that1nerd-20 - Tumblr blog

that1nerd-20 · 3 days ago

Text

I want to cry 😢 😭 😞

Stuck With You | S. Wilson

summary : The last thing you wanted was to be trapped in a room with a person you didn't know, much less be forced to team up with them. But thanks to your best friend's meddling, you now find yourself headed for a peculiar blind date, paired with someone who’s anything but a stranger. You swore you’d moved on. He said it was for the best. But maybe you were never meant to let each other go.

pairing : Sam Wilson x f!reader

warnings : Mature (16+), second chance romance, friends to lovers to kind of enemies to lovers?, mutual pining, angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, forced proximity, angry/heated makeout, heavy feels and yearning, fluff and humor, truthfully two idiots in love, mild language. Proceed with caution if you're sensitive to such material.

word count : 14.2k

author's notes : To celebrate the rise of our brand new Captain America and Valentine's Day, I wrote this little piece to pour out my appreciation for Sam Wilson who is, imo, an insanely underrated character.

This is also my entry for the wondrous @elixirfromthestars 's Cinema Writing Challenge, which I stumbled upon mid-writing this one-shot and found that I was going in a direction that could've fit this in a fun way. I referenced the "Why didn't you write me?" scene from The Notebook though in a lax manner, so I hope to have still respected the general guidelines.. This is my first time participating in a writing challenge, so please bear with me :')

Happy Valentine's Day, my loves. Know that even if you're as alone as I am, your existence is greatly valued in this world. <3

(ao3 version)

⠀

Driving back to Delacroix was nothing short of a pleasant experience—just you, one hand on the wheel and the other idly hanging out the window with fingers slicing through the warm morning air. It was one of the few times you enjoyed driving, which is why you insisted on not having your chauffeur be the one to take you to your destination, preferring the solitude of watching the road stretch ahead like a ribbon of sun-bleached asphalt, flanked by swaying marsh grass and the slow-moving waters of the bayou. The old jazz station buzzing over the speakers only further enhanced the atmosphere, with the crooning trumpet blending effortlessly into the continuous murmur of cicadas in the background.

It was early enough that the mist still clung to the marshes, curling around the gnarled roots of cypress trees like ghostly fingers. The world shimmered gold in the pale dawn light, an untouched moment as the weight of the day settled in. You could also make out in your passing spanish moss draping lazily from the branches, swaying ever so slightly as if still waking from its slumber.

You had always loved this route. It felt like a portal to another life, one that belonged solely to a place where your name wasn’t headlined in articles, where your every move wasn’t scrutinized by strangers looking for something to pick apart. Here, you weren’t the subject of speculation or the topic of gossip columns. You weren’t “the one from the titles” or “the name in the papers.” You were simply you.

The familiarity of it all only served to bring you back to those late-night drives after absurdly long college lectures, when the stress of exams and deadlines melted away over seafood and pleasant company, the briny scent of the ocean mixing with the fried goodness of whatever had been thrown together for dinner. It reminded you of sunburned afternoons spent on the docks, the sound of waves lapping against the wooden beams, of kids that you used to babysit laughing as they chased each other barefoot across the pier. Life was indeed much nicer in the olden days.

The docks finally came into view as you veered off onto the dirt road. You could see that the morning had already settled into its rhythm—fishermen hauling in their first catches, their voices rising and falling over the water while the low rumble of boat engines punctuated the exchanges in the salty air, mingling with the occasional bark of a stray dog nosing around for scraps. Seagulls routinely circled overhead and swept low whenever someone tossed a handful of bait into the sea. The scent of fresh fish, damp wood, and the ever-present Louisiana humidity all wrapped around you, strong-filled even at this hour.

And there was poor Sarah, up to her elbows in work as always.

She stood near a stubborn crate, her brows drawn together in frustration as she struggled to pry it open. The morning suns of July had already kissed her skin a shade darker and a streak of dirt ran across her forearms, evidence of a morning repeatedly spent wrangling supplies and fixing whatever had inevitably needed mending. She also had that look—the one she always got when something should have been done yesterday.

Pulling up alongside the dock, you stepped out of your fancy car, rolling your shoulders with a slow stretch. The thick and stifling heat settled around you instantly, encasing itself around your skin like a second layer along the faintest promise of an approaching summer storm.

“Didn’t know we were wrestling furniture today,” you called out while your expensive shoes thudded lightly against the weathered planks, the wood creaking ever so slightly beneath your steps.

Sarah huffed, blowing a loose curl from her forehead as the sheen of morning sweat glistened against her sun-warmed skin. “You show up just in time to save the day, as usual.”

You smirked, pushing up your sleeves. “That’s what I do best.”

Together, you pried open the crate with a loud crack, the wood groaning in protest before finally relenting, revealing neatly packed supplies of nets, ropes and a few spare tools, all stacked with military precision.

“I swear, whoever sealed this thing had a personal vendetta against me,” she muttered, shaking her head.

You leaned against one of the weathered wooden posts, letting the briny breeze roll over you. The dock swayed ever so slightly beneath your weight, creaking in quiet protest. Out beyond the harbor, the bay stretched wide and glittering, rippling with the soft push and pull of the current. For a moment, there was nothing but the steady lull of the water, the occasional cry of seagulls, and the distant clang of metal against wood as fishermen worked their boats. A rare pocket of peace.

At least, that was the case until Sarah spoke.

“Sam’s coming home today.”

The words landed on you like how a stone would sink to the bottom of a river.

You kept your expression carefully neutral, inhaling through your nose before exhaling slowly. “Fantastic,” you deadpanned, flicking a piece of splintered wood off your palm.

Sarah sighed, already bracing for the reaction she knew was coming. “I know you two don’t—”

“Like each other?” you finished for her. “Get along? Want to exist in the same hemisphere?”

She shot you a flat, unimpressed look. “I was going to say see eye to eye.”

You scoffed. “That’s an understatement.”

Sarah crossed her arms, leaning back against the wooden beam beside you. The steady rise and fall of the tide lapped at the pylons below, filling the brief silence between you. “Are you ever going to tell me what really happened between you two?”

You hesitated. The problem wasn’t just Sam. It was everything that had happened because of him.

And worse—the things that had happened before. But how could you explain that to your best friend, who was also his sister, that before the cameras, before all of the unwanted attention, there had been a spark?

Befriending Sarah in college had meant stepping into her world, with frequent afternoons spent at the family’s restaurant but also evenings that bled into weekends. And with this eventually came Sam, who was at the time a cheeky guy too charming for his own good and with a tendency of getting under your skin in the most enjoyable way. The kind that your mama told you not to approach too much if you didn’t want to stray away from a good line of life.

You honestly wouldn’t have paid him much attention if not for the quick-witted banter, a push-and-pull that became something of a ritual every time you would come over. He would saunter into the restaurant under the pretense of bothering his sister, but his eyes would eventually find yours first, the corner of his mouth twitching upward just before he threw out some teasing remarks in hopes of riling you up. You would roll your eyes, fire something back, and somehow, without realizing it, you had begun to orbit each other.

It had slowly bloomed in the way where summer warmth shifts into the first breath of autumn—almost imperceptible until you’re standing in the midst of it. Eye contacts that lingered just a little too long. Making even the most absurd excuses simply to accompany you through your journey of going to college. A growing familiarity that turned into late-night conversations on the dock, where the world was nothing but the hush between you. There had been something easy about it, an understanding that neither of you ever had to say out loud.

And then, one fateful night—

A kiss was added to the list.

You could still precisely recall how it had unfolded. It had been one of those thick Louisianan nights where the land was quiet except for the gentle slosh of the tide against the pylons and the occasional chirp of cicadas hidden somewhere in the dark. You and Sam sat side by side on the wooden planks with your legs dangling over the edge.

He had shown up at the restaurant after closing, claiming he had nowhere better to be. You had scoffed, knowing damn well he could’ve gone to the arcades where he usually hung with his small band of friends, but instead, he’d lingered—elbow on the counter, tossing peanuts in the air and catching them in his mouth while Sarah cleaned up. When she suspiciously shooed the both of you out under the pretense of wanting to finish tidying the place in peace, you both ended up in your favorite spot and falling into conversation with the same ease you always had.

Strangely enough, that night was different.

It was felt in the way your knees brushed when he shifted closer, in the way your laughter had simmered and turned quieter, softer. It was the night where plans for the future were spoken of, and how you learned that Sam would soon leave Delacroix behind to join the Air Force while you were still figuring everything out.

“You ever think about getting out of here?” Sam’s voice cut through the quiet.

You smirked, tilting your head toward him. “What, and give up all the fine dining of your family’s home cooking? I don’t know if I could handle that.”

He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, because there’s nothing more to do than eating fresh seafood and watching the sunset every day.”

You nudged his shoulder with yours. “Hey, you’re the one talking about getting out of here, Wilson. What, the dock life not glamorous enough for you?”

His grin was easy, but there was something contemplative beneath it. “I always knew I’d leave. Not ‘cause I don’t love it here, but... I want more. I wanna see what else is out there.”

Your smile faltered, just a little. You weren’t sure why the thought of Sam leaving sat uncomfortably in your chest. "You make it sound like you’re never coming back."

He turned toward you then, one leg kicking idly at the water below. "I’ll come back." His voice got fainter this time, lacking its usual teasing edge. "It’s not like I’d just disappear on you."

You arched a skeptical brow. "Awh, don’t tell me you’re going soft on me. You saying that ‘cause you mean it, or ‘cause you think I’d cry if you didn’t?"

Sam smirked. "Maybe both."

You scoffed, pushing at his arm, but he barely budged. "Please, you’d be the one crying your eyes out first."

"Uh-huh," he vaguely affirmed, unconvinced. "You could write me letters, you know."

"You gonna write back?"

"Every time."

You regained your smile at the answer, and it was when you turned to glance at him that you noticed that he was closer than before. You weren��t sure if he had leaned in or if you had, but your shoulders touched and your knees pressed together. He was close enough that you could see the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed and caught his eyes flickering from yours to your mouth and back again.

You had felt it coming before it happened—the moment slowed, stretched, and his tentative fingers had brushed yours where your hands rested between you on the dock. He was testing out the waters, and neither of you pulled away.

Without a word, he leaned in.

It felt like a kiss engaged between adolescents discovering intimacy for the first time. He was slow in his doing, as if waiting for you to stop him, but you didn’t. You tilted into him instead, your hand resting against his jaw upon the faint scratch of stubble he had grown. His lips were warm and coaxing, stealing the breath from your lungs as he deepened the kiss while his hand curled lightly around your wrist. The world beyond the two of you fell away, drowned out by the rush of your pulse.

It was the kind of kiss that felt like the beginning of a promise. But promises, as you had learned over time, were far too easy to break.

You thought that this kiss was supposed to mean something. Evidently, it didn’t to Sam.

Months passed without a sign, not a single mail in your box or a phone call. Then years came by, and silence continued to reign like a chasm.

The first time Sam Wilson came back to Delacroix after becoming the Falcon, it wasn’t for a homecoming or a celebration—it was for Sarah’s wedding. By then, he was no longer just the annoying little brother, the immature sod who used to throw shrimp shells at you when you weren’t looking. He was an Avenger. A hero. Someone whose face people recognized, whose name carried weight.

And you? You had built a life of your own. A business. A name that had nothing to do with anyone else but yourself.

He had changed but so had you, and whatever had been between you had withered away a bittersweet memory, more sour than sugary.

The wedding had come and gone in a whirlwind of music and laughter, of his sister glowing in a way you had never seen before, of toasts and dancing under strings of warm lights. You had somehow ended up outside, trading the muffled sounds of celebration drifting through the open doors of the reception hall for the cold silence of the outside.

You hadn’t planned to talk to him. In fact, you had spent most of the days of his visit avoiding being alone with him, dodging him and whatever it was that lingered between you both like an unfinished chapter. But he still managed to find you anyway, stepping out into the night with that same infuriating ease as if nothing had ever changed.

“Did anybody ever tell you that you scurry away like a mouse?” he jokingly prompted, hands tucked into his pockets. “For someone who’s supposed to be the maid of honor, you disappeared pretty fast.”

You didn’t look at him, instead fixing your gaze on the rippling water. “Didn’t realize I needed a chaperone.”

“Never said you did.”

Stillness settled between you, cut by the cicadas humming in the trees and the warm breeze rolling in from the bay. He was watching you. You could feel it.

“You been good?” he asked eventually, almost hesitant.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

“Business still going strong?”

Another nod.

Sam exhaled a soft laugh. “Damn. You always this talkative?”

Finally, you turned to face him, arms crossed over your chest. “Well, what do you want me to say, Sam? That it’s good to see you? That I missed you?”

He blinked, caught off guard.

“You know what? I did,” you admitted, your jaw tightening. “I missed you when you left, when you didn’t write, when you didn’t call. But then you show up years later on TV with wings on your back and a whole new life, and I—” You stopped yourself, shaking your head. “Forget it.”

Sam was quiet for a moment. “Listen, I never meant to—”

The sudden burst of camera flashes cut through the dark like lightning. Movements danced from the shadows beyond the dock. Figures. A handful of people, cameras raised, lenses trained on you both.

Your blood ran cold.

The pilot turned, his expression shifting in an instant. He stepped in front of you, partially blocking their view. “Hey! Back the hell up.”

The damage was already done. Your name was already in their mouths, in their cameras, and in their notes. And by morning, the world would be talking.

You knew it wasn’t his fault. Not entirely. The blame didn’t belong to him—not for the cameras, the prying eyes, or the intrusion. But the continuous letdown, the unresolved past, the hollow promises left unanswered—it all boiled over.

Maybe it was the years of unspoken resentment. How he had left and never looked back, only to come home like no time had passed—like you hadn’t once meant something. Or maybe it was the fact that for one fleeting instance, the world thought you belonged to him like you selfishly wanted to back then when he had never even fought to keep you.

The fight was inevitable. Hurtful words, raised voices. Raw anger tangled with accusations you didn’t mean spilling from your mouth before you could stop it, among the ones you did. And to his credit, he gave as good as he got. You weren’t the only one harboring old wounds. You weren’t the only one who felt burned by your shared past.

By the time the shouting stopped, the damage between you was just as permanent as the damage done by the eye-catching headlines. Some words couldn’t be taken back, just as ties, once broken, could never be pieced together the same way again.

The next morning, as you predicted, the internet had been set ablaze with speculation.

The press was relentless, churning through the story like a wildfire swallowing dry earth. The Falcon and his Mystery Woman—Who is She? New Romance or Old Flame? Falcon’s Secret Love Life—Exclusive Details Inside!

It was absurd. Laughable, even. You had snorted at the first few articles, rolling your eyes at the grainy photos that painted a story far more dramatic than the truth. You and Sam barely tolerated each other. If anything, your history was a testament to mutual irritation, not some clandestine love affair.

But the laughter didn’t last because the headlines didn’t fade. Because the story didn’t die.

Because soon enough, it wasn’t just some passing tabloid gossip. It was everywhere.

Paparazzi began to linger outside your workplace, their lenses snapping up every movement as if they could capture something scandalous in the mundane act of you stepping out for coffee. Your inbox flooded with emails—some from reporters fishing for a statement, others from people you hadn’t spoken to in years, suddenly eager to "reconnect."

Social media became a nightmare all on its own. Strangers dug through your past with eager, prying hands, dissecting old photos, analyzing every public interaction you’d ever had, and spinning theories about a relationship that had never even existed.

The worst part of your predicament was certainly work-related. Every handshake, every business meeting, and every new acquaintance suddenly all came with a question mark. Were they here for you or for the association? Were they interested in your work, in you, or just in the proximity you offered to something greater, to a man whose name counted amongst Earth’s greatest heroes?

And through it all, Sam had remained frustratingly unbothered.

"It’ll pass," he had dismissed with a shrug accompanying his words. "People move on when it comes to these kinds of things."

At most, he made sure you were surrounded by constant security and had some sort of secret service he was apart from watching over you in case malevolent spectators deemed it a good idea to bother you. While you were grateful for the protection, you had wondered if his lack of intervention to correct the situation with both words and actions wasn’t motivated by underlying factors.

Ultimately, you had been the one left dealing with the aftermath. The one picking up the pieces and untangling the mess, sifting through the wreckage of your privacy. And that was something you could never forgive.

You slowly exhaled, massaging your temple at the exasperating memory. “Let’s just say your brother has had a knack for making my life difficult and I got tired of it.”

Sarah hummed, skeptical but wise enough not to press too hard. “He’s really not as bad as you think.”

You shot her a dry look. “Sarah.”

She held up her hands in surrender, lips twitching. “Alright, alright. I won’t push.”

Before you could say more, the sound of a door swinging open interrupted you. Then came the hurried patter of feet and the excited shout of your name before two small bodies crashed into you, all limbs and boundless energy.

You caught them both with a grin, stumbling slightly under their weight as they clung to you.

“You taking us to school today?” Cass asked, beaming up at you.

You ruffled his curls, feigning deep thought. “I don’t know... you guys gonna behave?”

AJ gasped, scandalized. “We always behave!”

Their mother snorted at the blatant lie while you laughed, nudging AJ’s shoulder. “Alright then, let’s go.”

Sarah shook her head, a familiar mix of amusement and exasperation on her face. “They listen to you better than they listen to me.”

“That’s because I’m the cool auntie. Right, boys?”

Both of them cheered in agreement, to which she rolled her eyes and shooed you toward your car. “Go before I change my mind about letting you take them.”

You steered her children toward the vehicle, their voices rising in an animated debate over which of them would get to call shotgun and put their playlist to play for the drive. But even as you settled into the driver’s seat, their excited chatter filling the space around you, your mind remained elsewhere.

Sam was coming back.

And whether you liked it or not, you were going to have to deal with him.

⠀

The restaurant was already alive with the late afternoon rush by the time you strolled in with the boys coming back from school. Orders flew in, plates stacked high and the scent of fried seafood and rich gumbo diffused in the place. The kitchen bustled with movement—Sarah barking orders, cooks shuffling between stations, the sizzle of oil, the clang of metal on metal. Fortunately, you had worked enough shifts here during college to comfortably throw yourself into the chaos and fall into the rhythm with ease, balancing trays and dodging wayward elbows like second nature.

You had expected a busy night.

What you weren’t prepared for—what you could have gone your entire life without dealing with—was walking out of the kitchen, only to come face-to-face with the one person you had been dreading.

The door swung shut behind you, the sudden quiet of the dining area making the moment feel even heavier. Sam Wilson stood near the counter, arms crossed, an easy smirk already in place as if he hadn’t just been gone for years. The sight of his tall, broad and annoyingly self-assured stature made something stubborn coil in your chest. The golden glow of the setting sun slanted through the restaurant’s windows, catching on the sharp lines of his jaw and the slight curl of his lips, settling into the warm brown of his eyes with an infuriating sort of ease.

It had been years. But of course, of course, the first thing he did when he saw you was smirk and look at you the way he always did—like he was expecting a fight.

“Well, well,” he drawled, eyes flicking over you with the kind of scrutiny that made you itch to throw the nearest dish towel at his head. “They’re really letting just anyone work here now, huh?”

You scoffed, stepping behind the counter. “Funny. I was about to say the same thing.”

“Hey, I actually own part of this place,” he shot back, leaning against the wooden bar. “What’s your excuse?”

“Sarah asked me to help,” you replied smoothly, grabbing a clean set of glasses from the shelf. “What’s yours?”

“Thought I’d check in, be a good brother and say hi,” he sassily answered. “Didn’t realize I’d be graced with your presence too.”

“Lucky you,” you deadpanned with a tight-lipped smile, brushing past him.

And to your luck, he followed you to the back, offering unhelpful commentary while you restocked supplies, then bickered with you while you both helped—or at least attempted to—his sister with the dinner rush. Arguing over everything with the soldier felt like muscle memory at this point, and it showed in the way he reached for the same things you did, your movements accidentally falling into sync.

By the time things slowed down enough for dinner, you were already nursing a headache. It wasn’t until the pace had slowed and Sarah finally sat down with a plate of food after her kids were put to bed that the conversation turned against you.

“So,” Sarah stabbed a piece of calamari with her fork, looking at you with a glint of something announcing nothing good. “You seeing anyone yet?”

You nearly choked on your drink. Across from you, Sam let out a low chuckle.

“Oh, this should be good,” he mused, propping his chin on his hand and settling in like he was about to watch a show.

You shot him a glare before turning back to Sarah. “Not really.”

“Not really, or not at all?”

“Not. At. All.”

Sam let out a whistle, shaking his head in mock pity. “Damn. That’s rough.”

Your fingers tightened around your glass. “Well, it’s kind of your fault.”

The smirk fell right off his face. “My fault?”

You didn’t waver, locking eyes with him. “I don’t know if you remember, but you kind of put me on the map. You know, with that whole ‘mystery woman spotted with the Falcon’ thing?” You waved a hand vaguely. “Hard to trust people when they might secretly be fans. Or worse, spies.”

The hostess hummed in interest, taking a slow sip of her drink. “That does sound inconvenient.”

Sam scoffed. "Oh, be real, miss fancy pants. You can’t be serious.”

“But I am,” you shot back. “Because of you, I have to second-guess every new person I meet. Even for business.”

Sam shrugged, looking way too entertained. “Could be worse.”

You raised a brow. “Would you trust random people throwing themselves at you if the roles were reversed?”

He let out a sharp laugh, cocky and dismissive. “Sure, after a small background check.”

You leaned forward, your voice dripping with sarcasm. “Oh, totally. It’s so much fun when I get approached because people think I’m some tragic ex or long-lost lover of yours. Or getting bombarded with people asking if I ever hooked up with the Falcon, or if I have ‘tea’ to spill on our ‘relationship’, or if I’m ‘jealous’ that you’re off saving the world and not wasting time.” You tilted your head. “That’s just peak entertainment.”

For once, the Avenger had nothing to say.

You narrowed your eyes. “Oh, and let’s not forget the weirdos who DM me saying they’d be happy to ‘fill the hole’ you supposedly left in my life.”

Sam choked on his drink, coughing violently. “What?”

“Oh yeah.” You pulled out your phone, tapped a few times, then held it out to him. “Here. Go ahead. Take a look at your legacy.”

He grabbed it hesitantly, scrolling through your inbox, his expression shifting from amused to horrified. “Oh, hell no,” he muttered. “What the hell is wrong with people?”

