#should i include this on the masterlist??

[seresinhangmanjake]

His and Yours

Summary: When you're told your pregnancy could cost you your life, Feyd demands you do whatever necessary to keep yourself alive. When you decide to have the baby anyway, it creates a rift in your relationship. Only when you go into labor, does Feyd show himself for who he really is.

Warnings/ Notes: Very angsty, but ends on a happy note. Very sensitive topics about pregnancy, abortion, and conversations about potential death. It’s Feyd here people, and we can imagine how he’d be with sensitive topics. Please only read if you understand this. Requested by @tgmreader

**While it is not necessary to read my other work to read this fic, this works also as another part to my "His" series. However, (even though it ends on a happy note) if this content makes you uncomfortable, it is not necessary to read in order to understand any future parts in the series. I know people love them together and that this is a difficult issue, so do not feel obligated.**

Feyd-Rautha Masterlist / Main Masterlist / Tag list

Words: 2950

“Feyd…” you sigh as you watch him pace back and forth. He doesn’t so much as acknowledge you until you attempt to get up from your seat to go to him.

With an outstretched arm and a finger pointed directly at you, he says in a harsh tone—harsher than you’ve heard in a long time, “Don’t you move a fucking inch!”

You plop back into your seat. “We have to talk about this.”

“No!” he snaps. He descends upon you with rushed stomps, his hands gripping the armrests of your chair. You have to tilt your head back to meet his fiery gaze. “There will be no talking about this,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “No discussion. No negotiations. No weighing the pros and cons.” You swallow as a tear builds in the corner of your eye. Feyd groans and pushes away from the chair. “Stop crying.”

“What do you expect from me?”

“To not die!” he shouts, his voice echoing through the vast, empty room. “I expect my wife to do whatever she has to in order to keep me happy! That’s your job!”

You glance down. Your hand runs over the slightly bulbous shape of your stomach. A tear creates a dark patch on the fabric of your dress. A dress he picked out for you. He’d been so enthusiastic about every element related to your pregnancy, including dressing his wife in new gowns as you grew with the passing months. This is one of the first he’d chosen. 

“I thought my job was to provide you with an heir,” you say.

“Not at the cost of your life!”

He had almost missed the appointment for more professional matters. Now you wish he had. When the doctor told you that you might not survive giving birth, he gave you a choice: risk having the child anyway or drink a tonic that will terminate your pregnancy while it’s still safe. You knew Feyd’s mind was made up in that very moment. But yours wasn’t. This is your child, a perfect combination of you and the only man you’ve ever loved, and yet, your questioning of what is best has your husband looking at you like you’ve lost your damn mind; like you’re a fool with a knack for selfishness.

“I’m the na-Baron,” he says. “You’re under my authority. I decide for the both of us.”

You shake your head. “That’s not fair.”

“I don’t care if it’s fair! We can make a hundred heirs, but there isn’t another you!” he screams. You wonder if the rest of the Harkonnen fortress hears—the soldiers, the servants. You wonder if they fear for their lives because of an outburst that has nothing to do with them. They should. Your husband is likely to go on a rampage throughout the place the moment this conversation ends, should it ever.

When you shrivel in your chair, a crease dents the center of his brow. Feyd returns to you, his warm palms cupping your cheeks, his forehead resting against yours. “You can’t ask me to let you do this,” he says with a subtle whimper. “I won’t ever forgive you.”

“What about my forgiveness of you?”

Feyd jerks back. The pain in his eyes shrinks under darkness. “You have nothing to forgive me for.”

Finally, you stand. “You want me to give up our baby,” you argue. “You don’t think I deserve to–”

“No!” You jump. “I care about you! I love you! Not some thing that wants to take you away from me!”

“Feyd–”

“I refuse to continue this conversation,” he says. “I’ve made the decision. It’s done.”

—

He’d tried everything. He had meal preparers mix it in with your usual dinner drink until the nasty sludge color disappeared. He attempted to have your maidservants slip it into your morning tea, your evening glass of warm milk, and, even more desperately, into your bathwater. However, the only servants close enough to you that he could demand such a task from became primarily loyal to you after your marriage six months prior, and as a result, each one informed you of his plans. Five servants fell to your husband's blade before he surrendered that tactic to attempt anew. But with his final effort, what died between you was nothing other than what had been keeping you together—affection. 

With your feelings numb, there was little foundation for your relationship to stand upon. When he took you and made you his concubine, Feyd kept you safe. He did the physical work to protect you in a newly twisted relationship while you did all of the emotional work. You broke down the walls he’d built, got him to open up, showed him that caring for you wouldn’t be the end of the world. Convincing you to get rid of your baby was the hardest he’d ever emotionally worked for you, and since failure was not a thing he had known, nothing was going to stop him. 

He didn’t understand that kissing you with the tonic filling his mouth was too far, even for what he’d already done. He didn’t understand that he had already lost so much of your trust with his deceit and that that kiss was enough to scorch the rest of it. You might have left him had you not been able to wash the substance from your mouth before it could do its damage. 

When you first turned him away, he threw his fits. He screamed at you and for you every day until you made it clear you weren’t coming to him, but even then, he didn’t allow you to neglect the expectations he had for you. In front of others, you were to act as his wife—stand by his side, attend meetings in silence, kiss him goodbye before his trips to Arrakis—but the larger your belly grew, the less he was willing to have you near. 

You don’t sleep in the same bed now. You don’t take your meals together or bathe together or, frankly, see one another. He looks the other way when he crosses your path. His fists clench like he wants to touch you, his Adam’s apple bobs like he’s holding back from kissing you, but his eyes refuse to meet yours, and he won’t go near you. 

You know he's preparing himself to lose his wife. Anger, while present, hasn’t been the dominant fuel for his behavior for a while, and neither is it yours. You were furious, but with your baby due in a month, you struggle to bear the loneliness, and the longer he continues to treat you like you’re a plague, the more you miss him, and the more you fear for your child. Who will love it if you are not here? Who will protect it and teach it and nourish it? Certainly not the one who should and once promised he would. And as the days close in, you wonder if he was right. If you made a mistake. 

—

I need him—that’s all you can think as your baby fights to leave your body. You need your husband here, and the reasons are far too overwhelming, but you can’t focus on anything else. You miss him. You can’t do this alone. And if you die today, you have to say goodbye. You have to tell him you love him and make him swear to protect your child, or it was all for nothing. 

“I need him,” you screech through your teeth with the contraction that hits you.

“My Lady–” one of the nurses begins. Her voice is shaky, worried eyes flicking back and forth between yours and the doctor between your legs who has just reached for another clean rag after discarding a blood-soaked one. “My Lady, the na-Baron–”

“I don’t care! I need him!”

He must’ve been there, listening, because Feyd’s through the door in an instant, and as his eyes lock on to yours, everything else—all the pain and lies—is shoved behind you. He takes a step forward but pauses, momentarily distracted by the wear on your body, before he blinks and continues forward, shoving people aside to get to you. He falls to his knees by your bed and when your hand reaches out, he clutches it tightly in both of his. Too tightly. You can feel your pulse throbbing harder from the pressure on your veins, but you don’t care. 

“Feyd, I–”

“Don’t do this to me,” he mutters as tears well in his eyes. The first you’ve ever seen. He didn’t so much as shed a tear on your wedding day or when you told him you were pregnant, but as the first one falls down his cheek, you realize he’s about to make up for every missed opportunity. 

You can’t respond. You don’t have it in you to tell him that you won’t do anything to him, that you won’t hurt him, that you’ll be fine, and that you’ll be a family. You’re too exhausted to lie. He seems to know it because he doesn’t make the request again. Instead, he kisses your fingers over and over, repeating words of love that are not often said. 

“My Lady, I know it hurts, but if you can shift downwards a bit,” the doctor starts. “At this angle, we might be able to–”

Feyd wipes his eyes and shoots to his feet. “You can save her?”

“There might be a better chance.”

You groan as you maneuver your body. Feyd does what he can to assist, but it doesn’t ease the searing, stabbing feeling at your core. 

“That’s better,” the doctor praises. 

“She’s your priority,” Feyd says sternly.

You gasp. “N-No…”

Your husband’s head whips back to you. “I’m not watching you die,” he growls. 

“For…our baby,” you say to Feyd’s hardened features. You cry harder for the pain of realizing that out of you and your baby, he would still choose you. You don’t know why you expected any different. In the five minutes of his presence, he gave no indication of a change of heart, but it’s disappointing all the same. “P-Please.”

The doctor doesn’t look up from the task at hand but listens for further instruction. “My Lord?”

Feyd stares at you for a long while, his expression unchanged. He doesn’t squeeze your hand or kiss your forehead or brush away the damp hair from your forehead with your next contraction. He doesn’t flinch at your joining shriek. He’s gone, lost in the world of his thoughts until he decides to come back. His eyes close. He grinds his back teeth. His brow pinches and he shakes his head.

“The baby,” Feyd struggles to get out. He pauses before he says, “And then my wife.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

The next half-hour is white-hot, blinding agony. You can no longer move—a statue as the doctor slices pieces of you open to accommodate your child’s position. He doesn’t want to come out. He doesn’t want to leave his mother. You can’t blame him. If you had the same fate awaiting you upon joining the world, you might not rush to leave the confines of comfort either. He has no reason to separate himself from everything he’s known to fall into the hands of a man who does not love him. But his unwillingness to leave you is what will eventually take you from him. 

You can feel it. The draining. Of blood. Of life. Your energy is long gone and at this point, you can’t imagine lasting long enough to be saved, even if you survive just in time to hear your baby’s first cry. 

“We’re almost there,” the doctor says. His words are hazy as your brain drifts, struggling to keep you conscious. But then you feel a release of pressure, a missing weight. Emptiness. Solitude.

“Save my wife!” you hear in the aftermath, but you’re not worried about that. You need to know he’s ok and perfect and that he has all of his fingers and toes. You need to know if he has a dusting of hair on his head, or if he’s like your husband. Does he more resemble his father? Complexion and eyes and lips poutier than yours? You need to know these things about your son. 

But you suppose you never will. Your vision is too blurry to make out his tiny form, but among Feyd’s shouts, you hear a beautiful little wail as your eyelids flutter closed. And that’s enough. 

—

The last thing you heard upon your death is the first thing you hear when you wake. And it terrifies you. Surely, you should not be hearing that sound. If you can hear him, then he’s with you, and he can’t be with you because you’re not here. Not really. You don’t exist on the plane he should be existing on. You exist in darkness now, and he was only ever meant to see the light. That’s what you saved him for. That’s what you used every remaining ounce of your will and soul and heart to do. You left so he could stay. So how could he be with you?

“Can you hear him?” 

Yes. You cannot see him, but you can hear him. He sounds so much like you remember. His coos are not the wails, but the noises are brothers. You part your lips to call his name only to realize you never got the chance to give him one. 

“He’s perfect,” the voice says. “Everything about him.” A tear trickles down your cheek. “I need you to meet him. He wants to see his mother.”

You want to see him, too, so badly, and as you feel the desire, a flash of light shoots across your vision. One flash, and then another. Another flash, and then one more. Brightness obscures every image as your eyes shift, attempting to take in your surroundings. You’re not sure this is better. In the darkness, you can rest. This is simply torturous, and your baby is not even here. 

Heat from a heavy, shaky sigh hits your skin. Relief. Lips land on yours for a long beat before finding your forehead. A skull presses to your skull. The breath is taken from your lungs by another kiss. A droplet splashes onto your cheek. 

“You don’t ever do this to us again.” When your vision adjusts, your husband is there. “Do you understand me?”

You nod before you can think not to, before you can think that Feyd is not meant to be here, either. But if he is here, then why does he look so happy? Would he really rather the three of you be gone forever than to raise your baby without you? You scold your idiocy. Of course, he would. 

“You were out for three days,” he says. “Longest three days of my life.”

Out. Not dead. Not gone. 

Feyd helps you sit up. He disappears and then returns with a bundle of fabric. “Look,” he says, smiling, sniffling, and then smiling again. Two of his fingers gently nudge a section of the blanket aside to reveal a tiny face. Tiny nose, tiny lips, tiny eyes. Lashes that rest on tiny cheeks. A much smaller spitting image of your husband. “He’s got your eyes, I promise,” Feyd says, and your son proves it when his eyelids flutter open. 

“Do you think you’ve got the strength to hold him?”

You nod again. “Y-Yes,” you say, like it’s your first word. 

Feyd uncurls his arms from the baby and settles him into your awaiting ones. He’s lighter than you expected—probably to do with coming a little early—but the weight of him snaps the bits of you that were lagging behind in the unconscious world to the present. You gasp.

You’re alive. Your baby is alive. Your husband is here. They’re both beautiful. “I’m alive.”

Feyd sits back down in the chair that is pulled up to the side of your bed. He swallows. “Yes. Barely, for a moment, but…yes.”

You cuddle your baby to your chest and run your finger down his nose. He’s softer than the blanket that snuggles him. Soft like you rather than his father. He’ll grow strong like the man you can’t help loving, but he’ll have more heart, and that balance will make him a great Baron one day. A great man. 

“Do you hate me?” Feyd asks. “For what I did?”

Your head hurts and you still feel groggy, but you’re aware enough to know that you don’t hate him. You can’t hate him. It shocks you that he doesn’t know that, but then again, he’d never done anything like what he did before, and if you’re honest with yourself, you don’t know that he wouldn’t do it again should you fall pregnant with another child. You don’t trust him right now, and there’s only one thing that could ever convince you to attempt repairing that trust. 

“Do you love him?” you say as you gently rock your baby. 

Feyd glances down at your son. There’s no contemplation. “More than anything.”

“You’ll protect him?”

His eyes flick back up to yours. “With my life,” he says. And you believe him. 

You became a mother the second you felt that little life growing inside of you, but you can accept that upon looking at your son, spending time with him, your husband learned to become a father. Had you died, you don’t know what would have happened, but you can’t dwell on that and hope to keep your family together at the same time. He loves the child you made together, and that’s all you ever wanted. 

“Then, no,” you tell him. “I don’t hate you.”

[andcars]

# 𝗙𝗖𝟰𝟯 ─── MAKE IT UP OFF-TRACK MASTERLIST . . . REQUEST ME . . . TAGLIST . . . AO3

YOU'VE RACED WITH HIM AND you've been under him. still, it hurts you when he outqualifies you. it almost hurts as much when you both still think you're just fuck buddies. ────── original prompt req.

PROMPTED DIALOGUE . . . # “You’ve been staring for a while” PROMPTED TAGS . . . # praise kink, rivalry, friends with benefits, jealousy ADD. TAGS . . . # quickie vibes, sex in the hospitality, author has a language kink, but also deepl translations WORD COUNT. . . # 1.6k

────── AO3 VERSION

P11. Fucking P11.

Everyone else is in the garage as you come in, all angry and disappointed. You were tenth of a second behind P10 and you weren't able to push it on the last lap because you went off track limits.

What’s done is done. You can’t work with a car that clearly doesn't wanna work with you. The better part of you wants to let this go and simply rest for tomorrow. Call it a day. Think of how to dominate tomorrow. Sleep it off.

But Franco walks to the garage at P7 and proceeding into Q3. The plan gets thrown away immediately.

You don’t hate the guy, of course not. You’ve met him times before when he was still in F2. If, of course, meeting him included hotel rooms and secluded bathrooms. You met him a lot, if so.

It’s not his fault that he’s better than you, as of now. You should be happy, really. But fuck, it should hurt how some rookie is better than you in a car you’ve driven for a year.

Despite all of this anger bubbling in you, you can’t stay mad at him. You could never stay mad at him, you think. Yet it hurts all the same.

You look away as your eyes meet. Not giving him a chance to even confront you or attempt to comfort you, you leave.

It’s pivotal now to talk with your strategist. He’s expecting you, unfortunately. Knowing damn well that your next duty was to come to him to see how to improve your performance, he already had your data pulled up.

Your, and their, wrongs are being talked into your ear and out the other. The farthest screen turns black, and you see Franco in the reflection. His blurred figure is towards you, his panting from the race still evident on him.

It’s difficult to pretend to care about racing right now. It’s not like they say anything different anyway. The rear wings are fucked, the tyres are fucked, the wheel can’t turn, and your head is just in the wrong direction. All the same things said before.

To the driver’s room you go. Q3 starts and you don’t do anything. The TV screen shows the delayed race as the crowd cheers from the opposite sides of the wall. Franco is in danger, with Mercedes finally coming out from the pit—you don’t expect anything more.

After the stretched minutes alone in your room, a knock comes on your door.

You say, “I’ll be out soon, tell James to get some patience,” with your head in your phone. No fucking way you’re going to be dealing with them while you’re still pissed.

The door opened and you grunt. Looking up, Franco was grinning at you.

“I’m also hiding from Jego,” he says, the grin on his face annoying, “can I come in?”

“And we both get caught?” It doesn’t matter what you think, he puts his feet in anyway.

The couch is uncomfortable. If they aren’t spending money on the car, they might as well spend it on the seats. With you laying across the couch, he kneels between your legs. You raise an eyebrow at him as he undresses his fireproof suit.

You ask, “You seriously wanna fuck?” and he laughs.

“¿Me dirás que no? (Will you tell me no?)” he murmurs, getting on top of you with his hips pressing against your ass. “Did you know I placed 6th today?”

“Mhm.”

“No?” He places a kiss on your cheek. “Didn’t watch me? What were you doing in here?”

His lips ghost over your neck, the warmth of his breath sending a small shiver down your fine. You know he felt it when he chuckles in your skin.

“Getting fucked my brains out,” your voice is flat. “What were you doing out there?”

“Ah, amor (love), you won’t get me like that,” he whines and kisses you once in one side. Then twice the other. He says, “You are so mean though, telling me things like this. Do you wish you were with someone else? Hm? ¿No me querés más? (You don’t want me any more?)”

Franco comes up to part your lips open with his tongue. You gasp a little, your arm limp over his back. His mouth wide open, chest pressed against yours, tongue just brushing against your lips, he says—

“Quiero coger. Te quiero comer a besos. Quiero que me hagas tuyo, mi amor. Don’t go making me jealous because you are.” (I want to fuck you. I want to lavish you with kisses. I want you to make me yours, my love)

His hand is gentle on yours, playing on the hem of your pants as his kisses turn wet. Desperate. Loving. It hurts you how careful he is with you when you spent the past hour hating him in your head.

And he’s always so gentle. He always used to ask you if you liked it, his words almost always in Spanish. As if he’s lost in you, he doesn’t know what words to use.

He no longer needs your permission now. A finger rubs between your clothed cunt as his hand pushes your shirt up to hold your tits. He moans more than you, in love with your body.

“So good,” he murmurs, “don’t ever look for anyone else. For me, please?” You moan against his cheek as he focuses on rubbing your clit through your pants. “I can make you feel so good. Amor, I can be yours.”

In moments like this, he’s too drunk on sex to know the words he’s spewing. He reaches for the lube and condom hidden in your desk. His movements are sloppy. You swear he struggles a little in opening the cap up.

He asks you something in Spanish. It’s out of your vocabulary, so you tilt your head.

“I don’t need to prepare you, right? You’re still loose?” You can see his hips grinding against the palm of his hand. His cheeks are flushed, and you see drool coming down his chin. It’s pitiful.

You nod. “Yeah, just give me a bit to adjust if you wanna—fucking hell.” It’s out of your control when you laugh. Franco eagerly shoves his pants down alongside yours.

“What has gotten you so eager?” you ask.

“I got P6,” he smirks. That little fucker.

His cock is rubbered and wet when it enters you. He moans loud as your hand comes to his cheek. It’s catlike, the way he goes soft against your hold.

Shifting slowly, he grinds inside of you. The soft rubbing inside your walls almost has you mewling. But you keep your eyes on him, ignoring the pooling pleasure between your legs.

Telling him, “You’ve been looking at me,” has his lips pouting. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you were in love with me.”

“I am in love with you,” your cheeks flush, and you’re not sure if it’s the sudden thrust of his cock or his words. “I’m in love with the way you race, how you over-perform a dying car, how you move.”

His eyes drop to where you two meet, jittering his hips a little. With the quick thrusts, you’re caught off guard and moaning out his name. He looks very satisfied with it.

“Oh, amor—” his words turn gibberish to you as he starts to move. His pace is uneven, driven by the thought to take you carefully and the urge to bring the both of you to climax. Not a single word is getting into your head.

But his voice is so loving. He’s panting between every other word, lips pouted and eyebrows furrowed. His voice is getting louder, and you put your hand against his mouth.

“Shut - oh, God… Shut up,” you whine, feeling the cockhead rub against your g-spot. “You’re so fucking… good. Just like that, fuck me.”

He shuts up when he goes down to kiss you. Both his arms wrap around you, embracing you as he finds the right angle to make sure you’re still getting stimulated. His hair is rubbing against your clit, the little tickle in them getting you to moan a little louder.

You feel dizzy. It’s not the lack of air during the kiss, you know it. He’s just holding you close to him while he takes you like you’re his lover. Your heart curls in itself, punishing itself for its own stupidity.

But fuck, you want to focus on the now. The way his hands are going up and down your back, soothing you as you get lost in the pace of his thrusts. The way his body towers over you, completely enveloping you in his hold. 

“I’m gonna—” he gasps, his pace barely slowing as you assume he cums inside of you. You whine when he bottoms inside.

Franco knows you. He knows you too well. He grinds inside of you before pulling out. Still, he doesn’t let you think another thought before he’s flicking your clit.

“Shit, fuck, Franco!” he smiles under your silent praise as his other fingers tease at your hole. “I’m gonna cum too. Just like that. Don’t fucking stop.”

He only leans down to spit on your pussy, easing the rub as you’re moving your hips along him. You cum with your back arched and your hips off the couch. His hand stills on your clit as his eyes are fixated on the way cum leaves your pussy.

You drop back down when he places your hips on his lap. “Don’t get it dirty,” he reminds you, tying the condom and throwing it in the bin. “It’s embarrassing to explain to the cleaners.”

His humour comes in at the worst moments. You grunt and he only laughs. “It’s not even funny. You’re just telling the truth.”

“It’s funnier in Spanish,” he promises.

You think about how it probably sounds just about the same.

🗒 𝗣𝗔𝗣𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗟 . . . first time writing for bro ! i'm so open to writing more of him so i added him in my taglist options, so if you wanna be tagged for future fics of him 👀 you know what to do . if you already sent me a form before , you can resend another with him included ! anyways , fixing up the next few fics soon . ˎˊ˗ ᝰ. ──── 📨 @delululeclerc @hiireadstuff

you support me best on tumblr with reblogs and comments ! ── by andcars ⟡

[mbsneur]

Heated Night

Leah Williamson x Reader

Hey, my loves! I'm so sorry I haven't posted all week. I've been really sick and I'm still not 100% but I really hope you like the fic! I'm open to feedback and your opinion. I'd also love to hear your ideas about which players I should write about (and the topics) my requests are always open. Thanks so much! 🩵

Warnings: Smut18+ minors DNI, Virgin Lesbian sex

My Masterlist

The night is hot and hazy. Arsenal won the WSL Cup with a goal from Stina in the 116th minute. You went to a nearby club to celebrate. You and your win are the talk of the town. You're the chick from Arsenal. Everyone looks out for you more than themselves. That's how it is when you're 19 and moving from a small country to a big one.

There are a few of you out there who can't hold it in and are already visibly drunk, including Leah.

Leah was the first person to take you in a few months ago, she showed you the city, the best cafes, the best restaurants, she has become something of a confidante to you, she was very self-absorbed that night, she drank a lot, and every time you wanted a little more, Katie took the glass from your hand and gave you something with less alcohol in it.

Kyra has pulled you away from Katie and towards the bar, "I'm sure you need more alcohol," she says, grinning and ordering two Daiquiris without hesitating.

You had a few more cocktails, she literally wanted to get you drunk, when you had more alcohol in your system, Kyra pulled you onto the dance floor and occasionally uttered chopped up words.

She stumbled over her own feet a few times, which made you laugh. Every now and then, Alessia came to you to bring you more and more alcohol. You got warm, your blood got thicker in your veins, your body got heavier and more excited. You haven't been this drunk for a long time.

