter, Toji chuckled softly, a small annoyance creeping at his friends’ teasing comments. He glanced over at Sela as she danced with the flower girl and the rest of her bridesmaids , his eyes lingering on her for a moment.

"For a year and a half" he replied with a shrug. "It took a lot of restraint. But she was worth the damn wait.“

He took a sip from his drink, a small grin playing at the corner of his lips. His friends continued to rib him, but beneath the teasing, there was genuine respect and admiration for his devotion to her decision.

“No pussy pocket? Nothing?”

“Shittt, I’m not that crazy. Lotions and oils have been a good friend to me,” Toji confirms, making them all laugh again.

“I heard her telling one of the bridesmaids that she didn’t know where you were taking her for your honeymoon. You’ gonna keep that secret from your friends, dickhead?” One of his groomsmen asked.

Toji chuckled again, “Keeping that for myself," he said, a hint of pride in his voice. "I want it to be a complete surprise —a special gift just for her. She deserves it."

His friends continued to teasingly nudge him, playful smirks on their faces as they took another sip of their drinks. They knew Toji was completely smitten with Selaphiel and would do anything to make their honeymoon unforgettable.

“Just don’t kill her, alright? You ain’t Edward, and she ain’t Bella,” another one says, the entire table falling out at that poke.

“Call me Toji Cullen then, the hell!” He smacks his teeth, laughing along with them.

Selaphiel comes around the table, waving softly as she then wraps her arms around his shoulders, kissing his neck as she smiles, “Hi, handsome. I miss you. ‘M ready to go,” she muffled along his throat.

She feels a chill go throughout her body as she sees him manspread against the chair, his tie loosened as a few buttons are open down his shirt, briefly showcasing the other tattoos that trace his body. The silver chain around his neck sits beautifully along the skin, his Bulova watch cold along her body as he grabs her throat from above him, pulling her down to hover over his face.

"There you are, my lovely bride," he replied warmly, tilting his head to kiss her chin, “I missed you too. Are you ready to head out?"

“Yes,” her feminine voice says softly, “I wanna be with you.”

Toji's bone straight smirk widened, his eyes holding a tender expression. He gently slipped an arm around her waist, a protective yet affectionate gesture.

"Good," he replied lightly, his voice carrying a hint of desire. "I’m tired of sharing you.”

Selaphiel was finally out of that extremely uncomfortable dress, now wearing a more sultry look. It was purely white, fully laced, long sleeved and clinging to her body. A deep v was within the middle that ever so slightly showcased her nipples. Her veil was much shorter now, small pink bows all around the soft white material. With a farewell to his groomsmen and Selaphiel doing the tradition of throwing her bouquet to her bridesmaids, everyone followed outside, saying their goodbyes and continuously cheering. Toji guided Selaphiel away, a palpable excitement between them as they stepped into their black Aston Martin, speeding off into the night.

When they made it to their destination, they were now parked at a cliff, the car’s window showcasing the lights of the city at night. Toji told her they would sit here for a bit while he got a few last things together for their honeymoon. She wanted to ask a thousand questions, anxious as she had no idea where they were going. But instead, the chaos of their wedding day had brought a wave of exhaustion over her, now comfortable in his shoulder as she sat on top of his lap in the backseat, softly snoring against his shoulder as he scrolled through emails from his job.

She snuggled deeper within his body, Toji immediately adjusting to the movement, his warmth encompassing the natural coldness of her skin. It was a blessing and a curse. In the winter he was her personal heater, but any other time, she would flip him over immediately in the middle of the night, sticking her face directly in the fan across from the bed as she groaned hotly.

“You remember the first time we came up here?” She asks, her voice quiet as she seems to be half asleep.

Toji chuckles, “I always do. You punched me in the balls.”

“You tried to get a feel—for the free, crazy as hell,” she mumbled, “I don’t even want to know how much you spent on this Aston Martin. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you have to spend it all.”

“It wasn’t bad. It was about five—“

“Hundred? That’s not bad—“

“Thousand?”

Her eyes flew open, upper body sitting up as she said, “Toji Zenin. You did not spend five hundred thousand American dollars on renting an Aston Martin!—“

“Woman. I spent five thousand. You know what I’d do with five hundred thousand dollars? Buy like three Aston Martin’s!”

“Don’t be funny. You know I don’t do math,” she glared, “Even that’s still too much!”

He shrugs, switching the topic as he then says, “Speaking of my name…I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She sees his face become serious, sitting upwards to fully face him as she says, “Yeah?”

“I wanted to ask a favor. Do you think I could…take your last name instead of you having mine?”

Selaphiel stares at him, his olive toned skin a cream color within the moonlight. Although she hadn’t spoken on it, the only people that appeared as “family,” at their wedding was his groomsmen. She knew that he didn’t associate with his family. He briefly told her that they were extremely abusive, telling nothing else. They had gotten into a bad argument about his stubbornness before, Selaphiel trying to offer him the word of the Bible about forgiveness. He was always extremely patient and sweet with her, but when it came to his family, that was an argument she was never going to win.

She presses her hand gently along his chin, rubbing her thumb over the scar among his lips. He grimaces slightly, squeezing the skin of her thigh as he slightly moves his face away.

“Of course we can do that.”

“Thank you,” he says, hoping she doesn’t make him push the conversation.

She leans forward, softly capturing his lips within hers, pulling back as she continues to graze her fingers along his face. He takes her wrist, softly kissing her hand, squeezing it within his palm.

“So, are you finally going to tell me where we’re going?” She tilts her head, “I’m gonna start nervously farting if you don’t. I’m extremely anxious.”

Toji laughs, “I was trying to hold out, but…” he lets out a deep breath, “I know I told you I would never go back home. But I remember for one of your assignments you had to do a city you were interested in, and you picked Shibuya, because you wanted to see all the markets, try the food, shit like that.”

