geeficrecs

[geeficrecs]

old dog / new tricks

Your boyfriend John Price is older, more mature, and more experienced. This isn't his first shot at a committed relationship—but this time, he's doing it right.

John Price x f!reader. Age gap. Older man/younger woman. Daddy kink. Daddy issues. Divorced Price. Tags to be updated as needed.

second time around plumber old wounds

[geeficrecs]

Pretty Little Thing

Part 1: Searching

Congratulations! Your acceptance into the North American omega matchmaking service has been approved!

You will have a week to pack any personal items you would like to bring with you to the secure omega housing headquarters. After you had completed your preliminary check-in process, you will be assigned a housing unit, and then the matchmaking can begin.

Thank you for your cooperation in the official omega matchmaking service and remember that any funds you have collected will not be accessible until you have been chosen, or until the time has come when your contract is over.

The letter was slightly crumpled in your hands and your attempt to smooth the paper was not entirely successful. Either way, crumpled or not, the letter was official and had been stamped by two representatives in the matchmaking service. Your acceptance was now guaranteed and you would be given a place among the omega housing headquarters. Until you were chosen or your contract was over, you would be kept in the secure housing facility and only permitted to the grounds of the facility.

You were unsure if you would even be accepted into the matchmaking service to begin with. You were closing in on your mid-twenties which was pushing the envelope of their accepted ages, however you had another demerit against you. Not only were you on the cusp of being in your mid-twenties but you were also pregnant with an alpha’s baby that wanted nothing to do with you.

You were determined to carry this baby, to raise it even if that meant potentially raising it alone and without much of a support system. The decision to raise this baby when it was born had been the driving factor that made you apply for the omega matchmaking service to begin with. There were incentives to signing up, the agency would give every volunteering omega a sum of money that they would keep upon leaving the facility—whether they were mated or not.

The matchmaking service was tied into international agencies that were coming together for a mutual goal of providing omega’s good and strong alpha’s. After a surge of violence against omega’s had started to have negative connotations, an international solution was proposed.

It was a crisis that was seen across the world, the amount of omega’s willing to mate were steadily decreasing as the number of aggressive alpha’s had increased. It was an epidemic that was being dealt with swiftly and in a manner that protected the omega’s. And as such, the volunteers who signed up for the matchmaking services were rewarded for their participation.

The process itself was grueling, taxing for the alpha’s who had wanted to be matched with an omega. There were physical and mental tests, meetings with psychiatrists and medical doctors, and no small number of financial and emotional obligations.

The alpha’s had to prove they could provide for their omega, give them a stable life outside of the facility. If they had failed, the application to be matched was scrapped and they had one more attempt to be matched. If the alpha failed again to prove they were emotionally, physically and mentally stable enough to provide for an omega, they would be barred from the service.

When you had applied to join the matchmaking service, you were told that the likelihood of you actually receiving a match would be slim. You were going to be the oldest omega in the house and you were pregnant, carrying another man’s baby was likely going to be a detriment. Though they hadn’t said it was impossible, the agency was really just setting you up for the potential of failing, of being denied.

Even if you were, the money you would have for signing up and being accepted, would be enough of a jumpstart for you and your baby. It was beneficial either way, no loss one way or another, and you wanted to do the very best for your baby that you could.

Which is how you found yourself standing on the steps of the omega housing facility, transported from the headquarters to the housing unit you had been assigned. It had been a week since you received the acceptance letter, the one still rumpled in your hand, and now it was too late to turn back. You were, you would, be accepted into the house and this is where your journey would begin.

As you waited for the escort assigned to show you around the housing unit and the property, you took another glance at the letter in your hand. You had been given a week to pack anything you wanted to take with you into the house, of course they would have to be further approved for the safety of the other omega’s. Once they were approved at the headquarters where you received your housing assignment, they were packed away in a special bag with your initials and housing unit on a tag.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting,” the front door opened and a woman stood on the other side, her hair pulled up and out of her face, “we had two omega’s leave today after being successfully matched. Come in, we have a lot to get through.”

You stepped through the door, listening as it was shut and clocked behind you. Upon stepping into the housing unit, you had taken your first official look at the interior.

There were two floors above the main floor, with a winding staircase that led from the main floor to the upper floors, and hallways that branched out into rooms. From where you were standing, there was a communal kitchen off to the right of the entrance, hidden by a set of swinging double doors. On the left was a series of closed doors with silver engraved plates that explained the purpose of the room: study, library, multipurpose room.

“The kitchen is off to the right, there is a chef that comes in a few days a week, however you are welcome to use the kitchen whenever you want. Off to the left are some rooms that you can use at your leisure, of course there’s the garden at the back and a swimming pool. On the upper levels are the bedrooms, oh and the laundry-” Your escort and tour guide had begun her explanation, first just waving her hand in the direction of the rooms.

Once she had begun walking toward the staircase you were quick to follow her, taking every step with calculated caution. You weren’t so much on edge because of the facility itself or the omega’s that resided here, rather you were on edge because you didn’t know what to expect next. And while you had built up this idea that this would be stress-free, you had pinned your hopes on this matchmaking services. You'd be spending your time in a secure house for omega’s where you could focus on your pregnancy until you were chosen or the contract ended.

You were doing this for your baby, but the possibility of rejection was a reality that you wouldn’t have really wanted to face.

“Your room,” the escort had stopped by a door on the left side of the second floor, your name written in fancy scrawl on the silver nameplate attached to the door, “there is a schedule for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There is a doctor who comes to the house once a month to check on the omega’s here, because you’re pregnant and your appointment will take longer, you will see the doctor last.”

You stepped into the room and set your bag down on the floor in order to take a long look around the room. While it was basic with a double sized bed, a dresser and closet, it felt comfortable and there wasn’t a barrage of scents to overwhelm you. In fact the room was rather lacking in any additional scents, and you had imagined that was to ease the new omega’s. At least until they could get settled and their scents could takeover the room.

“I’ll let you put your things away and get used to the room. I'll come grab you in an hour and introduce you to the other omega’s.” The escort hadn’t given you much more than that before she left you alone, closing the door behind her.

You walked further into the small room and slowly turned, your eyes taking in every inch of this room that you could. This was going to be your new normal for the foreseeable future, until you got chosen or your contract ended.

The computer in front of John was open and the potential matches were sent on a secure file to the head of their pack. He had scoured through the images of the omega’s with the intent of being one of the voices that would choose an omega for the four of them. As he looked through the files that were sent his way, there was a lingering disappointment that had reflected the lackluster interest in these omega’s.

“Haven’t found one yet?” Ghost spoke from the doorway, his face obscured with the balaclava and his voice muffled. “We’ve been looking for weeks, Price.”

He knew that. He knew that their pack felt incomplete without an omega, and his alphas were getting restless without an omega to balance them out. They had all relayed their desire to have an omega between them, to have someone to care for and protect as alpha’s were designed to do. It was well and good having alpha’s that were bonded, mated and marked, but they each felt as if they were missing something in their pack.

Their desire to have an omega had led them to use a matchmaking service within the UK that would hopefully bring them an omega they desired. After weeks of searching, they had agreed to meet two omega’s, one in Scotland and one in London, however nothing panned out. There was always something about the omega’s they had met, or had seen through the agency, that deterred them.

“Thinking too local, Cap. Gotta go international.” Gaz had joined Ghost in Price’s office, taking his place on the couch to relax and enjoy the company of his mates. As he kicked up his feet, he leaned back against the armrest and yanked his hat down to cover his face. He closed his eyes and listened to the grumbling of Captain Price, a sound that had almost become ASMR at this point.

“International,” Johnny was next to join the room, unceremoniously dropping himself upon Gaz, smirking when the other sergeant grunted and then growled, “is the key.”

“I am international, Soap.” Price had looked over the edge of the computer screen toward the two youngest members of the pack.

He watched them with interest as Soap and Gaz had tussled over their positions on the couch. After he had lost interest, Price had looked back at his screen, finding himself once again disillusioned with the omega’s he was shown.

Heard you needed a little help finding an omega, I have a friend who works for an agency in the US. She thought you might like their newest applicant – Kate

The newest encrypted email that lands in his inbox contains information about a single omega—one single woman that had just been accepted to the matchmaking service a week prior. The image that’s embedded in the email isn’t the first detail that draws his attention, rather it’s the note attached to the top of the file.

With emboldened letters, PREGNANT, first draws his attention as it’s attached to the picture of the omega.

“Fuck,” John curses under his breath as he feels the shift in his hindbrain and felt the irrevocable draw to almost immediately offer to meet this omega. And then, as he scrolls down your file to read further details, he comes across additional pictures and your age.

One of the problems with these other omega’s that were in the service were their age. He and the pack had agreed that having a younger omega between the ages of 18-22 were too young for them. They hadn’t wanted an omega who was freshly in their adult years and had no experience dealing with alpha’s--no, they had concluded as a pack that they wanted someone closer to Johnny and Gaz’s age.

And this omega, whose image and details had enraptured him, was fitting every single desire they had.

You were among the oldest of the omega’s in that housing facility, only 6 months away from your mid-twenties, only a year younger than Gaz and Johnny. According to your file, you were pregnant from an ex alpha that didn’t want to be involved. You had applied for the matchmaking service even if you knew there was a possibility that you would not get chosen.

“You good, cap?” Gaz had finally settled himself on the couch, his legs entangled with Johnny’s.

“I think we finally have a potential match.” Price had lifted his head and looked at Ghost first, motioning him over toward the computer to look at this file—this omega that could be theirs.

Ghost leaned over the desk and stared at the same file that Price was looking at, the same picture and the same information that Price couldn’t stop thinking about. There was a subtle acceptance that had passed from Ghost to Price and back again.

“Let’s meet her.”

[geeficrecs]

prompt: you and Price get in an accident (1.6k)

-

He comes into your life like nothing less than divine intervention.

A fender bender, of all things. It’s a bad day and you’re distracted, too busy thinking about your dad calling to tell you that he lost ten thousand from his retirement fund when the stock he’d invested in crashed and how you’re supposed to help him out of this mess, and the roads are slick with that last snowfall of early spring, still unsalted even hours after the snow started. 

So when you slam on the brakes at the last second after noticing the car in front of you stopped at a red light, your car slips on the ice and slides forward, hitting the back of the stopped car and sending it forward a foot. It’s quick and sudden, and though you stepped on the brakes early enough to avoid a worse collision, your head snaps forward with the jolt and the seatbelt yanks you back violently, winding you. 

Your hands go tight around the wheel, eyes so wide that they nearly pop out of your head as you stare at the car directly in front of you. All of the dread in the world pools in your mouth and then down your throat when you swallow, heart galloping in your chest. You almost can’t believe it for a second.

Then the car in front of you—a big, fuck-you SUV that only worsens your anxiety because of all cars to hit, it had to be someone with a fancy, brand new car that probably has a lawyer on speed dial—puts their hazards on and the driver’s side doors opens and reality snaps like a rubberband back into you. With shaky hands, you put your car into park and put your hazards on as well. 

“Oh shit,” you whisper under your breath. An understatement.

A tall man in a brown parka steps out of the car and stares at you through the windshield, a stern expression on his face. He has a beanie pulled down over his head and a full beard, and for a second, the mental image of a bear emerging out of its den flickers in your imagination, all snow-dusted and irritable. 

He’s grizzled and older than you. The only consolation is that he doesn’t match the image of the driver that you had in your head—no seven thousand dollar suit or bluetooth earpiece; instead, he seems like the kind of man who’d drive an old pickup or a schooner, wearing an Aran sweater and a skipper's cap, with a pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth. He seems out of place in the middle of the road in your small town. 

But he is real, and even though you watch him march over to you, you flinch when he raps on the window with his knuckles. 

“Roll the window down,” he instructs, voice muffled through the glass, and you do because the command cuts through the buzzing in your ear. When you do, he reaches into your car with one hand and pops the lock, then takes a step back to open the door. You’d freak out if the situation were different, but you must be in shock because all you can do is stare at him dumbly as he leans into the car and undoes your seatbelt. “C’mon, sweetheart. Out.”

It doesn’t take much coaxing to get you to step out of the car. All he has to do is step back and you get out, knees nearly buckling, like jelly under you. He holds your elbow to steady you. Your elbow feels delicate and tiny in the width of his palm. 

“You alright, sweetheart?” he asks, looking all over your face.

You want to answer him, but all you can do is whimper, “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, none of that. It was an accident. You alright though? Anything hurt?”

“Uh…I don’t…I don’t know.” It hasn’t really sunk in yet, you think. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be sore all over, but right now you feel fine. On the verge of shaking out of your skin, teeth nearly clattering together, but more or less okay. 

“Nothing too bad then. Wanna give me your insurance so we can deal with this, sweetheart?” 

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Let me just—” You move to reach back into your car to fetch your purse, but he stops you, insisting on getting it for you. 

And you let him, docile like a doll, watching as he leans into your car and across the seats to grab your purse, big frame looking comically large in your little car. Looking like he’d barely fit in the front seat if he tried to get in. 

He comes back out with your little purse in hand and opens it, handing you your wallet and purse by its strap. Your fingers are still shaking when you pull out your insurance information and hand it to him. Everything feels surreal and muted, and the tears are going to flow at any minute now if you don’t get a handle on it. 

He must notice because a knuckle fits under your chin and lifts your head up. “Hey, what’s wrong? 

“No, no,” you say, reaching up to swipe your fingers over your eyes. “I’m just—I’m really embarrassed. I’ve never been in an accident before.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about.” His voice is much softer now, pitched low in the way handlers talk to spooked animals. He puts his thumb to your chin, holding you in place. “No one got hurt. Could’ve been worse than it was, and we’ve both got insurance, so what’s done is done. I don’t look mad, do I?”

Trapped between his thumb and knuckle, you can only give a slight shake of your head. “No.” 

“Then let’s just take it one step at a time and no tears. Okay?”

You sniff. “Okay.”

“Okay. I’m going to call the insurance, so you get back in the car and sit tight, alright?” 

You nod. 

“Good girl,” he says, a hint of praise in his voice. “Put the heat on too. It’s too cold for that jacket.”

That makes you go warm all over, flustered and tongue-tied. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to expect a response out of you. The only thing he expects you to do is get back in the car and turn the heat back on, the warm air billowing into your face when he leans in to crank it up all the way. 

Though most of the sound is muffled from inside the car, you turn down the heat and crack the window open slightly to hear him give his name to his insurance company. John Price. Even his name evokes the image of him somewhere else in the world, settled into the nooks and crannies of history. 

John handles everything for you while you sit in the car like he told you to, settling everything with the insurance companies and calling for a tow truck right after that. You don’t realize that, of course, until the tow truck pulls up in front of his car and he comes back to usher you out of your car. 

“How am I supposed to get home?” you croak. The tow truck driver hitches your car to the bed of the lift and pulls it up, your little car looking pathetic all alone up there. 

“I’ll drive you home then bring mine in later.”

“Why can’t I drive my car to the garage too?” You’re petulant now that you’ve learned that he won’t bite, and you know it’s petulance because you don’t actually put up much of a fight to get your car taken off the tow truck. 

That petulance trembles when his expression grows stern again. “You’re getting it checked by a mechanic before you get behind the wheel again,” he tells you in no uncertain terms, eyes daring you to contradict him.

You don’t. It’s hard to argue with someone so adamant on your wellbeing. A mechanic in later days will tell John, with you by his side, that your car was mostly fine apart from some slight damage to the bumper, but that you made the right call to bring it in just in case the frame cracked during the accident.

John’s arm will be around your waist at the time and he’ll pull you tighter into his side when the mechanic says that. And what do you do but go with it, curling into his side like it’s natural. You’ll have already fucked him by then anyway. It’ll be no less forward than letting him take you for coffee and then back home, following you up to your apartment and into your bed. 

Now though, you let him usher you into the passenger seat of his car and shut the door behind you, the wind cutting off abruptly. It only comes back when the door opens on his side. 

You rattle off your address and watch bemusedly as he programs it into his GPS and hits save. You don’t have the temerity to question him, to poke a hole in the bubble of familiarity ballooning around the two of you. The real world seems far away in his car, like you’re in limbo, the rules different here somehow. 

“How about a coffee?” he asks at the next light, putting his hand on your thigh and shaking when you don’t respond right away. “Does a hot drink sound good right about now?”

“I guess?” you say. In truth, it sounds great, but you’re losing the thread of this conversation, your old preoccupations getting further and further away from you. 

John gives your thigh a squeeze, lingering for a beat before pulling away. “Good. It’ll be a nice little pick me up before we go home. My treat.”

All you can do is nod, your throat dry.

[geeficrecs]

Um. Been feeling some kind of way, so have some fluff.

Price x Reader

banner @/diviniyae

You'd given John the slip. 

Zipping through the familiar aisles of one of your favorite stores. You had to see if it was still there.

It didn't matter.

But it did.

You scuttle over to the clearance endcap you had originally seen it on, nestled between the other poor plush toys that sat a little too long for the retail stores liking.

You've always had a soft spot for stuffed animals. Happy little creatures that had always been close friends for a lonely little girl. 

With a little digging you find it again. A big green alligator tucked away, weighted beads lining its belly, tail, and limbs.

It was perfect. Not too stiff, no yucky sherpa, no weird scratchy fabrics for its eyes or teeth. 

Just a perfectly huggable critter, with a weight that soothed just to hold in your arms. 

You'd been eyeballing it for weeks, the toy too expensive for you to justify.

You were a grown woman.

You didn't need plushies.

But with it in sale~

Your only barrier was getting it past John. 

You still felt a little embarrassment about your proclivities. You were sensitive, always have been. From yout busy noggin to every extremity.

You were careful about the fabric of your bedding, hands gliding over every fabric and stitch to test against your skin, the type of light bulbs you purchased. Hell, you even had to ration your sniffs when looking for new candles because one too many smell tests would have your skull aching. The wrong candle choice an olfactory nightmare if allowed into your home. 

Preferences that stacked and stacked and stacked into something that you felt made you look fussy, obtuse for the sake of it.

Too much. 

But not to John. 

John took it all in stride. Of course he did. 

Your needs weren’t criticised or scoffed at. He asks questions, tries to learn, stands beside you patiently while you hem and haw while picking out produce. 

You knew in your little heart if you walked up to him with the plush in hand he wouldn't argue or balk. 

You just felt…silly. Especially for what you wanted it for. 

Needed it for.

John had become part of your carefully curated routine. He was your morning coffee and cherry scented body wash, an unnegotiable presence in your ‘nest’ he'd teasingly called it. Pillows arranged carefully to cocoon you in just right. John on your free side closest to the door, heavy arm slung over your ribs.

He was warmth, safety, an anchor that centered you amongst the waves of stimulus your brain was keen to stand under and drown.

You would never admit quite how miserable you were when he was gone, a piece of you in vertigo until he returned.

So.  Finding a substitute was in order. 

You'd foolishly tried a weighted blanket to mimic his weight against you. Yet the miracle accessory that seemed to soothe most, only made you feel suffocated in its own special way, your legs unable to cricket like you needed. 

Too much. 

Just another one of many.

It wasn't until you'd fallen asleep studying, heavy textbook against your belly that you found the key to your Johnless insomnia. Something about the familiar pressure against your chest, and John's scent still lingering on your sheets had you dozing instantly. 

You just needed something a little softer. A little heavier.

Just like the little gator in your arms, and with just a small spritz of John's cologne you could be set.

“Who've you got there sweetheart?”

You jump, flinging the plush critter onto the shelf, immediately feeling bad for treating it that way as you whirl to face John. 

He stands just behind you, round cheeks pulled into an amused smile. 

“I was just touchin’ stuff” you shrug quickly, forcing yourself to meet John's eyes in an attempt to look genuine. His eyes don't give him away, they never do, but the slight cock of his head does. A purposeful tell, an option for you to tell the truth.

You won't.

It's a stare down for a moment, a common tactic between the two of you, watching and waiting for the other to break. It's usually you regardless of whether or not you look away first and when John hums, noncommittal, baby blues flickering to the little green reptile you know you've lost once again.

He scoops it up from the pile, holding it almost carefully, turning it this way and that. “Cheeky isn't he?” John chuckles, thumbs rubbing over the embroidered white teeth. He points the gators snout in your direction. 