Kyra was right there with you the whole time, and you saw Leah swaying in Laia's arms. She lifted her head from Laia's shoulder and met your gaze. Before you could react, Alessia nudged you and gave you another drink.

The time flew by until Kim pulled you into the group by your arm and Beth held Leah "You're both drunk, go to bed and sleep it off, mh" Kim said caringly and Leah's eyes rolled in annoyance "Leah, you're going to take Y/N to her room safe and sound, can you do that? Can you take care of her?" Beth frowned and looked at Leah, Leah's eyes widened, "Yes, I'll take her to her room safe and sound," Leah said with a smile, "Come on, sweetheart," she added, taking you by the hand.

"Take care of her," Beth calls after you, she pulled you out of the party crowd and was visibly unsteady on her feet, your hotel had no lift as you reached the stairs, Leah looked over at you, "can you manage on your own," she says, mumbling and stuttering, your vision spins and you shrug your shoulders. "Get on my back," she says with a grin, and you start to laugh out loud.

"Ey, why are you laughing, I'm strong," she says, frowning, "you're drunk," you stammer, and Leah starts to laugh at you.

You grip the railing and Leah leans forward. "Come jump and hold on tight." You move over to her and put your hands on her shoulders. You jump up slightly and her hands wrap tightly around your thighs. Leah starts to wiggle on her legs and you hold on to the railing with a jerk. You laugh and say, "Are you sure you can do this?"

Leah leans up and puts one foot on the step. "I'm drunk, but I can carry 60kg up the stairs."

You laugh at her words.

The walk up took half an eternity and when you got to the top, Leah let you down gently, "What room are you in?" she asks, looking straight into your eyes, "3048," you say shakily, your eyes flickering, "I'm taking you, I told Kim and Beth you'd be fine in your room," she says, holding your arm lightly, you nod and head for your room.

You hold your card against the sensor, and Leah helps you into the room. She wraps her arms around your waist and kicks the door shut with her foot. She takes you to your bed and sits you down. You look at her with puppy dog eyes and she say "I'll help you undress." She laughs and says, "Okay i start with your shoes." She bends down and helps you remove your shoes.

Leah bends up again and asks, "Do you want to sleep without a shirt?" You nod, and she grabs the hem of your shirt and pulls it up. You lift your arms up, and she comes closer to you. She removes the shirt from your head and almost falls on top of you. She starts laughing and looks deep into your eyes. Her gaze is bold, fixed on your full breasts in a red lacy bra. Her eyes darken, and her lower lip slips between her teeth. Your jaw drops, and Leah looks back into your eyes.

"You'd better not look at me like that," she says hoarsely, your eyes rolling from the alcohol at the back of your head, and you reply hazily, "What happens if I do?

Leah's teeth clench tightly before she presses her lips firmly against yours. Your kiss is firm and lasts for a few seconds until Leah pulls away first and rests her forehead against yours. You grab her neck and pull her lips back onto yours.

Your kiss is more intense this time and your tongue presses against her lips, as if asking for entrance. Leah, let your tongues play with each other. You let out a little moan until Leah lets go of you. "Are you sure? I don't want you to feel like a woman for a one night stand," she says, mumbling and looking at you confused.

"I've never had sex with a woman before," you say, blushing. Leah smirks slightly at you. "Do you want me to be the first woman to fuck you?" she says, her voice harsh. Her index finger plays with your bra strap.

"Please leah, fuck me," you demand, and Leah moves away from you. "You'll be good for me. You understand. You'll undress and wait for me. I'll be right back." She turns her back to you, takes your and her room card, and stumbles out of your room.

You did as you were told and stripped naked. Your vision is blurred and your head is spinning.

After a few minutes the door to your room opens and Leah returns with her strap-on in her hand, "Listen carefully, I am going to tell you some of my rules since you are a virgin," she says with a slight smile, sitting down next to you on the bed.

You nod and lean against the headboard. Leah now hovers over you and slowly begins to kiss your shoulder blade. "Tell me if you want me to be gentle with you or if you want me to be rough," she says between kisses. Your breathing is heavy and you try to find the right words. "I want you to be rough. Don't hold back," you say, moaning slightly and feeling Leah's teeth on your bone.

"You'll tell me if it's too much for you and if you want me to stop, I don't want to push you into anything, OK?" she says looking up at you briefly you nod eagerly and Leah's brow furrows "That's another rule, when I ask you something I expect an answer, use your words," she says now taking your breast in her hand, your back arching slightly from the bed "Oh, is someone sensitive? she asks with a grin

She takes your other nipple between her teeth and nibbles lightly on it. You spread your legs without hesitation and Leah's head now wanders over your belly. Your fingers claw into the sheets and your muscles twitch with every kiss.

She grabs your thighs and spreads them wide open, giving her better access to you. She looks at you one last time and asks, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Now, please, just fuck me," you say, your voice desperate. Leah smirks at that, her tongue shooting out right against your core.

You haven't had sex for a long time, Leah explores every inch of your pussy and eats you out. Your hips bounce against her mouth and your legs start to wriggle. Leah's muscles push your legs apart again and she hits every spot that is celebrating inside you.

She's teasing you with her tongue, making your head roll back and turning your whimper into a moan. You're experiencing sensations you've never felt before, and you're a moaning mess.

Leah knows exactly how to drive you to the edge. With every suck, snap, and lick, her movements bring you closer and, You're already dangerously close. You try to find words, but they fail you. Instead, you moan and press your hips closer to her face. And try to tell her somehow that you are coming, Leah will look at you and hum to you, take it as confirmation and let your body respond to your orgasm.

You moan her name as she takes you through your long orgasm, your legs trying to close but held in place by Leah. You're consumed by her, and you don't know when the new orgasm started and the old one stopped. Your moans turn into whimpers, Leah. Let's go from you. You cry out from the sudden separation. She looks at you. Her lips are swollen and wet. Her eyes are darkened and her breathing is heavy.

She slowly comes up to you and you feel her breath on your lips. "Can I kiss you?" she asks in a low voice. You answer with a simple yes and,Leah's lips immediately land on yours

You let out a low growl at the taste on Leah's lips. After a few minutes, she looks at you again. "Are you riding me? Do you think you can do that for me?" she demands, her grin smug and confident.

I don't know if I can do this," you say, blushing, and Leah smiles at you, "You will, you will be a good girl, I will help you," she says, brushing a strand of hair from your face. You nod and wait for the next move. Leah gets up to put on the strap. You watch her every move. Her body is sweaty and her nipples are visible through her sports bra. Her veins are popping out. Her stomach muscles twitch with every movement. Her ponytail is all messed up, and individual hairs stick to her temples.Your eyes light up when you look at her. That was always the case, there was something about Leah that fascinated you.

When she's finished, you slide to the side to make more room for Leah. She sits down right next to you, leans against the headboard and hits her thighs as a sign for you to sit on her lap. You do as you're told and swing one leg over her muscular belly. She moans slightly as she feels your still-wet pussy on her stomach. She puts her hands on your hips and looks at you. "Are you ready?" she says, her voice firm. She lifts you slightly, her eyes sharp. "Your words, darling," she says, her tone assertive. Your eyelids twitch. "Yes, Leah, I'm ready," you reply, your voice steady. She smiles, her gaze warm. "Good girl," she whispers.

She guides you to sit on the tip of her strap and you moan in pleasure. Your hands find their way to her belly to support yourself. Leah's gaze is fixed on your pussy until she lets you close her strap completely. You whimper against her, and she starts to move your hips forwards and backwards. Her mouth is open, but you just sit up and want to ride her yourself. You don't need Leah's help. You want to prove something to her.

she keep her hands on your hips as you place yours on hers, moving a little faster than Leah has instructed. You rock back and forth quickly, which makes Leah let out a little whimper. Her hands loosen and reach for your arse, and your hands move up to her breasts, gently squeezing them. You lean forward ever so gently.

Leah's moans get louder and so do yours, your hips moving in time, your stomach muscles beginning to tense and your legs trembling "You look so hot right now," Leah says moaning, grabbing your neck to make you look at her. "Oh my, Leah, it feels so good," you say, your cheeks flushed and a little whimper escaping your lips. Your eyes roll back in your head, and Leah's grip on your neck tightens. You dig your nails into her sports bra, and Leah slowly starts to move her hips.

You feel Leah's legs cramping underneath you, your pussy tightening around her strap and you let out the loudest moan of the night "I'm so close" you manage to say "come on my cock make a mess" Leah says moaning as she pulls you closer to her by the neck. After a few seconds, you come loudly on her cock. You feel your juices running down your thighs. Your legs shake and wobble uncontrollably. You can't hold yourself properly anymore. Leah's hand leaves your neck and goes to your hips again. She holds you tight and sits up, pressing her upper body against yours so you can hold on to her neck.

"I need a little more. Don't stop moving," she demands, moaning. Your noises become oversensitive. Your legs are still shaking, and Leah's lips are on your shoulder to hold back her moans. She pushes you against her again and again. After a few pushes, Leah comes too. She comes silently, her teeth biting into your shoulder. Her legs are weak, and she lets herself fall on her back.

Her strap is still inside you and she is out of breath. You move off her slowly and deliberately, taking care not to overstimulate yourself. You sit down next to her, and when she wants to take off her strap, you grab her hand.

"Leah, wait, I want to clean you up," you say through clenched teeth, and Leah laughs devilishly at you, "You want to do that, yes, then I hope you will make an effort," she says again bossily. There is no time to waste and you immediately kneel down between her legs as Leah's hands grab hold of your hair and guide you closer to her strap.

You take her cock a bit into your mouth and Leah pushes your head further down. Your hands rest on her thighs. Your mouth starts to get faster. With every thrust, the strap hits Leah's clitoris. You look up at her. You have never seen her as vulnerable as she is at this moment. Her mouth opens and out of it comes a lot of little whimpers.

Leah pushes your head down deeper and faster. You gag and spit flows out of your mouth and lands on Leah's stomach. Tears come to your eyes and Leah starts to moan properly this time. "You're doing so well. You're gonna make me cum," she says. You take it as an incentive and let the strap slide deeper into your throat with a deep moan. Leah cums.

„Are you sure this is the first time you've had sex with a woman?" she says laughing and looks at you, "Are you calling me a liar?" you say snappishly, "Bathtub?" Leah asks and you agree.

[hitoshitoshi]

Rafayel Loves Musty Pussies! [ Rafayel x Fem!Reader 18+]

Summary: We all know that Rafayel, our beloved lemurian has a scent kinkーbut to what extent? The answer is yes. Rafayel's scent kink extends beyond perfume. CW: Degenerate and desperate Rafayel, cunnilingus, scent kink, begging, patheticness, and whimpering.

Rafayel loves shoving his face into musty pussies. He regularily spreads your legs and lays between them, taking large inhales between your legs.

Rafayel purposefully tells you to not shower for 2 days or more because he loves it when you smell 2000 x more pungent. He doesn't want to smell and taste clean skin and a hint of soap. No, he wants to smell you and taste only you.

The mustier you are, the more Rafayel whimpers in pleasure, because to him, it's your pheromones that drive him insane. He just wantsーno, he needs you so badly, and this right hereーyouーare his for the taking.

Rafayel would spread your pussy lips wide open and make sure every crevice is traced with his tongue, with the occasional:

"Mmfh... bodyguard, you taste so good."

"Such a good girl for me."

"Thats right, bodyguard, relax... just a bit more."

"I need you to sit on my face, please... I need you so badly."

And you do just that. You hover on Rafayel's face, to much of his displeasureーhe grunted as he grasped onto your thighs, yanking you down. He didn't want a pathetic hover. Rafayel wanted you to suffocate him. He needed his oxygen blocked and his mouth and nose absolutely smothered with your juicesーyour scent.

This was paradise for Rafayel. God, oh god, he loved how your thighs hugged him on each side of your face. Rafayel's face was buried between your legs, his tongue darted in and outof your pussy as he begged for more. He was desperate, needy, and couldn't get enough of your taste.

Rafayel let out a needy moan, "F-fuck... body guard," his voice was muffled as he clenched his eyes, slurping up your essence, "I need more. I need you to come all over my face". He was a mess an absolute mess. A whore for you.

"Mmfh...," Rafayel's hips bucked forward into nothing, getting hard just by being under you. His cock was leaking with pre-cum as Rafayel loved everything. The taste. The saltiness. The bitterness. The smell. He loved it. He loved it all.

Rafayel's arms wrapped tightly around your thighs, forcing you to stay in place as he lapped at your pussy like a starving dog. He held you still when you squirmed on top of him. As much as he wanted to use him as though he were your toy, he wanted to make you cum all by yourself. He wanted to you to cum from just his tongue. Rafayel loved the way you trembled on top of him. It was just more motivation because he wanted you to feel just what you make him feel.

But as time went by, the strain on Rafayel's cock was getting overwhelming, 'I need it, bodyguard, I need it so bad," He whined, his voice cracking with desperation. Rafayel looked up, meeting your gaze, and he knew he was pathetic. His eyes were teary as the bottom half of his face was soaked in your juices. His cock was flushed red and cum was dripping down from it. Rafayel needed you to touch him. He needed you to want him. To need him. To need his face, his cock, his everything. He needed your soul to need him.

"Please, please, plese," Rafayel begged, his voice was barely a whisper. "Make me cum, bodyguard... Make me come with you."

A/N: Testing the waters rn because I have a really really degenerate raf draft that's begging to be written.

If you like otome games, including Love and Deepspace, you should join Linkon Lounge! A discord server that's LGBTQ+ friendly (only serving those who are 18+) where we all can share our interests, talk to roleplaying bots (Caleb, Rafayel, Zayne, Xavier, and Sylus), and have fun game, movie, and stream nights where we stream games and/or cards that we pulled that others want to see. It would be super fun to have you as a member of our server. Click here to Join Linkon Lounge!

MASTERLIST

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Just Friends: Sleepover

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: Bucky Barnes

masterlist

Summary: Bucky sleeps over.

It’s giving

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

“Should be good as new,” Bucky sits back on the footstool and rubs his neck. “Don’t know about me, though.” 

You lean on the counter with a sheepish smile, “I told you, I’d call the landlord.” 

“Uh huh? And try to light this thing in the meantime? You’d set yourself on fire,” he closes the over door and stands. “I like you unsinged, dreamy.” 

“I have a microwave,” you roll your eyes. 

“Oh, you mean the one that sparks and sounds like military tank?” He challenges as he packs up his toolbox. 

“It makes the food hot,” you rebuff. 

“Uh huh. Maybe the radiation is getting to ya,” he teases as he puts the box on the counter. 

He stretches his arms and as he brings them down, he yawns, covering his mouth. He turns his other wrist to check the time. 

“God, it’s late,” he says. 

“Is it--” you choke on your words as you see the time on the stove. “Oh gosh, Buckyyy.” You whine. “You shouldn’t have stayed so long.” 

“And let you burn this place down? You’re going to give me flashbacks. God, I think it was... 1938. Steve was living with his ma still, taking care of her, and he left some newspapers by the stove...” 

“1938...” you echo. “Right, I’m not going to say it.” 

“You better not,” he pokes you in the ribs playfully. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t waste any more of your time. You know, I’ll be just fine walking through the dark. I might get overtime pay if I can wrangle in some hoodlums--” 

“Oh, stop,” you huff, “I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow. I know the couch is a bit small.” 

“Ah, doll, you don’t gotta--” 

“God, you sound like such an old man. ‘Doll, you want a lozenge?’” You mock as you throw your hands up. “Can’t anyone do something nice for you?” 

“What? What do you mean? I’m joshing ya,” he follows you as you spin and march out of the kitchen. 

“Sure, I know. Always a joke with you.” 

“What is this about? The date?” He asks. 

“Well... I thought you’d be more excited,” you shrug. “I was really excited for you. Now I feel like I’m forcing you.” 

“You kinda are,” he leans again the wall as you open the closet, the door blocking him from your view. 

“Forcing you to go out with a sophisticated, gorgeous, woman? I know, it’s torture.” 

“Trust me, I know what torture is. It’s not a joke,” he crosses his arms. You blanch. 

“I-- sorry, I didn’t mean--” you stutter as you kick the door shut. 

He laughs, “got ya again.” He taps the end of your nose then takes the blanket from you. “Relax, I said yes. I’ll put on a tie and comb my hair. Look human.” 

“Awesome,” you smile and he squints. 

“Mm, and you always do that,” he accuses. “Those puppy dog eyes.” 

“I’m more of a cat person,” you giggle. “There’s a pillow on the back of the couch and—oh, want a hot chocolate. I usually have one before bed.” 

“Hot chocolate?” He repeats as he goes to the couch and drops the blanket on top. 

“Sure! I got the oreo stuff.” 

“Nah, I’m good,” he sits and rolls his shoulder. 

“Well, you snooze, you lose. More for me,” you tilt your head and skip back into the kitchen. You flip the kettle on and sweep back into the living room. 

“What about you?” Bucky asks before you can leave him. “You still coming? You find someone?” 

“Oh, I’ll be there but I’m still looking for a date,” you say. “Don’t worry, I got a few ideas.” 

“Right, lined up the block, huh?” 

You stick your tongue out and flit into the bedroom, “whatever.” 

You close the door behind you and change into your pajamas. The fluffy pink shorts go perfectly with the tee with the bunny on the front. You step into your slippers and go back out. 

As you come out, Bucky pushes his hair back and groans. He has his shirt off as he sits back and pushes his arms wide. He cracks his neck again as your eyes meet. 

“Last call for hot chocolate?” You offer. 

“No thanks,” he says as he leans forward. 

You smile and scurry into the kitchen. The tension rises with the steam of the kettle. You weren’t expecting to see him like that. Well, it’s just his chest and his abs. Abs? He has abs. Holy moly.  

You look down and poke your pudge. Maybe he can give you some tips. You peel back the lid from the canister of chocolate powder; a start would be cutting down on the sweets. 

The hardwood shifts and his footsteps circles around to the kitchen door. You glance over as you spoon the mix into a mug. You put the lid back on and shove the can back into the cupboard. 

“Water?” He asks. 

“Sure, fridge,” you point. 

The kettle clicks and you take it of its heater. You pour and glance over as Bucky pulls open the fridge. He bends to search the mostly bare shelves. You’re overdue for a shop. 

“The jug should be--” the water laps over the side of the mug and hits your fingers. “Ow! Ayeee!” 

You slam the kettle down and shake your hand. Bucky’s so fast, you squeal as he grabs you and spins you to face the sink. He flips the cold water on and shoves your hand under the flow. You whine again at the frigid splash. 

“Ah, Bucky, I’m fine. It’s just a little water,” you tug but he keeps a hold of you. 

“I told you to be careful,” he huffs. “You should pay attention.” 

“I was trying to help,” you say. 

“And I’m tryna help you stay outta trouble,” he reproaches. 

“I’m okay. Really, it’s nothing.” You shut off the tap and wriggle free of his grasp. “See?” 

The burn stings but it’s nothing you can’t handle. You’re more affected by his suddenness. You can feel his hard strength throbbing in your wrist. If he didn’t want to let go, he wouldn’t have to. That thought needles behind your ears. 

He drops his shoulders, “sorry, dream. Really. I was just... you scared me, you know? I hear ya make those noises and I get a bit... uptight.” 

You exhale and give a small smile, “no, I... appreciate it. I mean, you can’t turn hero mode off, can ya?” 

He chuckles and the air thins, “yeah. Guess that’s what you can call it.” 

[yoonia]

blooming wallflowers (m) | knj

⟶ Summary | Your life has been in shambles with only your two sweet girls keeping you strong enough to carry on. It has been a while since the flame of desire you once had within you dim into almost nothing, until the man who spends his life fighting against arson comes into your life (and your two little girls’) only to help light up that fire once again

⟶ Title | Blooming Wallflowers ⟶ Pairings | Kim Namjoon x older female reader  ⟶ Genre | Firefighter!Namjoon, Single mother!reader, Smut, Angst ⟶ Word count | 20,800 words ⟶ Ratings & Warnings | +18 / M for Mature; allusions of past/toxic relationships, healing, usage of alcohol and drinking, dealing with insecurities, age gap with older female reader (OC is in her mid-30s), trapped in confined spaces; contains explicit smut scenes, including: sexual tension, dirty talk, light restraint, soft dom!Namjoon, switching positions and roles (OC taking control at some point), clothed foreplay, grinding, dry humping, thigh riding, implied body worship, breasts play, fingering, clit play, pussy slapping, riding, grinding, semi-public sex (does dining room count?), pet names, groping, biting, edging, oral sex (female receiving), minor hand-job, panty ripping, clit biting, panty sniffing, praise kink, hair pulling, rough sex, protective sex, multiple orgasms, forced orgasm, overstimulation.  ⟶ Author’s Note | Written as a commission for @KimCheeHoo | I’m so sorry this took me forever to finish. Thank you so much for commissioning me and for your endless support. I hope you’ll enjoy this story. Have fun reading!  ⟶ Story Note 1 | Written in 2nd person POV (in case you’re new to my writing, I don’t use ‘y/n’ coding as all of my lead characters are considered as OCs). This story has POV switches, and this is roughly edited, so forgive me for any mistakes. Banner design made by me, age warning divider by @/cafekitsune | Posted in: September 25th, 2024 by @yoonia

⟶ Also written as part of the @bangtanwritershq “Got A Secret, Can You Keep It?” Third Quarter 2024 writing event! ⟡ AU type: Hold Me Tight - Dilf/Milf AU ⟡ Themes: Age Gap, Situationship ⟡ Inclusions: Edging, Fingering, Angst/Hurt, Restraints

⟶ Music companion | Blue Rain, Make You Mine ⟶ Main Masterlist | Mailbox | Taglist | Ko-fi | Commission  ⟶ Read on AO3

On some days, you would feel like you are finally getting your shit together. 

But today is not one of those days. 

“Mommy! Hana is trying to bite me!” You hear your oldest whine as she hugs the pancake batter box to her chest. Shaking your head, you can only guess that her sister has been trying to take that box away from her hands. 

“No, I did not!” Hana, your youngest daughter argues back, “Mommy, Suzy won’t let me use the scanning thingy.” 

Suzy narrows her eyes and scoffs. She has been doing this expression a lot lately. It took you weeks after you first saw her making such an expression to figure out that she had somehow gotten it from you. Hana’s new biting habit, however, is something that you have yet to figure out how and when it started. 

“You’re such a baby,” Suzy says, rolling her eyes, which only riles up her sister more.  

“I am not!” 

“Yes, you are. That’s why you can’t do this. Babies don’t do what grown-ups do.” 

Sullen, Hana props her hands on her hips and lifts her chin, as if it would make her look bigger against her sister while whining, “But you’re not a grown-up too!” 

Watching them go at each other, you cannot decide whether you want to laugh or cry. 

Hana’s attitude reminds you of someone. You, perhaps, no doubt as the only role model she currently has to copy some of that sassy attitude from. You probably should feel embarrassed—deep down, you do, you are somewhere in public, after all—as the girls continue fighting, their voices loud enough to draw some attention, with the addition of being super dramatic about it. 

Only for them to have a turn at helping you with the self-checkout counter. 

You know the reason why you cannot find it in you to be mad at them. Not when the girls are showing you that they are the perfect carbon copy of you—not that you are the kind to have a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket, at least not at this age—and when they are always full of surprises. And you cannot deny that they are so stinking cute. 

Suzy, the bigger one out of the two, is mostly quiet and sweet. As a six-year-old girl, only weeks away towards her seventh, she often makes people think that she is a bit older than she truly is with how calm she acts around others. Until recently, she has always been so shy. But that is only until the moment her little sister starts acting out and then she would react so strongly to her tantrum—just like what she is doing now. 

Hana, on the other hand, is more brave and confident, and a bit too smart for her own good. Always so curious and mischievous, and always loves to copy whatever her big sister is up to. And she is always so headstrong that nothing can stop her whenever she wants something. 

She just turned four, and you were sure that she could barely speak full sentences just a year ago. That period of time feels so long ago as you watch her arguing with her sister, with perfect sound of mind, clear words and reasonings, a sign that she is growing up a bit too soon. 

“Girls, please stop screaming at each other,” you try to calmly separate them. 

You have no idea what is happening. Normally, your girls would know perfectly well how to behave. They take great pride in being your ‘little helpers’ and it isn’t rare for you to bring them with you when you are out buying groceries. 