Selaphiel’s eyes go slightly wide as she says, “Our honeymoon’s in Tokyo?”

Toji wants to roll his eyes as he says, “Yes, but—“

He groans as she wraps her arms tightly around his neck, pulling him forward as her back is now against the car seat, kissing all over his face and jaw. It had been a dream of hers to visit Japan, even before she’d met him. She told him her dream of going into Tokyo, but he immediately knocked down the idea, telling her it wasn’t a place he planned on going back to. Unfortunately, he loved her too much to not give her something she always wanted.

“No family shit, Sela—“

“I promise,” she nods her head, “I just wanna be there with you. But seriously, how much did you spend?”

“You want me to lie?”

“You’re absolutely terrible.”

“This we all knew.”

Making it to the airport wasn’t the issue for Selaphiel, it was up until they were now on the plane, trapped within the sky and nowhere else to go. Toji knew she was terrified of planes, doing everything to make her as comfortable as possible. He’d even put them in first class, a bed within their section and office table for him to work while she slept. But instead, she balled up within his lap, holding onto him for dear life. He sighed, leaning his head on top of hers as he continued doing his work.

"Baby,” Toji murmured soothingly, “We’re landing in about thirty minutes. We’ll be okay.”

He was the complete opposite of her, enjoying flying in the air. He couldn't help but glance out the window, admiring the view from the plane's height. The vast expanse of the sky with its ever-changing patterns of clouds and the breathtaking landscape below filled his eyes with wonder. When he saw the overview of a place he use to call home, he felt a shift in his chest, not sure if it was nostalgia or the complete opposite.

She was thankful for them to finally land, the chauffeur placing their suitcases within the trunk as they were now making their way through the city. Selaphiel’s eyes didn’t know where to look, almost like a child seeing their favorite show come along the TV, fascinated and unable to pull away. They made it to their hotel, Selaphiel being slightly dragged by Toji’s hand as they made it up to the top floor of the building, a suite larger than she’d ever imagined now in front of her eyes. It was completely spacious, the windows showcasing the high buildings and colorful persuasion of the city, her eyes falling to a large tower not too far from where they stayed. She softly thanked the hotel staff that placed their bags within the room, her feet following her to the window, a warmth in her heart as she still couldn’t believe she was on her dream trip.

She feels arms come around her neck, leaning against her as he speaks within her ear, “You like it?”

“I love it,” she replies, “And I love you.”

“Yeah yeah, you just love me cause I’m your sugar daddy.”

She shrieks as he turns her around, throwing her over his shoulder. The hotel staff stands within the room as he says to him, “I’m apologizing now for future noise complaints you’re gonna receive.”

“Toji!” She giggles embarrassingly, unable to see as he passes the man a tip, closing the door behind himself as he leaves.

The rest of their day had been as interesting as the morning. Traveling all around the city, Selpahiel explored and took photos of anything she saw. It was also fascinating to watch how quickly Toji fell into his traditions. His deep voice switched in and out of his native tongue, speaking in words she didn’t understand yet she was still intrigued. It made her happy to see that he wasn’t repulsed with being here, finding his own way to fall in love with a place he associated with hatred. He was also falling in love with her all over again, her sunny disposition able to bring anyone’s energy up. But with that sunny disposition came a naivety that made him want to bang his head along a wall. Selaphiel stood in a soft green spaghetti strapped dress, a high slit on one leg as she wore sneakers with the look, perfectly sculpted body feverishly moving with each step she made. Even with the dress being flowy all of her curves defined themselves. Her dark curls bounced around her face and makeup, her hand reflexively pulling a stray hair behind her ear as she bent over the railing to stare down at the cherry blossom tree across from her.

He watched as her body aligned smoothly, back curving inwards, hips sinfully poking outwards. The slit in her dress swishes over the back of her thighs, a glimpse of her ass jiggling as she called behind herself, “Baby, look! You see?”

“I see,” he lowly replies, eyes only upon her figure, wondering how she'd look as he took her from behind, ass clapping harshly along his hips.

As they were seated in a restaurant, his mind only became worse. Selaphiel pouted as she adjusted the straps of her dress, “You think I should take them out?”

She refers to the heart shaped nipple piercings she has, the jewelry poking through the thin material of the dress, desperately begging to spring free.

“They’ve been kinda sensitive lately,” she says, Toji wanting to pull his hair out at this point.

“Could be the metal, baby. Your skin is more sensitive to the cheaper silver,” he replies. On the other hand, he was currently imagining her whines as he sucked along her sensitive nipples.

“Probably,” she shrugs, leaning forward as she opens her mouth, “Lemme’ have some of your food. What’d you call it?”

Of course.

He sighs, “Takoyaki.”

This wasn’t necessarily his final strike, but it was just enough. They were in a private indoor pool of the hotel, Toji watching as she absentmindedly paraded around in her baby-phat bikini. The innocent pink along her body is nowhere near as guilty as his thoughts. She was like his own personal bratz doll, her body coming out of the water as she goes to search for her phone on the table, her hair damp as it reaches the end of her back, body dripping to add along his carnal temptations. He wanted to play with her.

They were now back inside of their room, Toji laid across the bed as Selaphiel sprawled along his lap. His fingers were captured in a blunt as he held it between his lips, sucking his teeth as he kept trying to spark his lighter.

“Do I even wanna know how you snuck weed into Tokyo?”

“The safe answer is no,” he mumbles, still focused on sparking his lighter.

“Okay,” she rolls her eyes.

She might’ve come off naive at times, but she wasn’t stupid. She felt in her mind that she was stalling other things newly-wed’s did on their honeymoon. She also knew that smoking was a rarity for Toji, knowing that he only did it to take the edge off. She loved how respectful he was of her wishes, sometimes even going as far as to not touch her without asking. But this was different, their love was sanctioned within her devotion to her religious beliefs, and last time she’d read the Bible, it was now perfectly fine for them to enjoy their intimacy. So what was the issue?