Sarah smirked. “Damn, Sam. Ruined her dating life and left her with internet weirdos. That’s cold.”

Sam dragged a hand down his face. “Okay, fine, that’s bad.” He handed your phone back. “But still, you could’ve just—I don’t know—ignored it? De-activate your socials?”

You stared at him, deadpan. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just ignore the fact that I have to Google every guy I talk to just to make sure they’re not running a secret fan account for you.”

He burst out laughing, to which you childishly responded by throwing a fry at his head.

Sarah, watching all this like it was prime-time TV, suddenly perked up. “I might have a solution.”

You groaned. “I don’t like that tone.”

“No, no, hear me out,” she insisted, grinning. “I saw this thing the other day—apparently, there’s a place in town that does blind dates in escape rooms.”

You blinked. “You saw what now?”

“It’s a fun concept,” she continued breezily. “Two people, locked in a room, working together to get out. You don’t know who you’re paired with beforehand, and it forces you to communicate.” She took another bite of her food, then added, “I think you two should try it.”

You both turned to her at the same time. “No—” “Hell no.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You two are so dramatic. It’s literally an escape room—”

“With a blind date,” you interrupted with frantic gestures. “As in, being forced into a confined space with a random stranger and trusting them enough to help me get out.” You shook your head. “Not happening.”

Sarah gave you a pointed look. “You do realize that’s exactly what dating is, right?”

You glared. “Don’t make points right now.”

She turned her attention to Sam, who was still muttering under his breath. “And what’s your problem?”

Her brother shot her a disbelieving look. “You seriously don’t see the issue?”

“Nope.”

He let out an incredulous laugh. “It’s way too risky for me to go in public and have my info given out to some company and get paired up with someone potentially crazy like her right here. Yeah, no way in hell I’m signing up for that.”

You turned back to Sarah. “Do you hear the way he talks to me? And you think I should be dating?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly why I’m setting you up with other people. You both need a reality check.”

You groaned, rubbing your temples. “Okay, ignoring the audacity of that statement—why an escape room? If I wanted to be locked in a room with a stranger, I’d call my internet provider.”

Sarah once again ignored your rebuttals. “It forces you to work together. Communication, problem-solving, a little trust—”

Sam let out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, no thanks. I’d rather skydive without a parachute.”

“You literally have a parachute,” you deadpanned.

“Exactly,” Sam said. “Which is why I don’t need to go on some experimental dating hostage situation.”

Sarah huffed, crossing her arms. “Fine. Let me put it this way—if you don’t go, I’ll tell Bucky you’re both too scared to put yourselves out there.”

You wanted to put up a bigger fight, if not for the very real threat of James Buchanan Barnes getting wind of this.

You had met him once, years ago, during one of Sam’s very unwelcome, very impromptu visits. You hadn’t even been expecting company that day, let alone a literal ex-assassin sitting at Sarah’s dining table like it was the most normal thing in the world. And to make matters worse, Sam had introduced you in the most obnoxious way possible.

“This is my sister’s best friend. She talks a big game but couldn’t win an argument if her life depended on it.”

And Bucky, with all the smugness of someone who absolutely enjoyed making your life difficult, had just smirked, leaned back in his chair, and smugly commented—

“Huh. Sounds familiar.”

You hadn’t even known him for five minutes, and he had already sided with Sam. Ever since, the latter had made sure to weaponize their friendship against you at every opportunity, regardless of the fast-growing amicability between his former partner and you.

And you knew that if Bucky found out about this, you would never hear the end of it. He’d be relentless. Casually dropping mentions of your lack of a partner into every conversation, even if the irony lied in him being in the same situation—though he’d probably argue that unlike him, there was a lack of trying on your part as well as the absence of an excuse as astronomical as being a well-known mass murderer with an insane past. And also probably betting money on how fast you’d walk out of the damn escape room.

Sam narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

His sister’s grin only widened. “Oh, I absolutely would.”

You could already picture it—Bucky, smirking like he had all the dirt in the world on you and bringing it up at the most inopportune moments. Teasing you mercilessly every time you so much as glanced at your phone. Probably making some dumb comment like, “So, can’t find anyone to put up with you?”

Nope. Absolutely not.

You exhaled sharply, rubbing your temples. “I so hate you right now.”

Sarah just smiled. “So that’s a yes?”

The Falcon groaned in desperation. “This is blackmail.”

She simply shrugged at the accusation. “I like to think of it as strong encouragement.”

"How long is it?” you finally asked, defeated.

“One hour.”

Sam groaned, tipping his head back. “Sixty minutes of my life I’m never getting back.”

The restaurant’s owner shrugged, too pleased with herself to care. “Think of it this way—worst-case scenario, you get out and never see the person again.”

The pilot grumbled under his breath before sharply exhaling after a long pause. “Whatever. But when this goes horribly, I want it on record that I called it.”

“Duly noted.”

⠀

The sun was dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in streaks of orange and violet as you gripped the wheel of your car with the force of someone actively trying not to commit murder. The drive to the escape room was supposed to be uneventful. Key words: supposed to. But Sam Wilson had never once encountered an opportunity for peace without promptly deciding to mischievously ruin it.

It started small. A shift in his seat, a glance at the dashboard, an exhale so faint you almost didn’t catch it. Then, before you knew it, his fingers were wandering, prodding at the glossy screen in the center console with an exaggerated curiosity that made your temple throb.

You gritted your teeth. "Stop touching things."

“Relax,” he drawled, ever the picture of unbothered arrogance. "I’m just exploring my environment."

“It’s not an environment, it’s my car.”

Sam clicked his tongue, grinning in a way that meant nothing good. “You got all these fancy-ass features, and you don’t even use ‘em? Shame. Really makes me question your judgment.”

“You’re about to question your life choices when I push you out onto the freeway.”

With all of your previous spouts, you should have known that issuing such a warning would only serve to encourage his childish behavior.

It started with him cranking the seat warmers up to their highest setting, slowly enough that you didn’t notice until your lower back was mysteriously drenched in sweat. He followed by playing with the ambient lighting, flipping through every color at an alarming rate until the inside of your car looked like a malfunctioning disco ball. But the worst, the absolute worst, came when he discovered your Bluetooth.

A horrendous mix of static and Sam’s laughter blasted through your speakers as the system synced.

You gawked at him. “If you so much as—”

Before you could finish your sentence, the familiar bright and bouncy opening chords of Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus blared from the speakers, the bubbly pop song catering a stark contrast to the slow-building horror creeping up your spine.

Sam, entirely unbothered by your stricken expression, immodestly threw his feet up onto the dashboard with the air of a man settling in for a long, leisurely road trip rather than someone actively testing the limits of your patience. With the unrestrained passion of a performer standing before a sold-out stadium crowd, he threw his head back and belted at the top of his lungs, “And a Jay-Z song was on!”

You recoiled, grimacing as his voice cracked mid-note. But before responding, you reached over and smacked his legs off the dashboard, sending his sneakers thudding back to the floor. “Get your dirty feet off my dash,” you snapped.

Sam clutched his chest like you’d wounded him. “Oh, live a bit, woman. Damn, you really have no appreciation for the arts or my comfort?”

Your grip tightened around the steering wheel as you ignored his jab, leveling him instead with a flat, unimpressed stare. “This,” you slowly voiced with incredulity, “is the choice you made?”

“Hell yeah.” He nodded in affirmation, not even pausing in his off-key, wholly committed performance. “This is a certified anthem.”

“This is a cry for help.”

Sam gasped, scandalized. “You don’t like Party in the USA?”

“I do. I just don’t like you singing Party in the USA.” Without breaking your focus on the road, you lunged for his phone, yanking it from his grip with the precision of someone who had endured one too many of his antics. A dramatic click later, and blissful silence fell over the cabin.

Your passenger, however, was anything but deterred. He cackled, shoulders shaking, entirely too smug.

You inhaled deeply, willing the tension in your fingers to ease before you left permanent indentations on the wheel. “I swear to God, Wilson—”

“Hey,” he cut in, still grinning like a man with no fear of consequences. “Could’ve been worse. I could’ve switched it to romance audiobooks.”

“I will crash this car.”

The silence was short-lived. Like a cocky thief in the night, Sam moved with the precision of a soldier and the recklessness of a man who knew exactly how to test your limits. One second, the phone was in your grasp, victory assured. The next, it was snatched away with infuriating ease.

You barely had time to register the offense before the speakers flared back to life, the cabin suddenly swelling with the smooth, honeyed tones of a song that hit far too close to home.

"I see the crystal raindrops fall…"

Your eyes snapped to him, narrowing in slow, dawning realization. The Falcon, unbothered and wholly self-satisfied, leaned back against the seat with his arms folded behind his head as if he hadn't just detonated a nostalgia bomb between you. The smooth timbre of Grover Wshington Jr.’s voice accompagnied the melodious instrumental of Just the Two of Us, the saxophone bringing more than just nostalgia of a classic.

You knew exactly what he was doing. You remembered the easy rhythm of laughter between verses as you'd vaguely engage in a clumsy waltz, tripping over both feet and lyrics and pretending it was intentional. You remembered Sam’s off-key falsetto and your equally disastrous harmonies, along with the unshakable euphoria and certainty that no matter where life took you, you’d always end up in the same place.

But life had a way of rewriting certainties—the choices that wedged themselves between you was certainly proof of it. And yet, despite everything that happened, that song still had its hooks in you.

Sam, ever the instigator, drummed his fingers against the dashboard, slow and patient, like a fisherman waiting for the line to tug. When you didn’t react, he turned his head and elbowed you in your arm. “C’mon. Don’t act like you don’t remember.”

Your fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “I do remember.”

“Then sing.”

You scoffed, pretending it didn’t get to you. “Pass.”

His grin sharpened. “Boo, loser. What, so you can’t sing anymore? That’s crazy. Didn’t know losing your ability to sing was part of getting old and bitter—”

Your glare should have scorched him and wiped that insufferable smirk right off his face, but he only leaned in, fully basking in his role as an unrepentant menace.

"We can make it if we try…" He sang it pointedly, nudging you again with his elbow like an annoying kid brother. You swatted him away without sparing a glance. He did it again. And again. Until finally—

You exhaled sharply, grip slackening. “I hate you.”

But as the chorus approached, the words left your lips before you could stop them.

"Just the two of us…"

It was barely a whisper at first, something fragile and unintentional. But Sam caught it immediately and grinned just as quickly, victorious, before singing louder.

You rolled your eyes, but the fight was already lost.

“That’s my girl,” he cheered on, and before you could roll your eyes, he threw his head back and belted out the next line with all the fanciness of a Broadway performer.

By the next verse, you were both loudly singing off-key. He purposely overstated his notes, while you botched entire lines just to tease him. Laughter flowed freely between lines, busting through the barricades you'd both painstakingly established. Sam, ever the dramatist, went full concert mode, wiggling his shoulders like an overenthusiastic backup dancer and pretending to hold a microphone as he crooned into his fist.

“No,” you moaned in exasperation between bursts of laughter as he hit an ungodly note. “That was—oh my God, Sam, stop—that is a crime against music.”

He only doubled down, adding unnecessary falsetto flourishes and pointing dramatically out the window as if serenading the passing trees. The harmonies were an absolute disaster. The timing was questionable at best. But for those few minutes, it didn’t matter. It was just you and Sam, the car, and the open road, voices colliding in the space between you.

It shouldn't have felt so natural, to slip into something that had been tearing around the edges for years. But for a brief while, it did—which was perilous, like plunging into still waters.

No matter how lighthearted it appeared, you were smart enough to understand that the political choice in this song was not only to reminisce about one of your favorite memories, but also to convey a hidden message, as the song still had meaning in its lines. “We can make it if we try”. It was a promise, one you had scarcely believed in with your whole heart before you had to learn to live without him.

By the time the final note of the song was hit, the magic was broken. You cleared your throat and adjusted your grip on the wheel. You mumbled, "Still sing like a damn goat," since it was easier than admitting anything else.

Sam snorted. "You still talk big for someone who sounds like a dying cat."

Quietness regained its rightful place, this time more charged than before with the shadow of something lost between you. He shoved his hands into his pockets, head down, looking like he was trying to collect his thoughts—or just avoid whatever was about to spill out.

“Look, about everything that happened...” He hesitated, voice trailing off, before he tried again. “I didn’t mean—”

You cut him off before he could continue. “It’s fine,” you muttered, trying to keep the ache from spilling over. “Honestly, I should’ve expected it. You’re always going to be tied up in something bigger than us. I get it now. I should’ve known better.”

The pilot didn’t respond right away but you still made out the sound of him breathing down his nose, betraying the turmoil that was spiralling in his mind. “I just—I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring what happened. I—”

“No.” The word came out before you could stop it, hard and final. Your lips twisted into a smile, but it was bitter, hollow. “You don’t need to apologize anymore. It’s not necessary. I mean, the Air Force is a big thing. And now with the whole Avengers thing…” Your breath hitched slightly. “You had big priorities. It’s understandable.”

The words left a bitter taste on your tongue, every syllable a shard of resentment you had tried for so long to swallow. “It’s okay. You don’t need to make up some excuse.”

Sam’s expression flickered, his features shifting subtly as he processed your words, but he didn’t respond. His silence felt like another slap in the face, the unspoken weight of his guilt settling over the car.

"It just hurt," you continued, the words uncontrollably tumbling out of your mouth, as if you couldn’t hold them back any longer. "You said you’d make time. That we could figure it out." Your voice cracked slightly, but you pushed on, your chest tight with the pressure of everything you’d been carrying. "But then... it was like I was just some side story to your life. I had to deal with everything on my own. You didn’t just leave me, Sam. You left me hanging in front of the entire world, like I was an afterthought."

You could see him flinching and opening his mouth to speak, but the reply stayed stuck somewhere behind his teeth for awhile. “I didn’t mean for it to happen that way,” he finally admitted, his voice tight with frustration, lips pressed into a thin line. “You have to know that.”

You let out a dry laugh, bitter and edged with years of pent-up anger. "No," you spat, shaking your head. "I don’t know that. I really don’t. And now you want to apologize? You think a few words will make it go away?" You turned to him then with glaring eyes, the dam inside you breaking wide open. “But I guess I should’ve known better, right? You’ve always got more important things on your plate than me. And I was just dumb enough to think I could be part of it." You let out a shaky breath. "That’s on me, not you.”

Sam’s shoulders tensed, his fists clenched so tightly against his knees that you could see the tendons in his hands strain. "That’s not fair," he rasped.

“No,” you bit out with the bitter burn of years of disappointment. “What’s not fair is pretending everything’s okay now, like you didn’t leave me in the dust. You can’t just waltz back in here and expect me to forget how much it hurt when you left me behind.”

Sam growled, his gaze snapping to yours with an intensity that could’ve burned brighter than the sunlight reflecting on the windshield. “I didn’t mean to do that. It wasn’t like that. If you’d just let me explain—”

But you were already shaking your head, a bitter laugh slipping out as you cut him off. "It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing this again."

The rest of the drive stretched on in silence, bouncing on the precarious mix of unsaid words and the sharp sting of old wounds reopening. By the time you pulled into the parking lot of the escape room, your knuckles were white against the steering wheel, your body wound tight with the tension of everything you’d let out during the ride.

You almost yanked the car into park with more force than necessary, the engine’s rumbling metaphorically serving as a harsh reminder of how you were both still reeling from your slight altercation.

The door slammed shut behind you, but neither of you made a move to walk toward the entrance. The space between you felt wider than the parking lot itself. You weren’t sure what else to say, if there was even anything left to say.

“You should go inside first,” you finally said, your eyes staying firmly on the building in front of you. “I still need to arrange a few things in the car.” You were making a conscious decision to create some distance, to not go beyond what you could navigate through the dangerous waves of this confrontation. “Good luck with your date… or, uh, escape game.” You gave a small, tight smile, though it felt more like a bitter farewell than any kind of encouragement.

Sam silently hesitated, his eyes searching yours, like he was about to say something—but the words never formed. Instead, he took a deep breath and gave a short nod. "You too. Good luck with... whatever it is you're gonna do, too."

Without another word, he turned his back to you and walked toward the entrance with stiff shoulders. His footsteps echoed against the pavement as he left you alone, marking said distance you were so adamant on implementing once and for all.

You didn’t watch him go. You couldn’t. Instead, you opened your door with a soft creak, the cool night air rushing in as you slid back into the driver’s seat. It felt like a strange kind of closure, the door clicking shut behind you as if you were signing the definite end of a chapter, even if nothing really felt settled. With a shaky hand, you wiped the stray tears that had fallen down your cheeks, quickly brushing them away like they never happened, like you could pretend they weren’t there.

You took a deep breath, steadying yourself. There was still the night ahead, the escape game to focus on, even if your heart wasn’t entirely in it.

⠀

The artificial chill of the air conditioning wrapped around you as soon as you stepped inside, abruptly differing from the lingering warmth of dusk. The area smelled somewhat floral, though not in a pleasant way—more like a half-hearted attempt to conceal the antiseptic, even clinical ambiance. The welcome space looked sleek and modern, with clean lines and soft, ambient lighting, but something seemed odd.

A trio of employees stood behind the clean counter, their demeanor courteous but impersonal. Their uniforms were clean, their smiles practiced, and their eyes assessing—not in a way that made you feel welcome, but rather processed.

"Just need you to sign a few things," one of them said, sliding a clipboard toward you with the kind of ease that suggested they had done this a hundred times before. Maybe a thousand.

You picked up the pen and skimmed the pages, your brows knitting together. Waiver. Consent form. Limited liability in the case of mild distress.

Everything screamed shady.

Even though you knew they conducted a comprehensive background check on their clients' criminal records—you knew because you boldly inquired beforehand—your gut twisted with disquiet, a silent warning you had long since learned not to ignore. But you forced yourself to exhale, suppressing the mounting doubt. Sarah planned this, and she wouldn't throw you into an underground horror movie scenario, right?

Still, the blindfold part? That was peculiar, to say the least.

“Standard procedure,” the staff member assured you in a smooth and clearly rehearsed tone. That didn’t make you feel any better.

But you weren’t about to back out now. Soundly sighing, you allowed them to tie the fabric securely over your eyes, and in an instant, the world went black.

A friendly but firm hand took you down what appeared to be a long corridor. Each step heightened the sense of disorientation, the absence of sight accentuating everything else—hushed murmurs in the distance, the continuous flaps of an air vent above, the dull pressure of the floor under you. Then a pause. The air became colder. A door opened, and you were gently guided inside.

The door shut behind you, and the person beside you vanished.

You swallowed hard, your fingers twitching at the sides. The lack of vision made everything feel too much—the faint shuffle of your own feet as you shifted nervously, the way your breathing seemed louder than it should, the slight press of your pulse on your temples. How long were they going to leave you here?

The weight of the silence stretched, and so did the edges of your nerves. Finally, the door creaked open again. Your spine became rigid. Footsteps, slow and measured. The door clicked closed once more.

Someone was here.

You exhaled, forcing an easy tone into your voice despite the unease creeping up your spine. "So, uh… I guess this is the part where we introduce ourselves? Hi, I’m—"

A strange, loaded silence tightened around you like a noose, twisting in your stomach. Were they simply joking with you? Or was there something else going on here?

Your patience, already thin after the day's events, had fully frayed. Screw this. Against your better judgment, you reached up and ripped the blindfold off, blinking rapidly as your eyes acclimated to the room's dull, amber hue.

And there, across from you, stood Sam. A solitary rose danced between his fingers, whirling aimlessly, as if he had all the time in the world. His attitude was unreadable—calm and poised, but his eyes held something you couldn't quite identify.

"Oh, hell no."

Sam let out a humorless chuckle, rubbing his temple like the sheer force of his fingers could press back the headache forming there. “Unbelievable,” he sneered, shaking his head. “I should’ve known Sarah was up to something when she kept dodging my questions.”

You let out a scoff, dragging a hand down your face as the reality of the situation settled over you like an unbearable weight. “This is what I get for trusting Sarah with this. Honestly, I’d rather deal with Bucky’s endless teasing right now than… this.”

The veteran arched a brow, folding his arms. “To be fair, you did let her set you up on a blind date with a stranger.”

You leveled him with a look. “Yeah, and so did you!” You threw up your hands. “And we came here together. Did she seriously think we wouldn’t notice?”

He exhaled sharply, his expression caught between exasperation and reluctant amusement. “Guess she figured we’d be too busy arguing to put the pieces together.”

You scoffed. “Well, congrats to her, then. She got exactly what she wanted.”

Determined to put an end to this ridiculous setup, you turned toward the door, grasped the handle, and gave it a firm tug. It didn’t budge. Your pulse ticked higher. You tried again, more forcefully this time, but the door remained stubbornly locked.

Behind you, Sam sighed, the sound far too entertained for your liking. “Still locked?”

You shot him a glare over your shoulder, jaw tight. “Obviously.”

Before he could toss out another quip, the overhead speakers crackled to life, the static buzzing through the dimly lit room before a saccharine, overly cheerful voice filled the space.

"Welcome, lovebirds, to the Valentine’s Day Escape Challenge!"

Your entire body went rigid. Sam, standing just a few feet away, had stilled completely, his eyes narrowing like he was already regretting every life choice that had led to this moment.

"Over the next hour, you and your partner will work together to solve puzzles, uncover secrets, and—most importantly—ignite a spark between you!"

Your eye twitched. "The what?"

The Falcon was still staring up at the speaker, but you could feel the sheer amount of unspoken profanity radiating off of him.

"You have sixty minutes! And remember... teamwork makes the dream work!"

A mechanical clunk sounded somewhere in the room, and a timer flickered to life on the far wall, its neon numbers casting an ominous glow.

59:59. 59:58. 59:57.

You inhaled deeply through your nose, forcing down the overwhelming urge to scream, then turned to Sam. He met your stare, equally exasperated, equally resigned.

The room was an assault of saccharine love-themed aesthetics, as if Eros himself had suffered a violent, glitter-drenched demise. Heart-shaped garlands draped along the walls in looping chains, glowing pink fairy lights casting a hazy, dreamlike blush over every velvet-draped surface. A gilded vanity stood against one wall, its mirror smeared with cryptic riddles in waxy, crimson lipstick. The simulated fireplace screen let out crackled sounds, its flames flickering just a little too artificially, a cheap illusion of warmth in a space meant to seduce.