For some reason, they have been like this all day. Constantly arguing and making a fuss over everything. Even to the smallest things. 

“You can take turns using the scanner. Let Suzy finish scanning the pancake batter, then you can do yours, Hana. Here—” 

Reaching into the shopping cart, you grab the box of cookies that you don’t remember placing inside the cart and try to hand it over to Hana. Only for it to slip out of your hand when both Suzy and Hana try to reach for it. Both insisting on taking it and having their turn. 

“Motherfucker,” you mutter under your breath as the box slides on the floor, and both girls immediately launch into another series of arguments, blaming each other for dropping the box and getting you angry. 

Tears are pooling in the corner of your eyes, and the quick switch of your mood isn’t unnoticeable for your girls as they both grow still. As if they are expecting you to snap. You bite your lips, trying your best not to. 

Just as you take a deep breath to compose yourself, a shadow comes to your side, picking up the fallen box and handing it to you.

“Excuse me,” a deep voice speaks, snapping you out of it, only to pull you into a dreamy trance the moment you get a look at his face and see his smile. The dimple on his cheek distracts you from your distraught that your mind becomes numb for a moment. 

“Hi there, do you need any help?” 

“Uhm, not really. It’s fine,” you answer, barely getting a word out when it feels like your brain has short-circuited. You shake your head, noticing his extended hand, offering you the box that you dropped earlier. “Oh, thank you,” you say to him, smiling apologetically as you take the box from his hand. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure why my girls are acting like this. They’re not usually this dramatic.” 

“That’s okay. Kids will be kids, right?” His eyes flicker towards your girls. Suzy, still in shock, is standing right by the cart while clutching the box of pancake batter to her chest, while Hana is clinging to your leg, almost hiding. “I don’t think you remember me, but—” The kind stranger offers the same hand to you to shake as he introduces himself, “I’m Namjoon. I just moved in a couple of doors away.” 

Once the information sets in, everything clicks. “Oh, yes. That’s right. I do remember.” 

All of a sudden, your memory takes you to last weekend, when you joined a cookout event held by one of your neighbours. The gathering was initially meant to celebrate their 25th anniversary, and you recall how they extended the celebration to welcome the new neighbour arriving in your block. You were so tired that night and were so focused on watching your kids that everything seemed to flash by, but you do recall gossiping with one of your neighbours, Ella—the only other single mom of the group—about how hot and stunning the newcomer looked. 

Blinking away the memory, you offer him another smile. “I’m sorry, I think the stress got to me. But I do remember you, although I don’t think we had enough time to chat.” 

“It’s fine. I won’t blame you, given the circumstances,” he says, and that cute dimple appears again. He turns to your kids next, bending a bit lower to match their height. “Hi, there. Are you girls trying to help your mom with the checkout?” 

Suzy presses her lips together, too shy to speak, but Hana is always happy to offer an answer. “Suzy won’t let me help.” You look down to see her pouting her lips, yet her eyes are still wide, looking curious and intrigued by this friendly stranger. Once again, something that you might share with your girl. 

“Well, I haven’t checked out my things and I might need a little help. So why don’t we let your sister help your mom, and you help me with mine?” he offers Hana with a smile as he points at his shopping basket, which is barely half full. Any adult would notice that he wouldn’t be needing much help with them, but Hana immediately perks up at his generous offer. 

“Is that really okay with you?” you ask, worrying about troubling him when you barely know him at all and letting your daughter out of your sight. 

As if he knows what you are thinking, he points over his shoulder at the next counter, which is only recently vacant. “I’ll take the next counter, so you can see and hear us all the time.” 

A sigh of relief escapes you. For some reason, looking at him alone is enough to reassure you and make you trust him. Maybe it’s the dimple. “Right. Okay,” you say to him, nodding. “Go ahead, honey. Help the nice mister with his groceries. But promise me that you’ll be good.” 

“‘Kay!” Hana easily agrees, getting overly excited that she has been given something else to do. “I promise, Mommy.” 

Find the beauty in the chaos. 

You remember reading that sentence somewhere. Perhaps from one of your favourite romance novels or one of those self-help books that your mother bought you during your darkest time. 

Each time you are having a hard time, be it from work, from dealing with household chores, or from caring for your daughters, you will always remember those words to keep your composure. Just like how you kept repeating those same words moments ago while you were stressing over your kids, when you tried to remain calm and sane. 

You didn’t expect the beauty to come and find you in your chaos instead. 

Having someone helping you just when you are starting to lose your calm feels like a blessing from the universe. 

Once peace has been regained, everything seems to return back to normal. Almost as if your daughters’ tantrum and fight never happened. 

While you work together with Suzy, who is enjoying her role as your little assistant, her smile widening each time the items go through, you can hear the sound of soft giggling from nearby as Hana does the same with her new friend. 

And Namjoon, the kind stranger and your saviour of the day, is making it fun by playing a little game with your little girl using the scanner and his groceries, drawing smiles and laughter from Hana, her little drama earlier forgotten. Soon enough, they are done, yet Hana remains by Namjoon’s side, almost clinging to his strong arm as she chatters away while he listens closely, hanging to every word she says. 

It appears that your little girl has completely become infatuated with the man. You cannot blame her though, since the man is quite easy in the eye. You have even noticed some of the women passing by looking over, and it surprises you how quickly it is making you feel territorial about him. 

“Thank you so much for your help. I truly appreciate it.” 

And you mean every word, seeing that not only has he helped solve your little problem with your demanding daughters, he also stays long enough to walk you to your car. If that isn’t enough to make you feel as if you have been transferred into another dimension, he has somehow gotten your daughter lifted in one arm, while he carries his grocery bag in the other. 

“It’s nothing, really. I enjoyed talking to your sweet girl,” he says, once again showing his dimple, and you can swear that you are swooning just by the look of it. Perhaps it’s his voice that does it to you; the deep timbre that makes you feel warm inside. It might also be the way he glances at Hana, not even showing any sign that he is getting annoyed for having his evening thwarted by having to deal with little girls and their very disorganised mother. 

“I mean it. You could’ve just walked past and didn’t offer anything, but you still did. You’re even walking us out to the car.” You sigh, recalling the bitter memory of the drama earlier. Glancing at him, you realise that Hana has become extremely silent. “Please tell me Hana isn’t falling asleep on your shoulder.” 

Namjoon lets out a soft chuckle as he takes a peek at Hana’s face, her cheeks smushed against his broad shoulder as if she has found the perfect place to rest her head on. “I think she’s about to.” 

Biting your lips, you hold back the sound that almost comes involuntarily out of you, because you can almost hear your ovaries exploding. 

Namjoon helps put Hana into her kiddie seat in the backseat of the car while you strap Suzy in right beside her. “You seem like you’ve done this before,” you let it slip, and you quickly move your hand to cover your mouth. “I’m so sorry. You’ve been so nice and here I am, sounding too presumptuous.” 

“It’s okay. Most of my friends have kids, and I’ve helped them once or twice whenever I’m free. I also have a niece from my sister, which gave me a chance to practice.” 

You take a peek at his grocery bag and remember what you saw in it—a box of beer, a couple of boxes of microwave dinners, and some snacks—and feel the urge to cook him dinner. Just to pay him a favour. 

Yes, that’s what it is. Not that you are eager to have him over for dinner or invite him into your home for anything other than. 

The offer is there, hanging at the tip of your tongue. But then you bite your lips, your insecurities and doubts rearing their ugly head, making you feel so small that you take a step back and simply say, “Thank you again. I’m so sorry for all the trouble.” 

Namjoon shrugs it off. “It was a pleasure to help.” 

Nodding, you look around, trying to find a distraction. You quickly notice that most of the cars parked near yours have gone away. “Are you—where did you park your car?”

The dimple on his cheek appears again when he shows you a bashful smile. “I don’t drive a car, actually,” he says, grinning and rubbing the back of his head. “I rode a bike here.” 

“A—bike?” You resist the urge to look around, just to be sure. Riding a bike at this time at night? You have no idea whether to feel amazed or baffled. Perhaps both. 

Seeing your reaction makes him laugh, and you somehow decide that you like the sound of it. “Yeah, I always ride a bike to the gym, and I was just heading home from there when I decided to make a quick stop to grab some sustenance for the evening.” 

Hiking the grocery bag in his arm higher, Namjoon takes a step back. That is when you notice the bag hanging from his shoulder. The one that wasn’t weighed down by Hana’s little head. 

Okay, you have officially decided to be amazed. Is this guy for real? 

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around?” He asks, snapping you back to the present before your mind starts picturing him carrying something else on those shoulders. 

No, none of it involves you. 

Maybe. 

You shake your head and muster a smile. “Oh, you betcha. You’ll definitely see us more often. Especially now that Hana has decided to like you.” 

You linger at the driver’s side of your car, hands on the door, yet your body refuses to slide in. You have no idea what seems to be drawing you towards him. Whatever it is, it makes you not want to leave. 

Namjoon tilts his head, as if noticing your hesitation to leave first. “Go on, I’ll watch you until you’re out there safely.” 

You open your mouth, almost ready to tell him to get back on his way before realising that the parking lot is quiet. Too quiet. And you have to admit that ever since you were left with only your two girls, you have been feeling a bit more vulnerable. Choosing to accept his offer of staying until you are safe to go—and feeling warm in the chest for having someone care enough to do so—you nod your head and slip into your car. 

Once you are strapped in, you look out the window to wave him goodbye. 

“Drive safe,” he says, and then the dimple reappears when he smiles, almost causing you to stutter. 

“Yes, um. You too.” 

Hana’s eyes flutter open just as Namjoon takes a peek into the backseat window to say goodbye to the girls. 

“Bye, Mista Joonie!” she cheerfully shouts, as if she wasn’t falling asleep in his arm just moments ago.

“Goodbye, Mister,” Suzy chimes in with a shy smile, waving her hand at Namjoon which he returns with a small wave.

“I’ll see you girls around!” 

Giving him one last wave and a smile, you begin to drive away. You can still see him through the rearview mirror, standing by and watching you go, until you are almost out of the lot and you see his figure running in the distance to get back to his bike. It’s brief, but there is something about this chance encounter that makes you feel bitter about leaving. 

Even if, deep down, you know that you will see him again soon. 

Perhaps I should’ve offered and invited him for dinner, after all. 

There is truly no beauty in this chaos. 

Even if there is, it would be impossible for you to see it. Not in moments like this.

It seems like the entire universe is out to get you this week, as nothing seems to be aligning the way it should have. The whole office has been in complete havoc all morning. Typical for Blackwell Press, the publishing company you are working with, to have the final week of the month filled with all the hustle. With everyone getting caught in deadlines, meetings and conference calls held back to back, and your own work piling up, it almost seems impossible for things to get even worse. 

But, of course, it eventually did. 

Offices don’t randomly get caught on fire during the daytime, when there are people—many of them—inside. Elevators don’t randomly get stuck merely seconds after the fire alarm starts blaring across the building.

Okay, this elevator had gotten stuck before, during that one time some staff were working late at night and the machine suddenly failed to work. Everyone has been joking about it happening again during a busy day, and it feels like karma that it has to happen again now. 

But must it happen when you are inside it?

The steady hum of the elevator suddenly turned into a deafening silence just moments ago, and the only thing you can do now is to stand frozen in the flickering light, wondering what is going on. Trapped between floors, the confined space appears in your mind as if closing in on you, the walls shrinking with every breath. The only reprieve you are given is the fact that you are not in it on your own. 

Your heart is pounding in your chest, louder than the faint crackle of the intercom as Daniel, the Marketing guy, tries to contact the security staff downstairs through the intercom. His voice remains calm despite the constant crackling sound each time they try to respond, while the other Marketing staff present with you, Jae, has long discarded his suit in his effort to calm himself. 

You take shallow breaths to keep yourself from panicking, all while trying to listen to the soft hum of their voices as they talk about what to do, just to keep your mind from wandering towards dark places. Right beside you, Lily, the only member of the Editor team aside yourself, is slowly losing her calm. 

At the sudden halt of the elevator, she had reached out to grab the sleeve of your blouse as if searching for support. As seconds tick by, her grip on your sleeve tightens as she tries to control her breath, her eyes locked on the digital screen that is no longer displaying a floor number. And you let her cling to you, even when you feel like you need some added strength for yourself. 

It was by mere coincidence that the four of you are stuck here together. 

You were the last ones to leave the conference room after the latest meeting, having been the ones responsible for providing the items for the meeting. As fate has it, merely seconds after the doors were closed and the elevator had only started moving, the fire alarm started blaring through the building, and everything came to a halt. 

“They’re saying that help is on its way,” says Daniel, relaying the message that he just received from the intercom, his voice becomes the calm in this dire situation. 

You find yourself feeling grateful that at least one of you manages to hear the voice coming through the intercom, while you haven’t been able to focus on anything at all. Nothing but the sound of your breathing, the rapid sound of your heartbeat, and at the way the air seems to be growing stale with four people sharing the same oxygen in this tight space. 

“What did they say? Is it connected to the fire alarm?” you try to ask, hoping that getting some positive news might help clear your thoughts. Even if just a little. 

“No, they didn’t say anything,” Daniel says with a strained voice, possibly due to reality finally sinking in once the intercom stops making any sound to respond. 

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Jae leans back against the metal railing and sighs. “Let’s just hope that we’re not anywhere close to the fire, and it’s just some issues with the electricity,” he adds while trying his best to remain calm. But it doesn’t help make you feel any calmer when his eyes begin wandering at every visible gap and crevice as he speaks, as if making sure that he isn’t seeing any smoke filtering into the elevator. 

It makes you feel uneasy to see this. Every bit of calmness that you still have begins chipping away. 

Soon, silence falls as everyone tries their best to remain still and composed while waiting for help to come. The minutes drag on like hours, allowing your thoughts to wander into a darker place and letting your doubt and fear sink in. 

Is the building really burning? 

Why are we stuck here? How long are we supposed to wait?

What happens if help doesn’t come? 

What about my girls? What will happen to them if I—

You blink away the tears forming in your eyes at the thought of not returning home to your girls. The thought of leaving them behind hurts you beyond words that you are beginning to lose hope. 

Gripping the metal railing behind you tightly, you close your eyes and begin to pray. And you continue to pray as time slips away in the dim, stalled box. Please, you beg whoever is listening. Please, someone—

A loud clatter breaks the silence, causing everyone to jerk their heads up, all eyes looking around to find its source. Right as Jae is about to speak, the clattering stops and comes a muffled voice from somewhere above.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" The voice is clear now, firm but calming, and somewhat familiar. But your mind is a jumbled mess of worry and bewilderment that you cannot figure out the reason why you would think that way. 

"Yes!" Jae calls back after looking around, seeing how everyone is stunned to silence, “Yes, we can hear you!”

"Stay calm," the voice calmly instructs from above. “We’re from the firefighters. We're going to get you out."

You feel your knees weakening with relief. Even the others collectively exhale deep sighs of relief and Lily begins to loosen her hold on the sleeve of your blouse. “Okay,” she whispers, steadying herself. “We’re going to be okay.” 

Daniel nods when he sees that everyone is calmer. “Okay, we’re ready!” he shouts to the person on the other side as he braces against the cool metal wall. 

Soon, you hear a low, scraping sound against the elevator door, followed by the clank of tools echoing through the small chamber. The elevator shirts slightly upon impact, causing everyone to gasp and instinctively start stepping away from the door. Before panic starts to set back in, the firefighter’s voice cuts through again, calming everyone down.  

"We're going to manually open the doors. You might feel the elevator shift a little—don't worry. You're safe."

Safe. 

The word echoes through your mind, acting like a spell as it brings some reassurance. Something for you to cling to. The clanking sounds of the tool returns just as you start hearing the firefighter coordinating with his team outside. 

More creaks and groans follow next, lasting for a short while, and then—light appears. The doors start inching open, revealing the gap between the elevator floor and the hallway above. Two strong hands appear from the gap, pulling the doors wider until there is enough space for you to see your rescuers in their fire gear, all focused and ready to pull everyone out.

One firefighter peeks through the opened doors with a smile. “Alright, who’s up first?” 

Both men who are with you step aside, allowing either you or Lily to get out first. So you push Lily forward, letting her get helped first before you take your turn. 

"Alright, just one step up," the firefighter says, reaching down with an outstretched hand. "Take my hand, we’ve got you."

You hesitate only for a moment before grasping his hand, his hold feels solid and reassuring. You can feel the strength in his grip as he hoists you up and out of the elevator, the cool rush of fresh air hitting you like a wave of relief. Your legs tremble as they touch solid ground that you nearly fall, yet the kind firefighter holds you up by your arms, keeping you steady as he sets you aside so that the other members of his team can start helping the men out.

"You're okay now," the firefighter says, his voice softer now. "Just breathe. You’re safe."

Nodding, you close your eyes, allowing yourself to feel the weight of your fear melting away. Still unable to speak, you glance back at the elevator, seeing it still wedged between floors, and feel a shiver run through you as you remember that you had just been inside it moments ago. But as you look around, watching the firefighters handling the situation, helping the other three who had just gotten pulled out to get help, the terror that was gripping at you begins to loosen its hold. 

With a relieved sigh, you straighten up and turn back to your saviour, the firefighter who had just pulled you out and is still holding you up. The moment you see his face, you finally understand why his voice felt so familiar, and why you could easily find calmness when you first heard him speak. 

“Namjoon,” you whisper his name, drawing a smile to his face, showing you the small dimple which had been in your mind ever since the night you last met. 

“I told you we’d meet again soon.”  

“Is this really necessary?” 

You are sitting at the corner of the building’s main lobby, together with the other three who had gotten stuck with you in the elevator. Other staff have also been evacuated here while the firefighters are working to find the source of the problem. 

Namely, the reason why the fire alarm went off when there was no sign of the building burning anywhere. 

Right by your side, Jae is being checked by the medical team when it is quite obvious that all the man wants to do is to get back to his office. 

“You were under duress just moments ago, Sir. We need to check your vitals to make sure that there are no other issues with your body that the incident may have caused before letting you go.” 

“Let the boy do his job so we can all go back to the office,” Daniel chimes in just as he is done being checked out and the medic moves to Lily next. The poor girl has yet to regain some colour on her pale face, which makes you worried. “Wait, we’re allowed to go back to our office, right?” 

The medical staff nods and talks about waiting until everyone gets clearance from the investigation team before going back up. After getting your turn for the quick check-up, you wander off a bit between the staff lingering around, feeling too restless to sit still. 

Before you realise what you are doing, you begin searching for a familiar figure between the throng of people, and you don’t stop until you see a group of firefighters returning to the lobby after checking the floors above. One of them, who appears to be the team leader, walks towards the head of security and the Head Editor waiting close by. 

“It came from smoke forming in the break room. Someone must’ve burned something in the microwave or forgot to pull it out and the smoke triggered the alarm,” you hear the team leader speak, explaining the cause of the fire alarm. “The faulty alarm system made the electrical circuit go haywire, which made it seem like it was a bigger fire than it was, and it may have caused the elevator cables to short-circuit.” The team leader hands the draft of their investigation report to the head of security. “The elevator needs to get checked too, since the cables are old. You need to get it done soon.” 

The Head Editor—your boss—takes a peek at the report and shakes his head. “I’m gonna need to contact building management—” 

His voice begins to fade away when a movement catches your eyes, and you see the person that you have been searching for separating himself from the group to approach you.

Namjoon, who turns out to be your saviour, walks up to you with a smile on his face. “Are you okay?” he asks, the familiar deep timber of his voice brings some warmth to your chest, telling you that this isn’t a figment of your imagination.

“Yeah,” you answer with a small voice, still too dumbfounded to see him standing before you like this. “Uhm, yes, I’m fine. Thank you so much for saving my life.” The moment you say this, a soft giggle slips right out of you. “This makes it the second time this week you’ve come to my rescue.” 

Namjoon’s smile widens. “I’m just glad to help.” 

He takes a look around. “So, a publishing agency, hmm? What is it exactly that you do here, if I may ask?” His curious gaze lands on you and it feels like he is trying to look into your soul. “I hope it’s okay if I’m curious, since you now know what I do for a living.” 

You let out a nervous laugh. “I don’t mind at all,” you admit to him before answering, “I’m an editor. I edit manuscripts for upcoming books before they are sent out to print and get officially published. You can say that I’m being paid to read and comment, and gain the extra privilege of reading the books first before everyone else does.” 

“That sounds interesting,” he says, raising his brows. “I don’t suppose you’ll be getting back to work after this?” 

“I’m not entirely sure. But I don’t think I will.” You glance around at your co-workers. Neither seems to have any desire of going back to work after this whole incident. Sharing the same feeling with the others around you, you feel a strong desire of seeing your girls and spending time with them instead. “I might get back to my office only to pack up my stuff and leave early, pick up Hana from daycare and have a little cool down at the park before we go and pick up her sister. I know she’ll love it.” 

At the mention of your girls, Namjoon’s smile softens. “That sounds fun.” 

For a moment, it looks as if he wants to say something, only to stop himself when someone from his team calls his name. Namjoon looks over his shoulder and nods. “Unfortunately, one of us has to go back to work,” he says with an apologetic smile, “I’ll see you around. Hopefully, not in another case of emergency?” 

You cannot help but smile. “I promise to try and keep things less dramatic next time.” 

With a grin on his face, Namjoon turns away and joins the other men from his team as they prepare to leave. You watch him for a moment longer, blending in with the rest of them until someone comes to your side. 

“So—” Your friend, Emma, says as she slips her arm around yours. “Who’s the hunk?” 

You roll your eyes and smile. “He’s a new neighbour. He helped me the last time we met,” you answer, still stunned with everything that has been going on. You never expected that you would be seeing Namjoon again, and for him to once again save the day for you, “Which makes this the second time he’s helped me.”

“Oooh, sounds like a story premise in the making. It’ll make a good romance prompt, don’t you think?” she teases, “A firefighter who keeps crossing paths with a single mother, saving her during a series of misfortunes and ending up falling in love after the single mom starts paying his goodwill with homecooked meals and other”—she starts wiggling her eyebrows—”raunchy favours.” 

You laugh at her comment, even if it doesn’t stop you feeling your cheeks flushing warmly. “Well, I’m not the writer. You can probably pitch that idea to the indie author you’ve been working with.” 

“Who? Sana? Hmmm, you’re right. This is kind of her thing. Let me take notes on that,” Emma says as she pulls out her phone and starts tapping on the screen, no doubt writing the idea down on her notes app. “I might advice her to make it extra spicy too.” 

As you continue to chat with your friend about books and promising writers, you let her guide you back towards the Editor team who are gathering at one corner of the room with your boss, talking about the incidents and what they are going to do next. 

“Are you heading back up?” Emma asks you before you join the others, and you recall your plan about spending the rest of the afternoon with your youngest. 

“I’m thinking of grabbing my stuff and head back home if Adam lets us go for the day,” you say to her, referring to your boss, the Head Editor who isn’t showing any sign of wanting to back to work. Much like everyone else. “I’ll probably end up losing sleep again if I want to finish editing tonight.” 

You let out a sigh, thinking about the lack of sleep you have been having this week. With new books coming up to prints this month, and new writers struggling to keep up with the schedule that you have set up for them, you have been staying up a lot of nights to catch up with editing. 

“But it’s still a lot better to work from home than being stuck here and freaking out about the elevator and false fire alarms all day,” you add, almost like reassuring yourself that it would be okay to sacrifice more sleep for the sake of your sanity.  

“Good point. I bet we can sweet talk Adam to let us go early today. I don’t see the point in working when everyone is stressed out anyway,” Emma jokes as she points her chin at Adam, whose eyebrows are furrowed deeply as he continues chatting with his assistants. “At least, thanks to this, I think we deserve to let off some steam. What do you say we go out this Saturday? Grab some drinks, dance a bit, maybe you can practice your flirting skills so you can make use of them the next time you meet up with that cutie again.”  

You make a face as you imagine yourself trying to make a move on Namjoon, which only makes her laugh. “I’m serious. He seems nice, aside from being hot, and it’ll be a missed opportunity not to tap that.” 

You roll your eyes, but a part of you is starting to consider it. As much as you love being a mother and to dedicate your entire life to your career, you cannot deny that you do want to start dating again. 