Maybe she was intimidated by him. Or it was the thought of her inexperience compared to all the women he’d slept with, not knowing if she’d be enough for him. Maybe she was just afraid he’d tear her apart. It was that scary glint in his eyes, a lion constantly on the prowl when he stared. At times she couldn’t believe how incredibly attractive he was, even just doing regular things. Like now.

He brings his attention up to her, firmly pulling her downward as he tells her, “Open your mouth.”

She immediately complies. Lightly separating her baby pink lips, he blows the smoke into her mouth, pulling her forward by the back of her neck as he brings his tongue down her throat, drowning her in a ruthless kiss. She feels her heart pumping in her ears as she grips the bottom of his shirt, twisting nervously as he overpowers her, her body hovering beneath his as he dominates the kiss. Her breath hitches along his mouth as she attempts to pull herself back, Toji jerking her closer as he growls, “Don’t run from me.”

Toji holds her by the side of her neck as he briefly pulls their lips away, her pleading whimper inflaming something within his body. His eyes darkened with desire, cupping her face in his hands, his gaze locking into hers with an intensity that made his intentions clear. He was fierce, possessive. His mouth left no doubt as to who she belonged to.

“Baby—I’m uh—I’m hungry,” she then stutters, trying to distract him.

“Me too,” he rasps.

Oh.

He can feel her body now slightly trembling. He slows down his movements, staring at her aura that was shaken by a kiss alone. Her fingers softly press along her lips as her face is a deep shade of red.

“Fuck. My bad, pretty. I just—“ he cuts himself short, gripping her skin tightly to withhold his advances, “You said you were hungry?”

She can barely speak. Her eyes go slightly wide as she feels his bulge below her lap, prominent and hard. Huge, she thinks.

“Use your words, baby,” he encourages.

“Yes,” she then corrects, “I’m craving pasta.”

He tilts his head, lightly grinning at her as he says, “Basic ass pasta in Tokyo?”

She nods her head, trying to be normal with him, her eyes never looking directly into his as she replies, “Please?”

“You’re lucky I love you.”

“You’re lucky to have me,” she retorts.

She comes off of his lap, watching as he re-adjusts himself between his legs before making his way out of the bedroom. She leans back against the pillows for a while. After about twenty minutes of being in her head, it’s like she had finally come up for air, chaotically running her fingers under the blanket as she searches for her phone. Once she finds it, she immediately presses the call button, her ear to the screen as she waits.

Her best friend answers, “Why the fuck are you calling me, Selaphiel? It’s three in the morning in New York. You better be dying.”

“You’re mad yet you still picked up the phone?”

“What do you want?” She speaks in a monotone voice.

“Remember how I said I would call you if I started freaking out?”

“Unfortunately I do.”

“This is me now freaking out.”

“What the hell are you so scared of, Selaphiel? Dick?”

“His, in specific? Yes,” she admits.

“He loved your big headed ass enough to marry you, let’s not forget. He also loved you enough to hold off pussy for an entire year. And a half. Let the man break your vagina so hard that it falls off and creates a new one.”

“You’re not helping!”

Her best friend sighs, “Look. Just channel that inner sex-lioness, okay? The minute you guys start getting hot and heavy, it’ll come out.”

Selaphiel takes a deep breath as she thinks upon those words, realizing she might be being dramatic as she replies, “Okay. Lioness. Grrr,” she quietly growls within the phone.

“Girl,” her friend laughs, “I’m hanging up. You’re not being dramatic though, the man is built like a goddamn gorilla. Scary like one, too. Deuces! Writing a eulogy for your cookie as we speak.”

Her friend hangs up before she can say anything else, Selaphiel’s eyes rising as she sees Toji come back in the room. A curse leaves his lips as he reaches behind himself, pulling his shirt over his head which gives her a full view of his upper body. All of his tattoos were extremely meaningful to him. Dark ink complimented the silver jewlery along his wrists and neck, clinking with each movement he made.

Toji notices her gaze lingering on his exposed physique, a smirk now playing on his lips. He flexed his muscles slightly, a showmanship of his strength and masculinity as he said, “You wanna keep staring or come over here?”

“I just—um, did you hurt yourself?” She tries to find her words, bringing her eyes back down to the bed.

Toji's smirk widened as he noticed the subtle embarrassment in Selaphiel’s voice and the shift in her gaze. He continued to strip off his clothes, responding with a nonchalant shrug, “Got a stain from cooking. Imma’ hop in the shower before I finish,” he explains.

“Oh. Okay,” she nods.

“Wanna come shower with me? I’ll wash your hair,” he offers, “I know you don’t want chlorine sitting in it from the pool earlier.”

This was her chance. Toji was never shy to be fully naked in front of her, but at most she had only stripped down to her underwear to sleep. She knew that being in the shower with him might create an opportunity to pounce, but that wasn’t a bad thing. The longer she stared, the more she craved him. At the same time she wanted to say no based on her nervousness. But this was her husband now. There was no reason to fear it.

Lioness, she thinks of her conversation with her best friend. More like a kitten, she tells herself.

She then says, “Yeah. Sure,” she nods, convincing herself.

Toji's heart fluttered surprisingly at her agreement, his eyes lighting up with desire and affection. He closed the distance between them, gently tilting her chin up with his finger so that their gazes were level.

She nods her head, his grip becoming more firm as she repeats “Yes,” more confident this time as she sees his face.

He led the way to the luxurious ensuite bathroom, his excitement and affection for her palpable in the air between them. Toji closes the door, dimming the brightness to something softer and more ambient.