At the center of it all sat a small, round table, dressed in pristine white linen, set for two. A single wax-sealed envelope rested atop the china, like the final invitation to some grand, elaborate joke.

Sam let out a low whistle, slow and unimpressed as he took in the spectacle. “It’s like Cupid threw up in here.”

You crossed your arms, exhaling through your nose. “More like a discount wedding venue.”

“Either way, I already hate it.”

“Great. Common ground.” You stepped forward, plucking the envelope off the table, breaking the seal with a sharp tear. “Means we’ll get through this faster.”

Inside, a delicate pink card gleamed under the low lighting, its cursive gold lettering gliding across the surface like a whispered dare:

"To escape, one must first unlock the heart. Find the key, answer truthfully, and embrace the game."

You flipped the card over, your frown deepening. Blank.

“Well, that’s unhelpful.”

Sam leaned in over your shoulder, the warmth of his unwelcome presence creeping at your back. “Sounds like a load of nonsense.”

“Sounds like we need to find a key.” You tossed the card aside and swept your gaze across the room. “Let’s just get this over with.”

He followed at an infuriatingly lazy pace, hands tucked in his pockets. “You always this impatient on dates?”

You shot him a glare. “You always this obnoxious?”

“‘That a rhetorical question?”

You huffed, stepping toward the vanity. Its antique gold frame was chipped, and its once-opulent beauty weathered down to something just shy of decadent. Trinkets littered the surface—heart-shaped perfume bottles, a pearl necklace draped over a porcelain hand sculpture, and a plush teddy bear wearing a satin bow tie.

You picked up the bear, giving it a shake. Something rattled inside. Without hesitation, you grabbed the bow and pulled at it, to which the Avenger let out a sharp breath. “At least pretend to have some finesse. Poor guy.”

You turned, leveling him with a glare. “Oh, I’m sorry, would you prefer I politely ask the stuffed animal for the key?”

His smirk was all teeth. “Wouldn’t hurt to try.”

With an exaggerated tug, the bow finally tore away, revealing a tiny brass key stitched into the lining. Triumphant, you held it up between two fingers, letting it catch the candlelight. “Hah. Suck it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He nodded toward the oversized keyhole carved into the farthest door. “Moment of truth.”

The lock clicked smoothly, the door groaning as it swung inward to reveal the next part of your prison—a room bathed in deep red velvet, dimly lit by flickering candle sconces. A loveseat sat at its heart, a small pedestal beside it, where a single glass dome encased a perfect red rose.

You exhaled sharply. “Great. More romantic fuckery.”

Sam rolled his shoulders, his stance widening. “Starting to think this whole thing is just an excuse for people to make out in a locked room.”

You shot him a warning look. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Oh, trust me, you’re really killing the mood.”

Your attention shifted to the plaque beneath the rose. The words, engraved in curling script, sent an uneasy shiver down your spine: "A promise once spoken, never fulfilled, lingers in the heart forever." You took a step back, exhaling a little too precipitously. “Alright. Where’s the next clue?”

Sam didn’t move. His gaze lingered on the plaque before flickering back to you. “That bother you?”

“Nope,” you said too quickly. “Just wanna get out of here.”

He studied you, and for once, he wasn’t all for the laughs. “You’re lying straight to my face.”

You stiffened. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on.” His voice was laced with the same exasperation you remembered from years ago—when things were different. When things were good. “You think I don’t know? You think I don’t see it?”

You pivoted angrily towards him. “See what, Sam? I told you everything already. You want to talk about how years later, when you came back, I was the one whose name got dragged through the dirt because some paparazzi decided I made a convenient headline?”

His jaw ticked. “You think I wanted that to happen?”

“Well you barely did a damn thing to stop it, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, so that was my fault?” His voice rose, heat sparking in his eyes. “I was trying to keep you out of that mess! You think I had any control over what the media did?”

“Maybe not.” Your breath came hard now, uneven. “But you had control over what you did. And you chose to stay silent.”

The room’s candlelight flickered violently, shadows dancing along the walls that suddenly felt like they were closing in on you, encaging you in this intolerable and toxic chasm of tug-of-war fight. Sam’s hands flexed at his sides. He looked like he wanted to grab something—grab you, maybe, or stop himself from doing exactly that.

“Say it,” he finally murmured, voice rough.

You swallowed. “Say what?”

“Whatever it is you’ve been dying to say since I walked back here.” His gaze burned into yours. “Go ahead. Get it out.”

The pathetic words escaped before you could stop them.

“You lied to me and I hate you for it.”

Sam flinched, but you pressed on, voice breaking on the edges. “You promised I wouldn’t just be some forgotten thing in your past. And you never even tried.”

His nostrils flared. “You think I didn’t want to?”

“Oh, please.” You let out a bitter laugh. “You were fine. You left, became a hero, and forgot all about me until you came back wearing a fucking jetpack.”

“You were never something I could forget.”

You felt something crack in your chest. “You don’t get to say that now, Sam,” you whispered.

He stepped closer. Then again. You barely realized you were moving too, until the air between you collapsed, the heat of his body pressing into yours, the tension a live wire sparking between your ribs.

"Then look me in the eye," Sam rasped, his voice raw, teetering on the edge of something dangerous. "Look at me and tell me I’m lying and this doesn’t mean anything anymore. Tell me you don’t feel it—say the words, and I’ll walk away. But say them like you mean them."

Your throat worked, but no words came. Because as much as you wanted to deny the allegations, you did feel it. The frustration, the anger. And beneath it all—the wanting, the aching. The bone-deep longing for something neither of you had the courage to claim when it mattered.

In an unfurling of sudden movement, his back hit the wall with a dull thud, but before he could react, you were on him, fisting the front of his shirt and crashing your mouth against his, engaging in a battle more than a kiss. It was akin to a wildfire—scorching, desperate, all teeth and heat, the culmination of every regret and every second wasted.

The pilot groaned into it, his hands flying to your waist, strong and sure as he hauled you against him. A sharp gasp left you at the feeling of his body flush with yours, but he didn’t give you room to think or to breathe. He spun you, pressing you back against the wall, his mouth relentless against yours, moving with a punishing, consuming intent—like he wanted to devour you whole.

Your fingers twisted further into his meticulous white shirt, attempting to pull him impossibly closer than you already were. He swallowed the sound that escaped you, deepening the kiss like a starved man, like he needed this, needed you, needed to make up for all the time lost.

His lips dragged over your jaw, hot breath ghosting against your skin.

"Still mad?" he murmured against your lips, voice thick with want, teasing even now, even like this.

Your teeth sank into his bottom lip, seizing it and savoring how his breath hitched at your doing, the way his fingers flexed against your waist. "Furious."

Sam’s breath stuttered against your lips, a ragged sound caught between a groan and something dangerously close to surrender. His fingers curled into your waist, holding you like he needed to anchor himself, like if he let go, you’d slip through his grasp and take the last shred of his self-control with you.

The kiss burned, devouring, each second unraveling the years of restraint neither of you wanted to acknowledge anymore. You felt the tension in the way he pressed against you, in the way his hands slid beneath your shirt, palms searing against your skin. Your nails raked down his back, dragging over hard covered muscle, bunching the fabric of his shirt in your fists as if you could pull him deeper into you, as if there was any space left between you to close.

"Tell me to stop," Sam gasped through the clashing of your mouths, the words nearly lost to the breathlessness between you. His request went ignored as his lips traced a slow, punishing path down your jaw, his breath hot against your throat as his hands wandered, gripping, relearning, claiming back what was once his for a brief instance.

You tilted your head, granting him more access, shivering as he took it without hesitation, teeth scraping against sensitive skin. Your fingers roamed over his chest, feeling the warmth of him through his shirt, the solid weight of him beneath your touch. It wasn’t enough. You needed more. Needed skin, heat, the press of him without barriers.

Your hands found the first button of his shirt, fumbling in your urgency. One button slipped free, then another, the fabric parting under your fingers.

Until the door slammed open.

You barely had time to gasp before Sam reacted on instinct. In a blur of movement, he thrusted you behind him, body braced like a shield between you and whoever had just interrupted.

A pair of employees stood in the doorway, frozen like deer in headlights. One clutched a clipboard, the other a maintenance checklist, both staring like they had just walked in on a crime scene.

A heavy silence stretched between all of you.

"Uh…" The clipboard guy cleared his throat, his voice weak, almost apologetic. "This… isn't a private room."

Sam exhaled sharply through his nose, his patience clearly dangling by a thread. His chest still heaved with unspent frustration and the lingering burn of what had been seconds away from happening. He ran a slow hand down his face before fixing them with a dark, pointed look.

"Clearly," he said flatly.

The maintenance guy swallowed hard. "We—we knocked. Three times."

Clipboard guy shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting everywhere but at you and Sam. "Look, we know you signed up for it and all, but this is too much—you can’t stay here. We have to ask you to leave. Immediately."

The Avenger stepped forward, rolling his shoulders as he looked them up and down. The movement was subtle, but the effect was instant. Clipboard guy flinched. Maintenance guy tensed, suddenly looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.

"You saw nothing," he declared lowly. "And whatever you think you saw? No you didn’t." His gaze flicked downward, locking onto the phone peeking out of the employee’s pocket.

The guy scrambled to pull it out, hands shaking as he unlocked the screen. "N-Nothing there! See?" He turned it around in a panic.

Sam barely glanced at it before nodding, satisfied. "Good. Smart choice."

You bit your lip, caught between laughter and mortification as Sam slid an arm around your waist, steering you toward the exit with purposeful ease.

"Now," he continued, voice laced with something smug as he leaned in just enough for only you to hear, "if you’ll excuse us, we have somewhere else to be."

His grip on your hip tightened as he led you outside, your pulse hammering in response, the rest of the world fading as the need he had ignited moments ago roared back to life with a vengeance.

⠀

The ride back to the restaurant was enveloped in a heavy silence—not the brittle awkwardness of unspoken apologies nor the tenseness of imminent confrontation, but a solemn, almost sacred quietude laden with things neither of you yet dared to name.

You kept your eyes fixed on the road, though the lingering warmth of Sam’s hand on your waist remained—a memory of intimacy that had evaporated the instant you stepped out of that room. The echo of what had nearly transpired clung to your skin like a phantom caress, simmering just beneath the surface, an unacknowledged secret shared between you.

When you finally reached the restaurant, the usual mix of clamors of conversation and the tinkling of glasses felt jarringly discordant against the subdued cadence of your thoughts. You both hesitated at the entrance, lingering in the threshold. After a long pause, Sam sighed deeply, his hand drifting to his jaw as if to smooth away the remnants of the night’s turbulence. “Go wait for me,” he ordered you, “at our spot.”

That command stopped you in your tracks.

Our spot.

It had been years since either of you had dared to approach it, much less mention it aloud. The old corner by the water hidden from the prying lights of the city, where you had once spent long, languid nights nursing cheap beer, debating everything and nothing, and watching the world settle into quiet dreams. Back when neither of you had been bold enough to risk shattering that fragile haven.

You searched his face, but his eyes were fixed beyond you, as if he were still uncertain whether the words should have been spoken at all. Still, you nodded.

The dock greeted you like a cherished relic from a bygone era. Weathered wooden planks stretched over dark, rippling water, the faint, distant glow of the city shimmering in its reflection. The air was crisp and invigorating, hinting at the encroaching chill of night and making you wish you had remembered to bring a jacket.

You sank onto the edge of the dock, letting your feet dangle freely above the water, your fingers twisting together in quiet contemplation. Time slipped by in muted anticipation until, at last, the sound of footsteps echoed softly behind you. Then, as if conjured by the very night, a presence settled beside you.

Without a word, Sam pressed a cold bottle on your forehead that burned as it met your skin, making you almost jump out of your place before you took the flask of whiskey—and set another beside him. He then unfurled a thick, timeworn blanket, draping it over both of you with a fluid, almost reverent motion.

The warmth of the blanket combined with the closeness of his body seeped into you instantly, chasing away the chill of the night. For a long moment, you simply sat there, the dock creaking softly beneath your weight, the gentle lapping of water against old wood composing a quiet symphony for your shared solitude.

You sighed, rolling the bottle between your palms. “So..”

One simple word laden with the totality of everything left unsaid, a distillation of years of longing, regret and the raw, unspoken truth of your intertwined past.

You exhaled slowly, tightening your grip on the blanket as though holding it could tether you both to this moment. This was it—the precipice upon which you both now stood. There was no turning away, no hiding behind silence any longer.

“So,” Sam repeated, his voice tinged with playful mischief as he copied your idle toying with the cold bottle in his hand, “that was… something, wasn’t it?”

“Ugh, don’t say something cliché like that. But yeah, that was definitely something for the books, I guess.” You managed a shaky smile, your words emerging in a hesitant cadence. There was a lightness in your tone—a mirth that felt like a delicate mask over the swirling emotions that both terrified and enthralled you.

The Falcon grinned, arching an eyebrow. “You know, if it weren’t for how noisy Sarah is, we might have savored it in peace.”

You chuckled softly, the sound both amused and rueful. “She practically narrated our every move. You know she loves her piece of drama.”

“Exactly,” he agreed in a playful tone yet laced with something deeper—a hint of regret, perhaps. “I think she made sure we were loud enough for at least the entire escape room to hear.”

You shook your head, still smiling despite the vulnerability threading through your laughter. “I guess sometimes a little noise is inevitable. I mean, if everything were hushed, we’d never have the chance to remember just how messy and magnificent it all was.”

Sam’s eyes softened as he took a slow sip from the bottle, the amber liquid catching the light. “Sounds like the perfect way to put it,” he murmured absent-mindedly. Your fingers moved on to fidget with the edge of the blanket draped around you, and Sam’s gaze frequently wandered to your flushed face, as if silently pleading for some unspoken reassurance.

“Ask me,” he suddenly requested, his voice both gentle and edged with a trace of desperation, as though he believed that the right question might finally untangle the knots of regret and longing that had haunted you both for so long. “Ask me the question you’ve been holding back.”

Your heart pounded against your ribs, each beat echoing with years of missed chances and unspoken words. In a trembling rush of emotion, you blurted out, “What—uh, did you like it?” Your voice quavered, carrying the weight of the moment like a fragile plea.

Sam’s eyes shimmered with a mixture of relief and sorrow as he slowly shook his head. “No,” he replied, his tone soft yet resolute. “I mean—yes, but that’s not what I meant.” He paused, carefully choosing his words as if every syllable carried the gravity of the past. “Ask me the one you’ve wanted to ask for so long.”

A delicate tremor passed through you, and your breath caught in your throat. After a long, painful silence, you whispered, “Why didn’t you write me?”

For a heartbeat, the only sound was the gentle lapping of the water against the dock, as if the night itself awaited his answer. Sam reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and slowly extracted a tightly knotted bundle of papers. Unraveling the thread with careful fingers, he revealed a stack of letters, yellowed with time and crinkled at the edges.

“I did write you letters,” he softly admitted, his gaze fixed on the fragile pages as if they contained his very soul. “That’s what I wanted to tell you for so long. Three hundred and sixty-five of them… one for every day.” His voice trembled with both pride and regret. “But you have to understand—the Air Force policy was tight as fuck. I couldn’t send them, and once I realized that, I… I knew you’d resent me for not keeping in touch.”

He paused, running a hand over the neatly stacked pages. “This whole thing took a toll on me—physically, mentally. I was drowning in obligations and fear, and eventually, I stopped writing because I thought maybe it was the only way to spare you from more pain.” His eyes darkened as he continued, voice barely a murmur now. “And as for the paparazzi… I thought that by not speaking, by keeping my distance, I’d protect you. If I wasn’t seen with you, they’d assume there was no connection—no real relationship worth prying into.”

A single tear glinted in the corner of your eye as you absorbed his words, each one a quiet confession, a secret revealed in the darkness. The letters lay between you like relics of a lost time—a testament to love, duty, and the unbearable cost of silence.

Your fingers trembled as they hovered above the fragile stack of letters, each page heavy with the weight of stolen years and unspoken regrets. The unsent words pressed against your chest as though they carried every moment lost between you, every silent apology and longing unfulfilled. You swallowed hard, the night air thick with an unspoken tremor that danced at the edge of every exhale.

“Tell me about them,” you professed, your voice scarcely more than a whisper carried on the breeze.

The pilot exhaled sharply, his thumb absently caressing the frayed edges of one of the letters as if it were a relic of his former self. “You really want to know?” he asked, his tone tentative, laced with both caution and the burden of truth.

You nodded, your silence affirming that, despite your uncertainty, you needed to hear every word.

For a long moment, Sam’s eyes remained fixed on the ink-smudged pages, the ghostly script of his past gazing back at him in silent testimony. “One of the first letters was angry,” he began, a wry, self-deprecating chuckle trembling at the edge of his words. “Not angry at you. Never at you. I was furious at the situation. I remember that first night in my bunk, where all I could think was how I’d have to let you down. I thought I should’ve fought harder, found a way to make it work. So I wrote it all down and thought that I would probably be out soon enough to give you them in person.”

His fingers tightened around the bundle, as if the letters themselves could anchor him to a past he both cherished and loathed. “I started writing about the small, absurd things—like how the coffee on base was godawful, the jibes from the guys when I apparently mumbled your name in my sleep—which I did not, to make things clear. I even wrote about an old couple I saw on television one day and how it reminded me of when you joked that we’d be arguing over directions even when we were eighty.” His tone faltered, growing quieter, more solemn. “And then there were the letters where I just… missed you. God, I missed you so much.”

Sam’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his grip on the letters slackened, as though holding them was too painful. “And it got harder. Days turned into months, and I convinced myself that you’d moved on—that I had no right to cling onto us. But even then, I never stopped wanting you.”

He turned his gaze to you then, the glow of unsent confessions and quiet grief shining in his eyes. “And it shouldn’t matter anymore because it’s over. Or at least, that’s what I should believe. But it does. It always has.”

The wind whispered softly around you, stirring the fragile pages in his hand and carrying away echoes of moments lost to time. Your heart clenched, caught between the relief of knowing and the heartbreak of what might have been.

In one sudden, desperate motion, he reached for you. His fingers brushed your jaw lightly at first, then cradled your face with a tenderness that belied the cool night air. His thumbs, warm and steady, traced gentle arcs over your cheekbones—anchoring you both to this moment, to the years lost and the yearning that had bridged every mile of distance between you.

His eyes, dark and unwavering, burned into yours with an intensity that stole your breath away. “Hear me out, please,” he murmured, his voice low and insistent, as though the very thought of you slipping away again was unbearable. “I was a coward. I should’ve done better than that but I let fear, and everything else, win. I told myself I was protecting you, that I was doing what was best. But all I did was make it worse. I made you think I didn’t care when the truth is... I never stopped.”

Your lips parted in a silent gasp, but Sam did not wait for you to speak. His grip on your face tightened, firm enough to keep you tethered to him without causing pain.

“I love you.”

The words fell between you like fragile glass shards, the shatter of the barriers of years resonating with their fall. “Yeah, fuck this corny shit. I have loved you every single damn day since the moment I let you go. I know it’s selfish to say it now, after everything, but I just need you to know that I love you. And I’m so goddamn sorry that I ever made you doubt that.”

A shudder ran through you, and your hands clutched his wrists as if they were the only lifeline in your storm of emotions. Every syllable struck like a slow-burning flame, peeling back layers of anger, heartbreak, and longing until all that remained was the undeniable truth—him, you, and a love that refused to fade.

“Sam—” you began, but your voice cracked, the word lost to the tumult of your feelings.

It didn’t matter anyway, because before you could speak another word, he kissed you with the same fervor from earlier, as if he were a man finally allowed to feast upon the love that had sustained him in torturous silence. His lips met yours with a desperate ardour that sent shivers racing down your spine, his hands roaming to trace the soft curve of your neck and leading you to melt into the perfect fit of his embrace.

The world around you—the creaking dock, the ghostly remnants of past regrets—faded into insignificance. All that remained was the kiss, deepening with every heartbeat, as if he were trying to reclaim every lost day, every stolen hour of absence. And you, with equal fervor and need, returned his kiss. Your hands tangled in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer, as if in that embrace you could mend the ruptures of time itself.

When you finally broke apart, breathless and trembling, your foreheads pressed together in the cool night air. “Please, tell me that wasn’t a mistake.”

Your fingers trailed slowly down his chest, grasping the fabric as if to hold onto the fragile promise of the moment. “No,” you whispered back, your voice tender and resolute. “This time it wasn’t.”

A slow grin spread across Sam’s face, and relief flooded his features like the first rays of the morning sun after a long, storm-ridden night. He swept you into his arms, lifting you clear off the ground to bring you closer, almost sitting on his lap. The world tilted delightfully as a rich, unburdened laughter bubbled from his chest in a way you hadn’t heard in a while, full of joy and the promise of new beginnings.

“You’re gonna make me lose my damn mind,” he crooned against your hair in a husky blend of disbelief and something infinitely tender, a softness that belied the wildness of the moment.

A breathy laugh escaped you as your hands instinctively clinging to his broad shoulders as if anchoring you both to the present. “You’re acting like I just solved every world crisis,” you teased, even as your heart pounded in its rhythmic cadence.

“Nah,” he replied, his thumb traced reverently along your jaw, as though memorizing every curve and line of your face. “Just mine.”

A quiet ache formed in your chest at the way he looked at you, as if he still couldn’t believe you were real, as if he were etching every detail of you into memory in case the universe ever dared be cruel again.

Your fingers curled lightly into the fabric of his shirt, and with a voice steadier than you felt, you whispered, “I love you too, Sam.”

For a heartbeat, his lips parted as if to utter more, but before the words could spill, a familiar voice shattered the reverie.

“Hey, lovebirds! Dinner’s ready!” Sarah called from the restaurant’s back porch, her tone playful as she leaned against the doorway with crossed arms and a knowing smirk that practically screamed, took you long enough.

Sam groaned, tipping his head back. “Jesus, can I have one moment—just one?” he protested.

Laughing, you grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the warm glow of the restaurant. “Come on, loverboy, before she comes out here and drags us inside herself.”

The golden light of the restaurant melted away the coolness of the night, wrapping you in a comforting embrace. As you walked back to the shack, a spark of mischief danced at the edges of your lips. You shot Sam a sidelong glance, the playful glimmer in your eyes challenging him.

“Wait a second…” you drawled, narrowing your eyes and tilting your head. “Did you—did you quote The Notebook in your big, dramatic profession of love?”