And the offer to have a night out where you can let off some steam and let loose does sound enticing. Emma and some of your other friends have been asking you to join them to hangout on drink nights lately. But with a lot of deadlines and tight schedules weighing down on you, and no one to watch your girls while you are out, you have been declining their invitation. But after dealing with such a hard week, you feel like you deserve a night to yourself. 

“I do need a stiff drink.” Sighing, you remember that your daughters are going to be spending the weekends with your parents. It wouldn’t hurt to use that free time to have some fun for a change instead of staying in. “All right. Count me in.” 

Emma cheers. “Great! I’ll call the other girls to see if they’ll come too it so we can all catch up. Chloe called the other day and shared about wanting to see us and give us the souvenirs she got from her trip to Singapore last week, so she’ll probably be excited too,” she says, mentioning another fellow Editor who used to work in the same company as the two of you before moving up to a bigger publishing agency. 

Just then, you see a small group of firefighters walking across the lobby, heading towards the front door to leave. Among them is Namjoon, who seems to feel your gaze on him. As you continue watching him walk alongside his team, he suddenly turns. His eyes quickly find you among the crowd lingering in the lobby, his smile growing wider as he raises his hand to wave goodbye. 

Emma makes a humming sound when she sees this exchange happening and whispers, “Promise me you’ll tell me more about that hot firefighter of yours.” 

Keeping your eyes on Namjoon, you merely smile and wave your hand back at him. “Mhmm. We’ll see.” 

It’s a typical Saturday night at Cipher, the rustic-style bar that Namjoon has frequented ever since he moved into the city. 

The bar had a different name just a couple of years ago, when Namjoon first came by during one of his previous visits to this city, and with different types of patrons as well. The only thing that remains the same since is the man who is working behind the bar, mixing drinks while chatting with whoever decides to hang around the bartender. 

“How is living in the city going for you so far?” Jin, the bartender and owner of the bar, asks Namjoon while he is busy wiping clean glasses between drink orders. 

Twisting the glass in his hand, Namjoon shrugs before taking a sip of his whiskey. “Not too bad. I can’t say that I’ve gotten to fit right in with the neighbours. But things are doing good at work, so that’s good enough for now.” 

“Seeing anyone already?” Jin teases, making Namjoon laugh. 

“Are you seriously asking me that?” He shakes his head. “It might be too soon for me to get back out there into the dating scene.” 

“You? Not sure about getting out to meet up with women?” Jin laughs. “Look, I’m not talking about getting into a relationship or finding someone else to propose. I’m talking about having fun. Go pick someone you find attractive tonight and take her home with you. You deserve a good time too, you know.” 

Namjoon’s throat feels tight just by hearing that word—propose—only because it brings back a painful memory; of the days filled with fights and shouting matches and distrust, and the desperation he felt to hold on to the hope that things would have gotten better if he chose to settle down. 

Shaking the sudden wave of painful memory doesn’t really help when he thinks about opening himself to finding instant pleasure to replace what was lost to him.  

Namjoon may not be a stranger to having a one-night stand. But it has been a while since the last time he had one. Those days are way behind him. Long before he decided to settle down, only to have everything fall apart and he was forced to start over in a new place just to survive. 

He knows all too well that sharing his bed with someone for one night only does little to fill the void. He knows from what he experienced during his wild days in the past. Physically, he might not have been alone for those short hours, but once it ended, it only made him feel even more lonely than before. At some point, the loneliness started to feel painful. It was what had first led him to start longing for something more. 

He once thought that he had found more. Only that it had been with the wrong person, at the wrong time, and he found himself back to square one when everything crumbled. 

He took it all thinking that it might have been karma. Bad fate came to bite him on the ass after all the years he had his fun chasing women, breaking hearts here and there, until he got his own heart broken to pieces just months ago. 

It was the reality check he needed. One that he has yet to completely recover from. The pain and the memories of the past would sometimes come creeping in, staying with him as if they had been woven into the cracks that were left inside him to remain even after he walked away. It kept chasing him during the nights he spent alone—and he had tried to go back to the game once or twice, only to fail to gain anything out of it—which was why he decided to move away. 

Start anew. Meet new people. And then one day, maybe—

He knows that time will eventually help him heal, just like how time has healed many of the scars he had gained through the years of working with danger, chasing fires and pulling people out of crumbling buildings and crashed cars and stuck elevators—a flutter of a smile comes to his face as he recalls the most recent incident—while risking his own body, his life, doing so. 

“I can’t believe I’m getting an advice about hooking up from someone like you,” Namjoon chuckles, as he brushes those thoughts away, choosing to tease Jin instead. “Someone who claims to be looking into settling down.” 

Jin scoffs. “I’m saying this for your own good.” Propping his elbows on top of the bar counter, Jin leans forward. “You moved here to start over. Not to stop living altogether.” 

Namjoon gives him a bitter smile. “Right now, I’m only going to spend the night nursing my drink, enjoying my downtime while I’m off duty.” 

Shaking his head, Jin leans back and grabs the empty glasses left behind from the patrons who had just stepped away from the seats next to Namjoon. “Have you thought about my offer?” Jin asks, “About working here on the nights you’re not on night shift? At least, that way, you might open up your eyes and see all the opportunities you can get by standing right here at the bar, talking to people.” 

“And live a double life like you do?” Namjoon teases him, which earns him a wink from Jin, before the bartender saunters away as another customer waves him down to order a drink. 

Once again left with his own thoughts, Namjoon allows himself to sink back into old memories; all the good and the bad; the long-lost hope that he once had and is now trying to rebuild. 

“Wanna have another?” Jin asks when he returns, noticing that Namjoon has almost emptied his glass yet again. “Got enough time to think about what I was saying?” 

“Maybe,” Namjoon says as he tosses his drink down. He slides the empty glass back to Jin. “Get me a double of that.” 

As Jin steps back to grab his drinks, Namjoon notices the group of patrons crowding nearby spreading away, giving him a clear sight of the bar’s entrance door just as a group of women enters, laughing and chatting with each other without realising the attention they are gaining. All of a sudden, Namjoon feels as if the air around him shifts, right the moment his eyes capture the sight of a familiar smile among the ladies who seem to have come for a good time. 

“Can I ask you something?” Namjoon asks Jin when the bartender returns with his drink. 

“Sure. Anything.” 

“Do you believe in fate?” 

Jin laughs. “Me? I can’t really say I don’t believe it, but it’s also not something I’d talk about while tending the bar. Why?” 

Namjoon turns back to look at the group of newcomers, his smile growing wider when his eyes meet yours as you look up, as if you can feel his presence as he sits across the room, watching you with a new feeling of hope brewing inside his chest. Life can be cruel sometimes, he silently admits. Yet it seems that life is slowly turning to his favour when you unexpectedly appear right before his eyes, right when he is about to call it a night and return to his lonely home. 

“Well, I think I am starting to believe it.” 

“I feel like we should make a toast,” Emma starts once you manage to find an open table. She holds up her glass of Cosmo before anyone can start enjoying their drinks. 

“What are we toasting for?” Ina asks, just as Emma shouts, 

“To friendship.” 

Chloe snorts into her drink and shakes her head. “What are we, in high school?” 

“Hey, I mean, it works,” Emma whines, “Seeing that we still hang out together even after you and Ina moved to different companies.” 

Thinking to yourself, you think about the long week that you just had and offer, “How about a toast to surviving life?” 

“I’ll toast to that,” Ina quickly agrees with a nod, and you can totally understand why. Being the oldest one of the group, she has a ton of things on her plate among her busy days at work; from dealing with her teenage boys back home who are beginning to act up; a husband who is busy preparing for his promotion; and a sick cat back home. 

“I love my boys, but sometimes I wish they were still the same adorable toddlers who would listen to me instead of fighting me all the time,” she would often say, though you could always see the love in her eyes even as she complains about them. “Are you sure you don’t want to trade them with your girls? Just a night will be enough for me. I promise.” 

Chloe raises her glass to join the toast, saying, “I’ll toast to that too. These past few weeks have been pretty crazy for me. I want to stay in bed with my hubby for the next few weeks and not answer any texts or phone calls.” 

Her comment makes you want to take a shot of your drink. You shouldn’t feel envious about her having someone waiting for her back home. You shouldn’t wish that you had someone to share your bed with tonight. You really don’t need to think about having to return home tonight alone, to a quiet home, without your girls waiting back home, without anyone keeping you company.  

The only thing you fear the most about being left alone with your thoughts is to have the ghosts of your past coming back. Memories always come stronger at nights. Taking you back to the days when you were not alone, yet you are made struggling even harder than you are now when you tried to hold on to the crumbling marriage. 

Nobody warned you that falling out of love can be painful. How lonely it made you feel.  It scorned you to the point that you nearly sworn yourself off of love, just to keep your heart save. Whatever was left of it. 

“Then why are you here hanging with us when you have a husband to cuddle with?” Emma teases, her voice snapping you out of it. Then Chloe leans in to hug you from the side. 

“Because I also miss you guys,” she says, drawing everyone’s laughter. 

You share a toast with the girls, clinking the glasses as you cheer, followed by a series of shots, and then a new round of drinks is shared at the table. You continue talking, laughing, catching up about life and sharing gossip and fussing over some problematic authors that both Emma and Chloe had to deal with for the past month. By the time the next round of shots arrives at the table, you notice Emma’s eyes looking over your shoulder and grinning at what she sees.

“Aren’t you going to say hi?” she teases, leaning in to make it less obvious that she has been observing the one person that you have been fighting not to look at. 

You take a careful sip of your Moscow Mule as you think of an excuse. “We already waved at each other when we first came in.” 

Truth be told, you already know that a simple wave was the bare minimum that you could have given him. Seeing Namjoon sitting there at the bar when you first came into this place caught you by surprise that you were left speechless. It was Namjoon who had first smiled at you, and the only thing you could do was wave your hand at him when your legs refused to take you to him.  

“You know that’s not enough.” Emma rolls her eyes. “The guy practically saved your life.” 

Your reaction—or lack thereof—over seeing Namjoon hadn’t gone unnoticed by your friends. But it was Emma who had explained to the others about who Namjoon was, earning you more questions and teasing from the girls which only made it even harder for you to ignore his presence. 

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it if you offer something special tonight for a thank-you gift,” Chloe teases while wiggling her brows. 

You laugh, snorting into your drink. “Sure he will,” you say, as you find it hard to imagine that someone like Namjoon would even be interested in being with someone like you. Not only because you know that he is younger than you, but you also know that there are many women out there—mostly those around his age—that he would find more attractive, compared to a single mom like yourself. 

As always, your insecurities are quick to set in. Before you can drown it with a strong drink, Emma quickly protests, “You’re a MILF, ______. Stop selling yourself short.”

Nodding, Ina gently agrees with her by saying, “You definitely shouldn’t, seeing that he keeps glancing at you.” 

“She means to say that he’s been eye-fucking you since we got here,” Chloe adds, snickering as she glances over her shoulder to catch Namjoon looking over. 

“He so is!” Ina says, leaning across the table. “He’s hot. Go for it.”

Hearing this, you finally take a long sip of your drink, trying to gain some liquid courage. You have only gotten a few glasses of drink, the night has yet grown late, but you have already gotten quite a good buzz going on, and you are using it to grow some courage to look over at him. Sure enough, Namjoon is still there, with a glass of what seems to be whiskey in his hand, and a pair of eyes that are looking straight at you. A smile grows on his face as your gazes meet each other, though it is quickly hidden as he lifts his glass to his lips. 

“See? He’s looking over again.” Emma starts giggling and gently nudges at your shoulder. “Go talk to him and practice that flirting skills of yours.”

“What flirting skills?” you ask while laughing. Deep down, your insecurities are still clawing at you, but having everyone pushing you to do something that you normally wouldn’t do—like flirting with a hot younger guy like Namjoon—is starting to make you want to change your mind. “Okay, but what do I say?” 

“You can start by saying hi,” Ina says. She pushes her appletini in front of you. “Here,” she says. “Finish this, then go talk to him before someone else moves in on that fine piece of ass.”

Chloe nods her head as you pick up the glass of appletini and contemplate what you need to do next. “You can go to the bar and act like you’re there to order drinks from the bartender since we’ll be needing some more drinks.” 

 “Go on,” Emma joins in, obviously enjoying this. 

You exhale a deep breath and bring the glass to your lips. The sweet liquor glides down your throat and you suddenly start wishing that you had gotten something stronger. Lowering the drink, you turn to look for him again. Namjoon isn’t looking at you this time, yet he is still there, talking to the pretty-looking bartender who was the main reason why Emma had chosen to come to this bar—as she seems to be having a sweet crush on the bartender. 

“All right, here I go,” you say, as you finish the drink and muster the will to rise from your seat. Your legs are a bit wobbly when you try to walk across the room, but the muted voices of your friends who are cheering for you from behind give you the boost you need to continue going. 

The floor between your table and the bar has been filled with people dancing while you are drinking, and they come in your way, making you lose sight of Namjoon for a moment. Not being able to see him only makes you feel calmer, until the crowd opens up and you see him once again, still sitting at the bar. Alone. 

Eyes too focused on him, you accidentally bump into someone who walks right into your path. “Oh, I’m sorry,” you immediately apologise while the person simply slides out of your way and returns to his dancing. 

You hear a soft chuckle, a familiar sound that causes your breath to catch. You whip around and your eyes are locked with his. Immediately, something fuzzy builds in your chest, and you almost fall out of step when you notice it. 

Are those butterflies you are feeling inside? You haven’t felt anything remotely like butterflies in—fuck—years. 

As his smile grows wider at the sight of you walking towards him, you try to convince yourself that his presence isn’t affecting you. At all. 

Your lady bits do not quiver for random men. You are certainly not having dirty thoughts about him. You keep telling yourself this as you get closer to him. And yet—

Your heart immediately speeds up at the sound of his voice—calling your name. 

“_______, fancy seeing you here,” he says, looking genuinely pleased that those butterfly wings are beginning to flutter again, causing some funny feelings to rise in your stomach. 

“I could say the same thing. It was a nice surprise to see you,” you respond to him and—fuck, did you really just try flirting with him? “Enjoying your night?” 

“You can say that,” he says with a dimple smile of his, “But I’m finding more reasons to feel good tonight now that you’re here.” 

Damn, he’s good, you wonder as you stifle a smile, and fail. Maybe he should be the one helping you sharpen your flirting skills instead of Emma or the other girls who always start making jokes about it and making you laugh each time you try it on them. 

“A friend of yours?” You turn when the bartender comes, throwing you a smile as he speaks to Namjoon. 

“Jin, this is _______,” Namjoon says, introducing the two of you. “This is Jin, an old friend who first convinced me to move here. He’s the main reason why I hang out at a place like this.” 

You offer your hand to the bartender who takes it with a firm grip. “Hi, it’s nice to see you. I see that you and your friends are having quite a blast.” 

Returning Jin’s smile, you playfully ask him, “Would it be too much if I thank you for encouraging Namjoon to move here?” 

“Nope, not at all,” Jin laughs. “So, what can I get you?” 

You quickly make your order, and while you wait for the bartender to finish preparing the drinks, you take the seat right by Namjoon’s side so you can have a little chat. Either the alcohol is starting to warm you up inside, or Namjoon’s friendly smile is making you more comfortable, every bit of tension you feel is lifted when you begin laughing at his simple jokes. 

Once the drinks are ready, you reluctantly rise to return to your friends to deliver their shots. This time, you have a slight new pep in your footsteps, confidence brewing inside you after realising that you had conquered one of your insecurities tonight by chatting with Namjoon. Your friends welcome you with light cheers, and you celebrate by sharing a shot of whiskey and finishing the rest of your drink. 

It doesn’t take long before your friends decide to end the night. 

Ina is the one to step away first, when her husband calls her about one of their sons who had just gotten caught sneaking through the window after lying about doing his homework in his room. “We don’t know if he snuck out to see a girl or got himself in other kinds of trouble while he was out, but Dan needs me as a backup to get some answers from the little brat,” she says, kissing your cheek when she bids goodbye for the night. 

Chloe is the one who needs to go home next, when her husband keeps calling her about feeling lonely at home. “I can’t tell if it’s sad or cute, but I think I’ve had enough to drink for the night. I already got an Uber picking me up outside.” 

“Are you coming?” Emma asks you, her eyes looking over towards the bar before asking, “Or are you going to stay?” 

You follow her gaze, looking at Namjoon chuckling along with whatever the bartender is saying to him. A part of you is telling you to call it a night, but there is a bigger part of you that feels intrigued, and curious to see what would happen tonight if you choose differently. To be selfish for once. 

“I think I’m going to stay.” 

Your answer brings a smile to Emma’s face. She seems proud and—relieved. You have no idea why she would feel this way over your decision to stay for a man, but she simply nods and says, “All right, then I’ll ride with you, Chloe. I’ll see you on Monday, girl,” she says to you as she leans in for a hug and whispers, “Go get him.” 

You watch your friends go before finishing the rest of your drink and leaving your seat. Before you can change your mind, your legs take you towards the bar, returning to Namjoon’s side as if you are drawn to him like a moth to flame. 

“Are you calling it a night too?” Namjoon asks you when he notices you coming, his gaze flickering to follow your friends as they weave through the crowd to find the exit door, as if expecting to see you following them.  

“I don’t really want to go home yet.” You bite your lips. “I think I’m going to have another drink before leaving. Are you planning on leaving early?” 

The smile that grows on Namjoon’s face makes your heart flutter. He does look good when he smiles. “And waste the chance to drink with you? No way.” You take the empty seat that he offers right next to him, which he gently pulls closer once you are settled in. “Let me order for you. What are you having?”

“Surprise me.” 

Smiling, Namjoon orders you a Moscow Mule, causing you to raise your brows. “You ordered the same drink twice while you were here.” 

“You have quite a good memory,“ you tease him, “Are you sure you don’t work here?” 

Namjoon laughs. His eyes glimmer under the dim lighting when he says, “You’re not the kind of woman that I’d be so easy to forget.”

You can barely hold back from laughing, because you cannot find it in you to agree. 

“You don’t believe me when I say that you’re not easy to forget?” he asks, moving closer to you until you can breathe in the musky cologne he is wearing. 

“Me? I’m nothing special. I’m just”—you breathe out a sigh—”just me.”

He takes your hand, sliding his fingers to your wrist, his thumb finding your pulse where he rubs in circles. “I don’t know you very well—yet—but from what I’ve seen, ‘just you’ seems pretty damn special.”

You laugh again and take a drink, murmuring softly to him, “Thanks.”

He looks down for a moment, as if considering what to say. But he seems more determined when he lifts his gaze and looks back at you. There is something in his eyes which draws out the flutters in your chest. A new look which you have yet to see coming from him during the short time you’ve known him. 

The look which shows a different kind of want.

And you can only guess what he is thinking right now. Biting your lips, you wait until he says the words, because there is nothing that you want more right now but to go with him. You enjoy talking to him, to be in his presence, and you have a feeling that you might enjoy it more if he offers something more. 

It’s just one night, so you can possibly handle it. Right? 

Fuck. All of a sudden, you don’t feel too sure about it. 

But the gentle touch of his fingers on your skin, together with the deep timber of his voice when he hums, is slowly enticing you to open up, to give in to chance. 

Namjoon’s eyes meet yours and the same dimple smile of his returns. You swallow hard, ignoring the sound of your pounding heart as he asks,

“Do you want to get out of here?” 

Biting your lips, you can feel your chest tightening. Your heart beating fast. Hard. Your body moves to lean closer even without you meaning it to. 

“Yes,” you whisper, and his face lights up, as if he was almost sure that you were going to refuse. 

“Your place, or mine?”

A simple question, made with a light tone of voice that sounds almost joking, except that Namjoon’s heart is beating rapidly inside his chest as he says it. He already risked everything when he first asked to take you away from here. Now, it feels as if he is risking a bit more as he waits for your answer. 

You bite your lips, and your hesitance only makes him feel worse. “Is there any difference?” 

Namjoon wants to say, no, it doesn’t. The only thing that matters is for him to be spending this night with you. You push your hair back, and when your eyes meet his, he can almost feel your heart beating right up against his. 

“Are your kids home tonight?” Namjoon tries when you’re not too sure. Somehow, he understands that you might be wary about coming home to his place when you barely know him. 

“No, they’re at my parents.” 

A smile is lifted on his face. “Then are you going to take me home?” 

You return his smile and lean closer. It amazes him how quickly you switch—from shy and hesitant at one point, to feeling more confident and daring the next. And it turns him on even more when you say, “Only if you promise that you’re going to be a good boy.” 

Namjoon calls an Uber to take you both home while you make a quick stop at the restroom before leaving the place. In the short time that he has to wait for you, Namjoon struggles to keep his composure. It’s almost laughable the way it makes him feel like a newbie. For him to feel so nervous as if he is inexperienced in this. 

In a way, this is something new for him. Enough to make him feel exhilarated about what is to come. 

He turns just in time to see you walking up to him. As if your moment away had given you the chance to recoup and find some resolve, you look as if you are shining, your smile looking bright and your eyes filled with lust and want and it takes everything in him not to pull you into his arms here and now just to kiss you senseless. 

“Take me home, mama,” he jokingly says when he opens the car door for you, making you laugh. 

Instead of answering him, you grab the front of his shirt and pull him in with you until you are seated in the backseat of the car together, bringing the heat that you share into the confines of the car as it takes you back home. 

In the tight space within the car, the heat that has been building up between you becomes more palpable. You can tell that he is feeling it too. And he seems to be giving into it, when he keeps running the tips of his fingers from your hand to your wrist, when his knees keep pressing against yours, and when his eyes keep trailing from your face, down to your cleavage, and then back up to your neck, before lingering on your lips. 

He wets his lips, as if he is picturing himself tasting you with a kiss. “Can I be honest with you?” he whispers, leaning closer. 

“Of course.” 

“I…couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he admits with a soft chuckle. It seems that his confession surprises him just as much as it does to you. 

“Since the fire alert?” 

“No,” he says with a grin, “ever since the night we first met.” 

Was it at the supermarket? You wonder to yourself, trying to figure out what he could have possibly seen in you that night through the chaos with your girls. 

No, it was before, you begin to realise, as you recall the night of the cookout event at your neighbours’ backyard, when Namjoon lingered close by after sharing a quick chat with you, and when you caught him watching you from the side while you were helping your daughters with their dinner plates. 

“I told myself after watching you go that night that I shouldn’t get my hopes up, since you seemed to have a lot going on already and I probably didn’t deserve any second of your time. But then I saw you at the supermarket and I couldn’t resist saying hello.” His eyes find yours. You have no idea what kind of expression you are giving him while you are loss for words, but Namjoon’s smile softens. “And just when I thought it couldn’t have been more than a coincidence, we got the call to your office and there you were. It feels like we just keep crossing paths with each other. As if I am made to make a move.” 

Noticing that you have grown silent, Namjoon tilts his head and asks, “What’s wrong?” 

With a bitter laugh, you can only shake your head. “Nothing, it’s just—” You bite your lips, hating the way your insecurities have always been able to come to the surface the moment you try to push against your boundaries, when you try to take risks like what you are doing tonight. But you simply cannot help it. The feeling is clawing at your chest that you can barely breathe. “You know you could’ve gotten home with someone else. Someone who isn’t—” 

You try to look away, yet Namjoon isn’t having it. With his fingers on your chin, he turns your face gently so you are forced to look at him again. “Is not—what?” 

Your throat feels tight and your mouth feels bitter when you answer, “Older. A single mom. A—” 

Namjoon presses his thumb on your lips to stop you from speaking further. “Remember what I told you earlier, and I really meant it,” he says, his gaze softening and heating up at the same time. “You are special. If you had said no to me tonight, I would’ve gone home alone, and spent the rest of the night finishing the last cans of beer I still have in my fridge or eating any frozen leftovers I could find before passing out on the couch.” 

You blink. His honesty surprises you, yet you would be lying if you told yourself that it doesn’t make you feel flattered to hear him choosing you. 

As if there is a switch inside you that has been flipped, everything fades to the back of your mind. All the voices that keep putting you down are silenced. The only thing left in your mind is the image of this gorgeous man spending his night alone in his quiet home, eating one of those boxed meals you saw peeking through his grocery bag and downing beers until he falls asleep, and you decide that you are not having it. 