Her heart pounds within her chest. She kept her eyes down as she began to unravel her bikini top and bottom, the thin material dropping to the floor to reveal her bare body. Dark curls cascade around her, freckles appearing heavily along her face under the faint lights. Toji watched every second of this. He was now able to see every perfect flaw. Tiger stripes along her hips, dimples dented in her thighs, breast full as the jewelry within her areolas shine. Quickly placing her arms over chest, she clasps her hands over her arms, feeling her face completely hot.

He comes beside her, moving her hair behind her neck as he places a kiss along the skin. Selaphiel shivers more than she expected herself to as he says, “I’d kill for you, you know that? You’re fuckin’ gorgeous.”

She keeps her attention to stepping in the shower, the warm water pulling her back to reality as she exhales. Her eyes briefly wash over Toji who removes his bottoms, eyes falling to the third leg that sits in between his original pair. She brings her eyes back up to the shower head. Toji gently stepped into the shower behind Selaphiel, the warm water cascading over their bodies, steam embracing them like a comforting veil. His eyes fixed on her figure, his heart swelling with affection and admiration for his wife. He reached for the body wash, generously applying a small amount onto his hands before softly lathering it along her back and shoulders, savoring the feel of her skin under his calloused fingertips. It was like the first time touching her.

His hands along her bare body made her shudder, skin heating up in a way it hadn’t before. This was different. She was…aroused.

Toji noticed the subtle shudder that ran through her body as his hands traced along her bare skin, sending a wave of warmth and desire through his own veins. A low growl escaped Toji's lips as he pressed his body closer to hers, the heat of the water and the scent of her body wash blending into an intoxicating cocktail. Her hair was darker with water seeping into it, his hand latching around the flattened curls, pulling her along his chest as his lips hovered over her neck.

"You’re like a fuckin’ drug. I can’t resist you,” he whispered huskily in her ear, his breath hot against her flesh.

He twists her around, pressing his hand along the side of her throat to keep her eyes along his. Her nervousness came back out to play, eyes fluttered shut, teeth digging into her lip as she whimpered, “Toji…”

His grip on Selaphiel’s throat tightened gently as she whimpered his name, the sound echoing in his ears like a sultry symphony. His lips brushed against her skin, trailing along the sensitive flesh of her neck with a tantalizing mixture of tenderness and passion.

“Say that shit again,” he whispered into her ear, his voice low and seductive, “I want to hear you say my name, pretty. I want to hear you call out to me.”

His lips along her throat made her entire body inflamed, shakily gripping his arm, “Toji…I…” he had barely done anything, yet her entire body was trembling. The sound of his name on her lips drove his desire to a fever pitch.

“That’s it,” he grunted. His hand moved down to her hips, pulling her closer to him as the heat threatened to consume them both. He captured her lips in a fierce, passionate kiss, his touch gentle yet unmistakably possessive.

“Baby…” she embarrassingly whined, wrapping her arms around his neck, feeling her face becoming completely red.

Toji's heart raced as Selaphiel wrapped her arms around his neck, her voice breaking slightly in her pleading whine. His eyes darkened with desire, and he gently cupped her face in his hands, his gaze having an intensity that made his intentions clear.

"You’re okay,” he whispered softly, his voice filled with devotion and passion. Then, he leaned down, capturing her lips again in another sin ridden kiss.

She whimpered along his mouth, hand coming around the back of his hair as she captured his tongue in between her lips. Her thighs squeezed together as feels herself becoming horny, a newfound feeling that crippled her logic.

Toji's grip tightened in Selaphiel’s hair as she captured his tongue in hers, grunting at her desire to deepen the kiss. He could practically feel the heat between them rising with each passing second. His hands roamed over her bare skin, caressing and exploring every inch of her body, as if trying to etch her form into his memory. And then, with a low growl, he hoisted her up against the shower wall, holding her close to him as if she were the most precious treasure in the universe.

“I…Toji…wait. I don’t wanna…not in here, baby,” she stutters out, feeling her heart speed up as he hoists her against the shower.

He lowly chuckles along her skin. Selaphiel shrieks as he puts all of her weight onto him, carrying her into the bedroom. She couldn’t help the nervous giggle that left her lips, back along the bed as he began kissing her throat. The thought of their bodies wet from the shower hadn’t even crossed their minds. They enjoyed the feverish need for one another, Selaphiels neck stretched back as she raised her hand to his arm, digging her nail into his skin as his lips continued their assault along her throat. It wasn’t until his lips traveled down that she almost ripped his limb completely off.

He flattens his tongue along the jewelry of her nipple, hearing a soft gasp as she jumps. She realizes how good he is with his mouth, her areola being extremely sensitive yet a warm sense of pleasure overcomes her body. She closes her eyes the minute she sees him release her breast with a lewd popping noise, hungrily taking the other nipple into his mouth, growling as he squeezes his hands around her hips that kneel into his touch. His mouth is along her skin with a fierce possessiveness, claiming every inch to show just how badly he wants her.

“Never needed you the way I need you now, baby,” he says against her abdomen.

Selaphiel can only sit halfway up and stare down at his dark eyes, face completely red as she nods her head to mask the embarrassment. Toji watches as her breath hitches, meeting her gaze as he feels the arch within her body, his desire for her growing each passing second. His lips continue their journey down her hips, trailing famished kisses along the skin as he worshiped her body with a passion.

She had no chance to run, hide or even protest as he brought her legs over his shoulders, pulling her down to the edge of the bed as she was now staring at the top of his dark hair, Toji’s tongue making immediate contact with her clit. It was warm within his mouth, his jaw also making contact with the wetness of her arousal. He groaned in a way she hadn’t heard before. She was sweet, but he didn’t expect anything else. Selaphiel gasped loudly, attempting to push him away, the raw need coming from him overpowering everything else. His eyes locked into hers with an intensity that sent shivers down her spine.

“Toji—oh my god,” she softly cried, her body within a state of shock, unable to handle the thousands of nerve wracking pleasures she feels. He enjoys her. His entire mouth dances along her core as he swirls his lips in a circular motion, dirtily making out with the puff of her sensitive clit.