For a moment, his grip on your hand tightened, and he faltered, pigment further coloring his cheeks. “What?” he managed, his tone caught between indignation and bashful amusement.

“Oh my God,” you gasped, pressing a hand to your mouth as barely contained laughter bubbled forth. “You did! That ‘it wasn’t over’ thing—straight out of The Notebook!”

His arm looped around your shoulders, drawing you closer with a quiet, playful threat. His large palm briefly covered the back of your head as he guided you forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Say one more word about that, and I swear I will stuff you so full of oysters you won’t be able to utter a single syllable for a week.”

You snorted. “Really? That’s your big intimidation tactic?”

“Ever tried eating twenty oysters in one sitting?” he shot back, arching a brow and letting his lips twitch in a smirk. “I don’t think so. Now, go sit down and eat before I make it happen.”

Grinning, you leaned into his side, feeling the easy warmth of his arm as it draped around you. After all the lost time and shattered dreams, everything felt achingly, irrevocably right. Perhaps the years apart had only deepened the truth: the time you thought was lost might, in fact, still be yours to reclaim, as you were fated to be stuck together no matter what.

⠀

Want to read more of my works? Check out my masterlist !

⠀⠀

dividers ©️ @angelremnants + @cafekitsune .

605 notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 9 days ago

Text

When a fanfic writer puts a nickname you think Is icky in their smut fic

12K notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 17 days ago

Text

Reblogging for later

Released: Jon Bernthal - The Punisher

Released!!! .... The amazing actor Jon Bernthal portraying The Punisher from the Marvel Cinematic Universe Series "The Punisher" & "DareDevil"

Released for Members

Face Skin made by Me

All Credits and Kudos to all CC creators (Hair, Makeup, Clothes, Skins, Sliders & Presets)

Special Credit goes Special Credit goes to @aralenorimaki01, @cantransimmer for the outfits and to @thisisthem for the body Skin

[Required] - Download the below CC to have the same look as the images

Link to Costumes: Here, Here, Here

Link to Body Skin: Here

Download at my patreon:

TS4 Hollywood | Sims 4 Realistic Hollywood Stars | Patreon

15 notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 23 days ago

Text

Holy shit! I was wary at first. I don't always like noncon but this was amazing!

kerosene

ghost x f!reader. 17k words. cw: noncon. kidnapping. gun violence. free use. smut. mentions of involuntary groinal responses lol. simon is a smug asshole and reader is into it you get robbed at gun point while working the lone register at a nowhere petrol station. the money in the till is not the only thing he takes with him. or [read on ao3]

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so they say.

The devil should have been busy with you, then. Malignant boredom had taken root in you, rankled in every crevice and swell, metastasized like knobbly tumours that parasitised on your will to live until only the gritty alluvium was left.

You began your shift behind the till at the Gulf station in the late afternoon, shy of four p.m., as you had done yesterday and as you would tomorrow. You took over from Mitchell, who worked the morning shift, the old man with a wiry grey beard and eyebrow hairs like corkscrews sticking haywire out of his forehead. You’d work until midnight, when you would be replaced by Charlie, a pinguid twenty-something with legs like beanpoles and eyes so sunken they were hollow as caves in his skull.

They had been your co-workers for the better part of three years, yet they might as well have been strangers to you. The scant exchanges you would share with them were a few words at shift change, if that. Mitch would prattle on about some rude geezer and tell the same story about his ex-wife that he had every other week. Charlie, bedecked in his cheap headphones and carrying an egg sandwich cling-wrapped by his grandmother, would only give you a nod and ask been busy? with little attention paid to your answer.

You had been offered the morning shift when you first started.

The owner of the franchise station, Dave, was uneasy about the prospect of a ripe (his word) young woman working alone behind the register after dark, at a nowhere white-pole station in the sticks, where the only customers were long-haulers and on-the-way-home farmers. A just concern, you supposed, and a part of you had considered taking him up on his offer.

You refused, in the end.

Told him that someone like Mitch (frail, near-blind, on the cusp of Alzheimer’s) would far more likely be victimised by the ilk of patrons that trudged through the station. In your experience, anyway, most of the late-night customers that came through the push-door understood the implication of a burly old man being served by a young woman on her own. They’d tread more carefully, offer you kind smiles, sometimes mention their wives to make sure you understood they were not a threat to you.

There was always the odd lecher, though. Goes without saying.

The kinds of yellow-toothed men that would lean too far over the counter, talk to you like they knew you, overly familiar. The type to ask you to smile for them, or for a discount, or for your number. Ones that would joke about coming back, just to visit you. That would say you’re too pretty to be working in a dump like this, you should be in a bar instead. Maybe on a pole. Maybe in the passenger seat of their truck, to keep them company.

It never frightened you, really, because nothing ever happened. You stuck with the late shift because it offered the fanciful possibility that something interesting might come to pass. Maybe, if you were lucky, there would be a car wreck outside the station, or a patron threatening enough to justify hitting the panic button, or a fire set off by the fuel pump and you’d finally be able to put the ten-year-old extinguisher to use.

But you were confident that every shift would be the same, as always.

Nothing would happen, you would drive home to your shoddy seventies cottage in the pit-stop hamlet of Dunhill, eat a frozen pastry, sleep alone, and do it all over again. Days came and went like empty boxes on a trundling conveyor belt, your life a deserted factory, only still whirring because the last attendant forgot to switch off the machinery when they left.

Today was no different.

You perused the grocery shelves with cheap earbuds stuffed in your ears, the kind with squishy mushroom plugs that made it sound like you were underwater. Shuffling through the same playlist you had been slowly adding to over the last year — you liked the songs you already knew every word to, creature of habit that you were. Busied yourself by twisting the canned foods so that their labels all faced outwards, then backwards, just for a laugh.

It got to half-nine, the sun had long since set, and you had served one customer since your shift started. A middle-aged man with a muddy van, who bought three RedBulls and a pack of Chesterfields, and half a tank of diesel. He scarcely acknowledged you, a hi when he walked in and a cheers when he left.

Your meal for the evening was a pack of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps and a bottle of chocolate milk, plucked from the shelves and not logged. Leaned back in the plastic chair behind the till with your Chucks propped up on the counter, some Sally Rooney book with its spine broken folded in half in your hand.

You had milk in your mouth when you heard the characteristic thud of a closing car door, a harsher slam than you were used to. Attuned to the noise even while your ears were plugged. You swallowed it hard when you heard the chime of the bell, the swing of the door, the thuds of boots. New customer.

Sat upright, you peered over the register to see who had entered the station, and you were flummoxed when there was nobody there.

You grabbed your earbuds by the flimsy cord and tugged them from your ears with a pop — there were footsteps, someone was there, you weren’t crazy. You could hear the sound of provisions being swept from shelves and shoved into a bag, the bonking of cans and the crinkling of plastic.

Only once you stood did you see the head above the shelves.

Black hood up, you only saw the side of him as he wandered down the aisle, towering beast shuffling along and torpidly picking things up just to put them down again. A foot taller than the racks he meandered between. Wore a black leather bomber over his hooded sweater, well-worn hide, turned tawny brown in the creases and at the edges. All bulky, padded up. His shoulders swayed with the bravado of a gladiator who spent his life unchallenged.

Had you any remaining hospitality in your system you’d have greeted him, but you circumspectly held your tongue.

There was something in his presence that did not augur well. Something crooked, something bent. Turned the tired air inside the station dyspneic, too dense and thick to comfortably breathe.

Call it a woman’s intuition, if you believed in such a thing.

Simon hadn’t accounted for a bird at the till.

He’d have expected some ruddy-cheeked man with buck teeth and brown-bordered sweat stains on his shirt. The typical clerk at a shithole backroads petrol station, in his experience. They’d shoot him a grimy look, eye him up-and-down with a curl in their lip, all ruffian until he brandished the Sig Sauer he had tucked in the waistband of his jeans.

That was what he had prepared for. He came to stick the gunmetal barrel in the face of the old bloke behind the register, demand every stack of cash from the till drawer and anything valuable he had on his person, maybe fire at the ceiling if he moved too slowly. Piece of cake. In and out.

Instead, it was you.

Sneakers propped up by the register, sucking the crisp dust off your fingers with pink lips. Reading a book as disinterestedly as you might watching paint dry.

Unlucky for you, it didn’t make a difference that you had a pair of tits. He wanted that money.

Your chary little head poked up from behind the counter once he was done collecting his supplies. A few cans of Baked Beans, couple bags of crisps, some vacuum-sealed biersticks. A roll of gauze and a bottle of Dettol for the flesh wound in his thigh. Pack of tissues. Bic lighter. KitKat for a treat. All shoved in the duffle bag he held in his fist, heavy with the wads of cash he had already collected from the last pit-stop on his trip north — an offy in a piss-stained back alley in Cheltenham. Grabbed a few pilsners for the road from there, too.

He forsook his urgency as he approached the register, measured pace, duffle in hand. Eyeing you up with each step as if you were a candybar on a display rack.

Pretty wee thing.

He hadn’t even shown you his gun yet, and your eyes were already peeled wide, glistening in the bright fluorescent lights hanging overhead.

None of the goods he intended to pay for. He didn’t need to make that any clearer to you, the assumption was already plastered on your face as he loomed towards you. Had his mask on, after all; thick black ski mask pulled over his head, jagged holes cut out for his eyes. No doubt that made quite plain his intentions.

You stood pin straight, curling the purple cord of your earbuds between your fingers as if some attempt to ground yourself. Not a drop of makeup on, he could see the satin sheen of sweat on your forehead, the plum rings unconcealed under your eyes. Nobody to impress out here. Still pretty.

“Um, which pump?” You asked flatly, tone meek, in denial of the obvious.

Your stupefied stare followed his hand as it ventured to the base of his sweatshirt, a frown fluttering in your brows as you all but tilted your head in anxious confusion. He reeled up the heavy fleece, white t-shirt underneath — but that wasn’t what your eyes clung to.

His hand curled around the grip of his handgun, plucking it out from the waistband and holding it insouciantly at his side. No need to point it at you, not yet.

Your skin turned cadaver grey as your blood flooded to your feet, eyes bulging with the instantaneous panic that wracked you as though you had been smacked in the face with it.

“Oh my god — ohm — oh my god,” you squeaked, tongue knotting in your mouth, tears quick to fill your kittenish eyes. “Oh my god — y-you—”

It was this, the histrionics, that he hoped to avoid. The tears, Christ, the fucking tears. There wasn’t anything to cry about, not yet, but your eyes glowed sanguine, and the tears that oozed from them were clear and glittery. Rolled dramatically from their wells and dripped from your chin, seeped into the corners of your trembling mouth. All flushed and glossy and he hadn’t even spoken yet.

There was no blood-curdling outburst, though. You didn’t scream, didn’t wail, didn't scurry around hysterically like a decollated hen. You were stiff as a board, arms pinned flat to your sides. Merely whispered the Lord’s name in vain over and over as if he might answer your call.

“Please — ohmygod — please don’t hurt me,” you cried, lungs seizing with every word, hiccuping and spluttering like you had just been pulled ashore. “What do you want, you can — you can take anything. P-please—”

“Shut up,” he barked, and you flinched at his aggression. “Just open the fuckin’ till.”

You nodded so vehemently he thought your head might roll off your shoulders, and your pallid hands began raking over your body in desperate search of the pocket you kept your keys in. His glare followed keenly as they ran over your hips, waist, unabashedly caressing your arse in the search. After finding them in a back pocket you tried to orient the keys in your grip, but your fingers trembled so vigorously that you immediately dropped them to the linoleum floor.

“Fuck — I’m sorry,” you bleated as you bent down to pick them up, eyes still riveted to him, “I’m sorry, let me just — please, I’m sorry—”

He let out a grunt of exasperation as he marched around to the other side of the counter, your feet remained planted still as though you were bolted to the floor, leery eyes following him while your head kept rigid.

A deer in headlights. Fawn, more like. Small and doe-eyed and too stupid to get out of his way.

You only whimpered when he jostled you away from the till, physically driving you to the wall with his hands under your arms, clearing his path. He took your shaky little hand in a fist and peeled it open, plucking the keys from your sweaty palm.

The register was old, something from the nineties, yellow-faded plastic with cube-clacky buttons. He shoved the tiny key into its slot on the drawer, gave it a good shimmy to loosen it up, and it popped open with a ding.

Pretty much empty.

“The fuck is this?” He growled, fingering through the notes in the drawer — all twenty-two of them. “There’s fuckin’ nothing in ‘ere!”

Your face screwed up like a wrung cloth when his glare shot to you. Great gulping sobs, your eyes squeezed into fleshy little crescents and spewed tears from either corner, terror rilling from your nose and making your lips all wet.

“I’m sorry — it’s not my — I think Mitch m-must have done the cash drop this morning,” you wailed, “Please — it’s not my f-f-fault!”

“Shut up,” he snapped, jutting the mouth of his Sig Sauer at you, callously reminding you of the fate he held in his grip.

He snarled to himself as he plucked out all of the notes, flipped through them to count it up. Nine fivers, six tenners, five twenties, two fifties. A few quid worth of coins floating around unorganised between the compartments. A prodigious spoil of three-hundred-and-five pounds.

Fucking joke.

He rancorously shoved all the paper in the bag — left the coins, ego too tall to fish out the petty change.

“Piss take,” he grumbled as he slammed shut the till drawer. “What else y’got.”

You blinked up at him timorously as he tucked his gun into his jeans and marched towards you, almost buckling over as though you could curl up into a shell to protect yourself from him.

Only cried as he spread your arms, shamelessly smearing his hands over your body to feel for something in a pocket. Down your waist, stomach, hips; all pillowy under the pressure of his hands, soft even through your t-shirt. Prodded the undersides of your breasts with shameless fingers, checking for anything tucked in your bra, and your lips curled in disgust as you looked away from him.

He almost cracked a smile at your diffidence. Maybe another time, pretty thing.

He flipped you around, manhandling you until your nose pressed into the wall. Hands smoothed down your back, before finding something rectangular tucked into the tight pocket of your skinny jeans. You squeaked in dispute as he stuck his fingers in the pocket, flush with your arse, but he had no time to enjoy it.

Little red wallet.

He flicked through it — a visa debit card, expired Primark gift card, two quid in the zipped pocket and a tenner note folded in a card sleeve. Eyed your license for longer than necessary — cute little photo of you, a tiny smirk in your lips as you gazed at the camera.

“Pretty name,” he said wryly, and you only huffed with your forehead pressed against the wall.

He didn’t bother taking any of the change. Looked like you needed it as much as he did. You winced when he pushed a finger in your back pocket, tugging it open so he could shove your wallet back in.

He instead returned his attention to the checkout, scouring the counters for anything else that could be deemed at all valuable. Nothing, obviously. Merely cardboard display racks of chewing gum and cheap candies. There was a cigarette cabinet behind the till, at least — after some fiddling he found the key on the chain that fit the lock, broke open the steel door, and swept an entire rack of cartons into the duffle bag.

As a last resort, he dropped the bag and crouched down, wiped underneath the countertops with gloved hands, hoping for a vault, a hidden compartment, or—

His fingers brushed plastic, creasing and soft; something wrapped in film, taped to the underside of the counter. He tore it off with a zip, held it in a tight hand; a stack of notes, more than a centimetre thick, wrapped with a hair tie and shoved in a zip-seal sandwich bag.

You let out a remorseful sob as you sunk to the floor with your back against the wall; thighs tucked to your chest, head dropped to your knees.

A grin peeled his lips from his teeth as the realisation settled. “This yours?”

“No,” you chirped, a pitiful attempt at a lie — he was unsure why you wouldn’t admit to it, it wasn’t as though he’d have informed your boss.

“Skimming, eh?” He snorted, peeling open the yellow seam of the plastic pouch and fishing out the stack. Flipped through them — mostly tens and twenties — easily a couple grand, at the very least.

“I just—” you sobbed, shoulders hunched, “I was just saving up. It doesn’t matter. Just t-take it.”

“Saving?” He asked incredulously, voice thick with amused derision. “Little thief. No better than me, are ya?”

“Whatever,” you bellyached, arms wrapped around your knees, snivelling on the floor.

He sucked his teeth as he dumped the stack in his bag. Too bad. His now.

As he went to stand, though, he went dead still — eyes hooked on a flashing blue light under the counter. Squinting, he leaned closer, to substantiate his hunch—

A fucking panic button.

His rage burst like a purulent blister, apoplectic with it, he ripped his handgun from his jeans and steamed towards you.

“You fuckin’ hit the alarm?” He roared, and you shrieked in terror as he took the collar of your t-shirt in a fist and heaved you up from the ground.

“I — I’m — I didn’t—”

Your spluttering only enkindled his fury. You cried out in despairing dread when he shoved the mouth of his pistol into the soft flesh under your chin, and he held his teeth to your cheek.

“Why the fuck would you go and do that, eh?” He growled, inexplicably disappointed. Thought you were smarter than that.

“I’m sorry,” you bawled, shaking your head, wet eyes bolted to the ceiling. “I didn’t know what to do, I just — I thought I was s’posed to, I’m s-sorry. Please — god, please, don’t kill me.”

He huffed, jaw rigid.

He wouldn’t put a bullet in you, pretty thing. Too lovely to mire with lead, that butter-soft skin.

It was a shame you were such a thorn in his side, fractious girl, because otherwise he would have just left you be. Would have taken his cash and been done with it, left you in your piss-wet jeans to cry to your boss about the ordeal and rightfully request some weeks off to escape to somewhere more therapeutic for the soul than fucking Dunhill.

“Would be a damn waste,” he grunted, finally pulling his gun from under your chin, sticking the barrel into his jeans. A moan of relief leaked from your throat once the instrument of your imminent death was no longer kissing your jaw.

Premature relief, love. He grappled you away from the wall, and with a shove, had you in front of him. You yelped when he collared you with a tight hand around the back of your neck, stumbled over your feet as he began driving you forward.

“What are you—”

“Use those legs, girl,” he barked, as he reached to hoist up his duffle bag from where he left it on the floor.

You blubbered like a toddler, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, as if your tears might engender pity from him. “Are you t-taking me?”

“Not gonna leave you to blab to the cops, am I?”

Another sob. “No — I wouldn’t — I won’t say anything, I don’t even know what you look like. Please—”

“Christ, you’re a whinger, aren’t you?” He rumbled, barrelling through the swinging door and hauling you across the asphalt of the forecourt.

The air was thick with the greasy smell of petrol seeping from lousy fuel pumps, amalgamated with the distant fumes of factory farms and cow manure that hung in a blanketing smog from there to Birmingham. Only the corrugated metal infrastructure of beef and dairy industries for miles in any direction out there.

He couldn’t fathom what a bird like you was doing with her feet in the mud, stagnating in such a miserable shithole. Maybe he was doing you a favour.

He tore open the passenger door of his twenty-year-old Mitsubishi L200 — a rusty black pickup he bought with cash from a shrivelled old man on Gumtree, with hopefully just enough life in it to last the drive north.

You stuck your hand out and planted it on the edge of the door as he pushed you towards it, vigorously shaking your head. “No, n-no — I’m not going with you, I’m not—”

He snorted, and when you didn’t capitulate with a shove, he swept an arm under your knees and hoisted you upward before dumping you into the passenger seat whether you liked it or not. You landed with a squeak, and before you could spew out any more vacant refusals he slammed shut the door.

He stormed around to the drivers side and hopped in beside you, tossing his duffle bag back between the seats, hastily igniting the engine as he shut his own door. Hit the central lock button and the entire truck locked shut with a clunk — you whimpered when you heard it, and turned your knees away from him.

“Where are you taking me?” You cried, as he revved the truck and rapidly accelerated, tearing out of the forecourt and over the curb, landing on the road with a sharp bounce and a tire screech.

He paid little attention to your whimpering as he sped off down the dilapidated country road, eyes flicking to the rearview every odd second to make sure he saw no flashing lights in pursuit. The vehicle dipped and recoiled over every pothole on the crumbling old road — motorway would be preferable, but he decided heading in the opposite direction to loop back around would be the safest bet.

You only sobbed quietly to yourself in his silence, no doubt his lack of response was a threat in itself.

He had no issue frightening you. Served you right.

Took some morbid glee in considering what you imagined he planned on doing with you. Whether you considered weighing up your chances. Might you survive if you were to attack him? Would he go easy on you? Might he enjoy the struggle?

Perhaps you were girding yourself for what he might do next.

Truth was, he hadn’t decided yet.

His decision to take you was as impulsive as it was inexorable.

You weeped until your tear troughs were droughted and nothing more could bleed from their ducts. Cheeks had gone sticky with it, salt dried gritty on your flushed skin, lips shrivelled and thirsty.

Transient thoughts of rebellion had been ignited and snuffed out in the ten minutes since he had abducted you from the station — you could have reached over and pulled the gun from his waistband, could have tried to kick through the passenger window, could have thrown a nuclear tantrum and bucked and screamed until he was forced to pull over.

All would have been futile. You weren’t stupid.

He had that gun in his immediate reach; in fact he kept a heavy hand resting high up on his thigh, prepared to yank it out of its nest above his crotch at any given opportunity. He had made abundantly clear the shortness of his fuse, and that his reflexive reaction to annoyance was to threaten your life.

Best you settle down, you thought — wait until his guard was down, until he pulled over somewhere, then consider something more drastic. While you were trapped in a car with him such an opportunity was unlikely to present itself.

There were no streetlights out this way; your abductor had bypassed Dunhill entirely, sticking to unmaintained back roads that had you bouncing up and down in your seat. Not the motion alone that made you queasy, but the fact he was driving even deeper into nowhere, where the only sources of light were the headlights of his truck, illuminating the dark road ahead like something out of a found-footage horror film.

“You didn’t answer my question,” you croaked, voice abraded to the point of gurgling stones.

You felt his head turn to look at you, but you kept your stare pointed out your window. Knees turned so far away from him that they burrowed into the door.

“Eh?” He huffed dryly.

Sipped a cautious breath before repeating yourself. “Where are you taking me?”

“I’m ‘eaded north,” he said, no elaboration.

“Where north,” you asked more firmly, warily frustrated.

He let out a breathy chortle, as though surprised you’d interrogate him. “Scotland.”

You cocked your head back in bewilderment and turned to glower at him. “Scotland?”

“S’what I said.”