Seems like you are not the only one who needs to take some risks tonight just to experience some changes in life. 

“Yep. That’s it. I’m sending you dinner next time.” 

Namjoon laughs. “What—?” 

Wrapping your arms around his shoulders, you pull him down to you and press your lips on his, putting his words—and your thoughts—to silence with a kiss. 

“I’m sorry for the mess. The perks of having little kids are always having too many things scattered around the house, and—” 

It is still surprising to see how easy and quickly you change depending on the moment. You keep going from Miss In Control to a more subdued figure filled with insecurities. Namjoon knows that he shouldn’t, but he is adamant about changing that tonight, even if it makes him feel a myriad of things inside when you show multiple sides of you at once. 

“It’s all right,” he cuts you off with a half smile, noticing how nervous you are getting about showing him your home. 

As you move aside to start taking off your shoes and coat, Namjoon kicks his own shoes off and takes a quick glance around. Most of the lights are off, yet he can still see through the dim lighting to see what he needs to see. 

Much like his own house, your place has an open space concept, where everything is visible from the foyer. He looks at the living room to his right, where the flat television hangs against the wall, surrounded by wooden shelves filled with books and trinkets and boxes filled with toys. To his left is the open kitchen, the room is slightly more spacious than his, and cleaner, with a hint of the scent coming from the last meal you cooked today still wafting through the air. 

Truth be told, he doesn’t mind at all about how the house looks like at the moment. He even thinks that your home feels comfy, more welcoming and lively than his own, which makes him feel good and warm inside as he steps onto the threshold of your home. 

Still, right now, he has other—more important—things to pay close attention to.  

Namjoon waits until you are done taking your coat off before approaching you. 

He places an arm around your shoulders, hinting at his need to get closer. When you show no sign of pushing him away, he pulls you towards him gently, and you willingly lean into him until you are engulfed completely in his warmth, and he feels your soft body pressing against his hard muscles. He bends down and your lips meet each other, warm and welcoming as they mesh into a kiss. 

For a split second, Namjoon can feel you hesitating. But then your arms come up to wrap around him before returning the kiss. It feels gentle and soft, yet Namjoon can feel every cell in his body lighting up at the touch, and he allows that hope he ignored before to rise as he melts into the kiss

Namjoon is a firm believer that a person can tell quite a lot about the other by the way they kiss, and that the first kiss will define how the night will continue. 

He feels you parting your lips slowly as your fingers curl into fists, balling the back of his shirt. He can taste the fruity taste of your lip-gloss which you put on during your toilet break before the two of you left the bar, and he can also taste a hint of the drink you had as he lightly brushes the tip of his tongue against yours. 

The simple contact earns a soft hum from your throat, and then you tip your head back and open your mouth, asking him for more. He gladly gives it to you as he slides one hand up your waist and cups your cheek, deepening the kiss. Your grip around him tightens when his tongue pushes past your lips, bringing heat all over your body and his as he devours your mouth, and you respond by pressing your hips into his. 

Feeling like he is burning from within, Namjoon starts to pull away. But you are not having it. You move your hand to his face, and then bring him back down until his lips are back on yours. You take charge this time, kissing him as if your very existence depends on it, and Namjoon smiles into the kiss as he follows your lead.  

Tonight is going to be a good night.

As your mind grows hazy from the heated kiss, you start stumbling back until you are pressed against the front door. 

It rattles under your weight, and starts making other noises when Namjoon presses harder against you the deeper the kiss you share. You feel his feet moving, sliding between your legs, only to stop when his toes come in contact with one of Hana’s squeaky toys that had somehow fallen in the foyer. 

You break away from the kiss at the sound of his deep chuckle. The way he seems more amused than he is annoyed pleases you so that your body grows impossibly hotter. How can something so simple as a guy chuckling over a simple kid toy, completely understanding it instead of getting angry and complaining over something so trivial—just like someone you once knew and wish so badly to forget—look so incredibly hot? 

Expecting to hear him say something about it, you lift your face to look at him, only for Namjoon to bend lower again and try to kiss your lips. Bunching his shirt with your fingers, you stop him and start pushing him through the dark hall and into the kitchen, where you know there won’t be any trail of toys getting in the way. 

Namjoon lets you drag him around with a grin on his face. It seems to please him that you are the one taking the initiative, showing him that you want him just as much as he does. 

As you push him deeper into the kitchen, your hands tracing his hard chest and your lips nipping his jawline, you wonder where all of this confidence is coming from. 

It could be coming from the buzz rushing through your mind and body. It could also be this want inside you which has been lying dormant for so long, awakened simply by the heat of his kiss. Either way, you are surprised to find how easy it is to simply give in. To follow what your heart desires as if it is guiding you through the motions. 

While most of the lights have been turned off when you left your house earlier, the light from the microwave is on, casting a soft, golden glow which falls nicely on him, accentuating every line—both on his face and his body—which you desire so badly to touch and kiss and taste. 

You pull him down for that desirable kiss, and he dives straight down, his lips crashing into yours. And then he starts kissing you fast, hard, as if his very existence depends on this kiss. You kiss him back with the same need, taking his lip between your teeth, drawing a soft sound coming out of his throat. His chest rumbles against yours as he gently pushes you backwards. 

Namjoon pins you against the kitchen counter, placing you between the hard counter and his rock-hard chest. He moves his knees between your legs, keeping them apart. You can feel his cock straining against his jeans as he bucks his hips forward, pressing roughly into your stomach. Then he moves his mouth to your neck, kissing, sucking, making you moan, distracting you from the object of his desire that you want so badly to touch.

Without unlatching his lips from your skin, Namjoon sweeps his fingers across your collarbone, finding the strap from your top that is already hanging off your shoulder. He pulls away, his dark gaze following his fingers as he unhooks the other strap off your shoulder until your top falls down to your waist, exposing your lacy dark purple bra which you had intentionally chosen for the night. 

He watches closely as your chest rises and falls with your ragged breath, murmuring softly, “Beautiful. You are so hot, baby.”

Your entire body shudders with the sound of his deep voice, recognising the hunger in it. Heat forms in your belly after knowing that his words are meant for you. He slowly walks his palms up your body, reaching up to cup your breasts with his strong palms. 

A moan slips out of your lips at his touch, when the gentle pressure he is giving on your mounds sends heated sparks through your body. The sound you are making seems to snap something in him, as he moves his mouth back to yours, kissing you softly, teasing, while his thumbs begin to move over your covered nipples in small circles. 

You draw a sharp inhale of breath at the delightful sensation he is making you feel, which is swallowed by his kiss. Your chest rises, pressing your breasts into his palms. The shiver running through your body feels so intense, blocking everything else as you push your tongue back into his mouth at the same time your hands slip under his shirt. 

His skin feels warm. His chest feels firm and broad. You can feel his breath hitching at the touch of your fingers, his body shivering as your hands start inching closer and closer to his cock as you walk them down his torso. 

It draws a deep groan from him, yet he keeps kissing you. He continues to caress your breasts until your nipples grow hard against his palms, and that is when he finally moves his hands down. You only get to pop the button of his jeans open before he catches your wrists, stopping you from going further as he brings them to your back, pinning them together to confine you. 

You push and strain against his grasp, only to fail when his hold is firm. Surprisingly, being restrained in his hold and losing control is not making you feel powerless. Instead, it becomes a complete turn-on to have someone taking control of you that your body heats up with a stronger need for more. 

Shocked at this revelation, you pull back with a gasp. 

“Let me touch you,” you whine as you try to pull your hands out of his, drawing a deep chuckle from him. 

“Not yet, baby,” he murmurs against your lips. “I want to see all of you first.”  

He kisses you again, deep enough to make you arch your back so your hips are pressed into his. You widen your legs and he presses forward, his toned thigh pressing at your pulsing center. The sensation you feel as you begin rubbing your covered pussy over his thigh feels explosive, and it is driving you insane that you cannot touch him at the same time. 

You feel him smiling in the kiss, clearly enjoying this; your desperation and need, and the way you are chasing for pleasure even under his restraint. He moves his mouth to your neck again, nipping at the skin. You try to twist your arm to set yourself free, but Namjoon lifts his head to stop you with a look. 

“These naughty hands need to stay back, baby. Do you hear me?” he asks as he guides your hands to rest against the small of your back, your wrists resting on the hard countertop pressing from behind you. 

Your mouth falls open, but every complaint and defiance that you want to give him fades under his dark gaze. Pulling away, Namjoon grabs the hem of your top and pulls it over your head, dropping it behind him, before he once again guides your hands to return to their position on your back. He leans back just enough for him to run his gaze over your body, giving you an appreciative look while humming softly. 

The heat of his gaze only brings back your insecurities, however, as you grow nervous under his trailing eyes, and you look away, casting a quick glance down your middle. Having two kids over the years has left a few things behind; light scars, stretch marks marring your skin, and uneven curves forming in places which you can only hide under your daily clothes. You realise only now one of the many reasons why you had never considered dating and being intimate again with someone—anyone—and much less have any interest in having hookups or one-night-stand. 

Namjoon notices the change of mood in your silence. He captures your chin and gently draws your gaze back to his face. “Don’t be shy,” he murmurs as he presses a light kiss on your lips, “You’re so fucking beautiful.” 

You blink, once again his words winning as you feel your heart strengthening, gaining back your confidence. “You really think so?” you ask him after taking an audible breath. 

“God, yes,” he says with a slight groan in his voice, drawing a soft giggle out of you. “Don’t you ever question it, baby.” 

Biting down your smile, your eyes flutter down with pleasure and relief. “Good.” 

“Now, where were we?” he asks as he lets go of your chin, his arms dropping to his sides. He reaches down to unbutton your tight pants, yet you beat him to it when you take the hem of his shirt in your hands and help him pull it off, before tossing it away out of reach. 

“Naughty girl. What did I say about those hands?” he asks, and then he is kissing you again to distract you from taking back control. 

He wraps his arm around your waist. For a second, you expect him to lift you up and set you up on the counter. Just like those scenes you have often read in the spicy romance book you have edited over the years. But then he surprises you when he lifts you up to carry you away, taking you towards the dining table instead. 

With your eyes fluttering close in the kiss, the only thing you notice is the sound of the chair scrapping on the floor, before he releases you and falls back. Your mind is hazy when you open your eyes, seeing him sitting back on the dining chair while guiding you to stand between his parted legs. 

Swaying a little, you lean into his touch as he sneaks his fingers down the waistband of your tight pants and begins pulling them down. “Let me see these off, baby.” 

He doesn’t have to say it twice, as you slip your thumbs down the band of your pants and begin wiggling it down your legs. You keep your eyes on him while kicking the pants away, ignoring the shudder running through your body at the heat of his gaze and the chill breeze falling on your exposed skin. 

Sneaking a glance down your body, you follow his gaze to be able to see what he is seeing. You are relieved that you had at least thought of choosing a matching pair of new undergarments to wear tonight, instead of wearing your old mismatched ones like you usually do when you have to rush in the mornings. 

Standing in front of him like this makes you feel self-conscious. But the desire that is so palpable in his eyes helps you ignore all unappealing thoughts you ever have about yourself. 

Smiling coyly to him, you sweep your hands up your stomach, slowly reaching up over your breasts. His hands begin to clench on his side as he watches you kneading your covered breasts. You watch him licking his lips when you press your breasts until they come together, offering him with a gentle voice, “Do you like what you’re seeing? Do you want me to take this off too?” 

“No, not yet. I want to enjoy seeing you like this a bit longer,” Namjoon answers you with a deep voice that sounds almost like a growl. “Come here.” 

At his gentle command, your legs move on their own, taking you closer to him. He grabs your waist, keeping you steady as you climb onto his lap, your legs spreading wide around his waist and your arms come around his broad shoulders. 

Being in this position allows you to feel everything. To feel more. 

Every part of him feels hard against your soft body. His warmth comes pressing on every inch of your skin, allowing you to feel the heat rushing under, pooling from between your legs. You feel exposed, and the sensation is intensified as you have your legs opened for him. 

Smiling, Namjoon walks his hand around your waist. With his palm splayed on your back, he gently pushes you forward. Once again, you collide into each other, your breasts are crushed against his chest, and your lips are entangled with his in a hard, needy kiss. 

His kiss is slow, gentle, almost languid. Almost as if he is trying to savour the moment, yet it feels as if you are melting into him. You can still feel him taking control of this moment when his lips are pressing hard against yours and his tongue slipping into your mouth to swallow the sounds you are making. 

In the rising pleasure, your brain is slowly turning into mush. Your eyes flutter close, and you revel in the sensations that he is bringing to your body, to every single touch and kiss. You drown yourself in his heated kiss, as he swallows your moans with his mouth and tongue. You lean into his strong hands as one moves up your stomach, cupping your breast and rubbing against your hardened nipple, and the other moves along the curves of your body, trailing down your waist to your hips, before cupping your soft bottom. 

His palm presses harder into your soft flesh, making you grow alert of your own movements, finally noticing that your body seems to have gained a mind of its own, moving and grinding his lap in the heat of the moment. 

Your covered center starts growing hot and wet as you keep rubbing against his hips. A gasp escapes your throat as you feel his covered hard-on pressing at your pulsing center. Using his palm, Namjoon guides your steady rocking, each thrust forward falling in tune with each thrust and stroke of his tongue in your mouth. 

Within moments, the heat inside your core rising into small waves of pleasure. Drunken in lust, you lean into him more to chase it, rocking harder, faster, pressing more into his hard cock until you feel like you are hanging on the edge of release. 

“Oh, God,” you gasp against his mouth, moments too close to your first orgasm. 

Namjoon mutters a curse, and his hands tighten on the soft flesh of your bottom, putting everything into a halt. He flips you around to face away from him, doing it with such ease as if you weigh nothing. As you fall back against his chest, your knees drape over his thighs, spreading wide, your throbbing pussy facing away from his heat, away from the its final release. 

“You need relief, baby?” His voice sounds thick as he whispers to your ear. Without waiting for your answer, his fingers zero in on the exact place where you need them to be, as he begins rubbing your clit from over your delicate panties. “Hmmm? I need you to answer me. Let me know what you want.” 

“Yes,” you hiss at his touch, barely able to answer his question while urging him on as you rock your hips into his touch. Namjoon’s other hand moves up to cup your breast, kneading and squeezing until you feel your nipple growing hard under your bra. The ache building on your breasts pulses in the same rhythm as the throbbing you feel building on your clit, which he presses the pad of his fingers onto, moving them in circles. 

“God, Namjoon,” you whine, already panting when he keeps touching all the right places, inciting all the reactions from your body as heat rises from your core. Reaching down, you place your hand over his, your fingers pressing atop of his strong digits as you press against them, causing his touch to grow firm and steady, before you slip your fingers under and slide your panties aside for him. 

Namjoon’s chest rumbles as he groans deeply. “Oh, yeah, that’s it, baby. Offer that sweet little pussy for me.” 

Your cheeks flush with warmth upon hearing his words, and then the warmth spreads through your body when his fingers move to touch your flesh. His fingers are big and strong, yet delicate at the same time. They glide over your slit, which has grown embarrassingly wet, capturing every essence of your arousal as he moves them between your folds. You press your pelvis down to meet his touch, urging him on, and he complies by working his middle finger inside you. 

It feels like forever since the last time you have had sex, and it surely shows because you can already feel your orgasm building the second he starts pumping his finger inside you. The pleasure feels maddening. Enough to make you lose control of yourself as your body rocks with him. You don’t even recognise the sounds coming out of your throat as you embrace the sensations he brings out of you. 

As he feels you giving in to the pleasure, Namjoon adds a second finger, stretching you further. 

Your head falls back on his shoulder as you cry out with pleasure. Your body falls lax against him, powerless against his touch. So he moves his other arm down, wrapping it around your waist to keep you from falling as he continues thrusting his fingers in and out, all while pressing the heel of his palm against your clit until you are weeping with desire. When he abruptly pulls his fingers out of you, your pussy clutches on emptiness. 

Needing friction, or something to relief this new need of yours, you begin pressing your wet mound against his thigh, intending to start rubbing against it until you find some kind of release. But Namjoon stops you by delivering a sharp slap, right between your legs. 

“Naughty,” he growls in your ear. “I thought this pussy is mine?” 

Your hips shoot up at the lingering ache, which awakens the throbbing inside your pussy, causing your mind to go fuzzy with the mixed of pain and pleasure he brings to your body. 

Namjoon spanks your pussy again, lighter this time, before going slightly harder when coming back for the third time. Then, as if he knows that you are about to explode, he shoves two fingers right back inside you and starts fucking you with them, moving hard and rough, no longer holding back. It feels intense, sending you light speed towards the peak of your pleasure. 

With a cry slipping out of your lips, your head falls back on his shoulder as the wave of pleasure engulfs you. Digging your nails into his forearms, you ride his fingers, bucking against each thrust of his hand, your walls clenching tightly around him, and your toes curling underneath. Your orgasm comes to you strongly, going on and on while Namjoon keeps his fingers wedged inside you, and you can feel your walls contracting around them as you come all over them. 

Dear God, help me. 

You find yourself praying. Never before had you ever lost control the way you do now. Never once have you ever felt so much pleasure, to make you feel something so intense that you feel like you are losing your mind. 

Namjoon waits until you come down from your release before easing his fingers out of you. Your body grows limp against his, causing him to wrap his arms tighter around you to hold you still. His lips find your shoulder, pressing a gentle kiss while he smooths your panties back in place. 

“That’s it, sweet mama. Relax with me,” he murmurs in your ear, helping you calm down before rearranging your position until you come to face him once more, your legs straddling his toned thighs, pressing against his muscles, his warmth, and the rapid pounding of his heartbeat under your palms.  

“Everything okay?” 

You are still too delirious that you can barely think straight, yet you manage to nod and whisper, “Yeah. Everything’s good.” 

Looking into his eyes, you reach down between your bodies and press your palm over his covered bulge. “But I’m not sure that you’re feeling the same.” 

Groaning deeply, Namjoon’s eyes flutter to close. You continue stroking his covered cock, feeling it hardening under your touch and pushing against his pants that is partly undone. “Keep touching me like that, mama. And I’ll fuck you right here, right now. Or I’ll take you right on top of that counter, right where you’ll be making breakfast for your sweet girls the first morning they’re home.” 

His threat draws a moan from deep within your throat. Biting your lips, you steal a glance towards the kitchen counter. As tempting as it sounds to follow your wanton desire, to be taken hard and rough right where you spend most of your days and mornings, you want something different. You don’t want this to end so quickly, for the night to feel so instant, and you want to savour this pleasure for as long as you are allowed to.  

“Mmm…No, we can’t have that,” you whisper, turning to him to nip his jaw, making him groan. Carefully, you step back from his lap. Your legs are trembling when you try to stand on your own, yet you muster a smile as you calmly say, “Come.” 

You hold out your hand and he grabs it as he rises to his feet. He follows you down the hall and up the stairwell. Past the landing which is surrounded by framed pictures of yourself with your family and your sweet girls and their creative drawings filling the walls, you continue walking upstairs, feeling more self-conscious the closer you get to your bedroom. 

Right before your nerves begin to get in the way, Namjoon’s arms come around you, holding you to his chest as you crash through the doorway to your bedroom. His lips capture yours, swallowing the sound of your laughter until you fall backwards on the bed. 

Standing on the foot of the bed, Namjoon stands tall, a solid figure standing at the center of your world of chaos. He says nothing as he runs his gaze over your body, appreciating what he sees one last time which brings back your confidence. All for knowing that he is liking what he sees. 

Drawn by the urge to touch him, to feel, you push yourself up and start tugging his pants down. “Off—” you murmur as you struggle to peel the damn thing off of him, earning his chuckle. Namjoon helps you halfway, stopping briefly to pull something out of his back pocket before he tosses his whole pants away. He wastes no more time to continue where he left off, as he pushes you back to the bed and lowers himself to you. 

Your arms go around his shoulders to welcome him. Your eyes meet each other again, allowing you to see something that you failed to notice before. Behind his heated gaze, the warm dimple smile, and the alluring words filled with his raw desire, lies another emotion haunting like a shadow. 

An emotion that you know too damn well as it mirrors your own. 

Desperation. 

Swallowing hard, you feel the same emotion coming out of you in strides; the desperation to belong and to be happy; to be able to move through life without being haunted by the unwarranted fear of getting hurt. The desperation to feel. 

Allowing that emotion to take over, you pull him down to you and kiss him deeply. You run your hands down his back, pressing at his spine until he lowers his hips onto yours. You can feel his hard cock pressing on you, its wet tip sticking out from the top of his briefs, rubbing against your skin. You regret not having the chance to have a look at it, to appreciate it through more than your dainty touch. Yet you cannot deny the desperate need to feel him inside you, filling you up until there is nothing left of you when he is done. 

Arching your back, you rock against him, pressing your tender center against his bulge. His mouth unlatches from yours, and then he pulls the lacy cups of your bra with a rough tug, tucking them under your breasts to push them up. He keeps his palms on them, touching them directly this time, skin to skin, bringing all the shudders back and rising twofolds as you cry out his name. 

His mouth finds your neck, and the touch of his lips is almost enough to make you come and unravel right there and then, yet you manage to hold back with a bite of your lip. Without taking his mouth off of you, Namjoon runs his hand down, finding your center and pressing down. The pleasure sparks through your body like fireworks as he rubs in circles against your covered center, pressing against your slit, rubbing at your covered clit, and then finding your wetness to draw out more essence out of you. 

Every nerve in your body comes awake and lights up at the same time, allowing you to feel everything that he is giving you. Engulfed in the pleasure, you barely feel him as Namjoon starts moving down, spreading his fingers down your thighs to part your legs for him, before plunging his head between your quivering thighs. 

You feel a soft tug at your panties, and then cold breeze touches your skin as Namjoon slides the center of your panties aside, exposing your tender pussy. “I wanted to taste you so badly,” he murmurs against your skin as he presses his lips on the apex of your thigh, then he moves to the other side, before reaching to the center, drawing a sharp cry out of you when he presses a kiss right at your folds. 

His tongue drags through your flesh before he sucks gently on your swollen bud. A shiver shoots right up through your body as pleasure sparks from beneath, and he starts fucking you with his tongue. In and out he presses and licks with his warm, soft tongue, tasting your essence with a deep hum, while his mouth keeps stealing a kiss and sucking, intensifying the pleasure. 

With your hands sinking into the sheets beneath you, your hips begin to move, rocking against his mouth and riding the sensation as it grows more and more intense. You lift your head to watch him work. The look he gives you when he returns your gaze causes your body to twitch, your muscles tightening as pleasure coils through your core. 

With a grin, Namjoon buries his face deeper, his teeth grazing at your clit before lapping at the swollen bud with his tongue to take away the pinch of pain. The sensation sends your body falling back. Still rocking your hips to ride the pleasure, you twist the sheets in one hand, and then take a handful of his short hair with the other. 

It doesn’t take long before the familiar wave of pleasure starts rolling through your body, rising intensely from the depth of your core. Your breath quickens as you are climaxing into his mouth. It comes so strongly that you can feel it rushing all the way down to your toes. A series of breathless moans come out of your lips at the same pace as the pulses of pleasure coming alight from inside as your orgasm rolls through your body. 

Your head is ringing with the waves of your orgasm that you barely aware of how you are pulling at his hair, twisting the short strands in your grasp as you writhe beneath him. Yet he doesn’t stop. Not even when he feels you slowly coming down from your high. 

Namjoon continues to lap at your taste, licking away your release as he murmurs gently against your mound, “Fuck, you taste so damn good, baby.” 

His voice fades in and out of you, until he slips a finger inside you, pressing against your inner walls. He pushes right in, curling the tip as he pulls out, finding the sweet spot that sends another jolt of pleasure through your body. Realising this, he adds another finger and starts working them at the same rhythm as the movement of his tongue. Your legs begin shaking, your hips are rising against his other palm that is resting on your lower belly to keep you down, but nothing holds you from erupting as the force of your second orgasm quickly rolls through you, sending you over the edge with a cry. 

You feel a shift on the bed as Namjoon moves on top of you and presses his lips on yours. The remnants of your orgasm is still pulsing through you, and your ears are still ringing, that you can only take what he is giving you, letting him bring you back to the present with his kiss. 