“Fuckin’ hell, Sela. You taste like goddamn heaven,” he growls against her, pushing his mouth deeper as he dives in and out of her lower lips, spreading her with his tongue as he drops spit against her, a loud slurping sound creating as he nuzzles his head farther into her. His nose is damn near captivated. She attempts to twist her hips out of his hold, Toji smacking his lips as he utters, “Come here,” locking his large palms around her ankles, spreading them from earth to hell as he locks her knees against the sheets.

It seems as if the more she tries to move out of his hold, the more aggressive he becomes. Selaphiel struggles out a cry as she watches his head bob up and down, mouth sliding down to her begging opening, his tongue fitting perfectly inside of her as it shoves in.

He tells her, “Watch me tongue fuck my pussy. You’ll love it.”

She couldn’t believe his words. She tilts her head to stare away, Toji briefly removing his hand from her ankle as he turns her chin back to him.

“Your pussy is so pretty, baby. Look how wet you are. It all feels good. Imma’ make you feel like this all the fuckin’ time,” he promises to her.

“Toji—“

He cuts her off, going back down to her spread legs, locking his arm back around her ankle. He sticks his tongue out, slowly entering it within her squelching hole. Selaphiels body shakes at this, Toji moaning as he slowly removes his mouth from her, doing it in a repetition as he leans down, thrusting it back in. Her eyes watch in horror as a white substance appears on the end of his tongue, her hips trembling as she cries, “Baby, I…no!” She flies her hands over her face.

Toji chuckles darkly, “You can’t be creaming already. You’re too fuckin’ good to me,” he grunts.

The lock on her ankles allows him to move her in a way he wants, grinding her clit along his tongue, coming back down to her trembling opening. It squeezes around his tongue as he kisses within it, stretching her open to prepare her for something bigger. He spread her legs wider, muttering against her body, “I’m gonna stretch your pussy so good, baby. Gotta’ make sure it doesn’t hurt too bad.”

“Toji,” she whimpers, pleading he stops this unruly talk.

He continued his ministries, tongue exploring her in ways she’d never experienced before. He was relentless. He squeezed her ankles, gripping them as he pulled her hips down to slosh against his face, Selaphiels eyes blown with lust as he dragged his lower lip along her clit, trapping it under his mouth as he followed the upper lip behind it.

Toji briefly looks up to see Selaphiel watching him, her eyes rolling blissfully as he continues to pleasure her. The sight only fueled his desire. His grip tightened, his tongue now working with a determined fervor, desperate to draw out anything from her lips.

“Baby…t—this feels so…”

She brings her hand into his hair, tugging lightly at the dark mane. His body was inflamed at the desperate sound of her voice. He leaned into her touch as her nails dug into his scalp, relishing the mix of pleasure and pain that it brought.

He gave her pussy a deep kiss, her vision now becoming teary, the feeling all becoming too much for her. Toji nuzzles his lips against her, kissing her opening again, and again, and again. She went to push his head away when he gripped both of her hands in his, bringing them under the hold he had against her ankles, her upper body now forced to look directly at him from how she was positioned. The sight of her dark curls covering her face as her lip was tucked under her teeth was enough to make him more careless with his movements, sliding his tongue into her hole and rocking her hips forward.

“B—baby, I feel like I h—have to pee…” she whined.

Toji can’t hold back the chuckle that comes from his mouth, sending vibrations up her spine at the rumbling along her clit.

“You’re cumming, baby,” he explains, “Relax. Imma’ eat your pussy until you squirt, that’ll feel better than cumming. Okay?”

To hear him speaking this way, she could barely handle it. She gushes along his face, filling his mouth with the sweet taste he begged more for. Her upper body trembled as she desperately tried not to scream out. His name was the only thing she could remember to say as he moaned against her clit, spanking the side of her leg. Countlessly, endlessly.

Toji maintained his grip along her ankles, French kissing her opening as he drank from her, never wanting her climax to end. He dragged her until her hips were hanging off of the bed, watching as she gasped, quivered and moaned in pleasure.

“What’s happening to me…” she speaks softly, locking her eyes closed.

“You’re experiencing pleasure, baby. Please don’t be embarrassed,” he gruffly tells her, leaning back down as he flattens his tongue against her clit.

He chaotically shakes his head from side to side, a moan startling out of her lips from the movement against her. This had been her first time experiencing an orgasm. She whimpers deeply as she watches her legs tremble. Toji was drunk, unable to stop himself from becoming addicted. His head was swimming, the sound of her moans and fingers entangled in his hair making him more dizzy with need. He wanted her, desperately.

“You’re so fuckin’ pretty, baby. You’ okay? I want to give you more,” he coaxes, bringing himself upward to see her expression. Selaphiel turns her face from his, red and flushed. Nonetheless she nods, accepting the kiss he gives her, tasting a foreign sweetness along her lips.

She wraps her arms around his neck as he releases her hands, placing her legs above his shoulders as he now hovers over her. Selaphiels eyes go slightly wide as she looks down, seeing his tip, fat and as pink as his lips. Her eyes run over the scar along his mouth. She brings her hand to his chin, going to touch along the mark, surprised as he embraces his face into her hand. His heart swelled at her touch, coming forward as he captured her lips in his, a kiss so filled with love.

His tip smushes along her clit, bobbing up and down that it causes her hips to jump. Her heart beats in her chest, the pounding of it beaming in her ears. She feels safe with him. The love and passion within his eyes move to a desire and lustful one, his vision watching his tip throb along her clit, spreading her legs wider with his palms. Toji places his forehead against Selaphiels, seeing as she has her teeth dug into her bottom lip. He goes slow—at least he attempts to— pressing her legs back farther as he pushes himself in. His tip becomes swallowed by her, latching onto him as if she’d been waiting a lifetime. Their lips are just barely touching each other’s. Selaphiels mouth slowly gaped open as it felt like a fire had been matched along her lower abdomen. She gasps, jerking under his hold at the intrusion of pain, whimpering as Toji wraps his palms around her wrists, trapping her along the bed.