“I don’t want to go to Scotland,” you whined, realising quickly the length of the drive — easily six hours to Glasgow if he stuck to the motorways, but you got the sense he was avoiding them.

“That’s a shame,” he said.

“I don’t understand,” you pleaded, terror thick in your throat. “What do you — what do you want from me?”

You regretted the question as soon as you uttered it, because there was some comfort to be found in uncertainty — that is, the possibility that he wasn’t going to throw you into the bed of his truck and rape you in the pitch dark of the backcountry night.

He looked at you again, eyes tar-black in the shadows of his balaclava, and you held shut your thighs on instinct.

“Dunno yet,” he said.

You might have cried if you had any tears left to give. Instead you blinked at him uneasily, petrified into a surreal state of milky numbness — maybe you were in shock, you had heard of that before.

“So you — you just took me because you felt like it?”

He shrugged with a single shoulder. “‘Spose so.”

A minute of stodgy silence settled in the cab as you stared blankly ahead down the spotlighted country road. You weren’t sure what you should do with yourself, and it made you itch all over. From the pits of you echoed screams to put up a fucking fight, to do something — instead you sat quietly, vacantly, erosively indecisive. Waiting for something to happen. For the other shoe to drop.

“Are you going to shoot me?” You timidly asked, words eking out like dripping water from a tight faucet.

“Hopefully not.”

“Then — then why did you take me?”

His head rocked back and bounced off the headrest as he let out an exasperated puff of air. “Y’make a lot o’ noise, don’t you?”

“Well there would be no noise if you hadn’t.”

He laughed at that, you could see the fine lines creasing in the corner of his puckering eyes through his mask. “Got me there.”

“So then why don’t you just let me out?” You pestered, only emboldened by his droning indifference. Apathy exuded from him like serum from an open wound, oily yet salutary, and you found it grotesquely reassuring.

“Don’t want to,” he bluntly replied.

“Why not?”

He was twitchy. On a razor edge. He lasered a glare at you and it stung, and you shrunk into yourself under the heat of it.

“Because I don’t want to.” He repeated, jaw tight.

You should have heeded the venom in his throat as a warning to shut up, but despite effort to wire your jaw shut, your compulsion to fill the silence was pathological.

“Are you — are you going to—” Couldn’t bring yourself to finish the sentence. The tail of it sat heavy and sour on your tongue.

“Goin’ to what.”

A quivering breath leaked through your teeth. “Rape me.”

He sighed heavily, languidly rocking his head to the side, and you felt his hard eyes on you. Excoriating you from legs to lips.

“Thought about it,” he said.

Ribs closed like dog jaws around your lungs.

Said with such torpor that it didn’t cut you like a threat. Instead it made your heart tight and hot, shuddering rather than beating, pumping out needly adrenaline that made your hairs spike up and your stomach drop heavy.

“And?” You creaked, voice scratching in your trachea.

“Wouldn’t mind a fuck,” he grunted indifferently. “But I don’t like crying.”

A mortifying heat feathered over your cheeks. Something pre-programmed, an evolutionary reaction to the suggestion of sex at all, consensual or otherwise — that’s what you told yourself, when you felt a reflexive shiver between your legs, and your ears turned hot.

“So that’s why you took me,” you mumbled anxiously.

“To fuck?”

You shot him a pointed lour in place of a response.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

Fucking weird girl.

Your curiosity was potently unsettling, riveting in the same breath. Didn’t make sense to him, that you’d ask him so unabashedly whether or not he intended on defiling you. What answer were you hoping for? Did you simply want to make sure he said no?

You blinked at him vacantly after his candid response. No use in lying to you.

It wasn’t his style to brutalise himself into a bird, to bulldoze through wails and shrieks of refusal, physical capability to do so notwithstanding. He simply didn’t like tears. Felt beneath him, really, the impotent sadism needed to enjoy milking them. The only wetness he liked in a girl was a wet mouth and a wet cunt.

He was partial to a hisser, though. Liked his spitters and scratchers. The kinds of girls that would gripe and grouse about his brutishness but turned treacly sweet when he inevitably overpowered them.

Perhaps you’d be a hisser.

He would have liked to find out. What noises you might have made. What the skin of your thighs might have felt like when free of their denim sheaths. How your nipples might spike up in the invasive cool of the September evening, or under the unwelcome brush of his fingers.

There was a glimmer in the pools of your eyes, fretful yet inquisitive. He was probably only seeing what he wanted to see.

You went quiet after that, at least. For the best. Kept your little knees nailed together as you glowered out your passenger window, pleasantly pacified for the time being. Sulking like a fucking child, but he supposed he couldn’t blame you.

He wasn’t stupid enough to expect that you’d be cheerful after he kidnapped you. And he wasn’t in denial, either — he did kidnap you. There was no dancing around it. He threatened to kill you and then he abducted you, because he felt like it. Because he liked the look of you.

Not remorseful, though. It would be a cold day in hell before he ever felt sorry for anything. His brain just didn’t function that way. If he wanted something, it was his. No use wasting time feeling guilt over something not even he could prevent.

He spent his time in your silence considering how to make it worth his while. Whether he would, in fact, drag you all the way to Scotland with him. Whether he’d have you aid and abet his next robbery to make up for the piss-poor spoils he purloined from your petrol station. Whether he would find a way to fuck you on the way, or perhaps once he got to his destination.

Maybe he’d let you keep some of your savings if you showed him your pussy. He looked at you briefly as he thought about it. Wondered how badly you needed the money.

“What were you savin’ for, eh?” He asked suddenly, and you flinched at the sound of his voice.

Soft little girl. He’d need to harden you up.

“What do you mean,” you murmured, hardly a croak.

“Don’t play dumb,” he gritted.

You sighed warily, eyeing him before you answered. “Doesn’t even matter,” you grumbled. “You took it, so now I haven’t saved anything.”

He glowered at you, and something in his dissatisfied stare must have compelled you to elaborate. He had that effect on people. Birds, especially. Intimidation coursed through his blood and emanated out of his skin, it didn’t take much effort.

“I wanted to leave Dunhill, obviously,” you groaned, reluctant to spill every word.

“Yeah?” He asked, “where were y’off to?”

“Fucked if I know,” you muttered. “Literally anywhere else.”

He snorted at that. “Couldn’t do that without skimming, eh?”

“What, do you disapprove?” You hissed, scowling at him. “At least I don’t kidnap people when I need money.”

“I’m not judging, sweetheart,” he crooned through a grin. “M’only impressed.”

“Whatever,” you groused, crossing your arms and glaring out the window. “I only took it because I owe a bunch of money.”

He quirked a brow at that. “To who?”

“Why do you care.”

He shrugged. “Boring drive.”

You let out a petulant huff before you inevitably decided to answer him.

“I’m behind on rent,” you said, through gritted teeth. “Like, four months behind. And I’m still paying off my car, which I just needed to get repaired, so now I also owe money to the mechanic who did me the favour. Fucking owe money to the government, too, because they found out I was on the dole while I was working at the station.”

A curl tugged in his lips, brows raised in intrigue. No surprise you had managed to find yourself burdened by so many favours — landlord giving you grace, mechanics fixing your cars without payment upfront. Pretty thing like you, though, he’d expect you’d get everything for free. Couldn’t imagine what kind of penny-pinching wankers would still demand money from you when you looked like that.

Shame you didn’t cross his path sooner, he’d have fixed your car for you. No charge. Might have even let you squat at his place rent-free, assuming you made it worth his while.

Started to imagine it, despite himself. Pictured having a pretty thing like you to come home to. Standing in the kitchen in his t-shirt, nothing under it. He’d bend you over the counter and fuck you right there while you stirred your tea. Wouldn’t have taken much to get your cunt nice and wet, he thought. You seemed like you’d be easy to please, bored little thing, hopelessly awaiting a man like him to show you what’s worth living for.

Maybe he would take you all the way to Scotland, after all.

“What about you,” you asked dully, snapping him from his reverie. “Why do you need the money.”

He glanced at you, you picked your fingernails and glared at his hands on the wheel.

“Must need it pretty bad,” you muttered, scorn bubbling in your throat.

He tapped the steering wheel. “Long story.”

“What, are you a fugitive, or something?” You asked, contemptuous eyes raking over him.

“Is it that obvious?” He asked, through a chortle.

You gulped, almost cartoonishly. So scared of him. He was sure the mask didn’t help, but he didn’t feel like taking it off yet.

“What’d you do?” You questioned, that pang of anxiousness never quite leaving your voice, despite your attempts at feigning bravery. “Kill someone?”

“Worse than that,” he said frankly.

Your brows knitted together worriedly, fingers knotting. Nervous fidgeting. “Some kind of rapist, then?”

“Not quite,” he replied facetiously, certain you must have found his amusement at the prospect ill-placed.

“Then what?”

“Got in trouble with people you shouldn’t get in trouble with,” he explained, purposefully vague. He enjoyed your inquisitiveness.

“A gang?”

“Could call it that,” he jeered. “Special air service.”

Probably shouldn’t have told you that. Couldn’t help himself.

“Special — wait, you’re in the army?”

“Not anymore,” he said.

You frowned uneasily. “What happened?”

“That’s a tale for another day,” he grunted, and you turned to glare out the window again, spiteful now that he left your curiosity unsated. Little brat.

Twenty uneventful minutes passed uninterrupted, then, and Simon focused on the route he had set out to follow. Had successfully avoided main roads for the better part of an hour, now electing it safe enough to return to the highway. Took a few dark turn offs, and every time the truck slowed, you visibly tensed up; so terrified that he’d pull over for a rest stop and drag you into the grass on the side of the road.

He didn’t like the streetlights. They were confrontational, accusatory, as though their beams of light were enough to alert every cop in the vicinity to his presence underneath them.

The highway was largely empty, at least. Only one car passed in the opposite direction as he cruised along the smooth asphalt, decidedly more comfortable to drive on than the tattered backroads. Meant he could drive a lot faster, too. Might have been able to cut his trip by an hour, if he stuck to eighty-five miles an hour for the stretch between there and Birmingham.

Your girlish little hands clutched the armrest of the door as he accelerated, the speed of the vehicle pushing you against the window as he followed a curve in the wide road.

“You’re driving too fast,” you said quietly.

He cracked a grin. How endearing that you thought to warn him. You were lucky he was trying to keep a low profile, in any other circumstance he’d be brushing a hundred. Then he’d really scare you, wouldn’t he? You could do with some toughening up, he thought.

“Now you’re worried about the law, eh?” He sneered.

“I just don’t want to die in a car wreck,” you bit.

Seemed his docility was emboldening you. Perhaps you were a hisser, after all. Wondered if he needed to correct your behaviour. Maybe you’d spit on him if he reached over the centre console and fixed his hand to your thigh.

“You’ll be fine,” he said.

He avoided the arterial motorway that cut through Birmingham, choosing instead to stick to the A roads that bounced between exits and junctions in a zigzag. Hardly efficient, such a route would tack on an extra three hours of travel between there and Manchester, but at least far less monitored than the M5.

He got cocky, he supposed.

Saw the flashing red-and-blue lights before the sirens started blaring, and you jumped like a bunny — your head wracked around with a speed that made your neck crick, glaring at the cop car through the back windscreen.

“Fuck,” he barked, through a clenched jaw, eyes jumping between the cruiser in his rearview and the highway ahead of him.

He could have shoved his foot down, pressed the accelerator flat to the floor and fled the likely jaded cop patrolling the country highway at eleven p.m. on a Tuesday. There was a chance the fat old bastard wouldn’t give chase, but that chance was slim. Simon didn’t need the attention.

He sunk his foot into the brake and slowed to sixty, veering into the shoulder. “Fuckin’ tosser.”

And didn’t you perk up? Itching all over to bounce out of your seat, head swinging back to look at the police car twice a second. All twitchy and riled up. He could see what you were thinking, it was printed in your cheeks, bright in your eyes; now’s your chance.

He hoped you weren’t that stupid.

“You gonna be a good girl?” He asked rigidly.

“What do you mean,” you squeaked, panicked, eyes peeled wide and skin glossy with sweat.

“Means keep your fuckin’ mouth shut,” he snapped, lifting up his jersey, and you gawped at the gun against his stomach. “You make a scene, I’ll have to shoot him. And then I’ll have to shoot you. Y’understand?”

You nodded tightly, wiping under your eyes with your palms, some paltry attempt to collect yourself. He sincerely hoped you’d behave. He didn’t want to kill you. Would be a waste of a pretty bird. Not to mention a fucking pain in the arse to hide not one, but two bodies.

“Good,” he muttered, as he tore off his mask and tossed it on the ground between his feet, slowing the car to a stop on the side of the highway. Rubbed his hand over his buzzed head on instinct, cropped hair velveteen under his palm. Hopeful the knit didn’t leave suspicious imprints in his skin.

Your lips went a little slack when you looked up to see him unmasked, and a grin creased in his cheeks. Saw plain as day that glimmer in your little eyes, as they scoured over his face as if reading the pages of a book.

Didn’t think he’d be pretty, did you? He was not ignorant of his looks, and wasn’t humble about them either. So blatant in your flustered expression that you liked what you saw, only too virtuous to admit it to yourself.

He wound down his window before the policeman approached. He was adept at pretending to be a good boy. Spent decades licking boots in the military, and cops were even easier to please.

The officer was middle-aged and saggy-eyed, just as jaded as Simon had predicted. The truck was taller than him, so his hatted head peered through the center of the open window, assessing the cab with his lips in a line.

“Evenin’,” Simon said simply.

“Heading home, are we?” The officer asked, eyeing up the bird next to the driver, lathering you in more attention than necessary.

Could’ve clubbed him in the nose for so shamelessly drooling over you — as far as the cop was likely concerned, you were his bird, not some slapper along for the ride. He had king-hit men for less.

“You bet,” was all he said.

“Must be in a hurry,” the cop said derisively, glare finally returning to the driver. “Any clue how fast you were going, mate?”

Mate made Simon twitch. Swallowed back the urge to spit not your fucking mate, instead offering a placating grin and a pat of the steering wheel.

“We are in a bit of a hurry.”

“Yeah? Enough of a hurry to be going twenty over the limit?”

“Bird tells me to hurry home, I hurry home,” Simon jeered. “Y’know what I mean.”

The officer almost tutted, until your voice cut across from the passenger seat, and Simon’s knuckles turned white on the wheel.

“Don’t blame me,” you snapped. “It’s not my fault you can’t control yourself.”

To Simon’s surprise, the cop chuckled at that.

“Need to rein your fella in, love.”

“I tried,” you lamented. “I told him he was going too fast and he was going to get pulled over. I told him so. Bastard doesn’t listen to me.”

Simon blinked in your direction, to see you sitting upright with your arms spitefully crossed over your chest, cheeks red-hot with panic and knee bouncing in frustration. If he didn’t know the root of your unease was the fact he had abducted you, he’d have believed you were a contemptuous bird itching to castigate her reckless partner for getting in trouble.

Seemed the cop believed that, too. “Bird’s smarter than you, eh?”

Simon snorted, deciding to play along. “That she is.”

“Looks like you’re in plenty of trouble, then,” he taunted.

Simon looked at you, again, to see you scowling at him before you glowered out the windshield. “Mh. Think so.”

“You’re lucky I’m not in the mood to do the paperwork,” the policeman said sternly. “I’ve got your plate, though, so slow down, yeah? Way down. No excuse for eighty-five in a sixty.”

“Understood.”

“Don’t let me catch you again, eh?”

Simon smiled politely, concealing the chortle that curdled in his throat. Cop wouldn’t be seeing him again at all, ever, because he was fucking off to a different country and intended to stay there for as long as he remained under the radar.

He’d have to dump the car, though. With the plate on the record it was fated for the scrapyard.

“Appreciate it,” Simon said through an artificial grin. “Have a good one.”

The cop only nodded, patted the car door with a flat hand, before waddling back to his cruiser without another word.

Simon was humiliated to admit the relief that doused him was sobering, letting out a ragged sigh as he rolled up the window and twisted the keys in the ignition. He was certain that the encounter would have been far uglier — felt his hand twitching towards the gun on his stomach more than once, imagined how quickly it could have been over if he simply tore it out and pointed it at the wanker’s forehead.

You, strange girl, saved his arse. Whether or not you had intended to help him, you did. His eyes fixed to you as he pulled back onto the motorway, speedometer creeping back up to sixty and staying there, while the police car was still in sight.

“‘Bastard doesn’t listen to me’?” He quoted with a brow raised, incredulous amusement rich in his tone.

“What,” you muttered derisively, staring rigidly out of the passenger window, arms tightly interlocked.

“Think of that on the spot, did ya?”

Seemed you were avoiding eye contact with him now, glare fastened out into the moonlit countryside and head bolted still. Ashamed, perhaps, that you had thwarted your only real opportunity to escape him. Or, worried that if you looked at him for too long, your fear of him might have mutated into something far more difficult to justify. He smirked at the thought.

“You should be grateful,” you grumbled.

“Should I?”

“You didn’t get arrested because of me.”

He chortled at that. Maybe your tactic to ingratiate yourself was to help him, but he got the sense that wasn’t your intention.

“In that case, ‘course I’m grateful.”

“Then say thank you,” you spat, finally swivelling your head on your neck to pin your grouchy little lour to him.

“Thank you,” he crooned, grin sharp.

“Whatever,” you griped, slumping back into your seat with a huff.

He wasn’t sure if he preferred you whining and crying to pouting like a teenager, either option tested his patience. He at least found the latter vaguely amusing, only slightly more endearing than a whimpering abductee in his passenger seat.

“Thanks not good enough for you?” He asked mordantly, and you scoffed. “What, do I have to lick your cunt to prove it?”

Your stare cut to him out of the corner of your eyes, head impudently bowed to avoid facing him head-on.

“Don’t say things like that,” you murmured uneasily, eyes glittering under the streetlight that passed by.

“Like what?” He sneered, “don’t want me to talk about licking your cunt?”

“Shut up,” you chirped, stiff-lipped, tipping your knees away from him and once again scowling out of your window.

He snickered at you, couldn’t help it, watching you get all tight and restless when he said it again. Certain you were involuntarily picturing his head between your legs, whether you liked it or not.

“Don’t like the word cunt?” He teased, winding you up for his own enjoyment. “Or don’t like thinking of me licking it?”

“Stop it,” you whined, shrivelling up like a raisin.

He grinned. “I can call it your pussy instead.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Uh-huh,” he laughed.

You turned to tug at the door handle, yanking at it unrelentingly, and it only thumped as you failed to break through the lock. “Let me out.”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

“Open the fucking door,” you spat, spite simmering in the back of your throat. “Let me out.”

He liked this better. Hissing derision, contemptuous attempts to escape, to demand your freedom. Much more enjoyable than your earlier weeping, all snotty and puffy-eyed.

“Not gonna happen,” he said.

“You’re a pervert,” you growled.

“So?”

“Let me go,” you repeated, glaring daggers at him.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said candidly, tone as rigid as he intended it to be. He meant it.

Again stymied, you slouched over and turned away from him, and went petulantly silent. Simon drove ahead unruffled, took another exit off the motorway — once again trundling over a poorly kept rural road, heading in the direction of the next highway junction half an hour north.

It was evident being off the beaten track put you on edge, pellucid in the way you tightened your arms around yourself once the streetlights became fewer and further between. He couldn’t blame you, it was certainly slasher-esque to cart you around backroads, where the only buildings were abandoned barns and grain silos. Lucky for you, he wasn’t a murderer. Not anymore. Besides, all of his past killing was government sanctioned. Most of it, anyway.

You kept your mouth shut for the next long while, huffing and puffing every now and again, making sure not to let him forget how unhappy you were with your circumstances. Strangely enough, he found it endearing.

“I need to pee,” you said suddenly, a squeak, shy to say so.

He snorted. “Think I’m thick?”

“I — I’m being serious,” you stammered. Unconvincing.

“Hold it,” he said unsympathetically, turning a left corner, the momentum making you tip into the centre console, your shoulder nudging against his before you spitefully tugged yourself away.

“I can’t,” you grouched.

“Piss yourself then,” he sneered. “I’m not keepin’ this car.”

Your brows scrunched up in disappointment. “I don’t want to — to pee on myself. That’s just gross.”

He smiled. Something cute about you.

“You can piss when we stop for the night,” he said. “How’s that?”

“We’re stopping?” You asked quietly, blinking at him charily, as if he’d change his mind if you spoke too loud.

“Been a long fuckin’ day,” he grumbled. “I’m not driving for nine hours straight.”

“Nine hours?” You pestered, “I thought we were going to Scotland?”

He couldn’t help but grin at that. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip — we. Maybe you had come to terms with it already, the ineludible fact that you were stuck with him for however long he wanted to keep you. So far, that looked like a good while.

“Taking the long way,” he answered.

“What the hell, how many people are looking for you?” You asked, pouting in worry.

He sucked his teeth. “Not enough to find me.”

You didn’t need to pee at all.

In fact, your nerves had sucked up every drop of water that remained in your body after your deluge of tears. They were glutted with it. All swollen and pinging with panic every odd moment, when you remembered you were supposed to be in fight-or-flight.

You were seething, though, that you had failed to convince him.

The plan was poorly conceived, in fairness — you only imagined getting as far as an unlocked door, girding your legs to bolt off into the endless fields on the side of the road in whichever direction they took you. Didn’t spend a moment considering whether you could outrun the goliath, or how rough he’d be when he predictably tackled you. Maybe he’d simply have shot you as you ran away, turned it into a game of target practice for his own amusement.

There was shame brewing within you, now.

Sweltering, emetic, frothy as it crawled up your throat — you were disgusted with yourself, at how pathetic you were being, at how little you had done in the interest of your own escape. How you had let all of it happen.

You always imagined yourself a fighter, it was easy to imagine such a thing. In hypotheticals you would kick and scream, could easily overpower your assailants by sheer will, your resolve to survive so strong that capitulation was inconceivable.

Reality stung.

You weren’t a kicker or a screamer. You were a sit-and-waiter, and that realisation was sobering as it was disappointing.

Humiliated that you had forsaken a real opportunity at rescue for no discernable reason. No reason you could truly justify. Perhaps you had done it to save the police officer; if you hadn’t intervened, your deranged captor would have shot the innocent man for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, and it would have been your fault for making a fuss.

Terror was the next excuse, but that didn’t quite justify it either. If you were so terrified that the man would shoot you, you would not have uttered a word. No, you would have been quiet, a good girl, just as he ordered you to be.