“Even made of that material you like. Real soft. Feel.” he comments, petting his fingers over the velvety ridges on its back as he balances it in his wide palm, offering it out to you.

You know. 

It's why you chose it. You run your nails over the velvety plush fabric, the texture soothing some itchy little part of your brain as the fabric glides under your nail. You could pet it until you wore holes in it, just like your well loved plushies before it. 

You know you sound like a child but you say it anyway, squeezing the beads of the toys little foot between your fingers. The sound not too loud or crackly. 

“He's cute. I like the weight of him, seems very huggable.” you try to say casually, but one look at John's all knowing eyes confirms that he knows something. He may not know exactly what he is onto, but he knows he's onto something. 

The bastard.

“Well let's not leave him by himself” John says, plopping the little beast into your shared basket, its blank stare holding yours amongst the bags of vegetables and snacks. “If anything I'm sure the dog would love him.”

You just barely fight the urge to smack him on the arm. 

Absolutely, not. That little fella did not survive retail hell to get torn up by some animal.

You just barely bite back your scandalized gasp, laughing nervously as a way to fill the space between you as you make your way to the check out, letting John handle the bagging while you thumb through the coupons on your phone. 

The drive home is nice, quiet, the pair of you sitting in comfortable silence, John's hand in yours over the center console. Another routine, the man clicking his fingers toward his palm to get your attention until you slip your hand in his. 

You fool with the radio, relishing in the brush of his thumb against the back of your hand, mulling over your plan on squirrelling away your new plush friend.

Once home, John ushers you inside with a fond swat to your ass and a kiss, loading  all your bags onto one arm as you scurry inside to make room for it all. Your dog watching patiently from the doorway as you move back and forth. Tail thwapping against the floor as he watches the lair of you move back and forth. 

Your grocery routine is a well oiled machine, the pair of you moving around each other easily as you rearrange your current stock to make room for the new. John stealing kisses or sneaking in pinches to your rear every time you bend over. And with only a minimal amount of grab-assing the small mountain of groceries dwindle until nothing remains.

Nothing. 

Which is another problem. 

You frown, dig through the leftover plastic on the kitchen table, in search of your prize. You double check the truck, search all through the living room and hallway. The little green plushie nowhere to be found. 

John raises a brow at you and you do your best not to seem only mildly disappointed. “I can't find the alligator….” you trail, looking under the table, just to be sure. 

John searches with you, checking the same paths, and after several passes you both conclude he must have been left behind. 

You gnaw your lip, try not to appear too stressed about it. 

You want to cry really. It's a small mishap, could have happened to anyone. 

But of course it would happen to you. 

You'd been so close, after watching it for weeks and now it was gone. Left all by its lonesome in some checkout line or worse, left outside to face the elements. 

The store was too far of a drive to justify driving back too. And you weren't about to call the store and ask. 

We'll order one, love. John tells you, but it's not the same. 

It was just a toy, and you weren't about to look like a lunatic in front of your partner about it.

So you hide your moping, curl up on the couch with your favorite blanket and fulfill your duty of choosing a movie for the pair of you while John gets your pizza out of the oven.  

You eat like your supposed too, you even sit through the whole movie without fussing with your phone. Your soft cheek pressed against his bicep,  arm tangled in his as you play with his fingers, tracing the lines against his palm as you distract yourself. 

You hadn't realized you'd fallen asleep until John jostles you with scruffy kisses to your face, rumbly voice sliding underneath you like a net, pulling you up from fuzzy half dreams, nice and easy.

You love him. 

It's the first thing you think of when your brain comes back online, your saving grace amongst all the bad luck. 

You love him dearly. After years of thinking that you'd never find another who's existence could meld with yours. Who'd see your spinning wheels fit to crash and simply take the wheel and steer rather than slam on the breaks. Leave you behind in mangled burnt rubber. 

You love him when he comes home quiet, smelling like iron and gunpowder. You love him when he emerges warm and soft, melted down in the warmth of your shared home and smelling like your shampoo.

You love him even when he puts the cups on the wrong side of the cabinet, or when he fusses with the seat in your truck; even when he forgets silly little plushies at the grocery store. 

You love him when he guides you upstairs, herding you into the bathroom to wash your tired face. Helping you brush your teeth with watermelon toothpaste because the regular mint was too much on your sensitive gums. 

You think you fall in love with him all over again when you shuffle down the hall, warm and clean and dressed in pajamas that were formerly Johns, and swing open the door to see innocent little eyes staring back at you. 

Your green little gator nestled against your pillow, tucked in and waiting for you. 

You waste no time lunging for the thing, scooping it up by its stubby arms and hugging it close, the unmistakable scent of John's cologne dusted onto its velvety fur. You bury your nose there, breathing deep.

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

Your eyes well with happy tears that you just barely manage to keep corralled into your eyeballs. 

John comes into view a moment later leaning against the doorway with a know-it-all smirk on his face. How he managed to sneak the toy upstairs was beyond you. You're almost convinced he's a mind reader. 

Bastard. 

“Now I may not be as cute as he is, but your not goin’ to replace me are you?”

You huff out a laugh, shaking your head in the negative as you scurry over to him, wrapping the bulk of him up in a great big hug.

He squeezes you back, planting another soft kiss to the top of your head. A pleased little rumble rolling from his chest as you squeeze tight, murmuring a soft thank and softer kiss just above his heart. 

Every ounce of embarrassment or uncertainty about your trivial little gift gone with the wind as you both crawl into bed, a warm, weighted alligator nestled between you and the love of your life. 

[geeficrecs]

A fantasy AU where there are adventurers and adventurer parties and guilds and stuff, but a highly renowned party, the 141, keeps taking on your mundane escort quests for some inexplicable reason.

You're an herbalist, and you like to gather ingredients yourself rather than requesting others to fetch them for you. The locations you frequent aren't particularly dangerous, but you'd feel better if you had someone watching your back just in case. It's a beginner's quest. You've been escorted by more first-time adventurers than you can count. You're used to single or two person parties and enthusiastic bundles of nerves whenever the guild informs you that your request has been accepted.

That's why it's baffling when the 141 accepts your quest, even more so when they make a habit out of it. Overqualified can't even begin to describe it. This is a party known for slaying dragons and lich kings, clearing dungeons deemed impossible to conquer, that sort of stuff. But at some point between all that, they saw you putting in your request at the guildhall and decided to add accompanying you on your ingredient runs into the mix.

It's nerve wracking at first, but you eventually get used to interacting with the 141. You no longer fidget under their gazes or pay any mind to the stares and whispers from awestruck onlookers when you meet them at the front desk of the guild. What helped the most is that they dote on you, almost embarrassingly so.

Price, the leader of the party, doesn't let you carry anything yourself. He slings your daypack of supplies over his shoulder with ease and takes your basket from you when you're not using it. Your favorite basket has a cloth lining with intricate floral embroidery and a nice ribbon tied around it. It's so cute and you love it, but it looks so out of place tucked under his arm. You tried bringing a plain basket once, but Price wouldn't have it. The whole party had to take a detour to your house so you could fetch your favorite basket on his orders.

Gaz never misses a chance to offer his arm to you. It started when he helped you cross over some rough terrain, and then he just never let go. You didn't even realize it at first, so caught up in continuing to chat with him. When you finally noticed, though, if you even gave a hint of pulling away, he would smile and grip you a little bit tighter, telling you that it's his job to keep you safe. You insist that you don't need a literal escort, but you trip one time (one time!!) when you're not holding on to him, and now it's mandatory.

You have to bite your tongue around Ghost. Any offhand comment from you results in something ridiculous from him. You mention that there's a rare bug that lives under rocks in this area, and Ghost flips over an entire boulder for you, unprompted. Mushrooms that sprout on the head of some nearby cave-dwelling monster? He's back with them before you even realize he left. There's a flower that only grows on the side of a mountain, and now there's also Ghost on the side of a mountain. That one you didn't even say anything about it, he just caught you staring at it.

Soap keeps sneaking rare items into your basket like you wouldn't notice that one of them is blatantly glowing with a mythical aura. He denies it and simply claims he's your good luck charm, that's how come you're finding so many valuable ingredients. When the stem of a legendary plant mysteriously ends up amongst the day's collection, you put your foot down and accuse Price of being a terrible guard of your basket. That stops Soap temporarily, but he won't be deterred for long.

Honestly, you find it all a little exhausting at times, but then one day, the guild informs you that the 141 is unavailable to take on your requests for the foreseeable future. An urgent quest has taken them far away from you. 

There's an odd feeling in your gut when you hear the news. You think about waiting for when they get back, but there's an herb you need that's only available for a short period of time. It's implied that the guild should only grant your quests to the 141, but it's not an official rule. Given the circumstances, they relent and get another adventurer party to escort you.

It's just not the same. It's unremarkable, and maybe you've gotten used to remarkable company. Gathering as much as you can on this outing, you carry your haul home on your own that day, a full basket and multiple bags of flowers and herbs and mushrooms, enough to keep your ingredient reserves healthy for a while. You don't venture out after that, you have what you need. Almost.

Early one morning, there's a knock at your door. They've returned from their quest, which was a success, of course. There's no guild request, no requisition form and promised reward, but they thought you might be in need of a supply run. You hand your favorite basket to Price, loop your arm around Gaz's, and tell Soap and Ghost about the special potion you made with the ingredients they gathered for you.

[geeficrecs]

meet your match

price x f!reader | 10k | AO3

cw: dubcon, explicit sexual content, praise kink, daddy kink (mentioned), breeding kink, john price wife-hunting/wife at first sight, perfectionist/workaholic/lonely reader, stalking, manipulation

John spots the ad as he punches a pin through his card. 

It’s impossible to miss.

Bright red hearts, pink-and-white checkered borders on glossy paper someone paid extra to print. A heart-shaped tack centered perfectly along the top edge. Big looping letters—MEET YOUR MATCH SPEED DATING.

It looks absurd next to his card. A dull rectangle of plain cardstock, his name printed in clean, unembellished letters, ‘John Price - Handyman’, and his number below. No bright colors, no flourishes. Simple like the work. Honest. Keeps his hands occupied between deployments.

The disgust arrives on a delay, a spark traveling along powder. A twist in his gut, a curl of his lip. His eyes rolling hard in his skull. It’s an affront—not just to him, but to the very idea of how things are supposed to go.

He yanks a trolley free, muttering under his breath.

Who in their right mind would waste time like that? Spinning around, talking to strangers, volleying shallow questions, forcing laughter. Acting like most people don’t make up their minds in the first thirty seconds about whether or not they want someone in their bed.

The whole affair reeks.

He shoulder-checks another man in power tools, too distracted by the voices of his sergeants drifting uninvited through his head, summoned by all his grousing.

Stubborn, cantankerous Price. Twice-divorced, stuck in a year-long dry spell because he’s got a habit of scaring off any decent woman who strays into his orbit. The mean old bastard who always moans about the good ol’ days—when men met women face-to-face, not through some app where you swiped left or right like you were picking out a meal deal.

When he could pick them up right off the street, like the first Mrs. Price. Or the supermarket, like her successor.

The memories leave a bittersweet taste. An ache in his groin. It’s been a minute since he took a girl home. Since he tried.

Through the shelves, the poster shines like a fucking beacon.

He breathes sharply through his nose, shakes it off, and shoves deeper into the store.

He never should’ve looked at the bloody thing.

Four fingers’ worth of amber sloshing around in his belly, he swallows the burn of embarrassment with another glass. Lets it dull his better judgment. The tips of his ears red hot as he punches his bank card into the online checkout, grumbling some half-formed excuse to himself. 

The confirmation email arrives in seconds. He ignores it.

He spends the week installing cabinetry, letting the scream of a circular saw drown out his thoughts. Shovels dirt over it when he lays a garden path for a neighbor one afternoon, determined to bury it one stone at a time. Tamping it down along with the dirt, out of sight, out of mind.

But then the reminder lands in his inbox, bright and cheery. Evidence of his lapse in judgment. His mood sours, dragging him into the muck like a boot caught in deep, clinging mud. He knows he ought to ignore it again, chalk it up to a stupid mistake, but—

An itch flares on the back of his ring finger. He scratches it raw, but there’s no relief.

On the night of, he drives white-knuckled to the next town over, pulling into the car park twenty minutes early. He leans against his door, cigar in hand, smoke curling into the cold air as others arrive.

Most of them come in groups, chattering and laughing, familiar. He jumps from one face to the next, cataloging. His finger rests on an invisible trigger, caught between decisions—go in and see what the fuss is about, or make a quick retreat, head home, and catch some pretty face’s stream instead.

Then, a small cluster of girls passes by, giggling behind manicured hands, casting sidelong glances that scream daddy issues. He exhales a ribbon of smoke, watching over the glowing cherry of his cigar.

Whether or not he, by some miracle, finds a match tonight, there’s always the potential for a consolation prize.

As soon as he slaps a name tag onto his chest and scans the crowd, it’s obvious—he’s one of the older men present. Hell, scratch that, he might be the oldest by a fair stretch.

The younger bucks don’t spare him a second glance, too busy puffing out their chests, checking the competition among themselves. The women, though, they’re more forgiving. A few give him passing looks, flickers of intrigue as they clock him standing off to the side, arms crossed, watching.

John knows what he looks like. North of forty, gray threading through his temples, a soft layer of fat settling over the muscle beneath. Dressed sensibly, nothing flashy. Not like the men peacocking around in too-tight shirts, drowning themselves in cologne, preening. He’s here, and that’s about the extent of his effort.

And then the first round begins. He sits across from the first girl, and the second her eyes widen—not in the way he’d like—he knows exactly what kind of night this is going to be.

It proceeds as expected.

The fascination with his years, the curiosity. What’s a man like you doing at something like this? The inevitable prying. Married before? Twice? Oh, well, then. Or worse, the giddy birds, buzzing in their seats with smiles that say, yes, he is the answer to some life-long wound, a stand-in for the attention they never got from their fathers. 

Then there are the unbearably shy ones, pulling teeth just to get a full sentence out before the round is called. Good girls. Decent girls. Girls who stare at him as if he’s about to vault the table and sink his teeth into their throats.

Which is absurd.

He’s a war dog. He prefers a bit of fight. Skin in the game. Make it worth his while, tucker him out.

By the end of it, his card is full, but he’s unimpressed.

His knees and back ache from all the repetitious standing and sitting, moving from seat to seat like some wind-up toy. His jaw is sore from clenching, his temples pulsing from two hours of forced patience. Hands itching for a smoke. It’s nothing like sitting and waiting for a clean shot. That always results in at least a job well done. A mission accomplished. This? A lousy scorecard and a couple of numbers he won’t call from girls who don’t have a clue what they’re looking for?

He’s out of his fucking mind for even bothering.

It’s demeaning.

The organizer flicks on the mic, sending a screech of feedback through the speakers, and he rips the name tag from his chest, teeth grinding. He didn’t listen the first time—only a fucking moron would need the rules explained twice. He’s already angling toward the door, ready to make his exit, when he sees you.

The evening turns on its head.

The last hour wiped clean with a look.

Bright red hearts dangle from your ears. A matching necklace rests at the hollow of your throat. A pink-and-white checkered clipboard sits on your hip, a matching pen twirling absently in your fingers. Chipped crimson varnish on your thumb, like you’ve been peeling it off. Chewing, maybe. 

Glittery boots lend you height. Shoulders squared, posture straight. Doing your best to exude confidence.

Candyfloss sweet, with a pinch of salt.

You prattle on. Platitudes, mostly. How engaged everyone looked in their conversations, a playful quip about how some already seem like goddamn lovebirds. Your voice lilts with charm, a smidge warbly. You must’ve given this speech a hundred times before. Then comes the boasting.

Your agency’s success rate. The numbers, the percentages. How many second and third dates attendees report back. How you’ve helped introduce hundreds of couples. There’s pride in it. Your eyes brighten. But it’s a veneer. Thin as lace.

He sees it. The beads of sweat gathering at your hairline, the faint sheen behind your ear, the subtle tremor in your voice when you get too caught up in your own enthusiasm. A broken-off giggle. The occasional tap of your fingers against the edge of that clipboard, a tic, a tell. You’ve got the confidence, but it’s over-rehearsed. As much of an accessory as the ornament wrapped around your neck.

And he can’t help but wonder.

What would you do if someone called your bluff? If he found you after? Stepped in close, trapped you against one of those god awful stiff-backed chairs, close enough that you felt the weight of him hovering? What would you do if he gave you his honest opinion about your ‘work’, face-to-face?

His mind spins on it for half a second before you say something that derails him completely.

Babies.

It lands like a stone dropped in a pond. Ripples outward in nervous laughter, uncertain shuffling. The younger attendees shift on their feet, casting shy, uncertain glances at each other. You fumble through it, quick and awkward, as if you’ve only realized the present demographics aren’t quite ready for the stork.

He hopes it’s an exaggeration. An offhand comment, a bone tossed out for the older guests in the room.

(Him, because who else fits the bill?)

His blood runs hot at that.

Something stirs in his gut, rising insistent and uncoiling in his chest. A want he thought he’d discounted out years ago, snuffed like a match between his fingers. Delayed by his climb through the ranks and waylaid by fizzling romance.

Children. 

Can one ever really bury an instinct like that deep enough?

His own father soured him on the notion—spiteful, unforgiving, malignant tumor of a man. Impossible standards, an intolerance to match. A rage John inherited, honed, funneled into the one bloody release he found in service. An ugliness that made him swear off continuing the line. 

Still, something funny holds him back. That itch.

He’s canceled every vasectomy he’s ever scheduled in the last decade. Reversible or not, it’s intoxicating to know what he’s capable of.

With you wandering into the crosshairs, it clicks into place. He understands.

He swallows, jaw clenching, and forces himself to look at your face instead of the hollow of your throat, where that ridiculous necklace rests. Forces himself to focus on what you’re saying instead of the shape of your mouth as you say it.

A-ffirmed. He’s out of his fucking mind for coming here.

He tells himself he won’t hunt you down afterward.

No. You’re insulated. Shielded by a flock of hens who swarm the second you return the microphone back to its stand, all clucking approval, dishing out compliments, asking their inane questions about your services. You nod, smile, say your thanks, gracious and warm, and it’s exactly the excuse he needs to leave.

He should leave.

Instead, he declines to give your colleague his scorecard, stuffing the useless sheet into his pocket without so much as a second look-over. He chews the inside of his cheek, locked on you. Takes what he tells himself will be his last look. Prints you on the inside of his eyelids.

Then he sees your hand.

A short stack of business cards, matching the damned poster that started this whole ridiculous mess. He moves before he can think better of it.

Crosses the hall in a handful of long strides. The younger women scatter in his wake, parted by his low, muttered pardon me’s.

And you, you—

Eyes wide, lips parting around a breath, half a sentence, “Here, sir,” before he plucks a card from your fingers.

Then he’s gone.

Straight out the door. Across the car park. Sliding into the driver’s seat, his pulse thundering in his ears, his hand already reaching for the glove compartment. Lighter. Cigarette. Routine to steady himself. Busy his hands so he doesn’t barge right back inside and drag you out behind him. Fire to distract the caveman clawing at his brain.

He doesn’t look at your card right away, not until the first drag burns through his lungs.

It’s just as garish as the poster. Wine-red lettering. Your name. The dating agency you work for. Your number.

And if that isn’t convenient. 

That’s half the battle won.

He should call. Go through the proper channels, hire you for your services like any decent man would. But there’d be no way to lie about what he’s really looking for and what he really wants.

He can’t be too direct, can’t risk scaring you off, but he also can’t leave it up to chance. Experience—and two spousal payments—have taught him better than that.

He won’t make the same mistake a third time.

John does his research.

Your online presence is threadbare, limited to a short bio on the agency website and a sparsely populated profile on a corporate network. Matchmaker, professional hostess. He scrolls, picks apart the scraps. Posts you’ve written and shared, abbreviated comments you embellish with hearts.

Little as he has to study with, it adds up.

You’re all work, no play. Polite, sweet, and a real go-getter, as a former colleague describes you. All butterflies and whiskers on kittens. Sugar-coated professionalism. Your accomplishments and certifications laid out like medals, ambitions clear. Ruthless, in your own way, but the kind with puppy teeth, growing into your bite, he’d bet.