Once you manage to catch your breath, you bring your hands up to him and start pushing his briefs down his hips. He rises slightly from you, taking away his weight and his warmth as he kicks his briefs down his ankle and away. His hand reaches down, wrapping his fingers around his hard girth. 

This time, you take the chance to appreciate his beauty. Just like his hard body, his cock seems beautiful, big and thick and heavy even in his strong palm. 

With his eyes on your face, Namjoon begins lowering himself on you. Your hips rise to welcome him when you feel his cock falling heavy on your stomach. Your hand reaches down between you, as if you are under a spell. Your fingers wrap around him, drawing a soft gasp from his lips. 

Licking your lips, you watch yourself giving him a few light strokes. He seems to enjoy this, as his hips slowly move to return each stroke, each brush of your palm with a thrust of his cock. Groaning deeply, Namjoon bends down to cover you with his hard body. His lips find your neck, kissing the column of your throat as his fingers return to your mounds, pressing into your slit and using the slickness of your arousal and release to move around your entrance. 

“Namjoon, please—” Your breath catches when you feel the tip of his finger pressing at your entrance, pushing against your sensitive walls. He enters you slowly with his fingers. It feels delightful, yet you are ready to feel more. “Mhhh…not enough,” you whine breathlessly, “I want you…inside…now.” 

He chuckles against your throat, and the vibrations you feel coming from his body aren’t exactly helping to lessen the pool of desire between your legs, nor the tight clench of your walls around his fingers. He gives your pussy a few more thrusts of his fingers before he pulls them out, and reaches out to the other side of the bed. 

The soft crinkle sound of a foil gets your heartbeat speeding up in your chest. It’s happening, the voice in your head whispers. Excitement rolls through you, and a wicked through flashes through your head when you meet his gaze again. 

You bite your lip and smile, and then you lift your hands, pushing against his shoulders to bring him down onto the mattress. You follow him as he falls back, and then you climb on top of him, enjoying the thrill rushing through you when you see the shock clearly flashing through his gaze. 

He grips your hips as you straddle him, keeping you steady until you are sitting in the right position. So right that you can feel his hard cock pressing at your slick center from beneath. 

“Well, damn,” he chuckles as he watches you press down your hips on him. “That’s it. Take control, mama. Show me what you want from me.” 

You make a humming sound as you begin rocking over him, pressing down against his length. Your panties have grown completely soiled, placed improperly over your mound that you can feel him partly rubbing against your skin. “You know what I want,” you whisper, moaning when you feel his girth rubbing at your clit. 

Hoping to feel more, you continue rocking, rubbing your center along the length of his cock. But it isn’t enough. The panties keep getting in the way just when you are close to getting what you want. You reach down to begin peeling the damn thing off of you when Namjoon takes over. 

“Let me help you with that,” he says, before he suddenly lifts himself up to a sitting position. His hands are quick to catch your waist to stop you from falling back, keeping you on his lap as he moves his hand to your back.

His eyes look down on your heaving chest, and then his hands are pulling at your undergarments. Starting from your bra, as he expertly peels it off of you within a blink of an eye, then continuing to reach down. The ripping sound of your panties as they fall apart fills the room before you can feel yourself being freed from its presence. The strong pull that he gives on the flimsy fabric barely feels like anything on your skin, your mind too muddled to process it until it is too late. 

The moment it dawns on you what is happening, there is nothing else that you can do but to watch with wide eyes, mouth gaping in shock, as Namjoon lifts your ruined panties to his lips and breathes in.

“You won’t be needing them for a while,” he says with a hum at the sound of your sharp inhale of breath.   

“You’re so bad.” An incredulous laugh comes out of you as he tosses the tattered panties away. 

His hands return to your waist then and he pulls you closer, settling you down nicely on his lap as he asks, “Maybe I am. Are you going to punish me for being a bad boy?” 

“Maybe I will,” you tease him as you run your fingers up his chest, pushing him back down. “Naughty boy.” 

The glimmer of the foil he is holding between his fingers catches your attention. You pick it up, ripping the foil and letting the rubber fall on your palm. “Is this okay?” 

He nods, and then his eyes darken as you gently slide the condom down the length of his cock. Your can feel him twitching under your touch, his head falling back briefly with a groan coming out of his throat when the tips of your fingers meet his skin. Once he is perfectly covered, you move back into position. 

Namjoon gently guides you back over him, straddling him once again without anything else getting in the way this time. 

You lean forward and place a kiss on his lips, one that feels a bit too sweet and shy. For a moment, your confidence wanes. Being on top of him, unrestrained, and being in complete control makes you feel subconscious with yourself. It makes you feel insecure, suddenly feeling worried that you might not be enough. 

As you sit up, your pussy rocks against his cock. You can feel his girth pressing against the dampness which has been growing between your legs, the heat of his body radiates from him and it transfers through your body with each pulse of his blood that you feel against you. 

His fingers find their place between your legs, rubbing your clit in slow circles, drawing moans after moans, shudders rolling through your body that you begin moving in response to his touch. Your hips buck up against his hand, desperate for friction. You continue rolling your body as he presses just a bit harder, drawing yet another moan from your lips that comes together with the intense shiver surging from your core. 

Enjoying the way you are reacting to him, he rises up to steal a kiss, chuckling softly against your mouth when he feels the twitch of your hips when his cock is pressing harder against your folds. He pulls back, showing you his wicked grin that has your heart beating rapidly. 

You lift your hips, and he reaches down to position his cock against your opening. Your body instantly trembles when you feel him nudging against your pussy, spreading your entrance to allow himself in. Then you begin to slide down on him, taking it slow as you take his cock inside you, inch by delicious inch. Your legs quiver around him as you feel him spreading your tight walls, yet you welcome him with a slow moan, allowing yourself to take him deeper as you continue going down, until he is almost fully inside you and you are nearly resting on his hips. 

A pulse rocks through you once, and you carefully lift yourself up, sliding up his length and coming back down, getting deeper in your descent. 

“You are so perfect,” he whispers to you as you continue riding his cock, keeping a slow pace as you adjust yourself to his size. 

Namjoon falls back, letting you take control. Something that no other person has ever done before. He keeps his eyes on you as you continue moving on top of him, sliding up and down the length of his cock, while embracing the waves of pleasure that you get to feel from your constant rocking. His eyes are filled with admiration as he watches you move, your head falling back at the height of your pleasure, your chest arching, showing him the sight of your shaking breasts. 

“You are so fucking hot,” he moans, taking your breasts in his hands. You relish every single sensation you are feeling with a moan. It feels incredible. Not just this—the sex, the feeling of him being buried inside your heat, filling you up and giving you pleasure—but also for feeling like you are free. 

Sitting naked on top of such a gorgeous man, rocking up and down his cock, enjoying the pleasure without your nerves getting in the way, your insecurities left forgotten. It feels so damn empowering to be owning up to your sexuality, to your wanton desire, after having it denied for so long. All because of your haunting past making you feel like you are less than the person you are now. 

These thoughts push you to ride him harder, faster, your fingers sinking into the sheets on either side of him to anchor you against him, while his fingers grow tighter on your hips to help you ride him to chase your pleasure. 

“That’s it, baby,” he urges you on with a breathy voice, deep groans slipping out of him when you begin fucking him wildly. “Go on, let it go, mama.” 

Holding you up against him, Namjoon begins rocking his hips, thrusting up to meet you in your descend. The maddening pleasure rocks through you, and another wave of climax sets off, coiling from your core, up to your lower belly. And right as you are ready to plunge into your climax, Namjoon bends forward, capturing one of your nipples with his mouth and begins sucking, while he reaches up to pinch the other with his fingers. 

With a sharp cry, you unravel completely without fail. Your orgasm comes to you not in waves but an explosion, the pain only intensifies the pleasure as it hits, and your body trembles as you embrace it. 

Everything fades in and out as your mind and body recovers from the intense high. Your legs are quivering too much that you fall onto his chest, and Namjoon carefully flips you to the side until you are on your back. Ears once again ringing, the sounds of him moving on the sheets seem so distant. But you can feel the dip when he lowers himself on you, his lips finding yours, bringing you back, and then pressing against your neck to quiet down the rapid pulsing of blood surging under your skin. 

Once your mind regains clarity, you notice his hand moving. You open your eyes when you cannot feel his touch, and realise that he is giving himself some lazy strokes. “You haven’t gotten yours,” you whisper with a raspy voice, and his grin returns. 

“You’ve already came too many times, so—” 

Shaking your head, you reach up and pull him back to you. “I can’t be the only one feeling good tonight,” you insist as you capture his lips, enticing him with a light bite. As he returns the kiss, your legs spread open for him, welcoming him back to you. “I want to make you feel good too.” 

Groaning, Namjoon deepens the kiss. Still stroking himself, he uses the other hand to gently touch your tender pussy, making sure that you won’t hurt if he continues. “Are you sure?” he murmurs against your lips, before feeling you nod. 

Unable to wait long, he quickly gets between your legs again. He covers you with his heat, his toned chest pressing down against your body, delightfully engulfing you with his warmth. Then his hips rock forward, pressing the wet tip of his stiff cock against your pulsing heat. Your back arches the moment you feel him pushing, just enough until you feel the tip penetrating your entrance.

“Namjoon—” you gasp out his name, and his hands come down to your hips, holding you still as he enters you, thrusting deep and slow. 

Your legs are spread wider, giving him room to get as deep as he possibly can until your hips are flushed against each other. 

Fuck yes, you can hear yourself screaming in your head, while your mouth gapes open with a breathless moan at how full you are feeling with him snugged inside your pussy. 

“God, fuck—you feel amazing,” he breathes out as he too becomes still. 

Your body clenches around his cock at hearing his words, loving how his praise is stroking at your ego. It seems that your body has gotten used to him so well that he feels like a perfect fit inside you. 

“You don’t feel too bad yourself,” you playfully tease him, making him groan deeply that you can feel his entire body vibrating all the way to your core. 

“Not bad, huh?” he groans, almost sounding feral when he continues his gentle rocking. “Guess I’ll have to stop holding back, then.” 

With a groan, he pulls back almost all the way out and thrusts back into you, rocking both of you against the mattress as he fucks you into it. You grab tightly on the messy sheets beneath you, already tangled by the previous rocking and fucking and growing even messier now that he is picking up pace immediately. It feels intense, making you feel delirious as he moves in and out of you rapidly. And it feels so damn good that you just don’t want it to stop. 

“Oh, baby...so perfect,” he gasps, and you open your eyes to see his eyes glazing over with pleasure as he gets lost in your body. 

It turns you on so badly to see a man unraveling this way—to be so lost in his pleasure and growing feral as he gives in completely to the sensation. At the same time, it makes you feel powerful, knowing that you are the one making him this way. For someone like him to let his guard down and show you the real part of him. To let you see how raw and passionate he becomes when he is bringing pleasure to both of your bodies. 

It makes you feel so hot, and it feels so good, that it practically sends you straight into your final climax. To unravel the same way he does at the pleasure of his lovemaking. 

“Keep tightening around me like that, and I won’t last long,” he warns you, while you can only hold back a grin. As if you will take his words like you would to a threat. 

You run your hands up his chest, feeling up his toned muscles as they strain with each thrust he is giving you, before you reach up to the back of his neck and grab a handful of his short hair. A smile grows on your face when he lets out another groan, and his hips nearly buckle and twitch as his rocking begins to grow haste. 

He’s close. 

“Oh, fuck. I’m coming,” he groans, although it almost sounds like he is shouting.

“Yes, please. Come with me. I’m also there,” you whimper breathlessly when your orgasm starts to build. 

His grip on your hips tightens as he begins pumping into you fast and hard, hitting all the right spots. You almost believe that he is also growing firmer, harder, bigger, that the only thing you can feel is him, rubbing against your throbbing walls and pushing you over the edge. 

A scream slips out of you when the orgasm hits like a massive wave. Your back is almost lifted completely off the bed as your entire body vibrates with pleasure. You can hear him shouting under the sound of your rapid heartbeat, before you feel him pulsing, spilling his heat into you as he joins you in his own orgasm. 

Your legs are wrapped around his hips while your arms are hooked around his neck as you hold onto him, refusing to let go as you relish the waves of your orgasm until they begin to settle. You have barely gotten back control of your breathing when he leans down, capturing your lips into a kiss. 

The kiss is slow, almost languid, and just as gentle as the movement of his hands as he runs them down your sweaty body. You can still the spasms of your climax lingering as he slowly pulls out of you, allowing you to feel his presence even as he pulls away, dropping right beside you with a soft grunt. 

Your eyes are already fluttering to close while he takes his time taking care of his soiled condom and tossing it away to the trash. Yet you are still coherent when he returns, engulfing you in his strong arms, filling your breath with his scent. 

“That was fucking amazing,” he mumbles against your skin as you feel his lips pressing on your bare shoulder. 

“Hmm…yes, it was…” 

A sigh leaves your lips. The content feeling weaving through your body steals the words that you want so badly to say. 

Incredible. Astounding. 

“Magical,” you find yourself whispering, drawing a soft chuckle from him. 

You look at him through your hazy eyes, finding him looking back at you with a different shadow lingering in his gaze which makes you want to say the words that you never expected you would say to him. 

Stay the night. 

The words die on your tongue as sleep is slowly dragging you down. You try to fight it, even if you aren’t quite sure about saying those words out loud. You have no idea what will come out of this. All you can think about is that you don’t want this to end too soon. 

“The girls are out all weekend, aren’t they?” His voice breaks the silence, forcing you to open your eyes. 

“Yes, they’re staying at their grandparents. I won’t have to pick them up until Monday afternoon,” you breathlessly answer, recalling faintly how your mother had offered to take Suzy to school and Hana to kindergarten so you wouldn’t have to drive all the way to her house on a Sunday, expecting you to sleep through your hangover and spend the day resting. “Why are you asking?” 

“I just wasn’t sure how they would react coming home to find a grown-ass man snuggling with their mom.” He softly chuckles, and in a brief moment of silence, you see a different look appearing in his eyes. A part of him that seems more vulnerable coming out of him in waves, right before he asks you, “Unless you want me out of here?” 

Once again, you can see yourself in his gaze. To once again share the same emotions, the same vulnerability which feels too damn familiar. Deep down, you start wishing that you didn’t see it. Because seeing this side of him only makes you care a lot more than you should for someone who is only supposed to be your one-night-stand. Because seeing it only makes you want more. 

You close your eyes and try not to think too deeply about it. Not when your mind is still muddled from the wild sex you just had with him. And when his touch is still lingering on your skin. 

You can worry about this tomorrow, you hear the same small voice in your head whispering, and you decide that you are going to listen this time. 

Pushing yourself up, you pull the blanket from the foot of the bed and drag it up to cover both of your nakedness before sliding back to him. “Nope, you’re staying,” you firmly say as you tuck him in. “I promised to make you dinner, but I really don’t have any energy left to leave the bed right now, so you can make it up by helping me make breakfast tomorrow.” 

Namjoon laughs. He visibly relaxes beside you when he mutters, “I love it when you boss me around.” 

You stop to look at him, biting your lips before asking, “Would you mind if I keep doing that?” 

His smile softens, and the alluring dimple returns for a brief second as he leans in to kiss your temple. “Boss me around anytime, mama. I’ll be good. I promise.” 

Author’s Note 2.0 | Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this story, please leave a like and reblog to share with your friends and let me know what you think. See you in the next one! PS. You can get to know Jin the bartender and read his story in Blurred Lines. 

— ©Yoonia, all rights reserved. reposting/modifying of any kind, translations, unsanctioned adaptations are not allowed.

[hyperfixation-goes-brrr]

Just a bunch of still-unanswered questions I have

Why was Kanna the only candidate that had the key in the first trial?? With both Sara and Joe, and Mishima and Nao, Joe and Nao, the non-candidates, had the key

What were Gin's and Reko's first trials??

Why did Mishima tell Nao that they should vote for each other, rather than each one just voting for themselves?? And why did he still vote for himself anyways??

Who was the third person that voted for Mishima?? Was it really Shin?? And... why vote for Mishima in the first place anyways??

Where, the fuck, is Mishima's head/collar??? And how the fuck was it taken from the damn box in the first place???

Who actually voted for who, in both preliminaries, as well as the final vote of the first main game??

Why does Joe, a non-candidate, have an AI??

What was the information that Anzu was supposed to tell us??

What was the special information (that was directly downloaded to their memories) that both Anzu and Mai were supposed to tell us??

When Ranmaru told us there's someone from Asunaro amongst them, why do the names Sara list differ between emotion and logic route?? In emotion route, she says Keiji, Kanna, and Alice/Reko's names, but, in logic route, she says Keiji's, Q-taro's, and Alice/Reko's names

What was the point of Kurumada's special information (If a Floor Master meets their doppelganger, they die)?? With all the other ones (that we were told, anyways), we actually did something with them; the only thing Kurumada's information did, so far, was cause a misunderstanding between him and Keiji, and Keiji and Ranmaru

What's the deal with the nurse from Gin's memory?? I mean… with everyone else, it was just the person and Midori (yes, Reko included, cause, while she and Midori were in a public place, it was still just the two of them sitting on the table; with Gin, the nurse was, quite literally, like right fuckin there)

Why was Safalin preparing another Midori for the banquet?? Does that mean that that was what was in the coffin, and the real Midori's still alive??

Why was the fake Hinako there in the first place?? Was it just to even the numbers out, so the number of dummies'll be equal to the number of humans, or is there another reason??

Part 2

MasterList

[lbxbx]

M A S T E R L I S T

Content warning: All fics contain strong language and mature content, minors do not interact.

Cockpit | Knj series | Completed

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Blackmail | Kth | 5 eps.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Inactive | Pjm | one shot

Coming soon.

[precarious-hermit]

foldingfacets DPxDC fic masterlist

Multi-Chaptered Fics

Bus to Nowhere I Just Wanna Talk Life Alert (PeePaw, please, I'm begging) Death Throes (Danny/Grundy - Dandy) Break-Ins At Three, Breakthroughs At Four (Jazz/Jason - Hardcover) Several Degrees of History (Lancer/Clark/Slade - Banned Books) Hopeful Life of Death (mind the tags) Partially Temporal, Partially Temperamental (mind the tags - Dick/Clockwork - Golden Age) Caught Before The Fall (mind the tags - Dick/Dan - First Failures & Dick/Dan/Roy/Wally - Washed Up Wonders) Brides, Birds, and Batshit Family Matters (Wives Fic) The Martian's Shadow: The Ghost's Light (mind the tags - Danny/J'onn J'onnz - First Contact)

One Shots

Our Love Will Last Us (mind the tags - Dani/Mar'i - Space Princess) Gotham Circusa - Wait, That's Not It (Dick/Danny - Green Elephant) Catching Snowflakes With Your Tongue (Bizarro/Klemper - Playdate) Peace, Quiet, and Another God Damn Superhero (Lancer/Clark - Literacy) Can't Hack My Heart (Roy/Tucker/Skulker - Technical Experts) Scavenged My Love Among The Ruins (mind the tags - Bart/Dan - Doomed Timelines) Lightning Through My Neck, And I've Found You (Danny/Grundy - Dandy)

Series

foldingfacets DPxDC Ship Week 2023 Break-Ins At Three, Breakthroughs At Four (mind the tags)

[fischerfrey]

fankids appreciation, day one; firstborn

isadora belrose, eldest child of gael romero and colette belrose, magic awakened era, gryffindor - @gcldensnitch wyatt mackade, eldest child of nate mackade and nova hartley, post-magic awakened, hufflepuff - @unfortunate-arrow edward of alderly, eldest child of henry of alderly and cora hastings, fantastic beasts era, gryffindor - @camillejeaneshphm roe malinda, the first fankid i ever made and the only child of verna malinda and merula snyde, magic awakened era, slytherin

event by @endlessly-cursed

[deus-ex-mona]

stuff’s wildin’, my dudes

[aria0fgold]

Anyway, now that the boredom got to me, I'm now being productive and organizing the many personal writing projects I've subjected myself to.

[arabellas]

Some relevant movies and tv shows that should be boycotted:

Stranger Things: Noah Schnapp claimed zionism is sexy and Hamas is ISIS and liked videos on twitter mocking Palestinian people; actor Brett Gelman and producer Shawn Levy are zionists and both support Schnapp

The Last Of Us: israeli politics in The Last Of Us Part 2; Neil Druckmann openly supports israel

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: Rick Riordan, the author of the books has made zionist comments neutral to Israel and the genocide

The Umbrella Academy: Aidan Gallagher openly supported Israel on instagram with a post "I stand with Israel", post is now deleted

Deadpool 3: Shawn Levy, the director of the movie is a zionist

Dune 2: Timothee Chalamet made a joke on SNL about the genocide in Palestine

Any Disney movies and shows including Inside Out 2, PJO, The Eras Tour movie, Moana 2, Marvel content: Disney is funding Israel, it has been announced that a new Israeli superhero will be joining the MCU

If you support Palestine, boycott zionist companies and stop funding them. Besides, there are many ways to watch the newest movies without paying a cent.

Please feel free to add more movies and shows with source links! 🍉

In addition, here are some other useful links:

Palestine Google docs masterlist

Poems for Palestine Chapbook Launch

Donation links

Click the button once a day to donate

[faevi]

Fae's Masterlist !!

Please Note: Will evidently update whenever something new is posted. My main focus is Gojo Satoru but alas, other characters will be added here !! I'll also include ao3 links whenever I post on there, too.

I write a lot of 18+ content, including dark content. Therefore, MINORS - DO NOT INTERACT OR FOLLOW.

Please always check the trigger / content warnings on each post!! If anything makes you uncomfortable, please just don't read and ignore. I might have posts you're comfy with and then some you're not. A lot of writers on here (from what I've seen) write dark content, but we all have our boundaries. For example, I'm never going to read anything involving drugs because that's a limit with me but, I'm not going to judge nor stop anyone from reading or writing with such content. Let's all just respect one another ; _ ; <3 mwah mwah.

Please also know that I write other content like fluff, angst, anything under the sun basically so don't worry if you think I only strictly write smut.

c: the cute dividers are done by: @/carekitsune & the badly edited header was me lmfao. As for what manga it's from, no idea sadly :' )

GOJO SATORU:

Gojo Satoru wakes you up. // female reader. 18+. smut. main tw: somnophilia, dubcon.

Heat Waves. // ao3 link. // female reader. 18+. smut. main tw: dubcon. brainwash. master. unprotected. fear of losing home. manipulation. boss!gojo.

Sapphire Love. // ao3 link. // female reader. 18+. smut. fluffy. main tw: make up sex. angst-ish. unprotected.

Gunshot of Love. // female reader. 18+ smut. main tw: gunplay. bdsm. fear-play. unprotected.

Taboo Love. // ao3 link. // female reader. 18+ smut. main tw: stepcest (step-bro). daddy kink. unprotected.

Doctor Gojo. // ao3 link. (ONLY AO3 LINK. tumblr hates this one) // female reader. 18+ smut. main tw: gynaecologist!gojo. dubcon. making up a fake disease. medical abuse (? just in case).

Jellyfish Sting. // female reader. 18+ smut. main tw: lifeguard!gojo, public sex, unprotected.

Comfort. // female reader. angst-ish, fluff. comfort. main tw: implied bad mental health, not taking care of oneself.

That's it for now? ><

[hitoshitoshi]

Sylus & Mephisto

Wouldn't it be funny if Love and Deepspace pulled a Twisted Wonderland where Sylus made and programmed Mephisto as a way to cope with a death like how Idia did with Ortho's death?

Just imagine a tiny Sylus trying to survive the cruel world by himself, taking solace in his crow companion who stuck by him in his hardest times—only to die. Then Sylus blames himself for Mephisto's death, and tries to make up for his failure to keep Mephisto safe by making a mechanical crow in his honor.

Hmm, and how Mephisto died? Sylus not knowing anything about bird care because Mephisto died from natural causes and getting sick, but it's not like little Sylus would know that since all he's known how to do his entire life is steal and find shelter. And even if he did know what to do to cure Mephisto, it wasn't like he had the money and resources or the connections to do so.

One day Sylus enters a rundown library, and finds the word "Mephisto" on one of the pages of a book...