It assuaged your fear, you thought, to see his face.

You were surprised to see a face at all beneath the mask, forgetting he was a man and not some caricature of chaos and violence. He looked like a soldier, too. All scarred and cynical, disillusionment was inlaid in his features despite how caustically he grinned at you.

His hair was freshly buzzed, sandy blond velvet coating his head, long pink cicatrices carved lines into his scalp as if someone had attempted to cut through it and peel it from his skull. He was tattooed, you could tell, by the teal-black engravings that crept up the side of his neck, the rest concealed by the thick hood of his sweatshirt. Nose a little swollen at the bridge, fractured once and poorly healed.

The shame was even more potent when you caught yourself eyeing him for too long, flicking over to him every now and again just to get a glance, the shortest possible eye contact to ensure he didn’t catch you staring.

Fucking mortifying that he was good-looking.

That your mind even allowed you to think so, that your eolithic subconscious had considered your abductor’s appearance at all. The way he had rakishly smirked at you was arrogance manifest, you could see in his russet-brown eyes a patent awareness of your attraction. As if he could smell it on you, goading you to admit it, ego stroked every time you caught his eye.

So you didn’t.

You kept your body tilted away from him, gaze locked out of your passenger window, sweaty hands clamped together. Every now and then you felt his glare on the back of your neck, heard him breathing in your direction — it felt as though you were counting down the minutes until he felt compelled to reach over the console and touch you.

It was only a matter of time, undoubtedly. That’s what he took you for, you were certain, despite his supposed ambivalence. The thought made your heart sit fat in your throat. Stopping for the night was a deadline.

“Where are we stopping?” You asked weakly, voice aimed at the passenger door.

He let out an exasperated breath. “Not sure yet.”

“Are you going to sleep in the car?”

He seemed to find that amusing. “I might not look it, love, but I’m a creature of comfort,” he said. “I’ll get us a bed.”

Us. You shivered when he said it.

A scornful refusal knocked at the back of your teeth, but you knew how he’d twist it, would mock your aversion. He’d make another foul little quip about your pussy, you thought.

You didn’t want to give him the chance to say the word again. Not simply because it was revolting to listen to the degenerate joke about eating you out — licking your cunt, it echoed in the sauna of your skull — but because the mere mention of it turned your cheeks claret-red and the back of your neck all clammy.

What was worse, is that you knew he could see it on you. Plainly emboldened by how much it ruffled you. Could decipher your unease as an effort to conceal some biomechanical reaction, one provoked by the mere suggestion of it, by the vibrations of his voice as he said it.

“Do me a favour,” He suddenly demanded.

You refused to turn and look at him. “What.”

“Grab me a fag, will ya?”

Animosity congealed in your mouth. The fucking gall to request favours of you. “From where?”

“Bag in the back there,” he said simply, “light’s in there too.”

“Fine.”

You peered behind the headrest, his unzipped duffle bag was dumped on the back seat; just out of reach if you were to extend an arm between the gap. Instead you had to twist your entire body and contort yourself through the middle, waist between the front seats as you climbed over the console.

You resented being in such a position, arse jutting out towards the windshield, unable to see the driver that sat so close to you — so you were quick about it, burrowing through the sack, stuffed to the brim with junk, and myriad different brands of cigarette cartons.

“Which ones do you want,” you asked impatiently.

He huffed as he thought about it. “What’ve we got?”

“Um,” you murmured, digging through the cardboard cartons. “Mayfairs, Richmonds… uh. Embassies, Davidoffs—”

“Mh. Gi’s a davidoff,” he interrupted.

You followed his instruction and plucked out the trim red box, and an orange Bic lighter once you found it at the bottom of the bag, wedged between wads of cash. You peeled away the thin plastic covering and flipped open the card lid as you reeled your body back between the seats — immediately you caught him lavishing your rear in attention. He sniffed casually when he caught your eye, utterly shameless.

Heart shuddered in your ears as you sat back down in your seat, gooseflesh prickling up in your skin as you held the carton out for him to pluck out a roll.

He pinched the end of one and stuck it between lips curled over his teeth, before gesturing wordlessly for you to give him the lighter.

“You’re a doll,” he said, muffled by the filter in his lips. Jaw jutted out to angle up the cigarette, he flicked the lighter in his fist with his thumb, little orange flame hovering under the end of the roll as he sucked it.

“Whatever,” you grumbled, swiftly turning away from him to return your attention to the road out the window.

Seemed he was approaching some area of population, little brick houses began popping up on the side of the street, lampposts peppering the road ahead. A surge of adrenaline made your hackles spike up — bystanders, you thought, people who might have heard you if you screamed loud enough.

“Want a puff?” He asked indifferently.

“I don’t smoke,” you snarked, distracted.

He snorted. “Goodie girl, are ya?”

“No,” you said curtly.

“Mh, that’s right — you’re a little thief,” he taunted. “Not a good girl at all.”

There was no response that would spare you his teasing, so you kept your mouth shut. Stayed silent for the remainder of the drive, in fact, a solid quarter-hour — until the car bounced over something and you jolted in your seat. Quickly realised he had pulled up into a parking lot as the truck began to slow.

A two-star Travelodge, evidently, one planted directly on the side of the northbound highway. It looked barren, coral bricks all grimy with lichen and sludgy brown water stains, every window blocked by shut curtains. Not a single light glowed from within a hotel room, only the dim yellow lantern bolted to the wall above the sliding door at the entrance.

You held your tongue in your teeth as he drove to a park at the very back of the lot, under a low-hanging tree branch, concealed by shadow. Your skin began to itch, crawling with bugs and alight with adrenaline — you could run, now, if he opened your door. Maybe you could sprint to the nearest building and hammer on the door, shriek that you’d been kidnapped, and to please please call the police. Or, maybe you could try to snatch his gun from him and shoot him in the fucking head.

Instead you sat still in your seat. Felt your chest breaking out in a panic rash.

“Righ’,” he said casually as he killed the engine, the suspension of the truck bouncing under the weight of him as he adjusted in his seat. “Look at me.”

You shook your head in refusal. Entire body stiff as wood. Anticipation frayed your nerves and made your hairs stand on end. It was suddenly real.

You kept your eyes pinned away from him, but it was futile, because he reached a massive arm across the gap and seized your jaw in a single hand. Fingers dimpled your cheeks as he twisted your head to face him, and you attempted to scowl at him, but your quivering lip made plain your alarm.

“You gonna make a fuss?” He asked stiffly, pinching his cigarette with his free fingers, silvery smoke clouding out from behind his teeth.

You just about said no on reflex, but bit down on it instead, because it likely would have been a lie. Only pouted at him scornfully and shivered in his grip.

“What d’you think will happen if you do.”

You swallowed. “You’ll shoot me.”

He shook his head. “Would be an uncomfortable night for you, though, I can tell y’that.”

A crease pulled between your brows. “Are you going to — to beat me up, or something?”

He chuckled at that, a cocksure grin; you suddenly felt a weight in your chest, burning hot, made your ribs sink and your heart flutter.

You hadn’t yet seen his face up close. His cheeks were stubbled, skin peppered with freckles and the creases of early aging. Teeth were sharp and unexpectedly white, raffishly crooked with pointed canines, a silver cap on a premolar. His lips were full, pale, a single scar running through the top one, white stripe in the ruddy pink.

The shame returned with a kick to the stomach when you noticed yourself staring at his mouth, and you tried to look away from him, but he riveted your head in place.

“Don’t plan on it,” he said, after a beat too long.

Sweat pricked along your hairline. “Then what.”

“I’d like to have a nice long snooze,” he grumbled. “I don’t wanna be up all night wrangling you. So if you throw a tantrum you’ll be sleeping tied up with a sock in your throat. S’that what you want?”

“No,” you chirped.

He nodded approvingly. “I don’t want that either. I like the sound o’ your voice. Be a shame to snuff it out, wouldn’t it?”

You attempted to nod, and though his hand kept you still he understood the intention. With a ragged sigh he finally released you, giving you a condescending pat on the cheek.

With a grunt he suddenly twisted and leaned between the seats, gargantuan body taking up the entire cab as he reached behind you to grab his duffle bag, and you wedged yourself against the door to avoid touching him.

Clambered about as he reeled the giant bag back to the front, before snatching the car keys out of the ignition and unlocking the driver side door. He kicked it open and hopped out with a huff, immediately slamming it shut behind him — only unlocked your door with his keys only once he was directly outside it, pre-empting any of your attempts to slip away.

He opened the door for you with a clunk, and the biting air of the late autumn night made your entire body tighten up.

“Get out,” he said.

You nodded, swivelling yourself on your bottom and sliding out of the truck cab, landing directly in front of him. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and left the stub smoking on the concrete.

“C’mon.” He fixed a hand to your bicep and yanked you away from the car, shutting the door with a slam.

You were light on your feet as he ferried you towards the entrance to the cheap hotel, his other fist white-knuckled around the strap of his bag.

“You don’t need—” you chirped, almost tripping over your feet, “—to hold me so tight.”

“No?” He snorted.

“I’m not gonna run,” you spat, hushed despite yourself.

“Obviously.”

The sliding glass doors trundled open as you approached them, a tired ding echoing out to welcome you. The reception was quiet, poorly lit by vibrating fluorescent bars, stunk of fresh linen toilet spray and floor cleaner.

Your abductor let go of your arm abruptly when he noticed the receptionist — a teenage boy with headphones on, who disinterestedly looked up from a Nintendo Switch to address the tall brute that sauntered in with you in tow.

“Y’after a room?” The kid asks monotonously.

“Standard double.”

The receptionist clicked around on the computer, smacking chewing gum between his teeth “How many nights.”

“Just the one.”

Click click. “It’s sixty-eight for the night.”

“Y’take cash?”

The kid frowned dubiously at that, jaw hanging open as he rolled the wad of white gum along his tongue. “Sure.”

“Lovely,” your abductor grunted, unzipping the flap of his duffle bag and fishing out a thick wad of paper notes.

Jaw gaped as you watched him unashamedly finger between the notes to pluck out three twenties and a tenner, slapping them on the counter of the reception before tucking the stack away again. As agog as the receptionist at his brazenness, all but showing off his spoils, plainly stolen.

The kid pouted skeptically as he swiped the notes and counted them again, tucking them aside, and you wondered if he used the same technique as you.

He dropped a keycard on the counter. “Room thirteen,” he said.

“Cheers.”

Your abductor scooped up his bag and planted his other hand on the small of your back, nudging you ahead of him towards the narrow hallway, never allowing more than two feet to grow between his body and yours.

You glanced around feverishly as you wandered meekly down the corridor, identical doors mirroring each other for as far as you could see, until the hall turned a corner. Eyes clung to the glowing green emergency exit lights dotted along the ceiling, as if they might lead you to your salvation.

“Can’t believe you actually paid for a room,” you murmured spitefully, when he nudged you forward by the arse as if guiding a ewe.

“Wouldn’t want to break the law,” he chuffed.

In any other circumstance you would’ve giggled. You might have found him funny if he weren’t the deranged fugitive who had kidnapped you.

A yank of your shirt stopped you in your tracks, tugging you back — your abductor had flippantly taken your t-shirt in a fist, as he shoved the key card into its slot under the handle of a door behind you.

“In,” he snipped, shoving you through the door once he had pushed it open.

The room was small. Hardly enough room for the double bed in the middle of it, skinny end tables wedged on either side. The only amenities were a shin-height fridge and a kettle on a bench, tucked into a nook by the door. It was hot in there, too — radiator bubbling all day, you guessed, to counteract the cold weather.

Immediately you fixed your stare on the window by the bed; a good metre across, brown aluminium trim, lumpy textured glass that distorted the view of whatever sat directly outside the hotel room. Ground floor, you thought, easy to slip out, if you could open it —

Noticed, then, that there was no indication it could be opened at all. No hinges, no frames, no handles. Simply a flat plane of glass stuck in the wall.

Your stomach wrung itself, and you did your best not to keel over. The air was suddenly infinitely stuffier, sweltering, torrid in your lungs.

He flipped shut the bolt on the door, and landed a pat on your shoulder. You could unlatch it, obviously, but the old thing was squeaky, clanking old brass, and undoing it would certainly alert him.

He nudged you out of his way and dumped his duffle bag on the floor beside the bed, evidently claiming the side closest to the door, as if prepared to catch you should you try to slip around him.

In truth, the notion of escape was scarcely a whisper. Supplanted by a nauseating docility — a survival instinct, you thought, to simply behave. To do as you were told.

He began undressing himself, uninterested in whether you observed him; shucked off his old leather jacket and hung it over the back of his bag, unlaced and kicked off his muddy old boots. Your toes curled involuntarily into the soles of your shoes, watching him like a degenerate, as he tore off his hoodie and t-shirt and tossed them to the floor.

Something out of a movie, you thought; gargantuan beast of a man, broad-shouldered and cladded in such a dizzying mass of muscle and adipose bulk that he looked encumbered by it all. The icteric light of the sconces by the bed carved out the divots in his back, the valley of his spine, the symmetrical dimples above the waistband of his jeans — you felt sick with yourself, that you even let your eyes venture there, but they cleaved fast to him despite your chagrin.

He was slathered in tattoos as you had imagined, all flames and skulls and barbed wire, broken up by the occasional stamp of something more meaningful — a sacred heart, serif-font numbers, somebody’s name with a date beneath it. You could read it from where you stood; Johnny, 11/2023.

You were only thankful he hadn’t turned around — couldn’t see you leering at him, and spared you having to see him from the front.

“Still need to piss?” He asked roughly, and your lips twisted.

“No,” you said, still standing awkwardly by the door.

He snickered. “Seemed pretty desperate before.”

“I — yeah,” you stammered, “I don’t know. I’m fine.”

Gave you a shrug as he lumbered into the ensuite bathroom, and you heard the unbuckling of a belt and zip of a fly, the clunk of metal on a counter, then the steady stream of his piss landing in the toilet water.

You scoffed in revulsion. Fucking pig. Couldn’t even close the door. You heard him rinse off his hands at least, though you couldn’t be sure he had used any soap.

He emerged from the bathroom rubbing his shaven head and with his belt undone, leather straps hanging loose from his hips, zipper of his jeans wide open. His gun was gone. Plaid boxers bunched up, distended by the mass within and protruding through his fly — you felt yourself turn berry pink, more repulsed by yourself than him.

This time he caught you staring, and he was manifestly pleased about it. A smug grin pulled in his lips as he shuffled towards you, and you rested your weight on your back foot.

“Y’want a Valium?” He asked you, and you frowned at him bewilderedly.

“What?”

In front of you, now, you panted like a cornered animal in the shadow he cast. “Might help you sleep.”

You grimaced at him. “You just want to knock me out.”

He snorted. “Why would I do that?”

The daggers you stared at him served as your only reply, and he half-heartedly rolled his eyes at you.

“You reckon I’d want to fuck a sleeping bird?”

“Probably,” you muttered, averting his gaze when he uttered the word.

“No fun in that,” he said simply. “No nice noises if you’re asleep.”

You scoffed, perturbed by how he discussed it happening with you as if it were an inevitability. “What, like screaming?”

He cracked a grin. “Screamer, are ya?”

Your blood went runny. “Stop it.”

He brushed a knuckle under your chin, and you flinched — but to your relief, he relented. Turned away from you and squeezed the back of his neck as if to release tension.

“Get into bed,” he grumbled, plodding towards the bathroom, returning swiftly with his gun in hand.

You went cold. “Why?”

“The fuck do you think?” He replied curtly, shoving his pistol under his pillow, before he pulled his jeans down and your mouth went dry.

“I don’t want to,” you squeaked.

He chuffed at that. “Christ, fucking is the only thing on your mind, in’t it?” He taunted, “don’t get all worked up.”

“I’m — I’m not worked up, you—”

“I’m too tired for this shit,” he grunted, “‘n I’m not havin’ you up and about while I’m sleeping. Get into bed or I’ll put you in bed.”

There was no give in his expression, it was a final order. He did look tired — eyes were sunken and beset with aubergine rings, lids heavy with frustration and exhaustion. He stood with hands hooked on his hips as he impatiently awaited your acquiescence, and you sensed you were on a short timer.

“Fine,” you murmured, shuffling around the end of the bed with your arms crossed tightly, eyes averting him.

He watched you, though. Scrutinised your every move as you bent over to untie your shoelaces, pulling off your converses and dumping them on the carpet.

“Sleepin’ in your jeans?” He jeered, when you reached to pull back the blankets.

“I’m not taking my clothes off,” you retorted, sitting on the mattress and swiftly tucking yourself under the covers. The mattress was foamy, soft, sunk deep as though permanently impressed by all the bodies that have ever slept in it.

“Hardly comfortable,” he said, smirking, decidedly amused.

“Don’t care,” you groused, rolling onto your side away from him, blanket up to your ears.

He chuckled. “Suit yourself.”

You bounced on the mattress as he fell into it, springs moaning as they sunk deep beneath him, and you felt your body tip back towards him — you curled up, as close to the edge of the bed as you could get without toppling over the side.

He switched off the sconce above the bed, and the room was abruptly black as pitch.

The mattress recoiled as he adjusted himself, settling into bed with a gruff sigh, and you felt his warm breathing on the back of your head.

He seemed to find comfort quickly; exhales turning deep and languid, you sensed he had fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

There was some relief in that. Temporarily escaping him while he was unconscious.

With your heart thundering in your ears, though, sleep was impossibly out of reach for you. You could hardly keep your eyes shut, they fluttered and twitched as you tried to close them, and they’d bolt back open as though spring-loaded.

Now’s your chance — it echoed ad nauseum in your skull like the chiming of a clock, over and over until your ears rang.

You could have slithered out of bed and scurried to the door, unbolted it and ran down the hallway if you were quick enough. You could have used the steel-legged chair in the corner to shatter the window and sprint into the night. You could have slipped a hand under his pillow nice and slow, snatched his gun from under his head and shot him while he slept.

Instead you lay dead still, save for the trembling that never quite subsided.

You tried to vivisect your own mind while you stagnated in the bed. Attempted to determine why you failed to enact your own rescue, why you actively avoided pursuing your freedom.

The answer eluded you, in concrete terms anyway.

Truth was, you didn’t know where you’d go.

Literally, of course — you had no idea where you were, no phone with you, no sense of direction. You could run to a bystander and ask, of course, but you didn’t want to do that either.

It was as if you didn’t want to go back.

The thought of it nauseated you almost as gruesomely as the uncertainty of the path ahead. Of being dragged back to Dunhill, of being back to square one, of having no money, no prospects, no future.

It was the obscurity, you thought, that kept you there. Something new. Something different, albeit terrifying. The ambiguity of any future, however short, was somehow preferable than the certainty of not having one at all.

Worse to admit was whatever churning you felt between your legs. What seed he had planted when he took you had taken root, tendrils burrowing into the recesses of you and tumescing with a reluctant anticipation. You all but throbbed with it, as if your body were preparing itself for the inevitable, manipulating your mind into assenting to it.

It made you feel sick, and your skin was febrile, sticky with apprehension.

You were baking — the air was thick with it, stifling heat, though in truth it was likely your thundering nerves that set your body alight. Too anxious to release yourself from under the covers, or to roll into a cooler position, or to flip over your pillow to the cooler side.

You lay cocooned for as long as you could bear the heat, but your blood was molten and your head began to ache, and you resorted to uncovering yourself.

You did it desperately slowly, peeling the cover away from you inch by inch, and even in the air you found no relief. Your last resort was to turn off the radiator — if you could — but you’d need to get out of bed for that.

Slinked a leg over the edge of the mattress, whisper-slow, used your elbow to prop yourself up—

You felt a hand grab at your hip, and you were unceremoniously yanked back into the bed with a squeak.

“Where d’you think you’re goin’,” he grunted, voice gratingly hoarse after a half-hour sleep.

A ten-tonne arm was suddenly hooked over your waist, and you were flush with his back, his knees folded in behind yours.

“I just wanted to turn the heater off,” you whispered, hoping he wouldn’t hear you.

“Too hot, eh?”

You exhaled shakily. “Yeah.”

“Y’know why you’re too hot,” he murmured, and you felt him stick his fingers into the back of your skinny jeans, tugging the stretchy waistband and snapping it against your lower back.

“I just can’t s-sleep when it’s warm,” you stuttered, tongue tangling in your mouth.

“Bit restless, are ya?”

You felt his hand glide over your belly, and your muscles turned to stone, entire body tensing up with the touch.

“I’m not havin’ you tossing and turning all night,” he grumbled, thumbing at the button of your jeans, unfastening it with a pinch.

“Don’t do that,” you breathed, heart plugging your trachea, unable to swallow a real breath.

He persisted unimpeded as if he had not heard you, pushing down your zipper and stuffing his hand unhesitantly down the front of your underwear.

You squeaked in fright the moment his fingers brushed your mons — every millilitre of blood in your body flooded out of your extremities and pooled between your legs, a reflexive reaction that fired off every nerve ending under your skin.

“No, d-don’t—” your whimpers of refusal eked out between your teeth on instinct, but their root lay more in humiliation than fear.

His hand was icy against your feverish skin, and goosebumps bristled out from his touch — your vision went foggy as a cold middle finger the size of two of yours slid along your seam, lips went slack as the tip burrowed deeper.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he grunted, his stony voice tickling the hairs on the nape of your neck, “you are warm, aren’t ya?”

“Stop it,” you whined, half-heartedly, defeat viscid on your tongue.

His finger snaked deeper between your legs, the others flush with the puffy outer lips of your cunt, thumb burrowing into your groin as he wedged his hand in the tight gap between your pussy and your jeans.

He chortled under breath when the tip of his finger broached your entrance, dipping into the mortifying abundance of your fluid that had pooled there. God, there was so much of it, you were humiliated — you had been in denial, ignoring it, even as you felt it slicken the gusset of your underwear, maybe even the inseam of your jeans. It was only instinctive, you told yourself, it wasn’t like that—

“Jesus Christ, girl,” he chuffed, breathless, and you could not for the life of you tell whether he was proud or disgusted. “Made you wait too long, did I?”

You shivered, cunt pulsing around nothing, felt the nettle sting of adrenaline crawling down your spine.

“N-no, I—”

Bit down on your tongue as his slippery finger dragged up between your folds, catching your clitoris with a swipe and making your legs clamp together in a vice.