He saw you struggle and the nerves you tried to hide. Maybe others bought it, but he didn’t. If that’s where you are after years on the job, he imagines what you were like in the beginning. Easily rattled, unsteady on your feet.

Still. You’re trying. Look where you are now. Go-getter.

The effort and determination, however clumsy, fascinates. It keeps him searching for a glimpse beneath the polished exterior, but there’s nothing. Not a single mention of friends, family, or, notably, a boyfriend.

It makes his teeth ache.

He needs more.

A hideous, modern building. The very opposite of you—cold, plain, and impersonal. Expensive, not without amenities. His favorite?

The floor-to-ceiling windows.

Blessedly, you are a creature of routine.

Home to work, and work to home. A seamless loop, unbroken save for brief, reasonable deviations. Trips to the shops, a walk through the park near your flat, a community gym. Even then, there’s no idle wandering or wasted time.

Sometimes, when you duck into the market, you emerge with a bouquet of flowers, petals and leaves wrapped in crinkled brown paper, or a bottle of wine, its slender neck peeking out. Small indulgences you buy yourself.

Because there’s no one else to do it for you.

He’s all but confirmed it, watching you ferry yourself between the same points, alone every time. No one welcomes you home. No one goes home to you. Big, lofty place like yours and no one to share it with.

It doesn’t sit right with him, on two fronts.

The first—you pride yourself on your expertise. The training, the certificates, the metrics. It’s all laid out online, your badges of honor, but you’re missing the biggest one, aren’t you? Lacking firsthand knowledge. Quite the albatross hanging around your neck.

The second—it’s self-flagellation, needless and punishing. Pretty, smart thing like you, locking yourself away. A princess banishing herself to a tower. The persistent, cynical part of him wonders if it’s simple snobbery. That you think you’re too good for men like him. 

Yet that’s not quite it either, is it? 

You shut yourself off from everyone.

Twice in one week, from his spot in the mouth of the alley outside your office, he hears you decline invitations for drinks from your colleagues. The same excuse, too much to do, and a pat to the stuffed tote slung over your shoulder.

You work hard, pour yourself into the gig, and when you manage to unwind, it’s always in isolation. A quiet dinner, a solo glass of wine, a book balanced on the arm of your couch. Those big yoga stretches in the morning and at bed time.

The thought solidifies into certainty: You need someone to step in. Someone who sees you.

Luckily for you, John does.

(You never pull those shades down all the way. A fancy place like yours? It’d be a shame to keep them covered, lose the view.)

Satisfied he’s learned all he can from a distance, John decides to meet you properly, on familiar ground. A lonely, overworked girl deserves at least that much. He isn’t cruel.

Buying another ticket to another fucking night of pointless dating doesn’t taste so bad when he has you to look forward to.

This time, it’s in the back room of a restaurant. Smaller, intimate.

Perfect.

John glides through the song and dance. Sign in, take the name tag, acknowledge your coworker, let them believe he’s another hopeful looking for love.

He is, in a way. Different from the last time. He strides with purpose now, heat-seeking. He sidesteps the idle chatter and growing crowd.

Eyes on the prize, and there you are.

As primped and polished as the first night, dressed in soft colors that contrast the tension strung tight in your shoulders pulled up to your ears. Just as on edge, if not more.

That damn clipboard is back on your hip, clutched like a lifeline, and it takes less than a second for his mind to replace it. A warm weight settled against you. Small hands grasping at fabric. A dark-haired child perched, fingers curled in your blouse.

His throat tightens.

You really shouldn’t have mentioned babies.

You move through the space in a current, pulled in every direction at once. Checking in with your coworker, refusing to delegate. Pointing guests toward the toilets, fielding messages on your phone, juggling it all with a thin smile.

It’s admirable.

Nevertheless, hairline cracks form. The light dulls in your eyes, the stress shakes your hands. You’re tired, and not the kind he wants to see on you.

Not the delicious, drowsy fatigue of a body thoroughly spent, melted into the mattress after he’s wrung you dry. Not the half-hearted whimper of a protest as you nuzzle into his chest, mumbling about your ruined makeup staining pillowcases and how it’s his fault. Not the slow, syrupy exhaustion of pleasure that makes you pliant and warm in his arms. The kind of fatigue that leaves you soft, content. His.

Nor the bone-deep weariness of a woman woken in the middle of the night, cradling—

He blinks, biting down on the thought, and suddenly, you’re within reach.

“Oh, hi again,” you chirp, passing a scorecard into his hand. “You came a couple of weeks ago, right?”

That ugly impulse rises within him again, the desire to drag you away outside and make your problems disappear. “I did.”

“Thought so. Well, good luck,” you check his name tag with a smile. “John. Hope you find someone tonight.”

If only you knew.

“One question, if you don’t mind,” he says, barely keeping his face neutral. “Ever find your own match at one of these?”

Your eyes widen with an almost comical look of confusion. “Excuse me?”

John doesn’t lower his head but instead stares right down his nose. “No ring on your finger,” he muses. “Boyfriend too scared to step up?”

“I–I’m not–”

“Don’t tell me,” he chuckles under his breath, “Miss Matchmaker is single?”

John tucks his chin to his chest and watches your pulse jump under your necklace. “Now that,” he murmurs, tilting his head, “is interesting.”

You freeze like you’ve been caught in a lie. Here you are, a professional playing cupid to the lovesick masses, and yet you’re fumbling. Single.

To your credit, you recover quickly, wetting your lips and pasting on a smile. “I don’t see how my personal life is relevant.”

“Oh, but it is,” he insists. “Handin’ out happy endings left and right, and you don’t have your own? How am I s’posed to believe your expertise?”

A line creases your brows. “My job isn’t about me.”

“Isn’t it? You sell love for a living, but you don’t believe in it enough to keep it for yourself?”

“That’s not—I do not sell love…” You stop yourself, sucking in a breath. “I’m focusing on my career.”

“Right. Too busy pairing up strangers to find someone of your own.”

You bristle, shifting your weight, trying to hold your ground.

He likes that. Likes knowing he’s getting to you, pressing into a tender spot. Chipping away at the outer, painted shell.

Before you muster a response, he breaks into a warm laugh to play up the angle. “Only teasin’.” More like testing, sussing out how much give there is until you crack open and spill. “Well,” he pockets his hands, “guess that means you’re up for grabs, huh?” He winks. “Talk to you later, sweetheart.”

He leaves you stuttering, clipboard clutched to your chest.

The night is a blur. He couldn’t name a single woman he spoke to. Unlike last time, his sheet is empty. No scores. If any woman sees it as a loss, he wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t care.

John steps out for air until more bodies trickle out, and then returns inside. He skirts the edges, poking around the tables at the far end where you’re collecting placards, setting the scene.

In his periphery, he sees the moment you realize you’re on a collision course.

“Lose something?”

Fuck, your voice. Your normal voice, not the chirpy affect you slap on for work. Even if there’s a new wariness to it.

“Think I managed to misplace my card.”

Your eyes widen, darting over the tables you cleared. A good and helpful girl, ignoring that little voice in your head.

“Oh no, I’ll help you look. Do you remember what table you ended on?”

He grins. “That’s kind of you, darl.”

He peeks as you check beneath tables, bending and huffing in frustration when you come up empty-handed. The apologetic smile when you finally admit defeat.

“I guess it’s long gone,” you say reluctantly.

John lays it on thick. Shakes his head with exaggerated disappointment, crumpling the sheet hidden in his jacket into a tight ball. “That’s too bad. What a wash.” A wistful sigh. “And you put on such a lovely event, too.”

The conflicted delight on your face is delicious.

“I’m so sorry.” you murmur. “Let me comp you a ticket to another event. I can’t let you go home empty-handed.”

What a turn of phrase.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I insist. You took time out of your schedule–”

“Grab a drink with me instead.” He interrupts smoothly. “Lift my spirits.”

You hesitate, before shaking your head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“A friendly drink?” he teases. “Where’s the harm in that?” 

Not like you have a boyfriend to make jealous.

“It’s just, I ought to get this stuff back.” You nod toward the neat stack of placards, the tote overflowing with the event’s paraphernalia. “Calculate the scores, check compatibility…”

“Can’t your colleague do that for you?” he presses. “Think you deserve a drink for a job well done,” he adds, watching the way you react to the compliment, soaking it in like it’s the first kind word you’ve heard all day. “I saw you working hard all night. Busy girl, eh?”

Indecision shines behind your curled lashes. The gears turn in real-time, weighing the consequences of saying yes.

His nails puncture the paper in his pocket when you flash yet another sorry smile. 

“I’m flattered,” you say, ever so gracious, “but I really can’t. I’ll send that free ticket to your email.”

The dismissal lands like a slap. Indignation sprints across his mind with disbelief snapping at its heels. You don’t give him a chance to tell you where to send that email instead, just the brush-off, slipping away before he can get a word in edgewise. Choler floods the chambers of his heart, draws a bit of blood.

Well, there’s that bit of fight he wanted.

You don’t look back, and he doesn’t blame you. You must feel the weight of his stare between your shoulder blades, on the curve of your ass. You whisper to your coworker, gesturing for their help with you.

His jaw flexes, fingers uncurling from the shredded card in his pocket.

That’s alright.

What kind of man would he be if he didn’t have a backup plan?

The moment unfolds as if coincidence.

John times his approach as you exit the florist, fingers idly stroking the petals of the bouquet in your arms, the same tulips you buy every week. He pictures doing the same to you.

He moves as you step onto the pavement. The collision is gentle, considering, but hard enough that his shoulder clips yours to knock your balance. Enough that you let out a startled gasp, grip faltering, sending the bouquet tumbling from your hands and bag jerking down your arm.

“Shit,” he mutters, crouching before you can. He gathers the flowers, offering them back with a small, sheepish smile. “Didn’t see you there, love. My fault—Wait.” 

He tilts his head, narrows his eyes like he’s only just putting it together. Like he didn’t spend the morning in your shadow to ensure this exact moment. 

Your attention jumps up to him in pure surprise.

“I know you. Miss Matchmaker.”

Recognition washes over your face, and in the span of a breath, confusion gives way to composure. It’s impressive how quickly you smooth it over, tucking away irritation.

“John?”

“You remember me.”

How could she not?

“Of course,” You take the flowers, clutching them tight. Never without a shield. “What a, um, small world.”

John huffs a short laugh, rocking back on his heels. “‘Fraid so.” He lets the silence stretch, drinking you in. You’re too poised to flinch outright, but he’s trained to catch it anyway. Fingers crinkling the paper, chin tipping a fraction higher.

You’re dressed for errands, wrapped in a trench that frustrates more than it should. He knows what’s beneath—having committed the curve of your waist to memory, the shape of your hips. It’s irritating, really.

Still, he likes the look of you like this. Definitely the type to never step outside without making yourself presentable. The type to live by the mantra you never know who you might run into. Collar turned up against the chill, hair styled meticulously away from your face, not hiding that guarded expression. You’re assessing him the same. 

Good.

No catching you on the back foot today, not without a push.

“Draw up any matches since last we met?”

You exhale a short, amused breath. “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

He grins. “Ah, right. Can’t have the matchmaker giving away her secrets.”

“Yep. Sorry again about your missing card and, um…” You trail off, and John fills in the blank. The rejection. Your insult is forgotten. Water under the bridge, as far as he’s concerned. “I hope you come next time. We’ll get you sorted.”

“Don’t think you’ll see me there again.”

“No?”

“Don’t think speed dating’s for me.”

You nod knowingly, and hike your bag higher onto your shoulder. “It isn’t for everyone. Some people prefer or have better luck meeting the old-fashioned way.” You lift your wrist and check your watch, the impatient thing that you are. Eager to get home to the hour or two of work you needlessly do every Sunday evening. You start to pull away, already checking out. “Well, I better–”

He steps forward, boxing you in toward the wall.

“Like this?”

Your brow knits, mouth pressing into an unsure smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. Polite and strained. You glance at the busy walk, weighing whether it’s worth stepping around or if that would be too rude.

“Like ‘this’? I don’t–”

“Two people, running into each other by chance.”

The corner of your mouth twitches. Smile lapsing, dropping in and out. Curiosity buried beneath skepticism. 

“John…”

He likes how his name sounds on your lips. He wonders how it’d sound under other circumstances.

“Have dinner with me.”

You blink and shrink back, though there’s nowhere to go. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” He doesn’t let your words land. He leans into them. No retreat. Not when the unseen thread fixing the two of you together tugs on the knuckle of his ring finger.

You adjust your grip on the bouquet. “I don’t date clients.”

“Haven’t hired you for anything, have I?” He tilts his head, innocent. 

“A technicality.”

“But not untrue.” He cocks a brow. “One dinner. No strings. If you decide halfway through you’d rather be anywhere else, I won’t stop you.”

Another beat of hesitation. He’s patient. He knows how this works.

Then, finally, you sigh. “Fine. One dinner.”

John smiles. “That’s all I ask.”

For now.

In the days leading to dinner, there’s not enough work to fill his hands.

Certainly not enough to fill his mind.

His thoughts, however, are consumed by you. Maddening how much of his attention you command, how the brief moments shared echo in his mind long after. A constant reverberation, shaping his thoughts, making him imagine another life. Branches reality in two—one without you, unthinkable, and the other? 

A home. A two-storey house with a garden. Kids. Maybe a dog. A do-over. His childhood, but through the looking glass and done right.

A life he’s determined to see the latter into fruition.

There’s very little he’s set his mind to that he hasn’t achieved.

He assembles an outdoor playset for a young family. Decent-sized house and lot. Not unlike the one he sees behind his eyelids. The little ones badger him with questions, tug at his sleeves, chatter away as he carefully fits the wooden frame together and hangs the swings. It’s good practice, what with his plans.

When their mother pops outside to offer water, she compliments his aptitude with children. His patience. Assumes he must have a brood of his own, and he doesn’t correct her. It’s in the works.

Her nails are red, like yours, but perfectly maintained. Despite the slight bags under her eyes, there’s a lightness to her smile that tells him she’s exactly where she wants to be.

And when she steps away to take a call, he imagines you in her stead. Having it all—a home, a family. He’ll give it to you. 

She disappears inside. Her children shriek with laughter, and he wipes the sweat from his brow.

Yes. You, standing in the threshold, tea mug warming your hands. Watching a runt or two running wild, belly low with another. Your nails painted that same cherry tint. Chipped, but perfect.

The restaurant’s host recognizes him, he’s sure of it, but he doesn’t recognize you. How would he?

You’re younger than your predecessors, for one. Smiling, for another. Not on John’s arm as a captive for one of his fruitless, belated apologies. Nor are you clearly hostage to obligation, for a tired anniversary ritual, a repetition of mistakes. No. You’re here as someone new, a departure. John’s future.

He erases the other man’s disapproval with a banknote slipped into his palm. The coward keeps his lips sealed, ushering you to the table you deserve.

Price, party of two.

Maybe this time next year you’ll be celebrating a party of three.

If you’re upset over the server’s harmless assumptions about the two of you celebrating a special occasion, you hide it behind the menu. After ordering, you’re forced to relinquish it. Nothing left to hide behind.

The scrape of your finger over your thumbnail betrays agitation. A nervous habit he’ll break after the engagement. Can’t wear his ring without a flawless set.

He doesn’t want to change you. Not much. Not beyond what warrants influence.

As the conversation unfolds—your preferred wine, the rhythm of your day, the idle pleasantries—he studies. His first unobstructed view. No more staring across a crowded room or through your window from his car. Up close and personal.

You are everything he wants. Intelligent, pretty, industrious, and amenable. A woman made to be adored. 

A wonder you deprive yourself of it.

John’s old hand at extracting information. There’s little difference between threats, praise, and encouragement. The right pressure and tone—all surface some truth. He’s practiced on plenty of folks with everything to lose.

But this? Far more delicate. High stakes.

And for all your sugar-spun sweetness and girlish, heart-strewn wardrobe, you are no easy conquest. You play coy. Meet his questions with half-answers, sidestep when you can, parry when you can’t. You know you’re being led, but not quite where.

Puppy teeth, but the same sensibility—you don’t know when to give up and roll over.

All the more proof you need him around.

It’s cute when you try to go dutch on the bill, flustering all over again when the server informs you John’s already paid. Damn near insulting, isn’t it? To be taken care of. That insistence on covering yourself, as if you can’t afford even the notion of dependency. A lifetime of self-sufficiency turned reflex.

You don’t know what to do when someone else takes the reins, and does a good job.

It shouldn’t surprise you. Not after he’s played the perfect gentleman. Holding the door. Pulling out your chair. Helping you in and out of your coat. Adamant on following through with escorting you home.

You made him meet at the restaurant. A necessary concession at the time, but a bruise nonetheless.

He acts surprised when he parks outside your building. Compliments the structure, neighborhood, all that. He leans against the driver’s side door, hands tucked into his pockets. Casual, as if he hasn’t plotted out how he’d get you inside.

You tiptoe around a goodbye. Promising.

The nerve comes, eventually.

“Were you…?”

He tilts his head, feigning mild curiosity. “Was I what?”

You square your shoulders in that trumped-up confidence. “Coming up?”

He lets the question hang for a beat longer than necessary to let you hear yourself. 

This is a surprise. You pushed back on the date, but here you are asking him up. Lonely, needy creature. You’re probably wet.

Briefly, he reconsiders crowding you into the lift and watching that wide-eyed surprise melt. Years of stratagem hold him in place. The long con is always the smarter play.

“Oh, darl,” he murmurs, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I am flattered.”

He injects enough warmth seep into his voice to make the rejection sting without cutting deep. “I was only teasing earlier,” he adds, a playful glint in his eyes, the perfect balance between charm and rebuke. “Think we ought to get to know each other better before that, don’t you?”

The shift is immediate. Your face falls. A flicker of surprise, a flash of embarrassment that you rush to mask with a nervous laugh, waving your hand as if physically brushing it off. That confidence of yours really is paper-thin. Fragile. So easy to poke and prod. Moldable.

“Ah, of course. I didn’t mean—”

No, but you did, and that’s the beauty of it. You want to mean it. You don’t know how to ask for what you want yet. Another lesson to teach.

“Don’t fret,” he soothes, taking a step closer, fingers finding your chin, featherlight, guiding it back. “How about a kiss goodnight instead, hm?” He taps the divot of your chin. “Tide you over until next time?”

He tastes your perfume first, having caught hints of it all night. Now it’s stronger, heady as you lift your chin. He waits until your eyelids flutter shut before leaning in, smelling burnt sugar before he samples it.

John knows indulgence best through cigars and smoke rolling over his tongue. But you? You cut through what that’s dulled, brighter. Red wine, velvet and ripe, staining the sweetness like crushed cherries. It’s Herculean, the effort to not change his mind and hustle you indoors. His mouth presses more firmly, and for one dizzying moment, he imagines the taste of your skin—licking sugar out of the bowl.

You try to get closer, but he cuts it off.

Your lips are wet, trembling when he pulls back, and you wear shame—white-hot and burning. In disbelief that you asked, aren’t you? What has gotten into you?

“Oh, I got lipstick on your mouth, let me–”

“Leave it.”

He pulls over once on the drive home, rummaging through the glove compartment to wipe the smear of your lipstick from his mouth. The sight of the red stain sends a pulse of heat straight down. You’d lose your head if you saw him now, he thinks, flicking open his belt in the dark. What you do to him. 

He barely gets a good tug in before he ruins that stain, tasting sugar in the back of his throat.

Home in bed, he pulls up the headshot from your agency’s website and dips a hand under his waistband again.

Just something to tide him over.

You wait a standard three days to text. He calls instead.

You sound breathless, which makes sense. Now’s about the time you leave the gym.

“I’m scoping out a potential venue,” you explain, rushed, coming down from whatever routine you finished. He pictures it. Tight leggings, top clinging to sweaty skin, earbuds half-pulled out because you’re walking home alone. “I was thinking you could help?”

“Help? What do you need me for?”

“The atmosphere’s different when I’m alone. I don’t get a good sense if a space is conducive to dates.”

You’re asking him to play along. To be part of your world. Giving him another opening.