"1. a devil in medieval legend and later literary and operatic works, to whom Faust, or Faustus, sells his soul for knowledge and power."

Yes... yes, that was what Sylus was going to do. He was going to do anything in his power to change his circumstances. He hated life. He hated everything, and that was going to change. And from there on, Sylus vowed to know anything and everything, climbing up the ranks so he would not suffer any longer. Sylus was going to make sure that he was going to become a whole new person. Step by step, he didn't know how long it was going to take and what he was going to have to do, but he'd do it.

And the first thing Sylus does when he then runs into an abandoned warehouse one day? Makes Mephisto.

Sylus tries his hardest again and again to perfect it, to make Mephisto a carbon copy of his beloved bird. Time and time again. Burns after burns of trying to solder metal pieces and wires together.

Hours of learning how to program Mephisto to have the same squacks and the same annoying habits. And then he finally did it. He finally finished making Mephisto.

Only... it's not really Mephisto, but a shoddy and cold bionic replica. Nothing, and I mean Nothing could fill the void.

Sylus and his bird are reunited once again in a way... except no longer will Sylus be able to hold him and feel his warmth and see his tiny feathers move up and down as he breathes and flies... no longer will Sylus be able to hear any sounds Mephisto would usually make without having to program it... no longer will Sylus be able to share his food that he scrapped up with him... none of it at all will ever be the same again... and it was all Sylus' fault.

But hey, atleast it's something, right?

Sylus was going to use his loss of Mephisto as his source of ambition and motivation and to power through. To have his Mephisto by his side, a reminder of his mistake that will forever loom over him, masked as a tool to the public and masked as a tool of love to himself. A reminder of his biggest failure and his biggest regret.

Who knew that to care would leave such a bitter taste in Sylus' heart after having that ounce of happiness and relief. To relinquish that control over onself... to give that separate entity power to change you completely... for better or for worse.

A/N: Just something silly that I came up with at 3 A.M. Sylus and his most loyal companion. I like pain and suffering if you haven't already known that.

If you like otome games, including Love and Deepspace, you should join Linkon Lounge! A discord server that's LGBTQ+ friendly (only serving those who are 18+) where we all can share our interests, talk to roleplaying bots (Caleb, Rafayel, Zayne, Xavier, and Sylus), and have fun game, movie, and stream nights where we stream games and/or cards that we pulled that others want to see. It would be super fun to have you as a member of our server.

Click here to join Linkon Lounge!

Masterlist

[nezuscribe]

𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐛𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬

pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader

summary: you find yourself in a marriage that you never wanted in the first place. your husband seems to hate you and you begin to wonder if anything you used to think of him was even true. who would have though a marriage to gojo satoru would be so difficult?

warnings: 18+ mdni, arranged marriage, misunderstandings and just not talking shit out, mentions of cheating, slight angst (with comfort), eating out (fem! receiving), fingering, gojo doesn't really know how to husband for some of it

word count: 10.9K (whoops)

note: part two is up! i really had a lot of fun writing this so reblogs and comments are always appreciated! as always, thank you to @jadeisthirsting for beta reading <3

jjk masterlist

never did you think that you’d be stuck in a marriage to a man who didn’t love you, but there’s a first for everything. 

you should count yourself lucky that he’s not old and bald. he’s pretty. in fact, he’s the prettiest man you’ve ever seen. his eyes are the bluest, bluer than the sky. his hair mirrors the winter snows, and his back ripples with muscles whenever he fights. 

his agility is unlike any other man. he fights swiftly and cleanly, never taking more than a couple minutes to get rid of whatever it was that stood in his way. he’s charming with his words (or so you’ve heard), and he knows how to make somebody swoon if he really wants them to. 

and he seems to despise you.

you had known gojo since you were a child, the two of you running around each other's fields as you chased him with your wooden sword. you remembered watching him in training, wishing him good luck whenever he went on a hunt. you could even remember how he would stutter whenever he tried to talk, something he must have worked on because he never seemed to stutter anymore. 

he was always nice to you, his cheeks rosy whenever you kissed him goodbye. he was kind back then, grinning brightly whenever he saw you. 

but as time grew and you with it, and it was only a matter of years before the two of you went your separate ways. it didn’t help that once he turned thirteen he had to leave for training and fighting in whatever it was that was needed of him, but you had hoped that he would be able to write back. 

you would send him letters whenever you could, it was tradition whenever the two of you were separated for too long to do so. each letter telling him about new experiences and embarrassing things that happened in your life, but he never responded. you liked to send one every week, sometimes including little tokens you thought he might enjoy. but you stopped sending them after the first two years and stopped asking about his whereabouts after three. 

but you were hopeful that when you saw him that night so many months ago, he’d be civil with you. you were nervous, sure, but who could blame you? you had recently gotten news that his time to serve his clan was over and that he was finally back home. it wasn’t as though the two of you had left on bad graces, so you were hopeful that he would at least remember you. but he could barely meet your eyes whenever you tried to catch him from across the room, acting as if you had never existed. 

he looked so different since the last time you had seen him. he was taller than most of the people in the room, his white hair just as bright as it used to be. he had gained muscle mass almost everywhere, and you felt yourself wondering just how much training he had to go through to look this way. you could see him talking to a girl, a smile on his face as he tilted his head to look at her better. you gave him some time to socialize, not wanting to intrude on anything. 

after an hour you decided that it was long enough, and tried to weave your way through the crowd to get to him. you had tried to call out to him, waving to him despite your mother quickly shoving your hand down, saying how improper it was. he heard you and you knew that he was purposely ignoring you, so you began to feel heavy-hearted after a couple of attempts at trying to catch his attention, eventually giving up. 

and now, despite you wanting to, you can’t even blame him for hating you. 

ever since your mother caught you, alone with him, a man you hadn’t seen in so long, she had swiftly and promptly proposed the idea of marriage only a few days later. it was really to save face for the two families, but it helped that this marriage would unify the two clans. 

you were sure he had ladies lined up to marry him, and you weren’t somebody he was actively trying to pursue. you didn’t even know if he was in love with somebody else if he shared a connection with a girl who was surely not you and cursed you for taking that away from him. 

not that it mattered now. 

all you wanted was to reconcile, to catch up on all the things happening in your lives. you wanted to hear all the stories he must have racked up over the years, not for this to happen. all the things he wanted for himself were ripped away because of one night from one simple act of kindness, and so you couldn’t find it in yourself to hate him for the way he acted.

you rarely come down for dinner whenever he’s there, but when you do, you feel those eyes turn icy, tracking your every movement till you sit down opposite of him. he doesn’t say much, just mutters a quiet “good evening” and you’re sure he’s only doing it so the maids don’t start to gossip. 

whenever your hand brushes his you feel him snap back, flexing his hand as though your touch burned him. he rarely came by to ask you about how you felt, and so you stopped trying to act kindly towards him if he didn’t want anything to do with it.

any semblance of romance you had dreamed of as a young girl quickly dissipated when you realized your husband wanted nothing to do with you, so you didn’t try to pursue any sort of love, deciding it’d be easier if he just did his part and you did yours so the two clans wouldn’t worry. 

he was always gone, which might be the best for the two of you. when he’s not training new men then he’s gone in a hunt. if he’s not in a hunt then he’s somewhere in his endless home, hiding away. 

you don’t know if he does this for him, for your sake, or for everybody else. 

“did you see your husband this morning?” one of your maids said excitedly as she tugged the undergarments over your raised arm, a gleeful smile on her face as she rambled about something gojo had done. you couldn’t help but return a smile of your own, although it didn’t quite meet your eyes. 

“yes, briefly. he’s busy with having to worry about the feast,” which wasn’t a total lie. you’d seen him hurriedly brush past you, quickly glancing at you as if he had forgotten you were his wife. you felt your chest tighten up with the way he glanced at your hand, and then quickly left. 

it was only a few nights away and you knew that it was the only buzz of news anybody seemed to talk about. unfortunately, for you, it meant having to socialize with other clans. you were fine with that aspect, you’d been doing it since you were young, but this time they had a right to be nosey. you knew there would be endless questions asked about the honeymoon stage of your marriage, to which you had no answer. 

sure, you’d been making up answers to hypothetical questions, but you didn’t know what gojo would be answering with, so you were only praying some of your responses would line up. 

for a night the two of you would have to pretend to be husband and wife, and while the people around you knew you were anything, you knew you had to commit to the role for the sake of you and your family’s dignity. 

but all this worrying isn’t good for your head, you could already feel the pang as you squeezed your eyes to try and get rid of it. you tried to move on from your worries, going to comment on her necklace, it seemed new, but a knock interrupted you. the two of your heads popped up, looking at where the sound came from. 

“come in!” you called out, buttoning up the last bits of your top as you thanked myra. she nodded, bowing as she went to open the door. you could hear her faint footsteps, not bothering to look up as she greeted the person behind. you guessed it was franchesca coming with the fabric samples. 

“sir,” you heard myra say, and your head swirled around, only to see the topic of your conversation make his way into your room, excusing your maid with a swift motion of his hand. she glanced once at you and then to him, ducking her head as she left, closing the door behind her as she left you two alone. 

you felt heat prickle at the back of your neck as he looked at you and then to your room. the two of you slept separately, as per your request the first night. you couldn’t bear the agonizing silence between the two of you, and he obliged. 

he was dressed for sparring. he had a loose-fitting tunic on, and pants that would allow him to move freely and without constraint. it was in moments like these that you were reminded of the fact that gojo was the strongest warrior that any of the clans had seen, that the child who once splurged on sugar in his tea was capable (and has done so before) of taking down entire armies. 

he had matured so much since what you last remembered from him. he no longer acted rashly nor spoke without thinking about what it was he wanted to say. but you still saw him eating sweets with the same fervor he did as a kid, and it never failed to make you smile, hiding it behind your hand so nobody could hear your quiet giggle. 

it had been a while since it was just the two of you, alone, and all you could think about was that night. your cheeks heated up just thinking about it, and it seemed that gojo could tell your discomfort with the way he cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair as he began to speak. 

“good morning,” he started, his eyes darting around, never setting on yours. it was funny if it didn’t cause your heart to hurt irrevocably, at how the strongest warrior in all the land could barely look at his wife. 

if only you knew.

“good morning.” you offered him a quick, disingenuous smile, moving around until you found your vanity, rummaging through your laid-out earrings as you kept your back to him, not trusting your face to give you away if you were to look at him for too long. 

you heard him take in an audible breath, but he continued whatever it was he wanted to say. 

“with the feast coming up, i want to clear some things with you,” you turned around, looping the earrings in as you nodded for him to continue. it was such a shame he was so stunning, effortlessly attractive as the sun caught off his cheekbones, bouncing off of his chest. he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, and you wondered if being here was just as painfully awkward for him as it was for you. 

“we should act like we’re…” he trailed off and you felt yourself itching to leave, knowing what he meant without having to say it. 

“in love?” you finished and he slowly nodded, gnawing on his lip as you brushed past him, going to find the mirror so you could adjust your jewelry. you could see him fidgeting in the corner, and for once you could see a hint of nervousness and unease on his features. 

and a part of you hurt. you would never admit out loud that you harbored a crush on him for as long as you could remember. it hurt knowing that you acting like you were in love was perhaps the lost genuine form of love you could show. 

“what if they ask about the night we met?” you ask after a couple of seconds, looking up from what you were doing. deep down, you knew somebody was bound to ask. even if it was just your mother who had caught the two of you alone in that garden, the news of it somehow spread (she was always one to talk). 

he scratches his head, shrugging as he eventually settles on an idea.

“just tell them the truth.” 

the truth. 

tell them how he followed you after you had run outside, sick to your stomach after a man, who was as old as your father, had introduced himself as a possible suitor. how gojo, the most ruthless warrior in all the land, had carefully put his hands on your back as you retched, offering you a towel he had fetched from inside to clean yourself up. 

tell them how you hadn’t seen him in years but the first thing you had done was to hug him tightly. how his hands wrapped around your back as though they were the only things keeping you afloat. perhaps they were. 

tell them how he murmured words in your hair to bring you back to reality, his thumb running up and down your arms to calm you down. how it seemed like even though it had been years since you two last saw each other, it felt so right, so normal, to be back in his arms. 

tell them how he had looked at you with such worry, such care, unlike anybody else had looked at you, and you for once felt safe in somebody’s arms. 

tell them how your mother found you two in such a compromising position, with your head nestled in his chest as he tried his very best to soothe your cries. it was humiliating and embarrassing to be caught with a man you had only seen back in your teenage years, and especially so in such a vulnerable position. 

you shake your head, scoffing at the idea, “i’ll just come up with something,” was your answer and he nods along, realizing how the story would be too private to share with people you barely knew.

“and we need a reason for why,” he cleared his throat once again, pink dusting on his cheeks as his eyes dropped to your stomach. your eyes met his in the mirror, and one of your eyebrows raised, “well, you’re not exactly looking like you’re carrying a child at the moment.” 

you quickly looked away, the tension in the room increasing as you moved away from the mirror, doing anything you could to keep your hands occupied. you flushed at the comment, your throat drying up as you glanced at your stomach.

the two of you have barely touched, much less been intimate with each other. you were glad he hadn’t forced the idea onto you, instead, leaving it to you to bring up the topic. you only talked about it, once, the night of the marriage, and then never again. you knew that it would have to happen eventually, but you couldn’t do it right now, not with your state of mind. 

you scrambled to say something. in all honesty, you had been dreading this question. you hadn’t been answering any of the letters your mother sent, and you knew people were expecting to hear the news of a pregnancy. 

“we’ll just say we’ve been so busy and preoccupied with the politics of marriage that we couldn’t… consummate.” you offered and he just shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as if this was the biggest inconvenience to him. 

you knew that this marriage was brought upon quickly and before either of you could object to it, but at least you tried to hide it away. if only he hadn’t acted so rashly that night, his hands on your shoulders, eyes bewildered as they racked over your figure. if only he had been more careful, or you were smarter in picking some place to be more concealed, you wouldn’t be put in this position. 

but neither of you was thinking ahead, and here you were. but he was certainly making sure that you knew of his contempt for this arrangement far more than you were. it was irritating, it scratched at your skin and ate away at your mind the more you saw each other.

“look,” he couldn’t take his eyes off of you, off of the way you were fiddling with the ring he had delicately placed on your hand so many weeks ago, “i can come up with whatever they ask, so just try your best to do the same.” you say, your voice tinged with anger, the ring on your finger acting as an anchor to the depths of the sea with the way it weighed down your movements, feeling your chest swell as he stayed silent, watching you as you opened the door. 

“i don’t-”

“um, i won’t be joining you for dinner, so don’t wait on me…i apologize, i need to work on some things for the feast…have a good day.” you swiftly murmured, shutting him in your own room as you left, your heart thumping erratically in your chest as you almost ran down the hallway. 

you had no idea how you were going to persuade the masses that this marriage was working if you couldn’t even persuade yourself. 

---

the feast of clans came earlier than you expected. 

you found yourself perched at the end of the table, gojo next to you, your stiff bodies mirroring each other as the people around you joyously helped themselves to the vast variety of food offered. 

you could barely touch the meal in front of you, your stomach churning uncomfortably with the sheer number of people that surrounded you. back home, you hated these feasts, opting to leave after a couple of bites and finish the rest of what you could pocket in your room, but here, as the clan leader's wife, you had no such luxury. 

“are you not hungry?” you looked to your side, gojo staring at your plate and then to you, his eyes squinting as he tried to decipher what you were feeling.

“i can’t eat,” you murmured, playing with your utensils as you swallowed thickly, “i don’t do well in large crowds.” 

he nodded once, looking out into the sea of bodies as he inched a little bit closer to you. he was donned in expensive fabrics, although his hair still messily fell all over. the candle that was lit in front of you had different hues of oranges and reds bouncing off of his pale skin, and if you didn’t know any better, the blush on his nose and cheeks could have been from the frigid winds from outside. 

“i’ll have myra save you a plate,” he said, giving you a curt smile as he went back to eating. 

you were momentarily taken aback by his comment, but tried not to show it, going back to fidgeting with your ring as you looked at the sea of people. nobody had thankfully come up to you and bombarded you with questions, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t going to eventually happen. 

“thank you,” you say, glancing at him and then back to your plate. 

“anything for my wife,” he replies. it’s only for show, you remind yourself, after all, when was the last time he referred to you as such? 

“gojo,” an old man had walked up to your table, his face lined with wrinkles and a beard, dressed in orange as he offered gojo his hand to shake, “i’m glad to see that you finally settled down.”

gojo blushed deeply, trying to offer him a smile as he motioned to you. 

“it’s hard to resist marriage when such a woman offers it.” he says, and you feel your eyes widen as you try to laugh off his statement. 

“yes,” the old man chuckles, eyeing the two of you. he looked familiar, and you were sure you had seen him around these sorts of gatherings before, “it was only a matter of time before it happened. we all knew just how much you liked her back when you were children.”

the two of you sputtered on your coughs, and you felt a little smile grow on your face as gojo did what he could to usher the man away. 

you could tell with the way he shifted uncomfortably in his seat that gojo wasn’t expecting that, and before you could realize what you were doing you found yourself talking. 

“i’m not a fan of feasts.” you quickly said, the words tumbling out of your mouth before you could stop them. it’s not like you felt you owed him an explanation, but you said it regardless. 

gojo looked up from his plate, grabbing his cup so he could wash down his bite. 

“any feast?” he asked, and you could feel the way the air shifted. he was glad you brought up a different topic. 

“one’s as big as this,” you twisted your ring back and forth on your finger subconsciously, “i get nervous in big crowds.”

“i remember,” a small smile grew on his face as he thought back to when the two of you were children, “you would hide under the tables and force me to come with you.” 

you chuckled, blood rushing to your ears at the fact that he remembered this about you. it was the bare minimum of what you remembered from him, but you had convinced yourself that he had washed every memory of your last selves from his mind. 

a rush of distant memories came to your head; nights spent under the tables, laughing as you two tried to keep your voices down as you tried to dodge the feet. you could still hear his whispers of staying quiet, trying to sneak out so he could smuggle in some pastries for you to eat.

“the adults scared me; they were always loud and insistent on asking personal questions.”

“like they are now?” he replied back, a tilt in his voice as you nodded feverishly. 

“yes!” you covered your mouth with your hand as you let out a laugh, a genuine one as you tried to look as put together as you could, “i swear, it’s even worse than when we were young. just the other day a wet nurse came to me and told me the best positions to get into when giving birth!” it really was a mortifying moment, your eyes darting all around as the old lady even took it upon herself to demonstrate the movements, but gojo didn’t seem to mind, laughing along with you. his eyes twinkled as they took in your giggly state, years since he had last seen you like this. 

“i feel like i should apologize,” he starts, having to cover his own infectious smile as he ducks down his head in shame, “i had her sent up to your chambers.”

your mouth dropped open in shock, lightly smacking his arm as he grinned at the look on your face.

“to mortify me so that i would never leave?” your thumb moves your ring back and forth and gojo watches you as you do it. 

“you seemed sick at breakfast, but i guess she thought it was a different sort of sickness.” gojo tells you as he cuts off some of his meat, not knowing just how much his words affected you. 

you had forgotten how simple and easy conversations were with gojo. although this was under a guise to fool people, you felt at ease with him, as if you didn’t have to be on guard with your emotions when he was around. 

“do you still want to hide under the table now?” he asked a couple of seconds later, chewing on a potato as you shrugged, looking around before your lips grew into an apologetic smile. 

“…yes,” you admitted bashfully and he smiled at your honest response. 

“if you want to hide, i’ll-”

“satoru!” a booming voice interrupted your endless spiral of thoughts as the two of you glanced upwards at the sound, “it’s been too long!” 

a man with hair as dark as night and a smile wider than any ocean had come up to your table. he was the first one to do so all night, but gojo didn’t seem bothered by it. he seemed to smile, crescents forming around his eyes as he took his friend's hand.

“too long,” he emphasized with a charming grin, motioning to you and then back to the man in front of you as if he suddenly remembered the two of you and never met, “suguru, this is my wife, y/n. y/n, this is one of my oldest friends.” 

you extended your hand outwards and the man, suguru, took it, placing a soft kiss on the back of it as he shot you a playful smile. he wasn’t at the wedding, but then yet again, it was a rather quick one. the only people who had attended were your families. 

“it’s a pleasure to meet you.” he greeted, and you nodded in agreement, sitting back down next to gojo. you felt his long fingers reach for yours, enveloping your hand in his as your heart sputtered at the touch. 

“likewise,” you answered and the man grinned politely before he slightly tilted his head, looking at the two of you sitting next to each other. 

“he’s not bothering you, is he? i know satoru can be fiendish when he wants to be, so call for me and i’ll take care of him.” he teased and you could only smile tightly and laugh along, gojo’s fingers slightly tightening around yours as he moved your hand to rest on his thigh. 

“i can take care of him when he’s fiendish. i just have to take the sugar away, right?” suguru snorted and gojo glared, but it was playful the way he looked at you. 

his hands were warmer than you would have expected. you could feel the indents of calluses on his fingertips, could feel his thumb moving back and forth on your skin in a calming sort of manner. he didn’t look over at you as he did it, playing it off as second nature. 

“i apologize for not having much time to get to know you, but i have something i need to talk to gojo about. would you mind? it will only take a minute?” he asked, and gojo let go of your hand at the time of his friend's voice. you had to control your urge to roll your eyes, shifting in your seat as you motioned for suguru to talk to your husband, watching as he stood from his seat, leaving with the man as they went somewhere a little more secluded. 

you watched as gojo leaned down to hear whatever it was that suguru was whispering in his ear, pulling back with a frown on his face. he snapped something that only caused suguru to reel back, cast a quick glance at you, and then shake his head in clear annoyance. 

you saw gojo look up, his eyes landing on somebody from across the room, and you followed his stare, only to land on a girl. 

she wore a dark yellow tunic and skirt, colors from a neighboring clan. you hadn’t seen her before, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t known. just one look at the men surrounding her and you could pick up on their lovesick expressions. 

she motioned for gojo to come to her with a bend of her finger, slyly brushing her hair out of her face to make it look as though it was nothing, exiting from the dining area and vanishing into one of the halls. 

you looked down in case either of the men glanced over to see if you were staring. your eyes pierced through the meat on your plate, bile rising up your throat. 

you gave yourself some time, counting up to a minute before you looked back to where suguru and gojo were, finding suguru standing alone. you looked at where the girl was and saw a flash of white hair before it disappeared, your heart sinking as you glanced back at suguru, only to find him looking at you. 

you looked back at your plate, picking up a knife and fork as you stabbed the meat. you couldn’t keep anything down but it’s best to pretend.

---

gojo didn’t return until half an hour later, and you refused to talk to him. 

“did anybody bombast you with questions?” he teased, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. he didn’t seem to pick up on your darkened mood as your fingers dug into your dress. 

“i had a woman ask me if you had disappeared with your mistress, but that was it.” you remarked, silence filling the void between the two of you and you realized that all you had thought of him was crumbling down. 

you didn’t care for your image anymore, giving curt answers to any questions somebody had asked. you could feel his stare on the side of your face but you didn’t humor him in looking over, focusing on your plate instead. 

so what if he was seeing somebody else? you would have been naive to think that he wouldn’t wander. the two of you barely touched each other. 

once all the guests had left over the course of the following days, you did everything you could to steer away from gojo. 

you no longer came down for breakfast or dinner, choosing to eat in your own quarters. if he wanted to have his own secrets, he could do whatever he pleased. 

though you rarely saw suguru after the feast, he did try to talk to you the morning after it took place. he cornered you after you had left from breakfast, his once playful demeanor turned serious as you tried your best to end the conversation. 

“what you saw last night-”

“is none of my business,” you finished, raising your hand as you cut him off, “if gojo has his own private matters to deal with, i’m indifferent to them all.” 

“you know that’s not what it was.” his hand hovered over your arm, careful not to touch you but not wanting you to leave either. 

“i ruined his life, didn’t i?” you tilted your head a bit in questioning. after all, that’s all you could hear from the women who gossiped as they folded the laundry, or behind the hands of the girls who watched you and gojo interact and the mothers who wanted their daughters to be set up with him only sneered at you from across the tables. 