“Toji,” she softly cried, squeezing her palms under his hold as he sucked the skin of her throat, adjusting her hips to the uncomfortable pain she feels.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry,” he grunts, feeling as she tightens around him.

He brings his lips back over hers, Selaphiel moaning deeply as he spreads her legs wider than before. That moan shuddered out into a cry as a mixture of pleasure sensed over her pain. It was something she’d never felt before, a deep pleasure that felt almost blinding, like her entire body would rapture from it. Toji’s eyes darken as he listened to her moans blend with different feelings, the sensations driving him further into a frenzy of desire.

“You’re taking my shit so well, baby,” his breath is hot against her lips, “Such a fuckin’ big girl.”

His hips rock down to meet the back of her thighs. She feels her eyes slightly watering, rolling to the back of her head as she feels him drop his hips down again. Her mouth falls open as a large wave of pleasure washes over her. She whines out, “Fuck. Fuck, baby.”

“You feel so fuckin’ tight, baby. Let me have more of you,” it’s not really a question as he hovers his large upper body above her, keeping his hips low as he lightly picks up speed. More pleasure comes with each movement, her walls pulling him deeper each time his balls slam along her skin, sticky as she becomes more wet with each stroke.

He slowly removes the grip he had on her wrists, allowing her to bring her hands along his face, her finger tips tracing all along his abdomen. She brings her eyes down, watching as his hips connect with hers, causing her to whimper out.

“Look at that, pretty. ‘Pussy is so perfect…” he says, a low moan falling from his lips. The more she squeezes, the more he’s unable to hold back. He places his hand along her jaw, face right above hers as he grips firmly. Watching Selaphiels reactions only drove Toji’s desires to a new height. He could see the mixture of surprise and arousal within her face from the newfound aggression he carried. It fueled him to be rougher, even more possessive.

“Tell me how you feel,” he commands. Her mouth opens as she can hear their skin slapping together, body shifting each time he strokes. She’s unable to move her face as he keeps his eyes directly on hers.

She whimpers out, “Feels so…fucking good, baby,” to which he cockily replies, “Yeah?” Her moans become louder as he thrusts harder at that.

His expression darkened as Selaphiel talked to him, less shy than before. His grip on her jaw tightened ever so slightly. His voice was low, a velvety growl as he spoke.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” he purred, his thumb gently tracing her cheek, “I wanna make you like this all the time. Submissive,” he leaned down, lips brushing against hers before he grunted, “Let me give you all of your dick, baby. Yeah?”

Her mouth never closed, releasing even louder moans as she felt his hips slamming against hers. She went to bring her hand against his hip to slow him down, only making him speed up. She could hear his arrogant chuckle in her ear as she helplessly whined.

“Stop whining. Take it,” he tells her, voice with a dark edge, leaning down as he captures her lips in a dominant kiss.

He has a grip on the side of her throat now. She hesitantly brings her hands to the back of her thighs, whimpering as she spreads her opening for him, watching as his length sinks down inside of her, flushed and veiny as it bruises along her walls.

“S—so good, baby. Yes,” she whimpers out.

The sight of her taking control of her own pleasure, holding herself at his mercy, sends a surge of possessive desire coursing through Toji’s veins. He growled, his grip on her throat growing firm as he stared down at her.

“You’re mine,” he growls, “Every fuckin’ piece of you.”

His grip clasps around her entire throat, upper body hovering over hers as he pulls out, harshly slamming his hips back inside of her. She grips the hand around her throat, cursing each time he bottoms out. Her lower abdomen trembles as he yanks her entire body down to meet his. His eyebrows furrowed as he stared scarily down at her, watching as she fell apart beneath him.

“Baby…I f—feel like I have to pee again,” she mutters, her face hot as she hears Toji darkly chuckle again.

“You’re gonna cum again, baby. Think you’ll squirt on my dick this time?” He asks her, her eyes shutting as she whimpers at his voice.

She pulled him down by the back of his neck, kissing him softly. Her lips trembled against his, moaning out in a way she hadn’t expected herself to. Her mouth then opened as she moaned louder than before, her hand coming over her lips as she tried to quiet herself. Toji moaned into the kiss as he felt her covering her mouth, ripping her hand away as his eyes were completely possessive.

“Don’t hold back your moans, pretty. I wanna see you come apart. You hear me? Speak when you’re spoken to.”

“Yes,” she softly cried, “I—I’m cumming, baby.”

“Show me.”

Another orgasm ripped through her body. She brought her hand to his back, scratching deeply into the skin as she shouted his name. Her entire body exploded in raptures, holding him close to her as she shivered under his hold. He continued to move nonetheless.

“I love you,” she cried, her mouth interrupted by a tender kiss as he grunted, “I love you more, baby. Never loved anyone more than I love you,” he grits his teeth, a moan escaping his mouth as he pulls out of her, cum dripping from his tip and dropping along the bed. Her body still continues to orgasm, feeling as she trembles involuntarily. As she tries to relax beneath him, her breathing slowly becomes steady as he brings his lips over her neck, tickling her with his mouth. She giggles softly, trying to push him off as he holds her down.

She brings her face to his as she asks, “…Did it…feel good for you? I—I know you’ve been with a lot of women—“

“Selaphiel, don’t piss me off in a moment like this,” he snaps at her, “I love you so fuckin’ much. I’m honored to be your first, baby. Wouldn’t have changed it for the world.”

She presses her lips together, keeping her eyes down from his. She feels his hand come to her chin, pulling her up as he states, “I mean it.”