He smiles, unseen but satisfied. “Right. What am I getting out of this?”

There’s a short laugh on the other end, meant to cover your nerves. “Dinner,” you offer. “And the opportunity to let me know how you really felt about our services.”

Clever girl. Keeping it professional and leaving yourself an out.

“How could I refuse?”

The restaurant is a hole in the wall. He’d’ve never found it on his own. A perfect setting, but not for what you said. Testing the atmosphere. John knows better.

You’re staring through the menu, picking your thumb.

“Would it help if I set a timer and moved to the next table in five minutes?”

Your head snaps up. “Excuse me?”

“You’re fidgeting, sweetheart.”

You pull your hand away like you’ve been caught, setting it flat on the table.

“Nervous?”

A quiet admission. “Maybe.”

“Don’t date much, do you?”

Your spine straightens. “I told you, I’m focused on my career.”

“Mm.” John hums, leaning back. “Not a judgment, sweetheart. Just an observation. I merely find it interesting. You run speed dating. Introduce people. Help them make connections…”

“I’m good at it,” you murmur, a shield being drawn up.

“Never said you weren’t. Simply curious why someone so good at helping others find their person hasn’t found one of her own. Especially when she’s a catch.”

You don’t answer, not right away. But you don’t look away, either.

Good girl. Let him in.

The silence goes taut. Then, a sigh, and you lift your eyes again. There’s something different in them now. A crack in that carefully maintained composure. Vulnerability.

“I used to date a lot, actually. I had bad luck with men, though.”

John’s thighs flex under the table, hot and hungry pulse running through him. Finally. Finally, some answers. 

“Tell me about them.”

It’s not a question. An invitation. One you’re teetering on the edge of accepting. Curiosity wins out in the end. You bite.

“There were…a few. Nothing serious. Not for lack of trying.” You confess, embarrassed. “I attract the wrong kinds of men.”

Funny. “What kind of wrong?”

“A flake,” you start, bitter. “Canceled more dates than he showed up for. I stopped bothering after a while.”

One.

“A man-child. Wanted a girlfriend who was more like his mother. Expected me to cook, clean, take care of everything while he played video games.”

Two.

“A cheapskate.” A hollow laugh escapes. “Took me out on a ‘fancy’ date and made me pay after he ‘forgot’ his wallet. On my birthday.”

Three.

“And…” Your throat works around the last one. The worst one. “A cheater. Slept with one of my friends. I walked in on them.”

Four.

Your four horsemen of the dating apocalypse.

John’s jaw clenches, though he schools his features. He can’t have you seeing what that information really does to him. Can’t let you know how badly it makes him want to hunt them down and fix it.

On top of it all, you tack on how they made you swear off dating for a year. Which turned into two, then three.

“Three years?”

You bite your lip, insecurity crossing your face. “Is that…bad?”

Three years. Three years of no one waiting on you, no one to spoil you. An empty flat, and, he assumes, a cold bed.

“Not at all. Only been on a few dates in the last year, myself.” ‘Date’ is a strong term for tossing part of his pay at pretty girls on screen for a chat. “Is that what this is, then? A date? Could’ve sworn I was here to help scope out the space.”

“No, I–I did ask you here to help with the venue, John. That’s all. Really.” A lie that twists you into knots, wrings your hands, fiddles with your necklace. It’s short-lived. “I suppose, if you want, it can be a date.” The words come out shy, testing the waters. “But so we’re clear, I’m not looking for anything serious, alright? I don’t know if I’m ready.”

Another lie. A thousand nights alone? You’re ready.

He smirks. “Well. Regardless, y’know how to make a man feel wanted, sweetheart.”

And if that doesn’t make you preen.

The conversation shifts when dinner arrives, treading into gentler waters. John alludes to his job, a morsel, and you, sweet girl that you are, don’t press for more. Content to gnaw on the bones he offers, easy details meant to keep those puppy teeth of yours busy. His parents. Where he’s from. How he wasn’t much of a student. How he worked under the table as a kitchen porter at a golf club until he joined up.

It works better than the wine, softening you bit by bit. The prick who poked at your insecurities earlier? He’s dissolving into someone else entirely. Someone you’re trying to figure out. Someone you might even like.

Your eyes linger longer when he speaks now. Your smile turns natural, less forced. You lean in when he talks, hanging on his words.

John knows exactly what he’s doing, feeding you enough to keep you intrigued, to have you looking at him through softer eyes. Because if you’re trying to piece him together, trying to understand him—you’re already invested. That’s how he’ll get you.

One crumb at a time.

It’s necessary groundwork. Sooner or later, details’ll come out. After all, you’re going to marry him. Certain things will have to be—

“Any, um…notable girlfriends? Since I told you about my four awful exes.”

Innocent. Fair. It still puts him on edge.

A big test for both of you. He told himself he’d lie weeks back. A fabrication to allow him to censor the truth and leave his past behind. See if he couldn’t get out of his payments and wash his hands completely of his ex-wives, call in a couple favors, push papers.

Yet now, now that you’ve bared your heart to him like a good and honest girl, he suppose it’s only right to tell the truth.

That’s not the plan, though.

He’ll phone a few names tomorrow. Get started on the paperwork.

“No one worth mentioning.”

The rest of the evening is easygoing from there. You remain relaxed, the earlier stiffness gone, but you’re still holding back. You let him toy with one of your rings for a few seconds before pulling away. Your feet bump under the table, and you tuck yours beneath your chair. Your eye contact’s better, but you find reasons to look away.

You’re resisting what’s building between you. He can see it clear as day. For one simple reason, John bets.

You don’t believe in love. Don’t trust it, at least.

Not anymore. Maybe you did once, back when it was uncomplicated, hadn’t soured in your mouth, and burned you down into the frazzled woman he’s observed. Before it became studied instead of felt. A series of points and calculated risks, a numbers game that you understand better than most. An expert on what works for everyone else but never quite trusting enough to let it work for you.

It’s why you throw yourself into your work. Why you obsess over climbing a ladder built on the successful couplings of others, measuring fulfillment in repeat dates and engagement announcements. If you can’t have it for yourself, at least you can manufacture it for someone else.

The problem is, he does believe in love.

He’s just never been any good at it.

It’s one of the few things he’s never let go of, even if he’s never known how to hold it properly. He’s always been better at destruction than construction—an arsonist, never an architect. He sets the foundation only to strike the match and burn it to the ground. That’s why his ex-wives only speak of him through intermediaries. That’s why his relationships have been more like wrecking balls than anything resembling stability.

It’s why he throws himself into his work.

It’s why you’re perfect for him, even if you fuss about it and tell yourself otherwise. Insist you want nothing serious to do with men again.

He knows better. Knows that under all that steel and sugar, there’s a heart that wants and aches, no matter how stubbornly you try to deny it.

This time, you surprise him. The dinner is pre-expensed on a company card. The grief that stirs with his ego ends smothered by the victorious look on your face when he pockets his wallet.

It makes you bold.

You suggest a pub a street over for afters, and he lets you lead. Men shrink away on the walk with him beside you, a hand on the small of your back. 

The tables are smaller here, giving your legs nowhere to go when he spreads his underneath and cages them in.

Another round comes. Time slips by. The noise of the pub hums in the background, but his focus never wavers. With every sip, the distance narrows.

Inevitably, the conversation returns to speed dating and its apparent science. You try to stick to your principles. Too bad he has years of experience in bending those. It doesn’t take much more prodding.

“I can’t tell you what your dates said, word for word.”

“Then summarize.”

“You were…” You vacillate, searching. “Largely described as, um, curt, reserved, and distracted.”

Not inaccurate. He’s had worse appraisals and assessments.

He chuckles. “Must’ve had my eye on someone already.”

“Oh?” you say, trying for nonchalance, but it falls flat, hovering awkwardly in the air.

John shifts, stretching his legs out and closing them back into your space like he owns it—owns you. 

God, you are so close. Skirting his reach. 

You’ve reached a critical juncture. Make or break. Two dates, that’s all it takes, isn’t it? Two dates, and life itself stretches out with endless possibilities. Weeks of wanting have led to this. All the work he’s put in to get you here, to this goddamn table, where he can almost taste what could be.

His ring on your finger. His baby on your hip. Your own success story.

No one’s ever gotten anywhere worth going without a push. Without a nudge to take that last step and get over that line they’ve drawn for themselves.

John licks his lip. “Think you know who, sweetheart.”

It will take time, he realizes on the way to yours, to fully tear down the walls you’ve built around yourself. He feels it in the tentative kiss you place on the corner of his mouth at your building’s door, and again in the lift. 

He’s no stranger to controlled demolition. This time, he won’t half-ass it. No more mistakes or half-hearted efforts. Third time’s the charm, and he’s ready to make sure of it.

Whatever backsliding occurs between the pub and your front door, he erases mouth-first. For a split second, he catches that flicker of uncertainty in your eyes, the subtle hesitation that says you’re not sure whether you should give in, but he doesn’t give you the luxury of doubt. You’re here. He’s here. It’s inevitable.

With both of you starved for something—anything—there’s no room for second-guessing. The barren years of your dry spells? Tinder, piled high.

Between fervent kisses, he steals glances at your place, cataloging details. Every corner of your world is his to explore now, but the bedroom is the prize. The view is better here, inside. No longer looking up at some unreachable, untouchable version of you from the outside. He has access now. Control. It’s a quiet triumph that settles in his chest, a thrill he can’t quite suppress. It seeps into his touch, his hands finding the hem of your dress, claiming inch after inch as if he’s laying claim to the territory he’s finally breached.

All it took was a little patience—and a hell of a lot of persistence.

John pushes you until your legs hit the bed, hands dimpling into your hips, half-tucked under your dress. He tugs at the fabric. “Want to take this off f’me, baby?”

“Yeah, okay…”

While your view is obscured by the dress, his eyes roam your bedroom. It’s exactly as he imagined—sophisticated and cozy with shades of rose, peach, and marigold. A collection of framed photos on the bureau he’ll study tomorrow. On your nightstand, a tray with jewelry and lipstick tubes. Dog-eared books—romance, unsurprisingly.

The dress pools at your feet. John takes in the sight of you, his smirk widening. Rubs circles with his thumbs on the skin exposed by the high arches of your deep plum panties.

“You wear this for me?” He abandons the bottoms, touch drifting up to cup your breasts through the matching brassiere. “All dolled up, planning on getting lucky?”

His thumbs roll over your hard nipples, coaxing a gasp from your lips, and your hands fly to his wrists. Not to stop him, but to steady yourself. Your legs tremble, barely holding you up. 

“No, it’s not–I didn’t want to assume–“

“Mm.” He hums, eyes half-lidded. “But you hoped.”

Your weak denial dies on your lips when he guides you down, gently but insistently. He maneuvers you like he owns you already, coaxing you to sit, then easing you back until your spine meets the mattress. His hands work their way down your legs, kneading the goose-pimpled skin of your thighs and calves. Each press of his thumbs is purposeful, a silent reminder of who’s in charge now.

And then he sinks lower.

John shoulders between your legs, prostrating himself on the floor, knees hitting the carpet as if this—you—are worth worship. His head dips, lips grazing along the inside of your thigh.

“Easy, love.” His hands are steady as they hook behind your knee, lifting and folding one of your legs over his broad shoulder. The angle opens you up to him and reveals the damp staining the cotton. He sets your other foot on the edge of the bed. “Let me take care of you.”

Your breath hitches, and that’s when he sees it. The moment you let the reins slip.

“Good girl,” he praises. His grin, hidden between your thighs, stretches with a kiss.

Candyfloss sweet, with a pinch of salt.

He called it like he saw it then. He’s smug that it’s true.

Even filtered through the thin barrier of the gusset sopping up its share, you are a wonder on the palate. A delight on the senses. He noses over the slight springiness of the curls trapped underneath, tongue laving over every dip where the fabric clings. Everywhere but where you want him.

“John, John, please,” You’re gasping on the bed, bright whines spilling out. Hands strangling the duvet. 

“Need somethin’?” He puffs over your drenched panties, rubbing his rough, bearded cheek on your thigh deliberately. “Gotta ask.”

It’s another minute of torture for you to work it out. It comes out in a whisper. “Take them off, please.”

“There’s a girl. Lift up.” 

The panties come away and promptly disappear. In the low light, your cunt’s a mess, shiny with a mix of soaked-in spit and arousal. Perfect like the rest of you.

“Oh,” the single word you manage when John gets his mouth on you unimpeded.

Victory tastes like burnt sugar melting on his tongue, slow and rich, heating into syrup. He groans into your cunt, digging one hand into your thigh to keep it hooked over his shoulder. His other hand wraps around your ankle, anchoring your other foot in place.

You twitch, moans pitching higher and higher, trying to press yourself closer into his mouth. He doesn’t let you. He keeps you right where he wants you—pinned open with every tremor and gasp fueling that molten heat rolling down his spine and thickening his cock.

“Easy, love,” he murmurs, lips brushing skin. His thumb strokes soothing circles over your ankle, a mockery of tenderness compared to the ruthless way he’s devouring you. His tongue works with intent, coaxing you to the edge.

His grip deserts your thigh, and you clench around the finger he slips in while you’re nice and distracted. Lets off your clit with a pop, pulling back to admire your face scrunched in pleasure.

John kisses the crease of your thigh. “This what you’ve been doing all by yourself, baby?” His taunts, dripping with satisfaction as he works you open. “Bet they weren’t enough, were they?”

His smirk deepens when he adds a second, savoring the way your pussy almost sucks them in. When you don’t answer, he stills. “Were they?”

You’re a quick learner. “No, no, they weren’t.”

“Thought so. Gonna give you one more before I fuck you, gonna need it.” 

You take the third with a quiet thread of praise. His cock’s pulsing hard against the zipper of his trousers, aching to switch places with his hand. It’s magnetic. The whole world centers on your weeping cunt, squeezing three of his fingers to death with how badly you want to come. It’s a miracle you still haven’t yet, given how you circle the edge. He’s an inkling of what you need, but he won’t let you backpedal.

You speak in front of rooms of lovelorn strangers. You will speak to your man.

He gingerly pumps his fingers into you as deep as they’ll go, curling and petting in all the right places. Your clit twitches, abandoned. 

“John–” Yes. “–will you–mouth, please.”

“Hm?”

“My clit, please, need your mouth–”

He’ll work on articulation another time. He dips his head and licks a broad stripe over your neglected bud, then molds his mouth to it. Grunts around it when your fingers thread into hair and tug down.

That’s when the floodgates open, and you finally give into everything you’ve held at arm’s length for too long. Toes curling, muscles tensing, a heel digging into one of his vertebrae. Must be a relief.

John rises to his feet as you come down, knees popping in the silence. He licks his lips, wiping them off on the back of his hand. He towers, intentionally overwhelming and blocking out the room as he looms. Casts a shadow he hopes you feel on every inch of your skin.

He works his belt open while you piece yourself back together, though there’s no point in that. It’s a bright spot when you awkwardly reach behind your back and free your tits without being asked. 

A wild look in your eye. Smudged makeup, hair coming unstyled. The loss of composure he’s waited for. Naked hunger in your gaze, eating him up as his clothes hit the floor. You’ve been with boys, sure, but John knows what he looks like. And he looks like a man.

He doesn’t ask about a condom. Gentleman enough he has one in a pocket, but not enough that he’ll do the decent thing and remind you about it.

You squeak in his neck when the steel wool above his cock scrapes your inner thighs. He grinds against you lazily, holding you in the band of his arms to kiss and share your taste. 

“It’s a lot, baby,” John warns, rutting himself through the mess between your legs. He swallows hard when he prods your hole with the tip, squeezing the base to warn himself. It notches, your body yielding despite your squirming. Skittish even now. From there it’s a smooth, slow glide.

Still knocks the breath out of the both of you.

“Oh god, John, f-fuck, it’s so–”

Your cunt’s hot as an oven. Wet and fitted for him. Gives in easily now that the right man’s filling it. Knows he’s it for you, meaning it’s only a matter of time for your head and heart to catch up. 

His chest and belly meld to yours as he keeps you pinned, hips pushing until they’re flush, and he’s sunken to the hilt, grinding in to claim whatever space is left.  “Good girl. Let me in.”

“S’good, big,” you sound delirious, slurring as nonsense tumbles out in a breathless rush. 

He barely lifts his hips those first minutes. Warming you up for what’s coming, what he’s been starving for this whole time. Getting an eyeful of your sweet, dumbfounded expression, coming to terms with it. Figuring it all out while your pussy stretches around his cock and greedily swallows it whole.

John readjusts, peeling his sweaty skin from yours, keeping himself pressed deep into the spot that’s got you strangling his cock. His hands wedge under your knees and push, allowing himself to finally build up to his desired pace. An urgency that speaks to his need to usher in the future and slip a ring on you.

“Feel like a dream,” he pants, staring down at the bounce of your tits through half-shut eyes. The smell of sweat and sex and your cunt under his nose. “You’re so pretty like this, sweetheart. Yeah, look good under me.”

You struggle to breathe around his thrusts.

“Knew the moment I saw you, y’know. Took one look and knew. Knew that not a single girl I’d speak to would measure up to you.” His rhythm never faltering. “But you made me work for it, didn’t you?”

You pant, fingers clawing the pillow above your head. “You–You made me work, too–you didn’t come up–ah, that night.”

John laughs, the sound rough as sandpaper, deep and throaty, and it rattles through you. It drives him to push a little harder, to coax more of those desperate sounds out of you. “And look where we are now, baby.”

Tears slip out of your eyes, painting black streams of mascara on your cheeks. You’re wrecked and he’s barely scratched the surface.

You shouldn’t have ever mentioned babies if this isn’t where you wanted to end up.

Your second orgasm builds similarly to the first. Shaking legs, head sinking into the mattress, spine arching. Stars appear in your pupils, shiny under the glass of tears, and lock onto him, transfixed. A whole mess of big feelings. Uncertainty, confusion, disbelief. Fury, ardor. He can tell, despite everything, a part of you does not want to want this. But gravity doesn’t ask permission before it pulls.

He fishes spit out of his cheek and drops it under a thumb on your clit to bring it home.

“Gonna come on my cock, pretty girl? Squeeze me tight?” 

“John, I’m gonna–I’m gonna–”

“You can do it, too good of a girl not to–Christ.”

Whatever plea you utter gets lost in a feverish rush and a full-throated moan. You go tight as a vise, clamping down on him as you come. Liquid heat rolls down his spine and his pace turns choppy. Fingers slipping from your knee and clit, taking bruising handfuls of your hips he’ll kiss better later. 

He plugs himself deep, coming to a sudden halt to spill. Every muscle in his body goes rigid as he plants himself at the root, filling you in hot, desperate spurts. It goes on longer than he thought it would. You milk it out of him, and it leaves a stringy, sticky mess, tagging over your folds when he reluctantly withdraws.

A whimper sputters from your bitten lips when he lets his drooling tip spew its last over your winking, fucked hole.

The two of you catch your breath in silence.

You said—I don’t know if I’m ready.

He wonders what you’ll say in the morning.

John coaxes a third and final orgasm out of you as he massages his cum back into you, shushing when you cry a little more on his shoulder about it. Whining about it being too much. Same as when he wipes you clean and you go shy on him. Only cracking your legs open again when he reminds you how proud he is of you for taking him so well. For everything.

He waits until you’re deeply asleep, mouth slightly open, completely immovable, to climb out of bed.

He pads through your flat bare like he owns the place. A glass of water to keep him company as he leisurely tours.

Your work bag sits, still packed, next to your desk at the window. He kicks it under. This will be the first weekend you don’t lift a finger if he has his way. 

At least. Not in the service of others.

John stares at the pill case on your bathroom vanity as he empties his bladder. His next hurdle.

He’ll let you keep your job. It makes you happy, and he’s not so cruel to take that from you. But if you ever change your mind, if your investment in it wavers, he won’t stop you. Between his pay and benefits, the handyman business—he’s more than capable of providing for the two of you. And when the time comes for more, when you need to feed, clothe, and house his whelps, he’ll take care of that too.

After all, there’s very little he’s set his mind to that he hasn’t achieved.

[geeficrecs]

John Price is particular, organised and ready for anything.

You, on the other hand are chaotic and unpredictable. Something that drew him to you.