He only scoffed in awe. “Sensitive thing.”

“Stop doing that,” you mewled, so embarrassed that your cheeks were aflame, ears burning red-hot, heart galloping in your chest.

He didn’t believe your attempts at refusal, and you weren’t certain you did either — not when he stroked your clit with the palp of his finger, up and down, all of his movement honed in on the one spot that made you choke on air.

“Not so bad, is it,” he sneered.

You curled up like a cat, but he kept you fastened to him, immovable hand burrowed deep in your jeans. His finger slid between your folds effortlessly despite how hard you pressed your legs together — there was no escaping it, every brush of his fingertip against your slippery clit burned more than the last, igniting an inferno in the core of you that seemed inextinguishable.

Fucking humiliating, degrading, shameful, that the brute who had abducted you could make you feel that good, do so little to have you so, so—

“You’re a fuckin’ furnace,” he jabbed, and he swiftly tugged his hand from between your legs and out of your jeans.

Whatever remorseful noise spilled from your mouth was beyond you, high-pitched and so wanton it made you sick to hear it, but he only snickered.

“Quit whingein’,” he chided, taking your waistband in a fist.

He hiked your jeans down with a violent tug, tearing them down to your thighs, underwear pulled down with them. What little abnegation you had left turned to sugar on your tongue, dissolving in your saliva and sliding down your throat.

The blanket was gone, then, pulled off and pooled at the end of the bed — the slightly cooler air biting at your bare skin scarcely settled your tempers, even less so when he roughly shoved his hand between your legs again, now unobstructed. Three avid fingers prodded against your hole as if to collect the syrup that pooled there, slickening themselves before they dragged back up.

You yelped like a kicked puppy when he kneaded your clit, pads of his fingers pressing and pulling in firm circles, bud swollen and shuddering and so sensitive it was sore.

You could only whine about it, now unwilling to fight him off and likely incapable even if you wanted to. He had you riveted to him, chest solid against your back, heaving arm locking you in place. Your compunctions had melted, deliquescing into the stodgy recesses of your mind; usurped by the revoltingly animal, blood-thinning want that thundered in your temples and made your mouth all wet.

“Don’t, p-please, you’re—”

“Tha’s it, girl,” he rumbled, directly into the back of your skull, and it made you dizzy. “Let it happen.”

Your core tightened up, cunt constricting as tight as a vice, painfully empty — the surge was as sudden as a flash flood, just as violent, and you drowned in it as it swept you under. You came beneath his fingers with a winded whimper, so forcefully you bucked your legs to evade him, bullied clit ablaze and spasming in waves that made your heart stop with each contraction.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he chortled, easing his infliction but not yet stopping. “Listen to you.”

“Shut up,” you whined, unable to catch your breath.

“That’ll help you sleep, eh?” He teased, fingers finally retreating, trailing your slick up your mons before he landed flat on his back with a huff.

You were molten, sweaty hair clinging to the nape of your neck, and you wanted nothing more than to take off all your clothes and have a cold shower. All you could muster was your jeans, though, already half-off — you used your feet to peel them down to your calves, kicking them off into nowhere. Your shame had dissolved, now, utterly irretrievable.

The stale air was cool against the wetness of your inflamed cunt when you rolled onto your back; a potent relief, despite how unbecoming you felt it to leave yourself so exposed in the company of a bedlamite.

“Now stop fussing,” he grunted, settling into the mattress, hand resting on his stomach. “Don’t want you wakin’ me up again.”

You couldn’t have fussed, even if you tried. Body utterly siphoned of all energy, mind as foggy and blank as smoke.

It took you less than a minute to fall asleep.

Morning came with rain.

The glow of daylight through the embossed window was powdery white, you heard the gentle patter of raindrops landing on the pane, the loud dripping of a leaky gutter pipe somewhere outside.

Your mouth was chalky, tongue swollen, vision too blurry to identify where you were at a glance.

The realisation rinsed you like cold water when you heard the gruff breathing from beside you. Heavy and deep, the warmth of a body lying too close to you, you felt the hirsute skin of a leg against yours.

You were nauseous as you remembered the night before, when your legs brushed together and you noticed they were bare — no underwear on either, the sheets tangled up between your feet and your hair greasy on your forehead. Your cunt was still sticky and it made you wince to move and feel it, remembering how he had touched you, that his fingers were likely still covered in the dried residue of the orgasm he had milked from you.

The remorse was as pounding as a migraine. Brontide in your skull that made the room spin, and you wanted nothing more than a glass of icy water and some ibuprofen.

You peered over your shoulder at your abductor; lying on his side with an arm folded under his pillow, shoulders rising and collapsing with each heavy breath, scarred face somehow peaceful in his slumber. It was surreal to witness him like that, observing him in his most vulnerable state — you knew his gun was under that pillow, but the thought of trying to steal it faltered as fast as it came.

Instead you slipped out of the bed, pattering on the soft soles of bare feet to the tiny kitchenette, and filled up a brown glass mug with tap water. You drank it all in three hard gulps, then filled up another.

He didn’t stir, not even slightly. In such a deep sleep that you likely could have put your jeans back on and unbolted the door without even waking him.

Instead you went into the ensuite, shutting the door behind you. The bulbous knob had a push-button to lock it, but it was loose, and no matter how many times you pushed it, it failed. You gave up quickly, though — didn’t want to wake him up yet.

The bathroom was arranged nonsensically — the toilet sat by the door, the vanity across from the shower that was tucked into the corner. Its glass walls were grimy with limescale, every amenity made of faded ivory acrylic and stained brown at the edges where the janitors had failed to clean it.

You flushed the toilet when you saw that he hadn’t and swore under your breath in disgust. Fucking animal. You quickly peed, rinsed out your mouth with water from the sink, then turned on the shower. You only had a t-shirt to take off, revolted that it was all you had worn during the night. You hung it on the towel rail.

You kept the water lukewarm, too sensitive for cold and too feverish for hot. An array of cheap mini soaps and shampoos lined the tiny in-built caddy, and you were not frugal in using them. Used almost the entire bottle of body wash to lather every crevice of your body, washing away the sweat of panic and ignominious lust that mired your skin. Shampooed and conditioned your hair with products that smelt like pine and citrus with an undercurrent of battery acid.

The water was cleansing, a pleasant distraction, and you shut your eyes as you rinsed off your face, rubbing the grease off your skin.

You rubbed your eyes before you opened them — immediately spotted a silhouette outside the shower, and a blood-curdling scream erupted from your chest as you sprung from the ground. Almost slipped over when you landed on the PVC floor, but you managed to catch yourself with your hands on the glass.

“What the fuck!” You shrieked, heart galloping so rapidly you worried it would break a rib.

He was blurry through the spray of water landing on the shower walls, but you could see him lumber towards the shower door. You shrunk into the corner when he cracked it open, back firm against the square tiles as if you could slip through the fractures in the grout.

He stepped into the shower as if he hadn’t noticed you there, leviathan that he was, his body took up two thirds of the space in the narrow glass box. Boxers were gone, his cock hung heavy and unashamedly, and your stare caught on it like a fish on a hook. Fucking bludgeon of a thing; it swung as though prideful, thick from root to head, roped with veins and sheathed in rosy foreskin. Half-hard, it jutted out from his bed of wheaten curls at a forty-five degree angle, and it bounced as he took a step.

You looked at it for too long, breath caught in your gullet, and he noticed.

“Settle down,” he taunted, hardly a croak, morning voice abraded and gurgling from his throat. He shut the shower door behind him.

You had a plethora of disputes to mount — get the fuck out, how dare you, you didn’t even knock — but they all fizzled at the back of your throat, when he hauled you out of the corner by the hips, swivelling you around until your nose was flush with the shower wall. Kept you there with a hand cuffed around the back of your neck, wet hair knotting in his fingers.

“You can’t—”

“Prettier than I thought,” he murmured to himself, a rough hand smoothing from your hip to your ass, brazenly taking a handful and squeezing hard enough to make you chirp.

“Get off—”

You choked on the rest of your dispute when he packed his hand between your legs, the gap tight where you held your thighs together — he gave no warning when he snaked his finger between your folds, nudging for an entrance.

It happened so fast you couldn’t catch a breath — he found it quickly when your hole twitched at the intrusion, and you yelped in shock when he unhesitantly pushed it inside you to the knuckle, palm flush with the base of you.

“Lovely little cunt.”

And despite every effort to maintain some dignity, every bulwark you had attempted to erect against succumbing to your baser appetites, came toppling down in the quake of his words. Scruples sloughed off from you like the shed of a snake, and whatever slithered free was as shameless as she was hungry.

“Mh, still nice and warm after last night, in’t she,” he crooned, flexing his finger to push it deeper before raking it out.

He was priming you, evident in how he stretched you open around his thick finger, pumping it in and out of you as though assessing how deep he could go. You pressed your forehead against the cold tile, toes curling into the plastic shower floor, whimpering like a wounded animal.

You felt like one, when he tried to push a second finger in — he had to wriggle it to wedge it in, bully it deeper before your hole could stretch to fit it. It stung where the fragile skin pulled taut, but it was a delicious pain, like the burn of liquor or the sting of pulled hair.

“Christ, that’s tight,” he grunted into the shell of your ear, and a chill prickled down the side of your neck.

He ran out of patience, you supposed, because he slid his fingers out of you and your cunt spasmed in protest of its emptiness. He had spun you around then, handling your body like a ragdoll, moving you right where he wanted you — had his hands under your ass in a blink, and he deftly hoisted you upward, back grinding against the tile wall.

You hooked your legs around his hips on instinct, arms slung over his shoulders when he put them there, his face level with yours. Water ran in rivulets down his face, dripping from his hairline and off his chin. Pupils distended and black as tar, beady as a shark, and glaring into the depths of them made your tongue even wetter.

His titanic arms held you up without exertion, and one released your thigh to scoop underneath you — held his cock upright in a fist, and with no pause he lodged the clubbed head of his cock against your opening. He pushed in with his full weight, reaming you open on the girth of it, and your eyes glassed over.

The noises you made were animal, mewling and gasping, coughing when he landed against the spongy plug of your womb, cock as hard as a gun barrel and just about as threatening.

“Fu-hu-huck,” he chuffed into your cheek, voice oozing ardent satisfaction, vibrating directly into your skull. “Tha’s heaven.”

It tracked that he was a talker, given how chatty he was for the duration of the drive — but you liked it. God, you liked it. Mortifying, yet liberating to admit to yourself, that you wanted to hear him talk; you wanted to hear him tell you how lovely, how pretty, how perfect you were.

“All sweet now, aren’t ya?” He purred, bouncing you upward as he rutted hard. “Just what she needed, mh?”

You almost said it aloud — yes crept along your tongue and prickled at the tip, but you weren’t quite ready to let loose the confession. It escaped instead as a moan, head rocking back and knocking against the tile, and he let out a low chuckle, because you said it in all but words.

“Yeah,” he grunted, panting, pelvis grinding against yours as he pistoned into you, somehow deeper every thrust. “Fuckin’ knew it. Barmy for it the second I walked in, weren’t ya?”

He grabbed your face by the jaw, angling your head to look directly at him, the squeeze of his fingers forcing your lips to pucker. His cheeks were ruddy, blood fresh and hot under his skin, eyes rabid with hunger and pride. They scoured every feature on your face and you melted beneath their attention.

“Gorgeous girl, aren’t you?”

He rutted with purpose, chasing his own end with no mind paid to your squeaks of sore rapture, grunting as his cock reeled out and stuffed you full again in steady rhythm. You could only burrow your fingernails into the meat of his back, carving into his wet skin as if holding on for dear life.

“Just fuckin’ perfect,” he grunted, a tirade that persisted through every thrust,

“Sweetest thing I ever stole.”

“Who needs fuckin’ money, eh?”

“Hit the jackpot with you, din’t I?”

“Might just keep you forever.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t ya, sweetheart?”

Perhaps your brain had been knocked against your skull one too many times, turned soggy and stupid in the heat, because you whimpered; “Y-yeah.”

His brows shot up at that, shocked — but that surprise quickly gave way to a lavish conceit, a vicious smile that oozed pride for having conquered your inhibitions without even having to try. You’d have been embarrassed if you had the capacity for it anymore, but all shame had been bled from you.

“Yeah?” He goaded, grin wide and jaw loose, panting through his teeth. “Want me to steal you away, eh?”

You nodded as much as he would allow you to, and his lips planted on your chin as though tempted to bite you.

“I can do that, love,” he crooned, “I can take y’where no one will ever find ya. Keep you all for m’self.”

You whined when he only fucked you harder, tender skin of your back chafing against the grout with every jolt. Seemed he was approaching the summit of his own pleasure — huffing like a bull, thrusting with anger, not nearly as chatty as he had been for the rest of it.

“Agh, shit—” he groaned, mouth landing on your shoulder, teeth catching your skin. “Fuckin’ hell—”

He hastily reached underneath you to unsheathe his cock from your hole, leaving your cunt bitterly empty and convulsing in its sudden vacuity — his entire body jerked against you as he came, you felt his cock jolt beneath the cleft of you as it spurted ropes come against the tiled wall he held you to.

His climactic groans were music, to you, little lecher that you were. Some foul part of you was remorseful he hadn’t come inside you instead, hadn’t carelessly pumped you full of it — not a drop of rationality left within you, evidently.

You didn’t expect him to kiss you, but he did; planted a slovenly kiss on the side of your neck, pillowy lips wet with saliva and the water of the still-running shower.

He released you, then — didn’t quite drop you, lowered you as gracefully as he could before letting you land on your feet with a thud. Gave you a pet on the head as though to praise you, a prideful kiss into your scalp.

He shut off the water with a shove of the chipping lever, and the showerhead continued to leak fat drops of water despite it being shut off. He pushed opened the shower door for you, and you slipped out, sodden feet landing on the bathmat.

There were scant words exchanged as you handed him one of the towels, using the other to dry yourself off. You couldn’t help but watch him as he rubbed himself down with the teal-blue cotton, polishing his head like a bowling ball, flossing under his arms, unabashedly rubbing the towel under his balls to dry between his legs. Something in his nonchalance, unapologetically going about it all as if it were normal, was endearing to you. Made your hackles soften, if they were still at all raised.

You put your t-shirt back on, wishing you had a change of clothes, and ventured back into the bedroom — the air was still thick with the dusty warmth of the heater, and ripe with the musk of both of the worked up bodies that had spent the night in it.

“Get dressed,” came a demand from behind you, followed by a coaxing pat on your bare arse. “Need to hit the road.”

You looked over your shoulder at him, watching as he pulled on his boxers, tucking his cock away and snapping the elastic waistband around his hips. You picked up your knickers from where they had landed on the carpet the night before, shimmying up your legs.

Couldn’t yet believe what you were girding yourself for. What you had already accepted as the next step you would take.

You caught his eye, a pout in your lips;

“Can we get breakfast first?”

i've got a pinterest board for this one. the vibes have been stewing for a long while

#simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #cod smut #cod fanfic #call of duty fanfic #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x female reader

6K notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 25 days ago

Text

Also for those of you wondering.... here's the other side of my type. The pretty boys.

And yes matt murdock is here. Again.

But he's just so pretty-

Tags go in order of who they are (even from the first post.

So over the last year, I've realized my type is usually brunettes and dark-haired men. I never realized how deep it went....

Please tell me someone else is seeing this pattern.... because why are they all so similar. All of them are twice my age and broody. The facial hair always makes it better. Then you've got Pedro's and Jon's noses.

And all of them i can't have, what is this.

But then you also have the other side of this vague type I have, where they are all just pretty boys, who are just oh so sweet and look at you with puppy dog eyes...(not that the gruff broody ones don't do this either)

But also where can I find one of these men in real life... is there like a store or do i have to go to the big man himself and ask for him to build me one?

Anyone else share my taste in men?

177 notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 1 month ago

Text

I am utterly in love with your words and the way you write. It's like poetry and I live for it. This is gonna sound weird but the way you write makes me want to live in your brain so I can hear more of the beautiful words. I've always loved Maximus but you put him into a new light and I fear I'll never be able to get enough. Thank you! You have now become one of my favorite authors on this site.

Sunrise Smiles

Pairing: Maximus Decimus Meridius x reader

Rating: T (fluff, with a few tiny hints of spice)

Word Count: 2.5k

Tag List: @enjisbf, @nasatshirts, @empressenchanted, @streets-in-paradise, @xiscamoony, @yourloverslost, @russtybird, @saltwaterburns, @dovellici, @ay0nha, @bat-gwuck, @melintowriting, @nananyang, @enhydralutris-t, @aelondrias

Author’s Note: I'm back with more obsessive tenderness and passion for my beloved husband Maximus :) I've been looking forward to sharing this one — it's short but really sweet. This one takes place sort of after "Tender Fires," in which Maximus escapes the execution attempt and ends up at reader's farm, where they fall in love and after much mutual pining finally become lovers. This is another favorite of mine, and I hope y'all enjoy <3

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

You have been lovers for exactly one week now, and still you are shy waking up with him in the mornings.

The first rays of dawn wake you both at the same time, cascading over the bed and illuminating Maximus' fine features as if he were a god. You are still amazed at the feeling of waking to find this man beside you, his arms wrapped around you and his skin wonderfully warm against yours.

This morning, you wake with your back pressed against his front, one of his arms thrown across your waist and his face buried in your hair. You can tell he is awake by the way he shifts you to fit against him more easily, but he seems content to lie still for a few moments while you wake up.

This entire arrangement is so new, so foreign to you. During the day when you go about your chores, you can’t help blushing when your mind returns to the night before, remembering the passionate way he makes love to you. Even now, enveloped in the warmth of your bed, the idea that this is real life almost seems impossible.

Once he has shifted you where he wants you, he inclines his head to one side, just far enough that he can kiss the side of your neck tenderly. You can feel him smiling against your skin, pulling you infinitesimally closer to his body.

And this is the most unfamiliar aspect of it all: this next-morning affection. There is no embarrassed separation after you are finished, no leaving in the middle of the night to escape awkwardness. For this man, lovemaking is only one part of the way he demonstrates his affection for you.

Slowly, almost lazily, he continues to press soft kisses against the curve of your neck, following a trail down your shoulder. Your skin tingles at the sensation, and you can’t resist a smile that you try to hide in the pillow.

He must catch your amusement, because you can feel his own smile widening as he kisses the back of your shoulder. His short beard prickles against your bare skin, eliciting a giggle from you that prompts him to tighten his arms around you and bury his face in the crook of your neck, laughing with you.

Neither of you is laughing at anything in particular — just giddy at being able to demonstrate your love for each other — and he lifts his head enough so he can pull you onto your back. You link both arms around his neck, dragging him back down to your level, and he kisses your lips in a way that is somehow both stirring and soothing.

In the next few moments, he takes the time to kiss a trail down your neck, your collarbone, and lower. The same early-morning shyness strikes you, even in its irrationality. There is nothing he can see or do that he has not already seen or done in the last week, but the sheer intimacy of him seeing you this way, with the first rays of the sun dancing through your bedroom, makes you bashful.

Once he is satisfied that he has covered you in kisses, he props himself up on one arm to gaze into your eyes and stroke his fingertips through your hair. You can see nothing but absolute fondness in the way he looks at you.

“As lovely as you are at night,” he says in the deep, raspy morning voice that sends an instant shiver down your spine, “I think you are even lovelier in the morning.”

You can only smile at his words, still a bit overwhelmed by the entire situation. You would have thought that after a week of being lovers, you would be a bit more confident and articulate the morning after, but this man still knocks you speechless with the passion in his eyes. Especially when your body is remembering the way the night before was spent.

He tilts his head to one side as he looks at you curiously, eyes darting across your face. With a mischievous smile, he traces the back of his knuckles down your cheek. “Is that a blush?” he asks softly, fingertips trailing over your face.

You can only grin and look away in response, feeling your cheeks burning. You can’t explain why you are so overcome with shyness, but he just smiles wider at your reaction.

“Why do you blush?” he whispers, leaning forward to kiss you again between sentences. “What do you think I will see that I have not already admired?”

Your blush only deepens at his question, and both of you are smiling into the next kiss. You reach up both hands to cradle the back of his head, fingers tangling in his dark hair and earning a soft sound from him in response. He lowers himself down onto his elbows over you and deepens the kiss, his tongue stealing past your lips.

This is yet another thing that thrills and dazes you: the way he pours every bit of his intense focus onto you, exploring your mouth as if he is kissing you for the last time and trying to commit each detail to memory.

In the brief moment when he pulls away to take a breath, you reply to the question that he has probably forgotten. “If I blush,” you tell him coyly, “it is only because the memory of last night is still so fresh.”

“Is it?” he asks, clearly pleased with that answer. “Would you be interested in refreshing that memory again?”

You shiver again at the delicious promise in his words, and he wraps you snugly in his arms again, his warmth washing over your skin. He tilts his head to resume his kissing on the side of your neck, right behind your ear in the spot that he knows makes you writhe.

A moment later, when you can form a coherent thought, both hands gripping his broad shoulders, you whisper in his ear, “The day will not wait for us to have our fill of each other, my love.” He smiles against your neck, and you add, “Though I will be counting the moments until night falls and we can refresh the memory more than once.”

Still cradling you in his arms, he lifts his head and gazes into your eyes tenderly. “Would that there were enough hours in the night that I could get my fill of you.”

“I would be heartbroken if I ever thought you had enough of me,” you reply softly, fingers threading through his hair.

He sighs, the heat and sincerity in his eyes transfixing you. “A thousand nights with you would never be enough,” he murmurs, fingers flexing against your waist. He kisses you again, more gently this time.

“Then I should have nothing to worry about tonight,” you tease him between kisses. “It is only the eighth night.”

Another sound from the back of his throat, one that almost sounds like a growl when paired with his intense gaze. “Worry only that I will not let you go in the morning,” he quips, eyes locked on your kiss-swollen lips.

The heat of his skin, the warmth of his embrace, and the growing knot of desire in your stomach combine to make you yearn to take him up on his offer of refreshing your memory right here and now. “This may be the first time I have ever loathed my farm,” you admit, arching your back in a stretch and tightening your hold around his neck.

He grins in response, kissing the corner of your mouth gently. “Do not loathe your farm,” he replies. “It needs you almost as much as I do.” One last kiss, one that conveys his deep affection for you, and he finally pushes himself into a sitting position, tugging you up with him by the hands.