She nods her head, trying to pull herself away from the awkwardness she feels. This was a beautiful moment. She gave herself to the man she trusted wholeheartedly, and she wouldn’t have traded it for the world. She brings her lips up, kissing him passionately.

She then asks quietly, “Am I…pregnant now?”

ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏~♡

When she wakes up the next morning, she sees that the other side of the bed is empty. Sunlight bursts within the room, the large windows open as she stares over the city of Tokyo, bright and colorful lights blinding her eyes. She slowly sits herself up as the familiar smell of pancakes fill in her nostrils, the sweetness choking her throat. She runs her fingers through her hair as she looks around the room, her eyes meeting with the large silhouette of Toji, his body passing the door frame as he seems to be on the phone. Business, she figured. He winks as he disappears back into the kitchen.

Her mind falls back to the memory of the night before. The moment she thinks about it, she feels that her legs are sore. She brings her fingers up to her lips, remembering his rough kisses. His eyes staring down at her. The way he handled her. She didn’t know what came over here, but she wanted that again.

She quickly showers, debating whether or not to actually put clothes on. She stares at herself. They’d already had sex, this was her husband, why was she still afraid to tell him what she wanted?

It's not like he’d say no. Maybe she was embarrassed, only having sex one time and wanting to be ruined by him the next morning. Was she crazy?

She thought about doing her makeup. Realizing that he’d catch onto her plan, she disses the makeup idea. She allows her hair to fall around her body, her arched eyebrows strikingly dark against her light freckles, brown eyes soft as she stared at herself. She felt…different.

Taking a deep breath, she wraps a towel around her body as she creeps out of the room, making her way into the kitchen as she sees him still on the phone. He holds a bowl as he mixes batter within it, her ears not registering what he says as he speaks in his language.

He notices her, muttering another couple of words before he hangs up the phone, “Shit. Did I wake you up?”

“No,” she shakes her head, “I just smelled you were cooking. How long have you been up?”

He grins at her, “A while. I wanted to wake you up, but you were sleeping like a rock. Must’ve fucked you good, huh?”

Her face goes red, “Don’t be an ass.”

“Just messing with you, baby,” he eyes the towel around her body, seeing her face is red in the cheeks and bare of any flaws, “How did I get so lucky?”

“You must’ve gambled hard for me,” she amusingly replies, sitting herself on the table across from the stove as she watches him.

“Must’ve put my fuckin’ life as collateral,” he agrees.

A newfound feeling of lust had crawled up her spine. It spread like wildfire, furiously making her sick in her entire body. She couldn’t stop thinking of him in that way. She stares at the way his back muscles flex as he continues stirring the bowl. He looks back to her, noticing her state.

“You’re distracting me, pretty. Can’t finish cooking when you’re staring at me like that.”

“Sorry,” she shakes her head, “I just…couldn’t help to watch you.”

She tilts her head, hair falling around her body as it follows her. The minute he turns back towards the stove, Selaphiel releases the hold of the towel she wears, letting it fall along the table. She presses her hair behind her ear as Toji’s eyes capture her bare body, a giggle coming from her lips as he raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t play with me right now, Selaphiel,” his smile drops from his face.

She pouts, “You don’t want to play with me?”

She stands from the table as she comes in front of him, a newfound sense of confidence filling her body. She wants him. Slowly, she keeps her eyes upon his as she lowers herself to the ground, a jolt of surprise and desire coming within him.

“Baby,” his voice speaks lowly, almost like a warning, “What are you doing?”

“I want you in my mouth,” she tells him. A groan drops from his lips as he clutches her hair in his fist, pulling her to where her entire face is shown from below.

“You sure?” His face shows genuine concern.

She nods her head. He then grunts, “Imma’ fuck your throat up.”

He places his thumb on her bottom lip, opening her mouth roughly as he pulls his length from the sweatpants he wears, tip encompassing between her lips as he shoves himself within her throat. In this moment she remembered all of the advice her friends had given her on pleasuring him. Her eyes shut as she tries to focus, fearful that she’d chicken out as he guides her head against his hips, pulling her back and forth by the ponytail he created.

“Your mouth feels fuckin’ amazing, baby. Just like that,” he groans out.

“Fuck my throat, please?” she tells him, not so much asking. Her eyes were big and doe like with an innocence that had him wanting to shout.

“I’ll bruise it,’ he corrects.

She hummed satisfyingly at his words, wrapping her lips tighter around the dark pink flesh, sliding her palm down as she took him deeper down her throat. Her other hand placed on his hip as she pulled him forward, her head rushing back and forth as she twisted her wrist, feeling as saliva pulled between her fingers and the space between her lips. She pulled her mouth away, now only working at him with her hand as she stuck out her tongue, letting spit drag out and fall onto the pre-cum forming against his tip.

Toji couldn’t believe his sight, his innocent woman that went red at a sexual joke was now below him, sucking his dick like she was made to do so. She hungrily took him back into her mouth as she pressed herself down, eyes fluttering up to his completely low ones as she gagged. It was almost effortless to her. He forced himself down her throat, a low moan fleeting from his lips as he collected more of her hair in his fist, fucking her mouth.

Her eyes were teary, throat nearly sore, lips bearing a dark red and all she could focus on was getting him to cum. Making him cum. Hand that was still wrapped around him, she placed it behind her back with the other, her eyes shutting tightly once again and filling her throat until she could barely breathe, nose grazing over the pubic hairs attached to his skin as Sela finally pulled herself back. Toji tightened his lower half, a slew of drool coming from her tongue and lips.

“You’re fuckin’ filthy, baby,” he grits out. Yanking her up, he turns her body around, throwing her upper half along the marble of the table.

His ragged movement causes him to knock the pancake batter along the floor, her chest pressed up against the marble that makes her piercings cold, her body warm as it becomes aroused. He holds both of her wrists with one hand, feeling himself becoming pissed off at her teasing. She giggles at his impatience, keeping her eyes along the table to hide her amusement.