He calls your handbag the abyss, a large shoulder bag that holds everything and anything. Even if it’s something you don’t need. You dump the entire content on the floor, shaking it till the inner lining drops out and shows that there’s nothing left at the bottom.

There’s cough sweets littered everywhere, a few empty packets you’d forgotten to throw away. Wireless headphones and another tangled wire pair just in case. Three pairs of sunglasses, one that John wears sometimes when he leaves his in the car.

A pack of tarot cards stored in a decorative pouch. Rubbing oils of lavender to calm your nerves and rose when you want a little refreshing scent dabbed on your neck or wrists. John lets you rub lavender on his neck when he wants a nap whilst travelling (helps him sleep). You also have ear plugs, which you end up carrying an extra pair for him too.

John even asks you to make a lavender oil bottle for him to use back at base. He never wears it out on the field though. Only at base when he needs to rest, sometimes wears it and it’s like you’re there with him. One tucked away in the drawer of his office desk and another on his bedside table.

Snacks, you have some sour and chewy sweets in a sealable bag for times you need to calm your anxious self. John loves the way you try to hide how they affect you, the twitch of your eye and pull of your lips. “Not sour.” Also have John’s fave salted pretzels and it surprises him each time.

John doesn’t bother going down your bag (he says it’s rude to go through a ladies bag) that and the fact it’s difficult to find something you want first try.

A ball of yarn and a pair of knitting needles wedged in there, your latest project making John fingerless gloves. He already has a few fishermen hats you made him, all in varying shades of browns and greens. A little heart label on the inside that catches his eye every time before he puts it on, reminds him of your love for him. John holding the ball of yarn so it doesn’t fall on the floor, he’s doing a crossword in the weekend newspaper whilst you’re knitting.

You’ve got card purse and a coin purse, a fluffy teddy one for your coins that you love getting out. That doesn’t happen often though as John always has a pocket full of change.

“You got WiFi in there love.”

A rock John found you in some cave, he couldn’t tell you where exactly as he was working. Classified he said. “Wow, I’ve never had a classified rock, so mysterious.”

He doesn’t know why you need a pack of birthday candles in your bag, but doesn’t question it. Not when you buy him a muffin in the coffee shop and stick the candle in it, lighting it discreetly on his birthday. He hates his birthday so you whisper happy birthday and he quite likes his birthday now. Likes how you don’t make a big thing or draw too much attention to him, he hates that. No you respected his boundaries.

And then there’s things he’s influenced you into having. A small bag with a strip of paracetamol, plasters and a headache stick. Cigarettes, because you know he likes to have the odd one when he’s stressed even though he’s trying to quit (he’s not though). A portable charger incase you need it for your phone.

Does remind you to empty your bag and clean it, all so you can find that one receipt. He’ll gladly help you with it too, add a little something in there to remind you of him too. A little handwritten note.

[geeficrecs]

Severance

You've planned to spend another Valentine's alone, but your ex seems to have other ideas...

john price x f!reader. ex!john (but not in a toxic way, more in a pitifully yearning type). valentines setting. 18+ // wc <4k

For @spurbleu who entertains all of my ridiculous ramblings. Ily.

The rain hasn't stopped pouring since you woke up.

It's an ugly scene. The clouds are hardly grey, more so black and dark, stripping the world of any of the sun's shine. Wind whips against the windows every now and then, bringing with it a flutter of showers which sound like your windows are about to be shattered.

They never do.

It's typical really, that of all days the heavens decide to lash their worst. Valentine's day has always left a sour taste in your mouth, and today is no different.

Though this time, where you're sure it should hurt (like a stab to the gut rather than a dull throb at your temple) it hardly does. You've stopped counting how many times you've spent the miserable day alone; developing some kind of immunity to any of the feelings that should be attached.

Alone again. Alone you will be next year, and the year after.

There's no point in wasting your energy over it, so you do what you do best. You switch a shitty movie on, curl into the sofa with a pot of chocolate mousse and sip on a glass of red. It's nothing special, and that's what makes it foolproof. Make this day like any other, and you'll stop this romance nonsense for good.

It's going well until you're half an hour away from finishing the movie.

A knock, forceful and harsh, echoes from your door.

You have half the mind to just wait until it goes away, pausing with the glass at your lips as you quieten the volume of your TV, hoping that it was a sound of the wind. A minute passes, but before you can sigh with thankfulness, it rings out again.

One look through the peephole crashes the delicate mood you've made for yourself.

You open the door and find John standing at the bottom of the steps, on your pathway. Soaked to the bone.

"John?"

There's a carefulness in your voice that you can't erase, something in it which almost sounds like you're talking to a ghost.

His shoulders slope, like weights attached to his wrists are sinking him into the floor. His gaze is trained downward, and you follow it to see the bouquet of flowers in his hand, drowning as the rain continues to fall.

When he looks up, there's a redness in his eyes which is unlike him. He sniffles, stands listlessly, gnaws at the inside of his cheek.

And then he says your name with a gentleness you haven't been graced with in months, and it's like an arrow shot straight through your heart. Not Cupid's kind—no, this one hurts in a way that feels like tearing open an old wound with bare hands.

You nearly choke on the lump in your throat.

"What are you doing here?"

John repeats your name. It sounds like a prayer on his tongue, and when his glassy eyes widen, you see a devotion which had been lost. Staring at you there, taller than him, like you're the sun in the sky. Like one long look over him would dry his clothes; warm his cold skin; sustain his life.

Something in John reminds you of an abandoned dog, waiting beaten and sad until its owner lets them back in. It's that thought that forces you to step to the side, motioning for him to follow in.

He tracks in the dirt with him. You try to ignore it, loitering towards the end of the corridor where the house splits as you watch how he unlaces his boots. It takes him longer than you remember, fingers trembling, body swaying and balance tipping; everything about him disorientated.

The realisation is a painful one.

"Are you drunk?"

John twists his head towards you, gathering his shoes in a hand just to move them off to the side. His eyes say it all, but you wait for his own confession anyways.

"A little." He says quietly, but upon hearing your huff of disbelief adds on: "Hardly, only two–three glasses."

You're not sure why it makes you feel cheated. That him showing up here tipsy frustrates you so much, even though you're also three quarters of a bottle deep. You wonder whether any of this—the flowers, the random announcement—is even genuine. The thought of it not being so turns your stomach.

The bitterness stings, and you leave to get him a towel before you say or do something you don't mean.

You can hear him padding through the house, his footsteps no less heavy than they used to be. If you concentrate enough you swear you might even hear him breathing. Always taking up space—every sense invaded by him, no matter how hard you tried to assert your own.

He's standing in the middle of the living room when you find him. 

Apathy has never been your strong suit, but you try your best to wear it anyways, failing to ignore the way he clutches the bouquet with white knuckles. His other hand drags over his face, the droplets clinging to his beard moved.

You pass the towel to him with more force than you intend, holding it to his chest as you wait for him to take it into his own hands, doing nothing to hide your frown.

“You’re getting water on my carpet.”

John looks down at the folded towel in his hands, like a thought is trapped in his mind, but then his eyes are reaching yours.

The pools of blue, you find, are still wholly overwhelming.

"Love," he murmurs.

The pet name makes you sigh, long and tired, refusing. There's amusement in it, but it falls flat quickly, and when you shove at the towel he finally takes it.

"You can't call me that anymore," shaking your head, you cross your arms over, fingers dancing over the points of your elbows in some attempt to soothe the tightness in your chest.

His gulp is like a gunshot rippling through a forest—like a knife slicing through the thickened air. Everything between you is charged, electric but still mournful. There's so much that you both could say, but the past keeps your tongues knotted, cemented to the bottom of your mouths.

John steps closer. "Why not?"

Even with his soaked clothes there's a dangerous heat emanating off of him, one that has you shuffling an inch backwards in some hope that it will let you breathe. He's doing the thing again—the one that kept you with him for so long. Eye's low and roaming, over your flushed cheeks, the curve of your lips, the dulled sparkle in your own eye.

When you don't say anything, a breath stuck in your throat, he barrels on.

"I still mean it."

John’s expression is nothing other than pain, but you manage somehow to tear yourself away from it.

Turned to the side, you watch the way the rain continues to fall outside. Bleak, miserable. All the things you've felt recently manifested in nature. Is it really a surprise that John came knocking on your door on a day like this?

There's a crinkle of plastic, and the glance back towards him that you spare has your nose scrunching. His arm is outstretched as he holds the bouquet towards you.

You nod, "keep them."

His brows furrow, arm lowering. "But they're your favour--"

"I know what they are, John," you mourn. "I said keep them. I'm...we're past that."

His countenance sours further, body sagging, something that you can't discern festering under his skin. You know you should kick him out now, that whatever it is that he's not revealed is more of a danger to you than a blessing.

But there's another force that you're not even sure of that's stopping you, and instead you watch as he drops everything to the floor and stalks right back up to you.

There's barely an inch of space left between you, and you can smell the tobacco and bourbon on his breath. Some things never change, and you're sure his vice for Cuban cigars and aged liquor is among that.

You remember sitting out back, letting him place glass or tobacco between your lips, soaking up the tastes of him while watching the sun set.

You remember exploring those flavours in his mouth afterward, straddling his lap.

The thought betrays you, glancing down at the plush of his lips before looking back up. It has him smirking, lip tugging upward with his eyebrow.

He closes the last centimeter of space, and your clothes dampen as you're pressed against his chest. John strokes his fingers over the column of your neck, and then he curls them around your chin, tilting it upward with no resistance—your body already bending to his will.

A thumb brushes over your lower lip.

"Are we?"

It's a challenge formed in a whisper. Yes, you want to scream. Long ago. Get out. The words lodge in your throat, glued to everything else you want to tell him but can't place. You've never been a good liar, and while you were dating John was so good at telling when you did that you stopped trying in the first place.

You resort to a nod, eyelids falling shut, knowing the futility of it.

John slots his lips over yours, and you release a shaky breath. It jostles your entire body, a shudder which curls through your spine as he kisses you slowly. It's sensual, careful, only after a minute does he encase your lower lip, rolling it between his own.

His beard scratches you, the feeling no longer familiar as he melts your mouths together, reaching deeper into you—pulling something buried out of you. You're testing the waters as you make your own effort; careful like a swimmer who hasn't been there in months. An eagerness there but shy.

His fingers tighten over your jaw, and you realise all too soon that you're too afraid to drown.

You push him away with your hands on his chest, but it hardly creates any distance, and you're still stuck with the heat of his body pressed along your front.

"John," you try, his lips barely separating from yours, "John, no."

His hands ghost over your shoulders and settle on your upper arm, forcing your gaze upward as he looks down.

"Don't do this," he hums. "Don't deny yourself."

"I'm not–" A sad laugh bubbles in your throat, and you shake your head as though it will fill the pit in your stomach. "You can't get me back."

The breath he takes is so big that it pushes against your own body. Your plea is in your eyes, wordless as you beg for him to stop before it goes further.

"Oh sweetheart," John coos. "I'm not asking."

Your eyes blow wide and you swear your stomach falls straight into your ass.

John's eyes twinkle with the darkest blue, one hand abandoning your arm to settle at your nape, his fingers spreading across the back as he holds you right where he wants you.

"I'm begging."

You kiss him harder than before.

It's clumsy, teeth knocking together before you have the chance to get it right.

All the desperation that's been left untouched for the past few months manifests to the surface; entirely ugly as you eat away at him. You crush your lips against his, grab the lapels of his jacket and tug as hard as you can just to try and get him closer.

You swallow every one of his breaths, starving him of life as you groan into his mouth. When you dip your tongue in, his lips pry happily, his smile radiating as he lets you do as you please.

There's nothing coordinated or practiced about it. You make it as messy as you can, salivating over him, running the muscle over his teeth. He grunts and chokes on his moans, but you keep going for more, shuffling across the floor with him in tow until you're nearly stumbling over your own feet.

The hand on your arm holds you steady, and Price takes the moment of imbalance to kiss you deeper, tongue replaced with his own. You bite down on it. You don't know whether it bleeds, you don't know whether it hurts—all you know is that you hear him purr.

And then you're spinning, an arm around your waist keeping you tethered to him before your back meets the wall. The pain that lances up your spine vanishes as a knee is shoved between your thighs, and John's smiling into your mouth.

"Tryin' to hurt me love?"

You scoff over his lips, starting to peel away at his clothes. "Nothing hurts you John."

He matches your haste, working your clothes off your body when you're not busy with his. It's a tangle of limbs, kisses shared in-between—broken by your shirt coming off and then his. Fingers slipping over buttons.

There's a quiet moment when his hands settle on your hips, curling around the side of your panties, where you think there's something else he means to say. He looks at you with a shine in his iris but his eyes narrowed—how he used to hide his pain. Not that he was much good at it after you'd figured him out.

If you close your eyes for long enough, you're right back where you started with John. It's two years ago, a small thing through friends, a hookup that changed your life.

A tenderness you didn't know you were entitled to.

Your hands which held his heavy head.

Kindness which restored your faith.

John drags the last piece of fabric down your legs and to the floor, settling down on his knees in front of you.

One of his big calloused palms splay over the back of your thigh, guiding it over his shoulder—kisses peppered along the inside as he trails towards your centre.

The teasing alone erases every bane thought from your head, fingers tangling into his trimmed hair as his breath ghosts over your cunt. You don't have the chance to think about how wrong it is. There's nothing left for you to do but take what he gives.

His tongue parts you first, and your head tips back as he dips into you. It feels unbearably hot against you and John licks a stripe up to your clit, tracing circles over it. You think he must have a map of you ingrained in his mind, retracing all the same valleys as he builds you up to bliss.

You push your back into the wall to try and keep your balance, legs quivering as John tucks into your pussy like it's a meal; licking your lips and searching for the cream of the pudding.

He sucks on your clit with a certain control, doing enough to have your hands tugging at his hair but not so much that you're shoved over the edge of ecstasy too quickly. You whine above him, gritting your teeth as your chest heaves.

The hand at the back of your knee shifts, and he hums around your pussy the same time he slides his fingertips through your wetness. Even though you expect it, it still leaves you trembling, waiting with bated breath for him to slip them inside.

They come one at a time. You forgot about the delicious burn which came with taking any of him—fingers or dick—but it leaves you trapped in a felicity that you can't shake away with any logic or reason.

He curls into you, stroking at the sponge of your insides, searching for the right cue for when you'll crumble. It doesn't take him long, and you're relieved when he does. Another digit slides in with the first, and then he's working your entire body to a peak which you haven't reached in too long.

John doesn't share any mouthfuls of praise like this. The only thing you're showered with is the work of his tongue against you, lapping like a dog while pressing into your g-spot over and over again. Exactly the way you like it. Exactly the way which has you gushing all over him.

Your breath hitches when you feel the very edge of your orgasm approaching. You hold him against you with as much strength as you can muster so he won't part with it, and you let him do the work as electricity shoots up your spine.

You come with a cry.

It's one that could be mistaken for something tortured. John rips the orgasm from your body with his teeth, every ripple of his muscles working to keep you at the very peak of bliss.

Everything goes white; your sight and hearing, the feeling of your tongue between your teeth. You're numbed with John worshipping your cunt like a starved man, lapping up everything your body gives him.

You always told him he looked best on his knees. Back when things were good. When in the mornings you'd wake up with his face between your thighs and you'd go to bed warming his cock.

You entertain the thought that he chose this position tonight with intention; hoping that if got on his knees and ate you out you'd bless him with forgiveness.

The notion is tempting.

You have to pull him away from you to get him to stop. Slick clings to his beard, the low ambers in the room glistening over like dew on a web. He's looking up at you with wide eyes, his mouth parted, panting—waiting for your attention.

He gulps a lungful of air. You move your thigh off his shoulder.

"Been workin' so hard, love."

"I know," you murmur. "You never stop, that's the problem."

"I need you," he persists, "I stopped today. I stopped just for you."

John leans forward, his nose burrying between your thighs. His sigh tickles your skin and then his eyes flit back up to you. The glint of his teeth are what you see briefly, and then he sinks them into the flesh.

You squeak, mouth dropping as he marks you—following over the sunken lines of his pearls with his tongue.

"Tell me you missed this."

Your eyes narrow, knees going weak as his hands slide up your body, kisses going up with them.

"Tell me you missed me sweetheart, and I'll give you what you want."

"And what do I want, John?"

His mouth brushes over your nipples, and you jolt when it connects. Swirling over each bud until they harden before moving upward, sucking purple bruises into your chest—over your neck.

At full height he's towering over you, immovable as he dips to nose at the spot under your jaw.

"This," he whispers in your ear, "us. A second chance."

You roll your eyes, but your scoff is muted when his hands grasp your hips and spin you around, your chest pushed against the cold wall, your palms against it doing nothing to cushion you.

His voice curls with something darker, hoarse, like a rumble of thunder.

"Tell me you missed me."

John's doing something behind you, obscure and unseen, but you soon hear the slow strokes of his hand on his cock, and a pit forms in your stomach. You don't think too hard about whether it's anticipation or nerves.

"Tell me you've wanted me all those months."

The heat of him presses along your back, trapped between the mountain of his body and the wall. A hand ghosts over your ass, digging into one of your cheeks to spread you as he guides his head between them.

Your slick gathers along his tip, and then he's pushing in. There's resistance even after working you open to the point you're dripping, but he takes no issue with it, remedying it by settling his weight on you more.

"Tell me, love," he grunts, fingers on your hips sinking you down. He revels in your pained gasp, mouthing over the point of your jaw. "Tell me you need me."

"John–"

A single thrust has him at the hilt, pulsing against your fluttering walls as you whimper into the wall. You're a mess, sweating and aching for what you know John can give you. You thought you'd spend today alone, and you'd promised yourself you wouldn't entertain the delusions anymore, but you're here. And he's here.

And this is nothing more than a quick fuck to settle some seasonal feelings.

"Wrong, sweetheart."

You don't know why you start begging. You don't know why please is falling from your lips like a mantra, why you shift your hips just to feel him move an inch inside of you.

His thrust is sharp, bordering on painful as he gives into your pleading. You moan with it, rolling your forehead over the wall.

"Getting closer," he continues, and he rewards you with shallow thrust, more like a grind which leaves you faint. "Kno' you can do it, precious."

John's not even doing anything, but he's already knocked the thoughts straight out of your head. You whimper and pant, stand on your toes just to settle back down on your heels so you can seek friction.

He chuckles into the dip of your neck, treats you to another slow roll of his hips—it reminds you of everything you used to have with him. The simple pleasure that was his laughter and the treat that was his smile; his breath lingering over your skin.

"Please, John," you breathe, "I missed you."

It takes saying it aloud to realise that it's not a lie.

Not something said out of horny desperation, but a confession which you buried within yourself to forget the pain. Worst of all, you know that John knows this too, because he doesn't call you out like he used to.

"Good girl," he rumbles, his face next to yours, searching in your eyes for the horror that this means so much more than what you want it to.

He's pleased.

You get fucked like you deserve. John isn’t punishing but he isn’t kind or soft either. He punches through you, groans into your back, bruises your hips with his fingers. You mewl underneath him, reaching a hand behind you to feel for him—the softness of his stomach.

The hand gets covered with his own, gentleness a contrast to the way your ass smacks with each swing. It’s intoxicating, the smell and feel of him around you—it has you curling into your second orgasm easily, far too quickly. Raw and sensitive when he takes your hand in his and makes you work yourself up to it—through it.

Crying his name like it’ll soothe over your wounds. Over the hurt of everything.

He pulls you closer into him afterwards, an arm wrapped over the front of your shoulders so your back is flush against his chest. Warmth seeps into your skin, sweat gathered over your lower back now over his front. But he doesn’t say anything except your name, in your ear, praising, encouraging.

You hear it, though it’s muffled, exhaustion pulling at your senses, making everything fuzzy and comforting and warm. He thrusts sloppily, slowly, and you expect it when he spills into you, buried deep, unmoving as he bites into your shoulder to stifle the groan that manifests from the bottom of his stomach.

John takes control. He guides you, wobbly legs supported by him, to the sofa while he finds tissues to clean you up. Passes over a glass of water. Strokes his calloused fingers over your skin in soothing circles.