“Come,” he instructs you softly, climbing off the bed and pulling you alongside him. Again, you feel the blush rising to your cheeks when you stand, the covers falling away to reveal your skin, but he just gives you a smile of reassurance.

At first, you aren’t sure what he plans to do, but he reaches for your tunic, which was folded on your corner chair, and lifts his eyebrows to indicate for you to hold out your arms. You do so, and he wraps the tunic around you as deftly as if he has done it a hundred times. He certainly has seen you do it enough times.

He fiddles with your belt for a moment, tying it backwards, then correctly while you watch. Occasionally, he lets his eyes flit up to yours, the corners of his lips turned up in a subtle smile.

The sheer tenderness of his action melts your heart, especially since you know he is not purposely seducing you in this moment. He is simply enjoying your presence, engaging in your normal morning routine of putting your clothes back on after a night spent otherwise.

When he finishes tugging the knot in your belt, you almost shiver remembering the way he untied it last night — carefully, methodically, but with the utmost intensity and purpose.

Now that he has finished with you, you decide to follow his lead, picking up his tunic from where he had draped it across the corner of your bedside table. He grins when he sees that you are reciprocating his actions, and he helps you shrug the tunic over his head, thoroughly tousling his hair in the process.

His tunic a simple one, the kind that is soft and comfortable and laces up at the neck. Naturally, the strings hang loose thanks to your quick untying work last night, leaving his neck exposed. With a short coy smile, one that belies the color in your cheeks, you lean forward and press a kiss to his collarbone, which is something you have quickly discovered that he likes.

Before you have even lifted your head, both his hands are on the sides of your waist, gripping you with the restrained strength that makes your blood race. You can see his chest rising and falling more rapidly, feel his fingers flexing into your ribs, but he doesn’t lose his self-control, just allows you to continue.

Carefully, you lace up the cross-ties on his tunic, your fingers brushing his chest occasionally. You are consistently amazed at how warm his skin always seems to be, no matter the temperature. And if his skin is not warm enough, then the heat in his gaze certainly is.

When you finish lacing his tunic, you again copy his actions and reach for his belt. His is more complicated than yours, with several sets of straps and buckles, but you make short work of it, standing closer than necessary just because you enjoy the way his breath catches each time you brush against him.

His hands are still pressing into your waist, and you slowly slide your own hands up his chest, eyes wandering over him ardently. He almost seems to be straining to keep from performing his usual activities in this room — sweeping you into his arms, undressing you, and setting your skin aflame with his mouth and hands — but as always, he masters his desire and lets you move your hands over him without resistance.

Sliding your hands over his skin, even through his tunic, is a continual reminder of the scars that cover his body, a constellation of marks that you have committed to memory by now.

Your hands continue their path upwards, smoothing across his broad shoulders, which tense under your touch. His dark eyes are locked on your lips now, his eyelashes a lovely contrast to the color of his skin. He swallows thickly, as if to suppress his thoughts, when your hands glide up to rest on both sides of his neck.

You can’t resist a giggle when your gaze falls on his hair, still thoroughly ruffled from the night before. He snaps out of his trance and smiles with you, not understanding what you are laughing at.

Without a word, you comb your right hand through his hair, marveling at how soft and silken it feels against your fingers. He actually closes his eyes at your touch, the softest breath escaping his lips. You can practically see the tension in his muscles relaxing, the hardened edges of his face softening.

How easy it is to forget that this man is still a stranger to a gentle touch, a tender embrace. His own touch is so light sometimes that you can almost forget his strength, that his hands are powerful enough to rip flesh from bone.

Seeing the look of utter calm on his face, you comb your fingers through his hair very slowly, dragging along his scalp in the way you know he enjoys. You thread your fingers over his temples, behind his ears, down the base of his neck, transfixed by the way he melts into your touch.

When you pause your stroking for a moment, he does not open his eyes, but rather leans forward a few inches, hands still gripping your waist. He touches his forehead softly against yours, as if he is simply breathing in your essence in this quiet moment.

“You are the first peace I have ever known,” he whispers to you in a voice that you know is reserved only for you.

And this, this, is what is most wonderful and unfamiliar of all — to have this man’s heart so completely surrendered to yours. He is not merely your lover or your bedfellow: he shares your heart, your home, your entire soul. Every night when he makes love to you, he whispers over and over that you are his saving grace, that he has waited his entire life to feel your heart beating in time with his.

This moment, feeling him quiet and still in your arms, his face touching yours, his soul laid bare before you, brings the familiar welling of tears to your eyes. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you draw him as close to you as you can and whisper the only words that come to your mind in this moment: “My love.”

His strong arms wrap around your waist a moment later, lifting you onto your toes and pressing you against his body. The morning sunlight filters through your window, sending soft beams of light to frame the two of you in your embrace. His lips touch your temple in the gentlest kiss, and you hear every unspoken word in the rhythm of his heartbeat against your chest.

The sun continues its usual climb into the sky, but neither of you takes a bit of notice. You are holding your entire world within the circle of your arms, and you are completely assured that the man you love is delighting in the same feeling.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

More of my fanfiction if you're so inclined :)

#when i die let me live in this moment forever #waking up in the arms of the man i love #smiling with him kissing him gently and seeing the sun rise in his eyes #tenderly passionately and reverently #gladiator #maximus #maximus decimus meridius #gladiator 2000 #russell crowe #fanfiction #gladiator fanfiction #maximus x reader #maximus decimus meridius x reader

171 notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 1 month ago

Text

He def is aging like fine wine, but it's also crazy how pretty he is still too, not even just handsome...

So...I Guess We're Sharing (Daredevil)

Word Count: ~3400 Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem! Reader Summary: Due to a mishap, you end up sharing a room with your ex Matt Murdock. And so much more... Warnings: Explicit sexual content, dirty thoughts, dirty talk, making out, non-detailed sexual fantasy (p in v sex, male receiving oral sex), oral sex (female receiving), fingering, multiple orgasms, coming untouched Matt Murdock / Daredevil Masterlist My Masterlist A03 link

Written for Bella's 4k Follower Celebration Writing Challenge with the prompt "So...I guess we're sharing."

So...I Guess We're Sharing

When your friend Ellie announced that she was marrying Theo Nelson in upstate New York, you had been hoping to run into Matt Murdock at the wedding. It wasn't an unreasonable expectation. Theo was the young brother of Foggy Nelson, Matt's best friend. It was only logical that Foggy'd be invited. And generally where you invited Foggy, Matt followed.

Now your plans for this possible reunion with your old flame had been talking, sharing a dance during the reception, flirting a little if you still found each other attractive, maybe a kiss…

Having you both booked for the same room due some kind of computer hiccup wasn't in those plans. Especially when there were no other rooms at this or the other hotels nearby. Mostly because both Ellie and Theo had very large families and lots of friends…

This left you with the choice to (A) share the room with Matt, (B) bunk with one of your friends, or (C) sleep in your car.

Option C was out of the question. For reasons that only made sense to them, Theo and Ellie decided the best time of the year to get married was January. Which meant it was far too cold to be sleeping in the car. Especially when more snow was predicted, bringing the risk of not waking up often enough to keep the tailpipe clear. Even if you didn't die, that didn't sound restful. And you were a massive bitch when you were overtired.

Option B was safer but has its own problems. You couldn't bunk with Ellie. It was less of a problem tonight but tomorrow it will be. Your bestie deserved to spend her wedding night having her mind blown by her new husband, not restricted to cuddling because her friend was third-wheeling. The rooms of your other friends in the party were less than appealing. You loved their kids but said kids had spent all day either flying or at the airport so right now they were a combination of pent-up energy and cranky. Except for the two babies who had bypassed cranky hours ago and were obviously 110% done with everything. And not afraid to say so, at the top of their little lungs.

Which wasn't their fault. You found flying stressful and you knew what was going on. But all the sympathy in the world didn't make their crying less capable of giving you a migraine.

Matt didn't have a car to sleep in, for obvious reasons. And him bunking with Marci and Foggy sounded nearly as awkward as you staying with Ellie and Theo. Apparently the pair had been looking forward to this trip as a mini-honeymoon. Mama and Papa Nelson's room already had extra people in it…

Which left Option A as the best choice for both of you.

"So…I guess we're sharing."

"I guess we are," you agreed, trying to hide your nerves.

You reminded yourself that while Matt was your ex, the relationship had ended amiably enough. It had hurt but there had been no name calling or a massive fight, public fight in the quad. Just two people agreeing that their lives were moving apart and maybe it was better to end things while you still liked each other.

Apparently all these years apart had not dulled Matt's perception of your moods. "We don't have to. I'll be fine with Foggy and Marci—"

"No, no, it's fine," you said, waving off the offer. "I said I was fine with sharing."

Matt's head tilted to one side. A shiver ran down your spine. You had forgotten how it felt to be the focus of Matt's attention. Even before you learned about his senses, it had seemed to you that being blind never stopped Matt from seeing you in ways that no one else ever had. After a moment, he nodded slowly. "If you're sure…"

"I am." You said, firmly. You could do this. It was fine. It would be fine.

The confidence momentarily wavered when you arrived at the room and discovered that there was only one bed. Matt, ever the gentlemen, immediately offered to sleep on the floor.

"No, no," you said, shaking your head. "Your back would never forgive you. It's a big bed. We can share, no problem."

This statement earned you another intense study from Matt. "Are you sure?"

"Positive." You felt your cheeks warm. "It's not like we've never slept in the same bed."

"True," Matt said, a little smile appearing on his lips. "It will be like old times."

"Just like old times," you repeated.

Except with more clothes, the horny part of your mind reminded you with a pout. Which was, if you were being perfectly honest, was more than a little disappointing. Nearly twenty years had transformed Matt from a very pretty boy to a devastatingly handsome man. The Matt you had known had been coltishall awkward, still not quite grown into his shoulders, with soft, round cheeks. The kind of person you imagined telling your father 'Yes, sir, I'll have her home by nine.'

Now? Now Matt looked like the kind person you could picture saying 'Your daughter also calls me daddy.'

The awkwardness had been replaced with cat-like grace and confidence. That cream cable-knit sweater of his could not hide that Matt had been hitting the gym anymore than those criminally well-fitting jeans could disguise that he still had the best ass you had ever laid eyes on. But far more potent was his face. Those round cheeks had been replaced with sharp cheekbones and a chiseled jaw, both adorned with the beginnings of a beard. A beard that was lightly peppered with gray that matched the touch of the same at his temples.

You couldn't explain why that little detail was getting you all hot and bothered. You just knew that it was making your cunt sit up and beg.

Further increasing your difficulties in keeping your mind out of the gutter was that his mouth still looked the same. It made you wonder if those petal pink lips would still be just as soft when he kissed you…and if he still loved eating pussy. Even dulled by time, the memory of the time he had spent hours with his face buried between your thighs, had your cunt clenching desperately around the empty air.

"Are you doing that on purpose?"

You jumped. When had he moved? He had been by the dresser, searching for something in his bag. Now he was right in front of you, one hand on the wall by your shoulder, the other closer to your hip. Almost but not quite pinning you to the wall. None of him was actually touching you but you could feel his warmth. You had forgotten how much of a living furnace Matt was.

"Doing what?" You asked, sounding more breathless than you expected. But how could you be anything else with him so close, those beautiful hazel eyes displaying the first signs of heat.

Matt arched an eyebrow. "Have you forgotten about my senses, sweetheart?"

"What do your senses have —-" You started before you cut yourself off. His senses… Matt would have heard your heartbeat increase at the sight of him. Would have heard your breath hitch when you realized how close he was, how you couldn't stop yourself from inhaling, wanting more of his good man smell…

And speaking of smell….

"You can smell…." You stopped, feeling your cheeks flush again. You couldn't say it.

Matt had no such qualms. "Your pheromones? How much you are soaking those panties? Yes, sweetheart, I can smell that."

Blood flooded your face. But also moved south as certain parts of your anatomy responded to the knowledge that he had noticed it. A reaction that only increased when you noticed the tenting in his jeans. A growl-like rumble erupted from his chest in response, hands twitching toward you before stopping. He closed his eyes, looking almost pained. "Sorry…I had forgotten how good you smell. It's making it difficult to control myself."

"Then don't."

"What?" His eyes snapped back open.

"Then don't," you repeated. The answer had been impulse but you stood by it. You didn't want to spend this entire weekend pretending that you didn't want him to fuck your brains out.

This time his hand couldn't stop itself from grabbing your hip. Or his body from moving closer, one thick thigh lodging itself between your legs. Your own hands hadn't remained idle, flying up to lay flat against his chest. But not to push him away. You just had to touch him.

You bite your bottom lip. He was even more solid under your hands than he looked. Solid enough to give horny brain thoughts. Thoughts of him pounding you against this wall, your legs wrapped around his waist while his hands gripped your thighs…

His hand on your hip tightened to near bruising. "Sweetheart…"

"Don't want you to control yourself," you panted out. "Want you to fuck me."

His hips involuntarily jerked, his thigh forcing your legs further apart. But what really had your cunt clenching desperately was feeling his growing erection pressed against you. There were too many clothes in the way and the angle wasn't right to do anything about but tease you….but you moaned.

That moan must have been the straw that broke the camel's back because Matt was kissing you. This was not the soft kiss you had imagined days ago, no gentle exploration of your mouths. This kiss was all passion. A fiery battle of lips, teeth, and tongues where neither of you could keep your hands still. Chest, shoulders, back until finally you reached his ass. It was just as good as you remembered, ample handfuls that you could not resist kneading like it was dough.

His hands tried to be just as thorough in their exploration but were stymied by the wall and how tightly his own body was pressed against yours. The frustrated whine was your only warning before you were lifted off the floor. Startled, you yelped and had to abandon his ass in favor of holding onto his shoulders.

Your assessment of how muscle was hiding under that sweater jumped another notch by how easily he carried you from the wall over to the bed. The only hint of strain came after that journey as his hands couldn't seem to decide what they wanted to touch most.

It felt good but you wanted more. Or rather you needed less, less of these clothes in the way of his hands and your hands. With this goal in mind, you started pulling your shirt off. Matt made a soft discontented noise when this impeded his exploration, until he realized what you were doing. Then his hands were eagerly assisting you. The moan Matt let out when his hands touched your bare skin went straight to your cunt.

Matt wasted no time in exploring every exposed inch of torso with his hands, followed closely by his mouth, rediscovering the spots that made you moan and squirm underneath him. It also made your hands even more eager for his bare skin. You pulled on his sweater, demanding, "Off, off, Matt, please…"

He whined against your cleavage but obeyed, leaning back to strip off that sweater. You felt your mouth go dry. You had been expecting muscles but the sight still took your breath away. And as beautiful as they looked, they felt even better under your hands. His torso was like satin…warm satin…you had forgotten how soft his skin was…how that lovely shade of rose would blossom and spread…how delightful those little whines he made when your hands found a sensitive spot…how easily he yielded to your desires…

It had been years (too many years) but you found yourself remembering. Where those spots were, how sensitive his nipples were…even the scars he had acquired over the years (so many scars….) just provided another interesting texture, another way to make him moan for you.

Your hands eventually found their way to his waist, drawing your eyes to the erection straining against the zipper….That must be uncomfortable.

A conclusion supported by the relieved sigh that escaped his lips when you popped the button on his jeans. Sighs that turned into groans when you wasted no time pulling down the zipper and reaching inside his boxers for his cock. Wrapping your hand around him, you found yourself biting back a groan of your own. You hadn't forgotten that he was big. But your fading memory was no substitute for actually having your hand around him — he's so thick…You felt another pulse of want between your legs, torn between having this cock buried deep inside your cunt and wrapping your mouth around it and making him scream…

As if he could read your mind, Matt's hands on your hips tightened…

"Please, sweetheart," he panted out, tugging at the waistband of your leggings. "May I? Please…ah!…I need…my mouth on you. Please!"

Oh his begging was just as sweet as it had been all those years ago…how could you deny him?

"Yes, yes," you said, lifting your hips to help him. Matt was quick to accept that help, peeling off both your leggings and panties in one swift action. You needed no encouragement to spread your legs wide for him.

If you thought the moan he made in response was obscenely loud, it was nothing compared to the one you made at the first lick. A slow, long drag of his tongue across your entrance, soon followed by another and another until you were squirming. Until the heavy weight of his arm laid across your hips to keep you pinned exactly where he wanted you. All you could do was whimper and beg for more.

He eagerly gave it to you. He made his way up to your clit where he applied teasing, kitten licks that sent sparks running up your spine. Then, without any warning, he wrapped his lips around your clit and sucked hard. You cried out, your hips trying in vain to jerk upward but he had no mercy. His arm kept you down and his mouth didn't relent on the pressure. You felt the coil inside you tighten as you drew closer and closer to that edge.

Then he hummed and sent you screaming over that edge.

You drowned in white hot pleasure. Pleasure that only continued to build with Matt lapping hungrily at your entrance, his eager grunts and slurps filling your ears. And just when you thought you could climb no higher, his tongue pressed inside you. You cried out, your hands scrambling to grab onto his hair. Once grabbed, you instinctively tugged on his hair, urging that clever tongue to keep thrusting in and out of you.

A silent order that Matt happily obeyed, moaning with each tug on his hair. The vibration only made you grip him tighter and pull harder…until he suddenly stiffened, letting a moan against your cunt that nearly sent you back over that edge…

The movements of his tongue didn't stop but they began…clumsy. Sometimes long laps, sometimes little licks…sometimes the pressure was featherlight, sometimes it was firm…sometime he swiped across your clit, sometimes his tongue fucked you, sometimes he lathed at your folds…

It was maddening, feeling good enough to bring you up to that edge but not good to send you over it. Even tugging at his hair only added moans that drive you even crazier….you squirmed under his arm. Funny it wasn't pinning you as firmly as before…you could almost just about ride his mouth but not quite…

"Matt," you whined. "Matt…"

Your voice seemed to break through whatever haze had seized his mind because he lifted his head far enough that you could see his face. And despite your recent orgasm, your cunt clenched. He looked positively lewd. Hair amess, lips kiss-swollen and shiny….further wetness smeared on his beard. His eyes were heavy-lidded, glassy…He almost looked drunk…The implications of what he was drunk on had only heightened your frustrated desires…

"Matt," you said. "Please….do I have to beg? Because I'll beg."

He looked confused for a moment before he blinked and the haze cleared a little. He smiled. How did that song go? He looks up, grinning like the devil? If so, that perfectly described that smile. Then you felt a thick finger run through your folds, coating itself in your slick before sliding inside you. "Not this time, sweetheart. All you need to do is ask."

The implication that there would be a next time stoked the growing fire just as much as the finger working its way inside you. You were so wet that it didn't take long for that finger to be buried up to the hilt. Nor did he waste any time fucking you that finger. It felt so good, reaching deeper than his mouth and thick enough to ease that empty feeling but it wasn't enough. "Matt."

"What is it, sweetheart? Do you need another finger?"

"Please!"

"As you wish."

True to his word, a second finger joined its fellow pumping in and out of you. Then those fingers curled and stroked a spot inside you that spent white sparks across your vision. You couldn't have contained your moans if you wanted to. Not that Matt seemed to mind how noisy you were being. Quite the opposite.

"Good girl," Matt rumbled out, his voice gone deeper and huskier. "Keep telling me how good you feel…what you need…"

His breath ghosted over your clit, adding more fuel to the growing fire. Your cunt clenched around his fingers. The resulting moan, the sound and feel of it so close to where you needed him left you whimpering and desperate. Close, you were so close…You tried to arch up into his mouth but his other arm had resumed its task of holding you down. You whined in protest but Matt was unmoved.

"Tell me what you need," Matt whispered. "Another finger? My mouth? What does my sweet girl need to cum?"

"Your mouth," you whimpered. "Please, please."

Before you could get out a third please, he drew your clit into his mouth and began to suck. In a sharp contrast to earlier, the suction was gentle. A tease, if your little nub hadn't already been swollen and sensitive. But it was so almost immediately you were babbling out his name as the fire consumed you — body, mind, and soul.

You barely heard his responding moan but you certainly felt his tongue lapping at the fresh slick flowing around the fingers still buried deep inside you, pressing insistently against that spot that made you burn…

You had no idea how long the pleasure held you under. It might have minutes. It might have been hours. You just knew that, eventually, the pleasure began to ebb. You sank into the mattress, feeling boneless and warm as you watched Matt slowly kiss his way up to your mouth.

This kiss was closer to the gentle, sweet affair that you had imagined but the tang of yourself, the edge of hunger gave it an edge. One that, despite two orgasms, began to kindle renewed heat between your legs. A feeling that only increased when Matt sat up enough to finally take off those jeans. Jeans and boxers that you couldn't help noticing were wet, far too wet to simply be precum. Especially with his cock looking only half-hard…

"Did you?"

"Come just from the taste of you?" Matt said. "Yes."

Your cunt clenched. And, of course, Matt noticed. He chuckled. "That pussy still isn't satisfied?"

"No," you said. "Because that cock still hasn't fucked me into this mattress.”

The cock in question twitched which you took as a sign of interest. Judging by the hunger shining in Matt’s eyes, the rest of him wasn’t opposed to this idea.

“Good point, sweetheart,” Matt said. He leaned down and kissed you again, short but toe-curling. You almost missed the hand sneaking under your back but you didn’t miss the sudden loosening of your bra. Or the eagerness with which he stripped it off of you and cupped your breasts. You breath hitched as his fingers teased one already peaked nipple.

“I can’t leave my sweet girl wanting.”

Taglist: @bellaxgiornata, @pastafossa, @loves0phelia, @nowheredreamer, @beezusvreeland, @yarrystyleeza, @justvalkyrie, @xoxabs88xox, @flynnethenerd

#daredevil #matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock smut #matt murdock x you #matt murdock x fem!reader

347 notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 1 month ago

Text

So over the last year, I've realized my type is usually brunettes and dark-haired men. I never realized how deep it went....

And all of them i can't have, what is this.

But also where can I find one of these men in real life... is there like a store or do i have to go to the big man himself and ask for him to build me one?

Anyone else share my taste in men?

177 notes · View notes

that1nerd-20 · 1 month ago

Text

"Nearly twenty years had transformed Matt from a very pretty boy to a devastatingly handsome man." Truer words have never been said.

The whines as he doms reader is so on brand for him and just take this the extra mile.

God how I need this man....