She then gasps softly as he spanks her, clamping her mouth shut as he asks, “What the fuck is so funny?”

She bites her lip to stop her giggling, shaking her head as she doesn’t verbally respond. He keeps his hands wrapped around her fists as he knocks her legs wider with his own, Selaphiel then softly giggling out, “You’re so cute.”

“Cute, huh?”

He takes his other hand to spread her open from behind, Toji seeing the slick arousal shining along her brown skin from the sun beaming in the room. Her body goes into shock as she feels his tip prodding at her opening, sliding himself in slowly. Her mouth drops open as he presses her back inward to perfect her arch, Selaphiel shuddering out a whine as he says, “Look at you. Swallowing every inch of my dick.”

He takes her hair within his fist as he guides her. His other hand stays locked around her wrists, her fingers reaching upward to feel for his arm as her body is trapped under his hold. He pushes in deeper. He then reaches up the front of her, pulling his palm around her mouth as he clasps her voice shut, Selaphiel moaning loudly between his fingers, eyes rolling to the back of her head as he begins snatching her back onto his pelvis.

“Thought I was playing with you, huh?” He talks within her ear, Selaphiel unable to keep up as the heaviness of her ass is clapping along the skin of his hips, her brain now fried and completely empty.

She gasps out between his fingers, “Baby—“

“No. None of that ‘baby’ shit now,” he grunts, taking one of his legs as he lifts it along the marble of the table, giving her a particularly hard thrust that causes her to shout. This was completely different from the night before. He was almost implausible, as if these feelings were deep within him. He was holding them back just for her—but she’d clearly poked the bear.

“Oh…my…fuck…” she cries, groaning at every movement he makes. Her walls feel sensitive, the strokes he gives her are nothing nice. But it all feels so good. She could feel tears blinking within her eyes, thighs trembling dangerously. Toji can’t help but smugly grin behind her, listening to the way she cries out with pleasure, sounds spurring him on with how she reacts to him. It makes him feral.

“You’re gonna’ paint my dick with your cum. You’re so damn pretty. So damn perfect,” he keeps up with his movements, removing his hand from her wrists as he now has both hands wrapped around her mouth, gripping her down, bouncing her along the front of him to where Selaphiel could barely speak. She only nods her head in agreement, eyes still knocking backwards as if she were possessed, moaning aggressively as his abdomen tightened each time he was deep within her.

She feels like she’s going to black out. Even with that thought, her mind swarms for her to keep going. She then takes her hips as she pulls them up, helping as she follows the rhythm of him bringing her back down. She turns her head slightly, seeing the darkness shift in Toji’s eyes.

“Let me fuck you back, baby,” she pleas softly.

He doesn’t release his hands over her mouth, only loosening them to show he wasn’t pulling her down as he murmured, “Go ahead.”

She whimpered as she twisted her hips around, dropping them back against his pelvic, turning to watch his low eyes. Every moan is louder each time their hips connect. Toji groaned as she took control, his grip along her face becoming less heavy as he watched her move against him, body filling with hunger as he listened to her voice grow louder with each smack of their hips.

“Mmm, I got it, baby,” she whimpered out, Toji’s abdomen squeezing at her whiny tone.

“I know,” he rasped, “Squeezing my fuckin’ dick like this.”

She hissed, pushing them away from the table to where she had no support to lean herself on. She bent herself over to where she had her hands locked around her own ankles, Toji taking his dominance back as he tugs her back by her hip, slamming her down along the front of his thighs. Her eyes roll to the back of her head.

His grip on her was strong and possessive, teeth clenched as he slammed her down heavier into his hips, the sound of their bodies connecting filling the air.

“Oh fuuuck,” he groaned, head dropping down to stare at the way her ass clapped against his body, skin shaking within his palm.

The sound of his voice, his pounding deep inside of her was all too much to handle. Her voice was quiet as she creamed along his dick, feeling him even deeper than before from the angle she was now in. She gripped tightly around her ankles, lifting her upper body as she tried to match his rhythm. He slammed in deeper, her body trembling as she felt a rush of pleasure punch her in the gut, realizing she was having another orgasm.

Her idea of moving away from the table failed her as she was now unable to take control, reaching out to move away from him. Unfortunately Toji’s grip of her skin was lethal. He slammed her down onto his hips, her ears only able to hear their skin slapping together. She felt as if she was having an exorcism, eyes swirling to the back of her head as she released a long moan of, “Oooh shittt, baby. You’re so deep.”

He shakes his head, “Nah. Keep cumming.”

She cries out, tears dropping onto the floor as she holds onto herself, messily sobbing out, “Fuck me, baby. Fuck me. Fuck me.”

And he does. She feels him damn near in her stomach as she tries to pull away, his own moans now mingled with hers as his restraint completely faltered. He lifted her up, biting down at the nape of her neck as his other hand was still along her hip, hotly pulling her down, Selaphiels voice going completely dumb as she whined, “Don’t stop. Baby, please. Don’t.”

“Look at my little crybaby,” he coos, hand now along the skin of her throat as he tugs her down, chuckling darkly in her ear, “This is your dick, baby. Stop running from it.”

“I’m gonna cum on my dick, baby,” she cries harshly. He replies, “Yeah? Show me again.”

Her stomach dropped as her orgasm released through her, shivering chaotically as Toji pulled her neck back, watching her face blown with pure lust, falling apart in shambles all because of him. She loved him, wanting every single part he had to give. Even this one. He kissed her roughly, tonguing her down the same way he had the moment they were officially married. Even in an erotic moment, their love for one another never dissipated.

He held her as he felt her body relax within his hold, her mouth panting out against his as she held him close, eyes shut as she felt her face go red. She wished she could stop that.

“You’re a bastard,” she croaked.

Toji couldn’t help but smirk knowingly, “Damn right. But I’m your bastard.”

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