You return to yourself after minutes of lying there with him on your chest.

Everything about it is strange. The dizziness when you get deja vu, the fear that he’ll never leave. The way your fingers move on their own to card through the short strands of his hair which tickle your breasts, his cheek comfortably settled between them.

Could you give this another go, if he really asked? If he really tried. If John actually saw you as something that he could lose if he didn’t hold on tight enough.

You consider what you need to say to him. How to get him to give you the space you need to sort your feelings out before he comes begging. The rain still lashes around outside, and the world resumes with its miserable mood.

John’s voice is a surprise to you when it ripples through the silence. You don’t quite catch what he’s murmuring into your skin.

“What was that?” You hum.

"You do," John says quietly.

"What?"

"You said that nothing hurts me," he looks up from where his head is resting, the blue of his eyes haunting. His brow is furrowed, a certain seriousness in the wrinkles of his face which have come early. "But you're wrong.”

You shift underneath him, confused, chest tightening.

“The only thing that’s hurt me is you."

[geeficrecs]

I'm so glad I live in a world where there's Archive of Our Own

[geeficrecs]

wild cherries [3]

[masterlist]

Price x f!Reader - cw: dubcon, spanking, light sadomasochism, brat taming 18+ mdni - 10k words

And I guess the sound of the outward bound Made me a slave to my wanderin' ways.

The sky was powder grey the following morning, sun concealed by a sheer veil of dry white cloud. 

You had a fitful sleep. 

Wracked with feverish dreams of sun and skin, of plum bruises and cherry juice. You woke up many times throughout the night with cold sweat damp on the back of your neck, cunt shivering and slippery as you dreamed of the cowboy’s tormenting hand, of his thumb intruding into your slit. Of your wet knickers being held in a tight and burly fist, being shoved covertly into a worn pocket. 

It was near impossible for you to get comfortable in your bed – you were unable to lie on your back, for any pressure on your marred buttocks stung hot like a fresh brand.

Before the sun had risen you had been briefly awoken by the raucous sounds of the ranch whirring to life; disturbed by the yelling of your elder brother and his ranchmen from your second-storey window, by the humming engines of trucks and tractors rolling off to toil. The sounds, at least, brought you some form of nostalgic comfort, and it didn’t take you long to drift back to sleep. 

When you finally bothered to kick off your sheet and slip out of bed, it was after nine. You slid your feet into your sandal slippers and wandered down the moaning staircase in your linen nightdress, rubbing fists into your puffy sockets and making your sleep-blurred vision all sparkly. You heard your sister’s voice in the kitchen before you spotted her. 

“Slow morning?” She murmured, soft enough in tone that perhaps she didn’t intend for you to hear it. 

Evelyn was perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, frowning at her open laptop and tapping away contemptuously at the keys. You thought to ask her what she was working on, but knew the half-hearted response you’d get – a distracted oh, it’s nothing, while her eyes remain pinned to the screen. 

“Yep,” you croaked, scuffing over to the pantry and hanging off the open door. Perused the shelves for a box of cereal that didn’t have the word bran on it. 

“Eat quickly, will you?” She said, far more pointedly, and when you glanced over your shoulder she was looking right at you. Had that quirk in her lip that betrayed an uneasy vexation. “Miles is taking us over at quarter-to.” 

You frowned as you tugged a box of Honey Nut Cheerios from the back of the pantry, one with the cardboard flap ajar, and which you swear was the same box that had been there the last time you came to visit. 

“Taking us where?” You asked mindlessly, shuffling to the fridge to grab the milk. 

You heard a scoff from your sister as you poured the dry wheat cereal into an empty bowl. “To the neighbours’.” 

“What?” You spat, cocking your head around to glare at her. “Why?”

The adrenaline that rinsed you was sudden and sharp, at the thought of seeing the man again so soon after his incursion. Having to sit still, to pretend all is normal, to feign sweetness and ignorance as you stand in the presence of both he and your siblings in one room. Suddenly you didn’t want your cereal anymore. 

“We’ve got things to discuss with him,” she said grouchily. “And you have an apology to give.”

“Apology for what?” You snapped, resorting to petulance having been scolded. 

Evelyn only released an exasperated groan as she shut her laptop lid. “You know what,” she chided. “Second day here and you’ve already pissed him off.” 

“He wasn’t-” You started, biting your tongue just as swiftly as you had begun to blurt out that he was just as at fault as you. “He wasn’t pissed off.” 

“Miles told me he dragged you home by your ear, Bee,” she grumbled. “I don’t even want to know what you coulda done to get him that burned up.” 

“I didn’t even do anything,” you mumbled testily, tipping a splash of milk into your cereal. 

“Whatever. Just – be polite, and–” She sighed as she paused, “just don’t get into any more trouble, will you? We want him on our good side.” 

You snorted as you scooped a spoonful of your cereal and shoved it into your open mouth. “What are you going to discuss with him, then? Why do I even need to be there?”

“It’s – ugh. It’s a complicated situation, Bee,” she failed to explain, “but we need to be a united front. We’re a family, it’s a family business. A family ranch. We all need to be in it together.” 

You pursed your lips, fought the desire to furrow your brows in contempt. “Still don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Look, Miles can explain it better to you later. Just finish your breakfast and wear something – something presentable for once.” 

The Cheerios were stale and tasted like cardboard and dried syrup. You only shot your sister a foul look and huffed derisively, taking your cereal upstairs with you. 

Something presentable. Your sister had a way of insulting you without even needing to utter the words. That was her way of telling you that you had been dressing like a slut. Short sundresses were simply so much more practical for your escapades – easier to ride in, to walk in, let you feel the breeze on your skin. Ensured you wouldn’t bake alive under the summer sun. 

So you simply chose a slightly longer dress than usual. Dusty red plaid with a hem that brushed your calves, a wide neckline and little cap sleeves. Probably a hand-me-down from the seventies, one of the perks of so many generations of women living in the same farmhouse. It smelled like dust and patchouli. 

You scrunched your wild hair up into an uncombed ponytail, barely held in place by a floppy hair tie, and smeared some strawberry chapstick over your lips as you meandered your way down the stairs. 

Immediately crossed paths with Miles as he trudged down the hallway, black rancher hat still atop his head and a leather briefcase tucked under his arm. His tan button down was tucked into his jeans, a truly anomalous sight. 

“So why are we going to the neighbours’?” You asked pertly, as you immediately followed behind him towards the kitchen. 

He sighed gruffly, as you completely expected. It was always such a nuisance for them to explain things to you, to dumb it all down enough that you’d understand it. That, or, he was simply in a sour mood. Either just as likely. 

“We’re only going over for a conversation,” he deadpanned, dumping the briefcase on the island counter before going to the sink to get himself a glass of water. Evelyn was gone – busy making herself presentable, you assumed. As if she weren’t in a perpetual state of presentableness. 

You groaned. Their persistent vagueness was excruciating. “About what.” 

“It’s just – it’s all business stuff, Bee,” he said, exhaling sharply after downing the whole glass. Must have been hot out there. “Negotiations and junk – it’d bore you to death.” 

“Then why do I need to come?” You grumbled, crossing your arms as you leaned against the jamb of the open door. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, already exasperated with you. You seemed to have that effect on people. “Look, if you really don’t want to come then don't. I’m not gonna drag you there.” 

“Eve said we have to be a united front,” you disputed. Still wanted an explanation. “What does that even mean?”

He smiled a little at that, moustache stretching with the grin. 

“Good at likening things to war, that woman,” he snorted. “She just means it’d be less – less formal if we show up, all of us. Ol’ John’s probably sick of both our faces by now.” 

“Probably sick of mine, now, too,” you said coyly, mindlessly tracing the lines of the hardwood with the tip of your big toe. 

He laughed at you, full and from his belly, and the room lightened up with it. “Likely,” he chortled, “Especially if you keep sniffin’ round after ‘im.” 

“Wasn’t sniffing. Only looking,” you murmured, through a bashful grin. “You’re not mad at me after yesterday?” 

“No, hun,” he said, rubbing his forehead, concern still eking through the creases in his brow. “Only surprised you got yourself caught so quickly.” 

You snickered. “Not mad at him for grabbing me, neither?” 

He shrugged. “No. That served you right.” 

“M’kay, fine,” you conceded demurely. “I’ll come, then.”

There was another truck parked beside Mr Price’s blue Chevy as Miles pulled up his long driveway, a black pickup coated in a layer of dust. 

Evelyn and Miles had been murmuring to each other for the duration of the short drive, bickering about some deal or other, about what to say and what not to say. In truth, you paid little attention, despite your earlier curiosity. Miles was right, it bored you to death, even attempting to listen in on whatever business endeavour the contentious visit was going to cover. You quietly stuck your head out of the window of the back seat, eyeing the looming homestead as you drove around the bend, and Miles pulled to a stop by the front porch. 

The air smelled wet and heavy when you hopped out and onto the gravel drive. The blanket of rolling clouds had swelled, distended with imminent rain sagging in its blue-grey bulges. You could feel it sticky and warm on your skin, it made your hairs prickle up. 

Your siblings were still mumbling between each other as they slammed shut their doors, wandering towards the porch steps, briefcases and papers in hand. All business, so they said. How tedious. 

While their backs were to you, you slinked towards Mr Price’s truck. 

You wondered if he spotted the cotton sin you left in the cab. You wondered why you had even thought to do such a thing at all. What was wrong with you? Were you really made so delusional by his degenerate punishment that you would so debase yourself? 

Humiliation simmered sour in your belly, as you heard your siblings knock on the great front door. You imagined John revealing your foul little secret, making some sly comment about it as you greeted him. Might he chastise you for your outrageously licentious behaviour? Shame you for your petulant whorishness? 

Perhaps he hadn’t seen your panties at all, inconspicuous as they were. 

With a swallow you stood on the tips of your toes, fingertips barely grazing the dusty metal of the truck, you peeked through the passenger window. Eyes scoured the leather seat, between the seatbelts, below the dashboard. 

They were gone. 

You wrenched your eyes shut, wetting them so you could check again, and again – eagerly seeking a glint of white fabric anywhere in the truck’s cabin. No sign. 

With that, you knew that not only had he noticed them – he must have touched them. Must have picked them up, that sliver of pointelle cotton, must have looked at them closely enough to determine what they were. Might he have noticed the fabric was still wet, cold to the touch between his fingers? 

Your tongue ran along the back of your teeth at the thought of him holding them, feeling the material in his hands, against his skin. At the thought of him knowing it had been the only barrier between his finger and your–

“Honeybee!” Hissed your sister through sharp teeth, and you jumped – spun around on the heel of your boot with your hands pinned to your sides. 

John stood in the open front door. Arms crossed. All three of them looked dead at you. 

“Coming,” you bleated, walking towards them as casually as you could make yourself appear. Your heart was fat in your throat, and your skin was sheeny with anxious sweat and humidity.  

You caught John’s eye as you sheepishly scooped a stray curl and tucked it behind your ear. His expression was rigid as stone, eyes squinting, lips in a censorious curl under his beard. The weight of his glare was leaden and your feet felt heavy. 

Did he know what you were looking for in his truck?

There was a faint quirk in his brow, you saw, as you approached and stood slyly behind your older siblings. A glint of surprise. Perhaps agog at the bravura of showing up at his home after your transgression, bold enough to bare your face to him.

“Whole family, eh?” He asked gruffly, heavy stare only leaving you when Miles offered a pleasant chuckle. 

“Only polite,” Miles said warmly, glancing over his shoulder at you. “Lil’ miss has some making up to do, too.” 

Your cheeks turned apple-red and you fought back the scowl that tugged at your mouth. Lil’ miss. Good at calling on your father’s old patronising habits, Miles. 

John only seemed to find the comment amusing, letting out a low huff, cracking a faint smirk. 

“S’that so?” He coaxed, amused. Sharp blues fastened to you once again, and you could only pick at your fingernails. 

You held your tongue, hoping you could convey that he’s the one who needs to apologise without having to say it aloud. His smugness was unearned, you had just as much to reveal about him as he did you.

He knew you wouldn’t out yourself. You could see it in his sinking smirk.

“It’s a new day, eh?” He grunted, standing to the side and flicking his head to beckon the lot of you inside. “C’mon in, then.”

Your siblings filed in first, but you dithered by the door. John waited in the arch, thick arms crossed cavalierly over his chest, he looked down his nose at you. You hoped he’d venture in after Evelyn and you could slink in behind, but he stayed put. Waiting for you to pass him. Kept your eye as you glowered up at him, daring him to say something; to admit what he had found, to apologise for assailing you, to castigate you for your insolence. 

There was plenty you wanted to say to him, and the words itched at the very tip of your tongue. You stifled them with your teeth instead. Let out an impudent huff as you nudged past him, and he followed closely behind you, shutting the door. You felt his livid warmth on your back, heard his coarse breathing and felt it tickle your hair. The adrenaline thumping through your runny blood made your fingertips tingle, you closed them into fists. 

The foyer was grand, almost cavernous; stained walnut wainscotting on all the walls, old patterned rugs peppered every floor. The enormous staircase unfurled in the centre of the hall, second story mezzanine wrapped around its edges, ornate spindle balustrades wrapped the stairs and the loft. An enormous light fixture hung from the centre second story ceiling, fashioned of deer antlers and many coruscant lightbulbs. You wondered how long it had been there. How many Prices ago it had been made by hand out of the severed antlers of hunted game. 

Seems your siblings had been here for many meetings before, because they knew immediately where to go – put themselves in some sort of drawing room past the stairs, and you meekly followed them. Had Mr Price at your tail like a collie herding you where he wanted you.

Led you to the room containing two imposing leather sofas, facing each other, a large slab of polished wood serving as a coffee table between them. The furthest wall contained floor-to-ceiling glass cabinets, filled to the brim with upright rifles. Long and short, hunting rifles, shotguns, double-barrels. Some of them looked a hundred years old. Towering transom windows lined the eastern wall, bathing the room in the dim ashen glow of the cloudy sky outside. A spinning fan hung from the ceiling. 

You noticed that there was another man in the room, only once you had been ferried in and stood awkwardly before you decided where to sit. He sat opposite your siblings with a black brick hat on his knee. Blond-haired and brown-eyed. 

John must have noticed you staring blankly at him, because his hand landed on your shoulder. A purely cordial touch, and yet it made you wince like he had spanked you again. 

“Ah, this’s Simon,” he said amicably, “he’s my foreman.” 

Simon stood and reached over to shake your hand, silent type, and gave you a stiff nod when you slipped your hand in his and shook it. Big and calloused, like John’s. 

Seemed to be business from there on. Miles opened his briefcase on the coffee table and pulled out a manila folder, a few sheets of paper with words and numbers printed on them. Evelyn had her laptop open on her knees. John and Simon leaned back into the couch with apathy engraved in their stone faces. Seemed your siblings were the ones here to do business. They were buttering him up for something. 

You went to sheepishly sit on the couch next to Miles as he started droning on about some sale, something about acreage and borders and permits, whatever. You glanced at his papers in hopes of spotting a word or two that might have jumped out at you. 

The moment you landed in the leather, though, you winced and sucked a gust of air through clenched teeth – the mark of Mr Price’s savage hand on your bottom burned white-hot under the sudden pressure, and the incisive pain shot through you like a bullet. 

John’s murky glare was already on you when you looked across the room. 

Didn’t need to say a word to you, his lour spoke for him. He was scolding you. 

You wondered what he would say to you, if he let himself. What words his tongue formed behind his teeth as he glowered at you. Serves you right. Don’t you get caught. Does that burn feel good?

He opened his mouth to speak, and your stomach plummeted. 

“Why don’t y’go fix us some drinks, girl?” he said gravely, directly to you, crudely interrupting your brother mid-spiel. 

Your brows twitched into a bemused frown, jaw loose as you failed to summon a response to him.  

Girl? The condescension in his tone made your blood roil in your veins, turbid with shards of spite. You weren’t stupid — you knew it was a thinly veiled demand to go away. To let the grown ups talk, as if you were not one of them. 

“I—”

“Mm, good idea,” Evelyn cooed calmly – but the bulgy-eyed tight-lipped look she shot you snapped behave. “I’ll have an ice water.”

“Me too,” said John, arm hung insouciantly over the back of the sofa. “Lil’ slice o’ lime would be nice, eh?”

You scoffed. “Sure,” you grumbled, vitriolic facetiousness bleeding through every word. You pushed yourself up from the couch and thundered out of the room. 

“You’re a doll,” John called after you, and you could hear the smugness coating his throat, thick as honey. 

Prick. Prick. 

You murmured it over and over under your breath as you steamed towards the kitchen, your angry boots echoing out in clunks with every step on his parquet floorboards. Only once you found your way to the kitchen entrance did you stop in your tracks, eyes raking over the cluttered counters and the open door to an outdoor veranda. 

You didn’t have to pour them drinks. You didn’t have to do anything. You were as much an adult as any of them, regardless of how egregiously they patronised you, or how many years of life they had gained on you. 

No, you could busy yourself with something else entirely. 

You had a treasure to find. 

The panties you fatuously left in his truck just to spite him. You wanted them back. 

It made your head muzzy with unease to think of him sitting across from your siblings, chatting away about something innocuous, all the while your dirty little secret was tucked away in the back of his mind. Stashing it up like a slug in the chamber of a rifle. Ready to fire it whenever the opportunity presented itself, whenever you displeased him. 

What could he have done with them? Perhaps he threw them away, tossed them in the trash where they belonged, or dumped them in the crick so he could be rid of them. Maybe he left them by the door, in anticipation of returning them. Maybe he has them in his pocket. 

You started with the coat rack by his front door. Skulking around on the tips of your leather toes, you stuck your fingers in every pocket of every jacket, no luck. 

Checked the laundry – fucking chaotic as it was in there, reeked of his sweat and the loamy smell of farm work. His boxers and sweat-stained t-shirts piled in baskets, plaid flannels tossed unlovingly over an ironing board, black triangular burns of a dropped iron painting the blue foam. 

The richly heady scent in there made you dizzy and hot on the back of your neck. Made your stomach flutter. Smelled like the barn. Like him bending you over the hay.  

No panties in there, either, and you dug through everything. Left it messier than it was when you got there, but you could be near certain he wouldn’t even notice. 

Upstairs, next. 

Crept up them as quietly as you could, begrudging the cries of the old wood as you made your way up. You noticed, as you made it to the landing, that all of the doors to old bedrooms were closed; those of his brothers, and his parents, sealed off like tombs. 

It made you swallow. The air was heavier up there, dense with dust and solitude. It was hotter, too, all of the warmth of the lower storey funnelled up the stairs and pumped into the mezzanine, and it was pyretic just to breathe it. 

One door was open, though, barely ajar. A tawny wax canvas jacket with a brown corduroy collar hung from the top of the old door. You recognised it immediately – John’s jacket. Old, worn-out, might have been his father’s, just like his hat. His bedroom, you were sure. You slithered towards it, holding your breath as devotedly as you might while submerged underwater. 

And as you got closer, you spotted it – a glimmer of white, the tongue of pointelle cotton sticking out of an open pocket on his coat. Right there. 

“Fuck y’think you’re doin’?” Came a bark from the stairs, and you jumped like a startled cat.

John came hounding towards you once he made it to the landing, and you immediately backed away from his door. You spun around to inch away, hoping you’d end up in a bathroom with a door that locked, but it became quickly obvious that you had nowhere to run. 

Exasperation radiated from him with each ragged breath – sick and tired more than furious, it made you shrink all the same. With a few short strides he was behind you, and you chirped in fright when he grabbed you by your ponytail and yanked you back like a puppy on a lead. 

He held your hair in a fist, pulling your head against his chest, angled back so you could look up at him from behind you. 

“Lookin’ for something?” He asked throatily, a low growl, accusation on his tongue. 

You yelped when he lightly tugged your ponytail, seemed to you like he did it just to make you squeak. “I was – I was just looking for the bathroom.” 

“Liar,” he grunted. 

“I’m n–”

“You’re in my good graces for now, honey,” he muttered, as his head craned beside yours, wiry beard grazing your cheek, “on account of your lil’ present.” 

Your ribs clamped shut around your lungs. Fingertips turned ice cold. Present. Such a euphemistic way to put it. A present. You froze when you felt his hand on your buttock, wide enough to cup it, fixing into place over the wound he had already left there. 