“you…where’d you get that from?” his brows scrunched together in confusion as you scoffed, hoping he couldn’t see the tears welling in the corner of your eyes at the sting of your own words. 

“i can see it on his face. if gojo wants to have his own affairs, he can have them. it’s not like we’re in love. hopefully, i find my own way out so that the two of us look happier and this marriage looks somewhat presentable to the public.” 

you didn’t want to see the look on his face, but you’re sure he reported this all back to gojo because he didn’t look at you once after it. 

you heard from a maid a week later that he was gone for another meeting with a clan, a southern one from what you picked up, and that you should probably go and wish him some luck. 

leading up to the night of his departure you anxiously paced around your room, your feet padding on the floor as your nightgown swished behind you. 

you hadn’t talked to gojo at all that day, and purposefully so. 

it was petty, you know it was, to not want to see him, but a part of you still aches when you look back on that night. at how he didn’t explain where he was even after you asked, at how it was suguru he had sent to fix his dirty work for him. 

“y/n?” a muffled voice came from outside your door. 

your head shot up at the familiar sound, quietly dragging yourself out from your bed as you grabbed the candle, hovering on the other side as you waited for him to say something else. 

“are you awake?” you heard a soft thud from his side, almost as if his head or arm had hit the door. 

you didn’t answer, still, waiting. 

“i’m leaving tomorrow and i wanted to see you before i left.” your heart skipped at his words, careful not to make a sound as you near the door. 

“if you’re sleeping i won’t bother you anymore but if you’re not,” you could hear the old stutter he had coming back, his words meshing together as he tried to regain control, “and you’re choosing to stay quiet, i…” he sighed, his forehead thumping down as he rested it on the door, “i wanted to apologize for the feast. i shouldn’t have left you alone, and if you’d open the door, i would explain why…” he could see the flicker of the candle from underneath the crack, and saw the way it blew away, darkness following suit. 

you walked back to your bed, turning your back to the door as you set the candle down on your table. 

“goodnight,” his voice was quieter than before, and you felt guilty, but pushed the bitter feeling down.

a couple of seconds later you heard him let out a sigh of defeat, his footsteps leading away from your bedroom as you curled into yourself, hoping you would let your heart stop taking control of what your head should be doing. 

---

gojo didn’t return for a while, and you grew more impatient by the day. 

it normally took him and his men a week at maximum, and once two had passed, you felt yourself growing uneasy. 

you tried to act as passive as you could, but even myra could pick up on your growing apprehension. you have never voiced your worries over your husband before, but she knew this wasn’t like any other time. 

when you went to bed, the only thing you could dream about was that night, your brain re-running the images as you tossed and turned. 

“are you alright?” he asked, his hands on your elbows as you could barely speak, your blurry vision impairing your sight. you could only see a mop of white in the darkness, your stomach betraying you as you tried to keep the sick down. 

“i don’t feel too good,” you mumbled, trying to put some distance between the two of you as you pushed him away, only to feel him coming closer as he placed a hand on your forehead and then to your cheeks. 

“you’re burning up,” he muttered under his breath, guiding you gently so that you wouldn’t trip over your feet. 

“i’m sorry, you can go back inside, i don’t want to keep you out here.” you were slurring your words as you tried not to throw up on him. you wiped at your eyes so that you could see him better, only to reel back in utter shock to see the face of your childhood friend frowning down at you. 

your mouth formed in the shape of his name, going to say something else, before you hunched over, feeling his strong hands pat your back and keep the hair out of your face as you felt your world tilt on its axis. 

you ate your dinner at the table, eyeing his empty seat as you tried to shove his last night out of your mind. you shouldn’t feel this way, especially about a man who feels nothing towards you, but your little heart was churning in its confines the more you let yourself think about it.

sitting in the same spot where the feast took place only brought back the venomous taste in your mouth, and so you pretended that you were back home, eating somewhere without the worry of your life weighing you down like a thousand weights on your shoulders. 

myra tried her best to distract you, but she could see the distant look in your eyes, how your voice never seemed too genuine. she began to worry for you, but it seemed like your mind was fixed on one thing. 

until you found yourself pacing around your room, just like you were the night you last heard of him, playing with the ring on your finger as the moon carded through your window. 

“my lady,” you heard myra through the door, her voice shaky and a bit more on edge than usual, “there’s-” but before she could finish it slammed open, revealing the man you’d been biting your nails over, standing in the flesh.

his eyes were a dark blue, squinted as they looked right through you. his chest heaved as he looked like he was trying to catch his breath. you could see the streaks of blood that lined his usually clean clothes, the red that stained his cheeks and jaw. 

he looked feral, and it was throwing you off balance. 

“out.” he snapped at myra, and before you could scold him for his tone she fled, the door shutting roughly behind her. 

the two of you could only stare at each other. you didn’t know what to think after weeks of uselessly worrying over him, not knowing about his well-being, to see him here, in front of you, but looking different than he ever had. 

“are you alright?” 

you could barely get it out, the works sticking on your tongue as you took a tentative step forward, not knowing what to do with his state of being. 

he eyed the blood on his shirt, wiping at his cheeks as if he had forgotten it was there. he didn’t look too dirty, less dirty than one would expect from a five week endeavor through the woods, but he didn’t look too good either. 

“you were awake.” is all he says, his chest still moving up and down as though he couldn’t breathe properly. 

“that night i came by, you were awake. i saw your candle, i heard your footsteps.” he says this as though it’s fighting its way out of his mouth as if it’s all he could think about to tell you. 

“i,” you pretend that you don’t care, shrugging, “i wasn’t up to talk.” 

“you were with suguru.” he snaps, his tone shocking you, and he steps back as if he had shocked himself. he jammed his palms into his eyes, tilting his head upwards before he looked back at you. 

“for five weeks you were all i could think about. i wanted to come back, i wanted to tell you what i felt but we kept running into issues with other tribes and clans.” 

“what could you possibly think about that occupied your mind for five weeks?” you so desperately wanted your voice to come out strong but it sounded weak, as though you were hanging off of his every syllable. 

“you had told suguru that you were going to find your…own way out,” he took a step forward, and here you could see the scratches on his chest, the cuts on his arms, “i was praying to every god there was that you hadn’t found somebody in these past weeks, that you hadn’t…”

you could barely believe his words, not knowing if you should feel offended, shocked, worried, or a mix of all those three. 

“what business would it be to you if i did?” you hate that this was the response you settled on. hurt flashed across his face but he tried to regain his composure. 

“you are my wife-”

“and you are my husband!” you snapped and watched as he was momentarily taken aback by your outburst, but you continued your nose flaring, “you cannot argue with me on this when you left with some girl in the middle of our feast!” you felt all your emotions finally pouring out and you had no control over them, “everybody was talking about it, everybody was looking at me in pity!” your voice cracked, tears poking at your eyes as you pointed an accusatory finger at him. 

gojo looked down, running a hand through his hair as he pointed a finger back. 

“if you had let me explain myself, you would have known that she was trying to do what you thought she was. i left as quickly as i could but you would barely look at me!” you wanted to rip your hair out, cursing yourself for ever feeling any sort of worry for this man. 

“i know that this marriage was the last thing you wanted but at least you could play the part of a husband! you didn’t send a single note, anything to tell us that you were okay, that you were alive!” you heaved, fidgeting with your ring as you wiped at your cheeks, “and you come back here accusing me of adultery? all everybody could talk about was the fact that you were warming somebody else’s bed! they said a meeting never takes this long unless something…somebody else comes up.” your voice wobbles at the end, and you find yourself furiously rubbing your tears away, hiding your sniffing as though that would do anything.  

he paused upon seeing you cry, his face falling as he tried to step forward but you angled yourself away from him, hoping he’d get the hint. 

he wanted to hold you, to tell you that all the rumors you were hearing were false and that the only room he had left in his heart was for you. but he couldn’t blame you for feeling or thinking this way. hell, he was so sure that he’d open the door to find another man comforting you that he didn’t even stop to consider what must have been going through your head all these weeks. 

“one of the clans tried to attack us, and we weren’t ready for it. that is why we took so long.” 

you sniffle again, not caring for his explanation although it did soothe a part of your past self. 

“you could have at least sent a letter telling me what happened,” you fidget with your ring, your thumb running over the diamond, “everybody asked me questions that i should have had answers to, but i had no idea where you were or what you were doing…” he nods, his lips pressed into a thin line as he agreed with you. 

“you're right,” his voice was thick with emotion, the words slurring in his mouth as he found himself anchored in place, not knowing what to do. but you were rambling, your thoughts going on and on and you couldn’t stop yourself. 

“…but i know you don’t like letters, so the least you could have done was send a parchment saying i’m alive or something like that.” you rub at your nose again, feeling like all the weeks of worry we’re coming to a standpoint. 

he looked confused now, if anything, and scratched at his jaw. 

“what do you mean?” 

you scoff at the audacity, rolling your eyes as you feel anger prickle at your skin. 

“you never once responded to any of my letters. in my eyes, that must mean you have some sort-”

“letters? what letters?” 

you glance at him, taking in his shaking form. 

“come on gojo,” you feel embarrassed as he urges you to speak, having to spell it out for him, his eyes pleading with you to continue, “the ones from when you left for training.”

his mouth opens and then closes, looks at the ground and then back up to you as he shakes his head. you could hear your fireplace crackling in the background. the only sounds circling the room were the pops of ember and your breathing. 

“i…” he feels like there’s cotton in his mouth, hoping that you’re lying, “i never got any letters.” 

the fire crackled once again and you could almost hear a pin drop as you shook your head vehemently at his statement. 

“n-no, no you did. i wrote to you every week, i sent one every week for two years and you never responded and my mother said that you must have forgotten about me…” and you trail off, the tears in your eyes stoning as he furiously wipes at his own eyes, and for the first time since you had seen him fall down when he was a kid, you saw his own tears staining his cheeks. 

“nobody gave me your letters. i thought that you,” he takes a deep breath, tongue poking inside his cheek as he tried to control himself, “i thought that you didn’t care for me anymore.” 

you hug your midsection, your emotions running wild at his words. 

“i was under the impression that you hated me.” you admit, and he looks as though you stabbed him through the heart. if only others could see the powerful warrior now, stripped bare to his conscience and all he could think about was you. 

“why…why would you think such a thing?” you two inch closer without knowing it, longing to touch each other, wanting to know that the other was really there and that this wasn’t a figment of your imaginations. 

“gojo, you could barely looked at me that night at the gala and now it seems as though you, well, look at you - you’re flushed!” you’re grasping at straws, motioning towards his face,  twinged with pink as you rub at your nose, “you seem angry whenever i am near-” 

“the only person i am angry at is myself.” gojo whispers, but his voice echoed around the expanse of your skull. 

“yes, i’m aware,” you feel cold despite the fire in the corner, your tone carrying an air of know as you scorn, “i know the last thing you expected by comforting me was a marriage but-” 

“you think i am angry because i married you?” he was moving closer, his hands shaking, his eyes wet. you could see the ring on his finger glow in the dim light of the fireplace, how it shined brighter than any of the night skies, “the only good thing that has happened to me these last few months was being able to introduce myself as your husband. i know that i stripped you bare of any love you may have had for any other man, but call me selfish for feeling glad that i did.” 

you could barely focus on what was happening, his words sinking deep into your skin, going to your bones. 

“i told myself that you had forgotten about me those years i left. when i saw you that night i was so sure you had come with the intention of finding a suitor that i didn’t want to distract you, but then i saw that man come up to you…” and he couldn’t finish, choking on his words as he stuttered, and you saw a glimpse of the boy you had fallen in love with so long ago. 

“and i followed you out. if i knew that simply being alone with you would have gotten me married to you then i would have cornered you in a closet the moment i saw you enter the dining hall.” 

a tear rolls down your chin, splattering on the ground beneath you as you struggle to make sense of what he was saying. it felt as though the months of being married to him were weeks spent pacing around your own rooms, thinking the same worried thoughts, and not having the strength to confront each other about it. 

“you…you don’t hate me?” your voice is timid, almost not believing yourself as the statement tumbled out. gojo had the audacity to laugh a bit, shaking his head as strands of his hair fell into his face. 

“my every waking moment is spent thinking of you. when i was in training, you were all i could dream about, hoping that when i’d come home i could finally have you to myself. 

“you have control over my emotions, my mind, my soul, and i cursed myself for taking away your options for a husband, but the only thing i’ve wanted to do these past few weeks was to hold you in my arms. to tell you just how deeply i yearn for your love back.” 

he wiped at his cheeks, glistening in the faint light. he looked angelic, despite the grime and blood that decorated his clothing. you didn’t want to think about the men he had killed just to come back, to come back to you, and the thought of ever losing him hurt you more than when you spent nights wondering why he never responded to any of your letters. 

you couldn’t stop your feet from leading you toward him, and you could only watch as he met you in the middle, catching you with all his strength, holding you as if you weighed nothing, and it only took a few seconds before your lips collided. 

it was rushed, and messy as you felt his hands holding you as if you carried the weight of the universe. your teeth clashed, your tears staining each other's skin as your hands gripped at his hair, using it for leverage as he slipped his tongue into your mouth, enjoying the whimper that escaped your lips when he nipped at yours. 

it was what years of longing and desperation felt like. how it felt like you two just molded into each other as if your bodies were cut out with the other in mind. you felt like your heart was about to stop beating, and you knew gojo felt the same with the way he’d whine against your lips, wanting you more than you could have ever imagined. 

“we’ve been stupid people, haven’t we?” you whispered as you pulled away, trying to catch your breath as he smiled against you. if only you knew just how much he’d been wanting to kiss you like this, to see your swollen lips as you looked at him from beneath your eyelashes. you were his venus, his only saving grace, and he could only vex himself for ever making you feel anything but love. 

“very, “ he pressed a kiss to the corner of your eyes, “very,” to your nose, “stupid,” his lips were on your cheeks, feeling like he was breathing in new air at the sound of your laughter, “people.” he pressed his lips to yours again, cherishing in the way you whined at the harshness. 

he had spent months convincing himself that you no longer cared for him. weeks of perilous training to only come back to a bed and dream of a girl who didn’t share his emotions when in reality you did. he wants to track down the letters you had sent him, to read every word carefully, as if each sentence carried its own riddle inside of it. he wanted to apologize for never having the honor of experiencing your skilled penmanship, for leading you to believe that he had simply forgotten about you. 

“gojo,” your fingers curl in his tunic, your heat transferring, trying to be rational in such an irrational state of being, “you’re bleeding, i should call for the doctor.” he didn’t stop kissing your face, moving to your jaw as he smiled hearing you shudder. 

“it’s not my blood,” he murmured and you wanted to smack him for how cocky he sounded, “and don’t call me gojo.” he nipped at your lips again. 

“husband?” you found yourself smiling at the title, but he shook his head. you saw how he was trying to hide his own grin. 

“sire?” you tested it out teasingly, hating how it sounded. he seemed to agree with the way he grimaced at the name. 

“my lord?” he wanted to bottle up your laughter forever, knowing he could get drunk off of the sound. his nose nudged up at your jaw, pressing wet kisses wherever he could. 

“hmm, what about my liege?” you're curling a strand of his hair around your fingers letting him settle you down on your vanity as you spread your legs so he could slot between them. 

“my men call me that.” he says, cringing as it falls off your mouth. you pretend to think, not knowing how you were able to live without this banter for as long as you did. 

“satoru?” you felt breathless saying it after so long. but he still didn’t seem to find it satisfactory enough, a pout on his lips as he wanted you to find a better one. 

“close, but only when you’re angry with me.” you tuck that information in the back of your mind for if you ever need to scold him, your cheeks flushed as he interlocks his fingers through yours. 

“‘toru…?” his lips broke into a giddy smile, and you had to control yourself as he swooped back in for a kiss. his eyes were so much softer when he laughed, the kind ones you fell in love with so many nights ago. 

“there it is,” his voice was husky, raw as your fingers gripped at the baby hairs at his nape. he was taking your air away with him and you couldn’t find it in yourself to fight back for it. 

“i forgot how cheeky you can be,” you bite your lip to keep the moans inside, feeling feverish as his tongue ran over his love marks, not knowing what to do yourself as you scrambled to grab onto something to keep you afloat.

“you have no idea how much self-control it’s taken not to ravage you,” his breath is hot on your skin, and he’s tugging at your shirt, fingers slightly brushing upon your breasts, “every night you’d come down for dinner i wanted something different to eat.”

“stoppp,” you mewled, not used to this. he chuckles as his slender fingers work to untie the knot keeping you together, tugging at the string until it falls, revealing your naked chest, heaving as the fabric pooled at your hips. 

you wanted to cover yourself up under his heavy gaze, to take the fabric and hide, but you felt pierced by his stare. his eyes darted to yours as if checking to see if you were okay. when you gave him a timid nod, it seemed as though it prompted him to finally move. 

his fingers were gentle as they ran across your waist, large as they covered the soft of your stomach, eager as they went upwards. he looked like he was crazed and starved, as if you were his last meal and he couldn’t wait for the sweetness death would give. 

your breath stuttered as his fingers found your mounds, rubbing a soothing thumb over your nipples as his pupils grew. he was eager as he flicked them over and over, a cheshire grin growing as they hardened under his touch. 

“you’re perfect,” he murmured, dropping down so he could suckle at your tits, his spit shining in the light of the fire, and you tilted your head back, soft moans escaping as his tongue drew circles around your buds. 

“f-fuck, ‘toru, that’s,” you couldn’t even finish your sentence, his second hand coming to cup your other tit, not wanting to leave her unattended as he sucked and bruised, wanting to forever leave his mark on your untainted skin. 

“good?” he’s so cocky, and you want to smack the smug smirk off his devilishly handsome face. 

his knee is purposefully rubbing against your clothed clit, and you feel yourself subconsciously rubbing yourself against it. you hope that he can’t feel how drenched you are from him just sucking your tits, but he pinches you, pressing his tongue flat against your skin as he looks up through his lashes.

“horny from just me touching you?” he’s teasing you, it’s so painful the way you want, need him like oxygen. you tug on his hair roughly, bringing his spit-soaked lips back to yours as you bite down on his lower one, enjoying the groan you draw out from him. 

“don’t be mean ‘toru,” you taunt, and you feel him melt in your fingers, nodding to your request as he lowers himself down. 

he presses wet kisses down your torso, stopping just above your hips, his fingers hooking along the rim of your underwear, being careful and slow in his movements as he waits for any objections, making sure you’re okay with this. 

but you were in your own world, hitching your leg over his shoulders, drawing him in closer to you, sweat dotting your forehead as he licks a stripe over the cotton on your pussy, smiling to himself at the taste of you. 

you were so sweet, sweeter than any desert he’d indulge himself on. he was sure that once he had a taste of you he’d be able to repent, to go before any god, and to tell them that you were his religion.

he had spent countless nights, tossing and turning in his bed, the only thing putting him to sleep being the idea of coming home to you. running after you that night was him running home to you, regardless of where you were. he was glad he got your hand in marriage, but if he had to, he’d wait another ten years just to hold you in his arms again.

he peels your underwear off, a string of your arousal connecting to it, and he tucks it in his pants, for safekeeping. 

“you’re going to be the death of me.” he says against your heat, his nose rubbing against your clit as your eyes wring shut in pleasure. his hands grip your thighs, making sure you stay in place as he kitten licks around where you need him the most. 

“don’t let…don’t let any of your enemies hear,” your voice comes out in bits, your hand resting on the back of his head as your leg tightens around him, “don’t want them to come after me or something.” 

he snorts, pinching your thighs as if anybody could come within a ten feet radius of you without losing an eye. 

his lips come closer to where you desperately want him, a finger prodding at your tight entrance, his tongue finding your clit as he begins to suck. 

it’s all too much, the sensations far better than your own fingers have ever proved to be. 

his fingers are skilled, long enough that they reach deep within you. he sinks one fully in, your walls clamping around him as he continues sucking your clit, his teeth grazing it every so often, making your head thump against the wall. 

“talk to me, how do you feel?” his mouth discontented from your bud and you whine at the loss. he sinks in another finger to make up for it, but he doesn’t move them, waiting for your response. 

“‘s good,” one of your hands is fisting your discarded robe, trying to hold onto your senses as you desperately nod, “don’t stop ‘toru, please,” and he obliges, loving the sounds of your begging, but loving the sound of your pleasures more. 

his fingers stretch you open and you welcome the sting, your nails digging into him as you long for more. 

he switches his mouth with his hand every now and then, his tongue taking the place of his fingers as it licks at you, groaning at your taste as he eats you out with his entire being, his chin shining with your essence and his spit as his thumb rubs furiously at your clit. 

“mmhhh, just like that, fuck!” you’ve never heard your voice at this pitch, never knew it was possible to feel this way. his other hand reaches up to flick at your nipple, the extra sensation making white dot around your vision. 

you feel yourself getting closer to the sweet release, feel your wall clamp around him even tighter as that knot in your stomach builds to a crescendo. 

“come on, let go f’me, know you want to, know you can.” he spurs you on, his fingers unrelenting as they piston in and out of you, reaching that gummy spot that makes you go dumb.

“fuck, ‘toru, m’gonna, m’gonna come!” you cry out and you’re sure anybody walking past you could hear the debauchery. your thighs were starting to shake and you felt it all go black as you reached your high, your orgasm washing over you unlike anything you’ve ever felt. 

you creamed around his fingers, gushing around him as you wailed out, tears dotting your eyes from the overwhelming pleasure you were feeling. you squeezed around him, wanting to never lose what this felt like, trying to catch your breath as his mouth never stopped sucking at your nub before he was sure your climax was over. 

when he finally pulled away the only thing that could be heard was the two of you, trying to come back down as stupid smiles made their way onto each of your faces. 

he was boyishly charming as he stood in front of you, licking yourself off of his fingers as he grinned at the taste. you couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed after having him just between your legs, but you still felt a heat blossom in your chest. 

“so…” you awkwardly start, sweat dripping down your face from just how hot the room had suddenly gotten as you avert your gaze, “what now?” 

he shrugged nonchalantly, despite the fact that his heart was about to beat it’s way out of his chest. you let him pick you off of the vanity and tucked you safely away into his chest as he led you to your bed, gently setting you down in your mountain of pillows and blankets as you felt sleep etch away at you. 

“i’m going to clean you up,” he pressed a kiss to your hair, smiling at the way you giddy smiled at whatever he did, a dopey grin on your face as your hand searched for his, interlocking you fingers with his as if you didn’t want to watch him go, “if you let me.” 

you yawn, your head tilting as he sat down at the edge of your bed, still not letting go of your hand as your fingers run through the soft pelts beneath you. 

“and what about you?” your chin points the obvious hard-on growing in his pants. he looks down as if suddenly realizing, and he plays it off by looking back up to you with a wink. you felt your mouth going dry at the size of it, not knowing if you could even be able to take something as big as that. 

“for another day,” he promises, and you’re sure he’s not going to forget it. not like you want him to.

“and then?” 

your question lingers in the air. you don’t want to wake up to him acting like this never happened, as if your feelings were only a figment of your wildest dreams. but his eyes hold onto yours, never letting go as he brushes some strays away from your face. 

“and then i get a bigger bed for my room because there’s no way i’m letting you sleep here alone after this.” his thumb runs along the palm of your hand, his fingers tracing patterns into the soft of your legs. 

“and then?” 

“and then you tell me all the things i missed out on when i was gone. i’ll tell you about the time suguru shaved my head, and you’ll tell me about anything on your mind.” 

“what if i run out of things to say?” sleep is overtaking your voice, and you’re already nodding off, not even truly knowing what you were asking. 

“then i’ll make up stories so that you’re not bored.” he finds a clean towel, soaking it in water from a nearby pitcher as he drags it slowly across your body, as if your fragile and made of porcelain. 

“how do i know you’re not a dream? you might just be,” you yawn, rubbing at your eyes as your finger traces his ring, “you might just be my own mind tricking me.” your eyes are shutting, but the teasing smile on your face never leaves. 

“because a dream wouldn’t hide under a table with you if you asked.” he whispers, kissing your lips with a soft peck as he pulls the blanket over you, letting you sleep into a slumber as he crawls in next to you, holding you to his chest just as he did that night, just as he will every night from now on, and just as he longed for those nights he wished you next to him.