“But don’t you push your luck.”

Then he squeezed, and you shrieked, muffled quickly by a winded whimper — the pain as blinding and searing as a branding iron, shape of his hand all but cooked permanently into your skin. The palm of his hand may as well have been barbed, pierced the skin with a million little needles, it might have even hurt less. 

“That hurts,” you whined, cleaved to him by his grip on your hair. 

“Good,” he growled. 

Only then did he let you go, after twisting your body around to face the direction of the stairs. 

“Go’on,” he barked, goading you forward with a smack on your ass. “Get.” 

You meandered ahead like it hurt to walk. 

John hoped it did. He hoped that every time you moved, every time you sat down, every time you accidently brushed it with the caress of your skirt, you thought of him. Of every apology he struck out of you. Of every line you’ve ever crossed. 

Oh, what he’d give to see it. 

He reprimanded himself every time the image crossed his mind, of your supple little ass, defaced by his punishment. He simply couldn’t help it. He imagined that the weal of his hand was raised there, pricked with plum and cherry red, a marker of his authority. Of his territory. 

He had to be rid of you. Couldn’t focus on a single word lobbed at him by your diplomat of a brother while you were in the room with him, sucking up all the air and every drop of his attention. The dramatic suck of your teeth as you landed on the brand he gave you, just rubbing it in. 

Such a little shit, you were. Intractable animal. Asked you to fix a drink, and you couldn’t even do that. 

No, you slinked around his home instead, sticking your misbehaving little fingers into every room, filling his house up with the smell of you. Good thing he caught you before you snuck into his bedroom, leaving trails of you in his only refuge. He wouldn’t be able to sleep if you had. 

He kept a pointed glare hitched on your back as he followed you, limbs and teeth braced to chase and tackle you if you dared to bolt in any direction. But, a good girl for once, you made your way to the stairs, little eyes flicking over your shoulder every now and then to check whether he was still following you. He didn’t let more than two feet stretch between his body and yours. Not stupid enough to take that risk again. 

Far less revealing dress this time. He could still see down the neckline, and you had probably made sure of that. Could see the swell of your breasts, soft and round, their rise and fall as you breathed so meekly against him. Couldn’t see your pebbled nipples through the fabric, though. Skirt was quite a bit longer. For the best. 

He guessed your sister might have told you to wear it, proper as she was. Always painfully worried about image, and yet he could see right through her and your slimy prick of a brother. 

Still had no clue what to make of you. 

Were you cognisant of the effect you had on him? Were you toying with him for your own sake, or for theirs? 

Either way, he didn’t want it. 

Trouble. 

Your siblings waited for you at the bottom of the stairs, Evelyn with her arms crossed, and Miles gave him a suspicious glare through his pinched eyes on his way down. Mustn’t have liked the way John handled his little sister. Either too much of a coward, or too hungry for his bargain to say anything. Or, equally as likely, he was utterly blind to your exploits, enigmatic as you were. 

Didn’t matter. John could not give less of a shit about your brother’s notions. 

“Found ‘er,” he barked, watching as you grouchily wandered between the two of them and swiftly escaped through his front door. 

Evelyn pinched the bridge of her nose, an exasperated groan. “What was she doing this time?” 

John huffed. “Looking for the bathroom,” he said dryly, immediately questioning why he lied for you. So he buffered it; “Apparently.” 

“Sorry about her,” she said stiffly, it was evident you’d be receiving a scolding once the lot of you got home. “She’s – ugh. You know.” 

He had nothing to say to that. 

“Well – thanks for having us by, anyway, Jonathan,” she continued, suddenly perking up, returning to her prim and proper self. “Hope you’ll think about it? Just give us a call, will you? Or – drop by, you know, whenever. Door’s always open.”

He nodded apathetically. “Uh-huh.”

She returned with a nod of her own, a hopeful one, before she tucked her laptop under her arm and followed out after you, where you waited winsomely at the top of the porch steps. 

Miles sauntered towards him, then, thumbs tucked aloofly into the pockets of his jeans, until one hand landed on John’s shoulder. Gave him a squeeze, tighter than would be friendly. His jovial smile was translucent, and it faded fast, once the girls were out of earshot. 

“Don’t you fuck me on this, Jonathan,” he said derisively, snarled under breath. 

John chewed on nothing. His hands were in fists of their own volition. If he were to speak he’d say something regrettable, he knew himself well enough to be certain of that. So he said nothing, only glowered at the man who all but threatened him. 

“It’s the best offer we’re ever gonna get,” Miles rigidly insisted. “You know that as well as I do. We’ll be under in two years. Three if we’re lucky. This ain’t our world anymore.” 

John took measured breaths through his nose. Licked his teeth. The urge to maul the man like a bear rankled in every muscle. You probably wouldn’t forgive him, if he did such a thing. 

“You wanna keep that hand?” He asked hoarsely, monotone, through a clenching jaw. 

Miles grinned at that, as sunny as ever, before landing two genial pats on John’s shoulder. 

“S’alright,” he said, as he stepped back, fixing his black hat to the top of his head. Shot a glance at Simon, who hovered behind John like a shadow, until then unnoticed. “You’ll come around.”

You had left your bedroom door open when you put yourself to bed that night. 

Not to let anyone in, God forbid; though you did find yourself seeing the cowboy’s silhouette in your doorframe, a shadow in your periphery. Your heart flitted in your chest before you blinked him away. 

Instead the decision was some callback to your teenagehood. You had learned at fourteen that your cast iron doorknob squealed and clattered in dispute when you twisted it; loud enough to alert your father whenever you attempted to sneak out of the house after nightfall. Through trial and error, you discovered that if you left your oaken door ajar, only slightly, it would appear closed from the corner of the hall – where daddy would peek around before barking, good night, Honeybee. 

You were an adult now, though, and your father was long gone. For a time your brother tried to adopt the habit of monitoring you, but it was futile, even in your youth. 

You confounded even yourself with your precaution. You weren’t going anywhere, were you? No rules you intended to break? 

Your toes twitched. And your fingers twiddled. You squeezed your eyes shut, as if holding them closed for long enough would trick your mind into sleep, and didn’t instead focus the entirety of your attention on the still lingering sting of Mr Price’s hand. 

You couldn’t help but circle like a vulture the memory of the ground under your knees, the hay under your elbows. The barbaric clap of his hand on your skin, the grinding of your kneecaps into the gravelly dirt on every thrust. What you daydreamed his expression might have been as he hurled his retributive hand into the bare skin of your cheek. 

Might he have been frowning? Grinning? Did he inspect the damage of his handiwork very closely? Did he let his eyes linger on your curves and valleys longer than he should have? 

What went through his mind as he let his thumb venture down the cleft of you, as he pushed the tip into your slit through your sodden gusset? Might he have been marvelling in the wetness? Repulsed by its implication? 

What was he going to do with your knickers, your present as he called it? You imagined them tangled in his fingers, tucked into his fist in his pocket. Him pinching the fabric between his thick fingers as he spoke to his ranchmen. Would he tell his foreman about it? Would he show him?

Now you were entirely awake. Glaring holes into your plaster ceiling, listening to the hammering of your heart in your ears. 

Baking alive in your bed, you were covered only by your thin cotton sheet, and even that was too hot. You sweltered in it, a torrid heat that made your hair crispy and skin itchy. Sweat beaded along your brow, clammy on the back of your neck, and no matter how you laid, you found no comfort. No relief. 

Soon, you had slipped out of bed completely. 

You had not decided on a course of action, yet you crept through the gap in your bedroom door. The moonlit hallway moaned grumpily as you slithered down the stairs, ensuring the patter of your bare feet on the hardwood was as silent as you could muster. 

Plucked your father’s old Carhartt chore coat from its hook by the back door, canvassy and speckled with mud, and pulled it over your bare arms to provide at least some protection from the night. It was longer than your floral linen nightie, short and sheer as it was. You didn’t bother with shoes, your seasoned feet were well used to tip-toeing around the prairies bare. With a careful push of the screen door you stepped out onto the veranda, following your nose without the need for a torch. 

The night air was a cool relief, gentle and calming on your febrile skin. The quiet song of crickets filled the breezeless air, the occasional cry of a coyote in the far distance. Kept at bay by the guardian dogs that littered your ranch. Sometimes you thought you could sleep out there, curled up in the grass like a barn cat, if it weren’t for the gnats. 

You knew the path to Mr Price’s property so well you could navigate it with your eyes shut. Every rock to skip over, every fallen fence post, every tree marking the way. Nonetheless the swollen moon glowed unfettered by clouds, bathing the grassy hills in ultramarine and illuminating the way as you hopped his decrepit fence. 

You had a plan. 

Knew where the knickers were. In the pocket of his canvas jacket, hung on his door. He wouldn’t be expecting you to sneak in after dark, so surely his guard would be down. He’d be sat with his feet up in his lonely sitting room, cigar hooked in his finger, watching baseball highlights or whatever else solitary men busied themselves with. You were sure he wouldn't be sleeping yet. It wasn’t even ten at night, knowing him, he probably only turned in an hour or two ago. 

His ominous homestead came into view through the cottonwood trees, as you scampered between their trunks and over the vibrant underbrush. You creeped around the front of the house, silent step after silent step, hoping to spot an open window. 

And you found one, barely open, a sash window raised only an inch — you stuck your nosy fingers between the gap, carefully lifting the heavy pane by its dark-stained trim. Slipped inside like a little burglar. 

It was dark inside. You found yourself in what looked like a study, bulky mahogany desk in the centre of the room, spinning chair tucked underneath it. It was busy, filled to the brim with clutter and signs of life – seemingly untouched, layered in dust like it had been long abandoned. You supposed a man like Mr Price didn’t give much time to studying. 

You took a single step, and froze – your chore coat rustled loudly, dangerously so, even with a mere breath it threatened to alert your reticent neighbour to your intrusion. So you cautiously slipped your arms from its roomy sleeves, and gently left it in a pile by the very window through which you had trespassed. 

Now truly silent you inched towards the foyer like a spider. Every step whisper silent, moved on the balls of your feet, swallowed shallow breaths. 

The light was on in the kitchen – must be in there, you thought, and you avoided going anywhere near it. Instead you slithered up the staircase, one by one, where the faintest amber glow poured from an open door. As you retraced your steps to the landing, along the loft, to his door – the coat was gone. 

You would have cursed if you could speak aloud. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

You could well have turned and left, abandoned the expedition altogether and prayed he didn’t hear you escaping. But you were in deep, now. Deep enough that giving up felt like a greater risk than persevering. Sunk cost. 

He must have hung the coat on the back of his door, or maybe dumped it on the end of his bed, or tossed it over the back of a chair. Perhaps he wore it out for the day, ensuring the panties were on his person, in case you dared to commit the very crime you now did. 

With kittenish fingers on the door, you eked it open, and its old dry hinges whimpered with the movement. Peeking through, you saw the origin of the faint light was seeping from a separate room; an ensuite, likely, though his bedroom was still bathed in darkness. 

It was different than how you had imagined it. You pictured something sparse, messy, beer bottles on the chest-of-drawers and a tissue box by the bed. A bachelor suite. 

Instead, it was well-kept. A painting of a pine-coated landscape hung over his bed, framed in ornately carved wood. His bed was made, an old hand-made quilt folded over by the head, and a plaid woolen blanket draped over the end. Little picture frames sat in a line on his dresser, too dark to see of who – but there were three of them, so you could guess. Two brothers and a pair of parents. 

His room smelled of him, warm and musky, rich with the terpenic scent of chypre cologne and cigar smoke. It made your mouth water. 

Then, you found them. 

Your little cotton knickers. Hung from the brass knob of the top drawer of his dresser. Bright white against the darkly stained pine. 

You swallowed and it went down your throat like broken glass. He hadn’t even hidden them. Brazenly hung them on display for anybody to see. 

Foolish of him. 

You glissaded towards the chest-of-drawers, plucked them from the knob with shaky fingers, and triple checked they were yours. And they were, absolutely – you could tell by the little satin rose of pink ribbon that adorned the front of them. 

Relief rinsed you warm and sweet once they were bundled in your hand, objective achieved. Yours again. You only needed to–

“Adding burglary to the list, are you?”

The rumbling voice blurted out from behind you and you sprung from the ground like a rabbit, squealing in the shock that wracked you. 

You swivelled in a blink with your heart in your throat, facing the man who had caught you. Still shaking with adrenaline, you could scarcely wrangle your tongue to utter a single word in your defence. 

“I’m – they’re–”

“Didn’t expect that,” he drawled. 

It was difficult to make him out, the tall silhouette of the prodigious man against the light of his ensuite bathroom, broad shoulders rocking as he sauntered in your direction. You watched in silence as he tucked in the tongue of the powder-blue towel wrapped around his hips. His tousled hair was wet and spiked – freshly showered, you guessed, the benzoin scent of his soap lingered in the air around him. 

“I’m – I’m not burg – burgling,” you stammered, finally finding your words, you straightened your spine. “I’m taking them back.” 

“No you’re not,” he grumbled, edging towards you, heavy thuds with each arrogant step. 

You were frozen in place. Shivering as though cold. Toes digging into the hardwood like it might fall out from beneath you. 

The moonlight glaring through his open window barely illuminated him on his approach; carving out the valleys of his gladiatorial chest, thick pectorals cast shadows over the well-padded abdominals of his bare stomach. His fuzzy towel sat precariously low on his hips, your impudent stare couldn’t help but trace the damp brown curls that trailed down from his navel. 

“They’re not yours,” you disputed, balling the soft panties in your fist and tucking your arms behind your back in a juvenile effort to hide them from him. 

Only once his face was doused in the silver light from the window could you make out his features; lids hung low over dark eyes, goading lips in a stern curl under his beard. 

“Yeah, they are,” he challenged, low voice oozing scorn. A shrinking foot away from you, you felt the heat of him radiating out from him, licking at your skin with warm little tongues. “They were a gift.” 

Your brows knit together as you endeavoured to stand your ground, tilting your head back so that you could glower up at him. You wrestled with yourself for any defences and found none. Nothing to say for yourself, no excuse to muster, no dispute to mount. 

“They were not a gift,” was all you said, puerile as you were. 

“Then they’re a fine,” he grunted, smirk fading, reaching a sturdy arm towards and around you. 

His indignant hand gripped your bicep, reeling it out from behind your back and pulling it towards him with absurd ease. You resisted – attempted to, at least – but any resilience in your arm was quick to falter, and he presented your balled fist palm-up like you had offered the prize to him of your own volition. 

Skittish eyes darted from your hand to his steely lour, you imagined yourself flipping a coin. 

Admit defeat; relinquish your cotton sin to its new owner, embolden him with your acquiescence, and find a way to live with the knowledge of their presence in his pocket. Or, better yet – snatch your knickers in a tight fist and scurry into the night, throw them into the woodburner when you get home, and pretend none of it had ever happened. 

Landed on tails. You impulsively yanked your fist from his grip, ducked past him with a hop and a skip, before bolting on your shaky legs towards his bedroom door. 

But as if he had readily anticipated that very move, predictable as you were, his thick arms had snatched you up before you had even noticed your capture. You squeaked in dispute, his arms like pythons constricted around you so tightly that they forced a desperate mewl from your throat. He riveted you firmly against his chest, tips of your toes barely grazing the hardwood beneath you.

Jaw pressed to the side of your head, his breathing was warm and strained against the burning shell of your ear.

“You want them back,” he rumbled, the barbarity in his voice sending cold terror down the nape of your neck. “You wear ‘em.”

Sipping quick and shallow breaths, you didn’t dare wriggle or buck in defiance of him. Not this time. There was a threat in his tone, ferine yet forthright, oozing from his throat like molten iron.

“Y-” you stuttered dizzily, heart thundering in your ears. “You want me to put them on?”

“Uh-huh,” he answered, cocksure, the vibration of his frayed voice prickled in your skin.  

He released you, then, and you dropped to your bare feet with a quiet thud. Fist clenched tightly around your ball of cotton, you sucked in a quivering breath before daring to move.

He crossed his arms imperiously, sniffed gruffly, already impatient. “Put ‘em on.” 

You nervously unfurled the white floral fabric from between your fingers. Checking them briefly to ensure you didn’t put them on back-to-front, you spread the waistband, and began to lean forward. 

“Other ones off first,” he groused, and you blinked at him over your shoulder. 

“I’m-” you began, cutting yourself off with a swallow as you meekly turned to face him. Warm blood rushed to the apples of your cheeks. “I haven’t got any on.”

You swore a smirk tugged at the corner of his ever-severe mouth, but he simply let a hoarse breath out through his nose. Letting your confession float unchallenged in the turgid air between you. 

“You’re a real troublemaker,” he chided, through gritted teeth. “Aren’t you.”

“I’m not,” you retorted, feeble and unpersuasive.

“No?” He sneered. “You break into my house in that pathetic little dress and no panties on, and you wouldn’t call that making fuckin’ trouble?”

“I-”

“Put them on.”

His order was as hard and piercing as a bullet, and it turned your blood runny as water, flooding hot into the most illicit parts of you.

Made obsequious, you followed his command. Bent forward and stepped your first toe through the leg of your panties, delicately placing your foot back to the floor, then followed the other. 

You drew careful air through wet lips as you shimmied the thin fabric up your thighs, forced to lift the slippery hem of your nightie as you adjusted them around your hips, a gentle snap as you flick the elastic of the hem to fix it over your unmarred cheek. You winced as the gusset sat flush with your pussy, cringing at the knowledge they had already been worn – they were dry, now, at least, no longer sodden with lust and sweat. Satisfied with their positioning, you floated the thin skirt back down to cover them, stroking your hips to settle the fabric. 

John stood across from you with his wide hand over his mouth, thumb and forefingers rubbing his cheeks as if releasing some tension in his grinding jaw. The rigid muscles of his arms strained and twitched under his ruddy skin. Tension visible from where you stood. 

With a huff, he straightened his spine, and your stare jumped to the long weight under his towel. Dawned on you that he wore nothing underneath it. Suddenly felt light-headed.

He grunted. “Show ´em to me.”

Your lips parted just slightly, toes curled, you obliged him. With impish fingers you clutched the lacy hem of your slip, coaxing it upward, you folded it into pleats in your fists. Up, up, up. The cool of the air between your legs was almost a relief. 

He inched forward. Closer to you. 

“Turn around.”

Sucked your bottom lip between your teeth, and worried for a moment you might chew it off. With your skirt hitched up, you spun around slowly on the tips of your toes until your nose was a few inches from his dresser. 

You felt his warm breathing on the top of your head, he was behind you. Sandwiched you between his body and his chest-of-drawers. Your only hope of escape was to do what you were told. 

With his thumb he grazed the hem of your panties where it sat against your disfigured cheek, and the sudden sting made you twitch.

“S’that hurt?” He asked roughly, and for a delirious moment you thought you might have heard some tenderness in his tone. 

You nodded flimsily. “Yes.” 

“Mh,” he grunted, whole hand ghosting over the sore skin as if to feel the texture of your wound on his palm. “Didn’t teach you a thing, did it.” 

“What was it s’posed to teach me,” you breathed, careful with your words. 

His paw raked over your side, fixing at your hip. “To stay the fuck away.”

“I can–” You panted, tongue heavy in your mouth, “I can go away. I can go.” 

His domineering hands were at your waist, the hem of your little dress scooped up with them. 

“Not now, you won’t.” 

Your stomach turned to lead. 

Suddenly possessed by the skittish need to bolt, you lurched to the side to un-wedge yourself from between him and the dresser – let out a squeal when he predictably ensnared you with leviathan arms. He wrangled you like cantankerous livestock, growling as he wrestled you until your back landed against the drawers. 

“Mister–” You yelped tightly, all air squeezed out of you by his restraint.

“Play stupid games, girl,” he snarled, “Y’win stupid prizes.” 

You whimpered, blinking up at him through fluttering lashes, a hair's breadth away from you. His eyes were almost sinister, pinned to you, inky black pools blown wide in the darkness. Predatory. 

“I’m sorry—” you squeaked, flustered and winded. 

Almost cracked a smirk. “Too late for that.”

Even as he threatened you, you were helplessly magnetised to him. His harsh glare oozed hatred and hunger and it made your heart buzz like a bee trapped in the cage of your ribs. He pinned you forcefully to his chest-of-drawers, a brass knob pressed into your spine, and like a broken filly your resistance turned to butter. Unctuous and supple. 

You weren’t certain whether he had sensed your capitulation, or if he simply steamrolled ahead in his blind paroxysm whether you liked it or not. His titanic hands had you by the thighs, and he jounced you up, propping you up on the very edge of a drawer that stuck out a mere inch from the dresser. You chirped as the hard wooden edge cut into your raw bottom – hurt less, somehow. Distracted. 

He kept your thighs jammed tightly together by his legs, and used a single hand to cuff both of your wrists, pinned them to your sternum. 

Your vision was blurry, skin burning so hot you could sear something on it – you looked down, and his towel had been shirked from his hips, cock landed heavy on your belly. 

Heavy, the operative word – you could see the flesh of your belly pillowing out around its trunk, thick and lengthy, shaft leading down to a bed of dark curls at the base of his stomach. Your throat swelled shut as you stared at it, dizzy at the sight, as he hooked two fingers into the waistband of your knickers.

He yanked the front of your panties down with impatience, unveiling your mound and making the taut elastic cut into the flesh of your hips. Didn’t pull them off all the way, though, only allowed himself enough room to feed his cock through the gap between your cunt and the gusset of your underwear.  

The lips of your pussy spread like petals as he wedged his cock between them, and your breath lodged in your throat – but he didn’t pierce you with it, not at that angle. The aperture between your cunt and thighs was tight, tight enough for him to gain traction, and it made you whimper. 

Only once the round head of his cock was buried in the valley of your pussy did you realise how slick you were. Mortifyingly so. Your syrup had pooled there, undisturbed until he split you open, and now you painted his shaft with it. 

He cracked a proud smile. Canines caught the glint of moonlight. His breathing turned ragged and you felt it on your open lips, sucking down the hot air he exhaled, and it made you feel drunk. 

“Feral little thing, ain’t ya?” He growled, grinding his cock out of the slit of your thighs before driving it back in, the friction of his shaft against your clitoris made your eyes flutter shut.

You only let out a little mewl in reply, trapped against the hard dresser that shook and clattered with every movement. He fucked the fissure between your thighs and cunt in earnest, and it was somehow embarrassing; that he refused to grant you the dignity of fucking you properly, of surfeiting your starved cunt with even an ounce of real attention. He gripped his cock by the base of his shaft and guided it into the slim gap, offering you only the chafing of his iron-hard length against your pebbled clitoris as he rutted.

It was barely satisfying, but it made you twitch and shiver with a neglected pleasure – just enough to turn you syrupy sweet, not enough to truly sate the little creature in you that put you in this very predicament. You tried to tighten your thighs, firmer than they were already, in the desperate hope that it might augment the pressure of his cock burnishing your slit, might drive it in at the right angle to break into you. 

But it wasn’t about you. Your enjoyment was inconsequential to him. 

This was your punishment. 

You could tell he approached the zenith of his own pleasure as his breathing became frayed and arrhythmic, and his thrusts unsteady – he stilled, large fist gripping his cock, and while his blunt head was still tunnelled into your knickers, he began to shuck his dick from its base, jerking off into the gap. 

It was mortifying – besides the denigration itself, of having him masturbate himself with you – the downright pitiful desperation you were dripping with. Coating his cock in it and yet remaining ignored. The tingles of an orgasm fluttered around you like a butterfly you could not catch, coiled up and unwinded over and over with every inward and outward rake of his shaft. 

You had no freedom to move while you were entangled with him; legs pinned shut and feet dangling off the ground, hands manacled to your chest so tightly your fingertips went cold. You had no option but to take what little he gave you. 

He let out a stifled groan, and you gasped when you realised he was coming — you watched his face as he finished himself, as you felt his come pump into the gusset of your panties, filling up the gap between your lips as he chased a few final ruts. You felt his cock jolt with the aftershocks of his climax, and he rested the entirety of his weight against you, forcing the rest of the air out of your feverish lungs. His jaw was viciously tight, huffing through his nose like a bull, and his squinting blue eyes were glued to you. Lucent with spite and a potent satisfaction. 

“Y-you–”

“Don’t make a damn fuss,” he muttered wryly, short-winded.

You whined as he tugged his cock from between your thighs, returning your knickers to their chaste position with a snap of the elastic over your mons.   

“You shouldn’t have – have done that–”

He all but snorted at that, as he stepped back from you – let you fall to your feet from where he had jammed you against the drawers. Kept your hands shackled together, though. “What else did you come here for, then, eh?”

My panties stayed unspoken, because it would have been a lie. 

You flinched when he raised his free hand, but he only grazed your jaw with his thumb. “Wanted a fuck, did you?”

Your head nodded itself despite your lack of instruction. Subconscious. Too humiliating to confirm of your own will. 

“Ain’t gonna happen,” he grunted, as he finally released your cuffed hands, dropping down to pick up the towel he had left in a pile on the floor. 

You moaned, rubbing your tender wrist, light-headed after the blustering outburst. Felt his come between your folds, slippery and hot, it escaped through the groin of your knickers and ran down the inside of your thigh. 

“Why not,” you whinged, quietly, as though hopeful he wouldn’t hear it. 

“Gotta earn it,” he jeered. “I ain’t rewarding your fuckin’ behaviour.” 

You wouldn’t tell him even this was a reward, in itself. The frustration was blistering hot, thumping in your temples. “I hate you.” 

“I bet,” he snorted, as he fixed his towel around his waist once again. “G’on. Go home.”

You scowled at him, lips curled and brows knitted tight. You wanted to throw something at him. 

“Fine,” you griped, as you reached under your dress to pull down your defiled knickers. 

“Don’t you dare,” he snapped. “You keep ‘em on and you walk in ‘em.” 

Your jaw went slack. “Are you serious?”

“Does it look like I’m jokin’?” 

It didn’t. Not a bit. He wore that same rigid face that sunk in his features every time he scolded you, lips in a line under his dense beard, brows flat and heavy over his squinting eyes. Somehow made more severe while he was without a shirt, you could see every ireful twitch of the worn muscles that rippled under his sun-baked skin. He could hurt you worse, if he wanted to. The thought makes you sweat. 

“Fine,” you groaned, again, and you impudently rammed him with your shoulder as you stormed past him and out of his bedroom door. 

You heard his low chortle on your way out, but he didn’t call out for you. No more snide remarks. You bashfully returned to the dark study, picked up your father’s chore coat, and slipped out the same window you had broken into. 

The walk back was sticky and uncomfortable. Suddenly you felt like buzzing insects were hovering around you, landing on your skin, hoping to poke in and suck you dry. The baying coyotes sounded closer than before, just over the hill. The moonlit air wasn’t cool enough to mollify your temper. The wheaten grass was sharp and splintery under your bare feet. The come in your gusset was viscid and gooey, glued between your thighs with every step. 

Yet, you were grotesquely proud of it. Wearing the evidence that Mr Price wasn’t as mighty as he purported to be. He didn’t ride a high horse. He came in your panties and made you walk in it, as a punishment. 

Truly depraved man. You knew that confidently, now. If he thought he had deterred you, he was sorely mistaken. 

You didn’t bother being quiet when you finally returned home after a slow and sulky walk through the night. Dumped your jacket on the floor by the back door rather than hanging it on its hook, trudged up the crying stairs and shut your door with a clank once you got to your bedroom. You tore the linen sheet off your bed and left it astray, before falling immediately into your mattress, flat on your stomach. 

You fell straight to sleep.

a/n: far be it from me to insert a political statement into my cowboy porn, but as a non-american depicting a sanitised rural USA, i feel the need to make clear my stance on everything happening over there (and the ripple effects it is having on the rest of the world): fuck trump and all his nazi partymen, fuck everyone who voted for him, and fuck every non-american who would have if they could. if you are supportive of or ambivalent about the oligarch-cum-drinking, bold-faced-fascist ideology of he and his ilk, just know that every breath you take is a fucking waste of oxygen. and if you're upset by that sentiment then fuck you too. no middle ground on this! love ya 

[geeficrecs]

heart rot. ghost x f!reader.

heart rot, a fungal disease, decays the inner heartwood of trees, creating weaknesses, while also providing homes for birds. short thing. all vibes, little plot/sense.

he finds her when he isn’t looking. 

or rather, she finds him. 

takes one long look as he drags the man who followed her into the toilet, and shoves him hard enough into the doorframe to rattle the walls. snaps his wrist like it’s nothing.

she decides.

she needs a place to hide. why not behind the biggest, meanest monster in the room? if the thing with teeth and blood on its knuckles likes her?

she’s seen worse.

she sees the ruin of him, too, the wet , festering rot. the hollowed-out hole in his chest, a place no decent thing should want to linger. and she decides that’ll do just fine for a home.

can’t be worse than where she’s come from.

his name is simon. he’s involved in the military. beyond that, it’s not her concern. it suits her fine, though, because he doesn’t ask about what’s behind her. what’s past is past, and he leaves it there.

he’s surprisingly accommodating. well, not accommodating. no flowers, no card. just a key, and no chain to hang it from. clean sheets, at least.

she brings with her all things soft, all things warm. a cup of tea waiting when he returns from whatever he won’t talk about. a comforting hand at the base of his skull when he wakes up tight with sweat, gripping his own throat tight. silence when he needs it. words, when he can bear them. she drags scraps of kindness into the hollow of him, weaves herself a bird’s nest within his ribs.

he warns her. more than once. 

tells her what kind of man he is, what kind of things he’s done. shows her. he’s not gentle. not safe. his moods shift like bad weather, and his hands—well. she ought to be afraid of them.

she isn’t.

she stays.

she continues to surprise simon.

there are nights he comes close, so fucking close, to gutting himself open, prying her out, and casting her off for good. shoving her away before he makes a mess of things, before he ruins this too, like he ruins everything. he’s good at destroying things. lethal. better at it than keeping them. before she learns and sees the full measure of what he is.

but every time, she only burrows deeper. tucks herself in like she’s not afraid of the dark and doesn’t mind the splintering, sharp edges. like she’s already decided, without his permission, that she’s staying.

and at some point, though he can’t say exactly when, he stops fighting it. 

realizes he’s sleeping through the night. that the cupboards are full. that he’s eating without thinking about it, without forcing himself to. there’s a steadying in his hands, a loosening in his chest, an easing in the places clenched tight for too long.

still himself. rough and weathered, but less teeth, more tongue. a longer, slower fuse. patience. letting himself stretch things out and savor instead of devouring it all in a single, starving bite.

and in the small hours, when his hands have left their mark on her skin and she’s pressed against him, breathing hitching but steady—he doesn’t let her go. just holds her, locks her to his side. luxuriates in the weight of her, the absurd, impossible fact of her.

he hopes she likes the cage of him.

because she’s not getting out.

[geeficrecs]

Mafia AU - last updated : 7/31/24

You've recently been hired by John Price. He's a great boss! Respectful, straightforward, polite... you couldn't ask for better. There's just one problem - well, two.

There's... the gun. That's a little concerning.

And then there's the fact that he's too hot for you to care about the gun.

Content: Violence, Organized Crime, Safe/Sane/Consensual Intimacy

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

[geeficrecs]

Lieutenant Riley has a reputation for being mysterious. Somehow, you've managed to avoid his reportedly tempestuous demeanour for your entire career at the base infirmary—that is until he's dragged himself in one day with a wound to the thigh. Even though he's uncooperative and brutish, you come to discover that his impassiveness is just like the mask he wears, and as time moves on, you find yourself ambitious to take it off.

⤷ welcome to the directory.

dedication. i would like to dedicate this and also give credit to @stckrz who is the best wife and has fuelled the crazy fire going on in my brain, basically is my free editor and has helped with everything related to this series. i owe you so much, thank you for inspiring me everyday <3

info. hello everyone! this is the official masterlist for 'heaven sent', a simon 'ghost' riley x nurse!reader series. working on this is a slow process for me, but i am enjoying every moment and am constantly thinking about them. due to the explicit nature of this series, it is strictly 18+, and i must also mention that while this will reference lots of medical scenarios/anatomy etc., you will not find complete accuracies in my writing.

general tags. [find specific tags in their individual posts].

explicit content ahead [nsfw]. minors do not interact. nurse!reader x simon 'ghost' riley. afab/f!reader. slow burn. fluff, angst and comfort. mentions of scars, ptsd, and mental health issues. smoking + alcohol use. medical jargon + inaccuracies.

word count. >20k

⤷ content.

chapters.

chapter i — don't hesitate.

chapter ii — classified.

chapter iii — one more minute.

chapter iv — meanings.

chapter v — tba.

other content.

introductions [sfw]

bad habits [nsfw]

soft sex with injured simon [nsfw]

simon playing nurse to drunk you [sfw]

quiet comforts [sfw]

lunch breaks [sfw]

jealousy [sfw]

⤷ taglist + misc.

my taglist is officially closed (i am very grateful for the support), but if you would like to be removed please do not hesitate to comment under the original post (here).

all content about nurse!reader and simon have been tagged under the tag, '—heaven sent'. this includes asks, requests and updates about the series. if you have something to share about the series, whether it be encouragement, or even an idea, do not hesitate to drop it in my inbox! fan interactions are what keep projects like this alive.

[geeficrecs]

subscribing to a fic isn’t enough I need the author to blast a bat signal into the night sky whenever they update

[geeficrecs]

even just that

pairing: joel miller x f!sex worker!reader

wc: 8.3k

summary: Joel calls you; you call Joel.

cherry masterlist

warnings: age gap (20s/50s), brief joel pov, smut [phone sex, f!masturbation, praise kink, teasing, mentions of other fantasized sex acts], reader realizing she might have daddy issues, implies that the reader has had sex with women but not her sexuality (a client was a woman), mentions of an abusive childhood, sugaring (kinda, we're getting there), reader is a sex worker, smoking (reader and joel), internalized shame, self deprecation, guilt, emotional vulnerability and reassurance, mentions of food/eating, poverty, hastily edited

a/n: this is one of the chapters I've been least sure about. I hope you enjoy it and as always I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading!

One Wednesday morning in early September, Joel calls you. 

The phone rings long enough that he has time to start doubting whether he should have. In the months he’s known you, he’s never had cause to, and you’ve only called him once in the past, though you text often. 

Sometimes, you send a picture, and only once was it something that he couldn’t open in public, a warning preceding the nude you sent, a line of sun through unseen blinds over one pretty, pert nipple and down your stomach, delicate collarbone and throat, your hand cupping one breast. 

He’d wished he could see your face, but the mystery of your expression, what you might have looked like. . .maybe that was better. Gave him something to think about, anyway, when he fucked his hand in the shower, seeing you below him kneeling on the tile, mouth open, stripe of sun over supple, dewy skin.

Shame had followed immediately after he came. You’re thirty fucking years younger than him, poor and desperate, and nothing would change the fact that he’s taking advantage of that.

He sometimes thinks about Sarah and Ellie, if someone thirty years older than them had come around, he probably would have killed them, not waited around for any excuses. 

Except now he sees it from the other side, how real it can be, even if it was rare. 

The most pathetic thing of all is that he forgets—his age and yours, that you were a prostitute turned sugarbaby and likely, truly felt nothing but disgust for him. 

Joel paces his kitchen slowly, slats of hot sun falling through the back window, the wavering currents rising, falling over his socked feet. 

Jesus, he feels like a teenager calling a girl he likes, terrified her dad might pick up the phone. It makes him feel old, no kid has had to worry about something like that in years, and he doubts you ever felt that dread. 

He’s about to hang up, before he’s faced with listening to whatever your voicemail is, feeling fucking pathetic as guilt curls around his throat like a noose, when the phone clicks and your voice vibrates down the line. 

“Hello?” 

The doubt eases suddenly with the sound of your voice. “Howdy, it’s me, honey.” 

You clear your throat. He can hear the shuffle of papers, what sounds like an office chair rolling back, the tap of fingers on computer keys. “Could you give me one moment?” Your voice is crisp and professional, the tone of it so unlike what he knows, sultry, sunwarmed, honeydipped words whispered and breathy. 

It’s a slap in the face, a stark thrust into reality, another reminder that you aren’t really that creature that you are with him. You have a life, a real life outside that hotel, outside him.  

“If this ain’t a good time—” 

“No, no, it’s okay.”

“Darlin’—”

He winces, the word tastes wrong on his tongue, like ash. 

A door squeaks open, then slams closed. “Hi, sweetheart,” you purr, sounding much more like yourself, though muffled by the sound of traffic. He wonders just how much of you is put on when you’re together, a mirage for his pleasure, an obfuscation he’s too old and needy to see through anymore. Probably all of you, probably every moment is fake. Of course it is, that’s what he pays you for. “I’m a little indisposed at the moment, so I can’t talk you through any issue you might be having.” 

It makes him feel like a dirty old man. Fucking shameful. “I wouldn’t call you at work like that.” His voice is blunt and flat to his own ears but he doesn’t correct it.  

“Oh!” There’s real surprise in your voice, and something plain genuine about the way you sound, caught somewhere between sensual and that cool professionalism. A real glimpse into what you probably sound like when you talk to your friends or call your mother. “Sorry, Joel, I—Are you okay? Why are you calling?”

He closes his eyes, wonders what the hell made him think this was a good idea. Why didn’t he just wait until he saw you again? “I, uh, was wonderin’ if you’d like to ride horses sometime?” 

There’s a long silence. “Is that some kind of innuendo?” 

He snorts, some of the discomfort in his chest eases and he walks back across his kitchen at a slower pace. The AC kicks on, a cold current of air caressing the back of his neck. “Not this time. You told me about that farm when you were a kid, remember?” 

There’s a long silence. Regretting telling him about your childhood? 

“Are you asking me on a date?” You ask eventually, voice like a fish darting beneath rushing water, blurred and impossible to catch. 

“Ain’t I supposed to?” 

You laugh, the sound suddenly bright, the slash of sun through clouds on a rainy day. “I guess you are. In that case, yes I’d like to.” 

“Maybe this weekend?”

You hesitate again. “Really? It’s not exactly something for you—” 

“Darlin’, that don’t factor into this. If you don’t want to, I’ll see you like usual at the hotel.” 

“I want to,” you say, sounding young, breathless. “I really, really want to.” 

“Good.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there. Just send me the address.”

He breathes out a sigh. Of what, he isn’t sure. He doesn’t want it to be relief but he thinks it might be.

 “All right. Wear somethin’ practical. Jeans. Boots.” 

“So I shouldn’t wear a thong and no shirt?”

He rolls his eyes even though you can’t see him, sure you’re doing the same to him. “Just them little skirts and dresses of yours won’t work so well.” 

You laugh. “Thought you liked my little skirts and dresses?” Joel just grunts and you giggle again. “All right, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry for callin’ you at work. I wasn’t thinkin’.” 

“It’s okay, Joel. No worries.” 

A long silence persists in the wake of your worlds. 

One where he waits for you to hang up or say goodbye, not sure why he can’t make himself do it. It feels almost like it's forbidden, clandestine, to be talking to you on a weekday. He imagines you outside some generic university building, glasses perched on the end of your nose, though he doesn’t know if you wear glasses, necklace delicately hanging between the fold of a starched button up, lipstick neat, pearl earrings and a smile. 

Joel lies to himself, tells himself that you don’t really want to say goodbye either, that you aren’t itching to hang up and get back to your real life, away from the pathetic, delusional man that pays you for sex interrupting your day. 

“No,” he says eventually, and clears his throat. “I really mean it. I’ll let you go now, darlin’. I’ll see you this weekend.”  

He starts to pull the phone away from his ear when you call out, the sound of your voice charged with desperation. “Wait! . . .Joel? Joel? You still there?” 

A crust of golden, warm sun settles in his chest, decadent. “Yeah, ‘m here.” 

“Can I—“ you sound breathless, nervous. “Would you mind if I called you later tonight?”

“You wanna call me?” 

“Yeah, I mean, if you’re okay with it. It’s really okay if you can’t, I know you’re busy. If you don’t want me to—”

“You call me anytime.” 

“I just want to make sure you won’t be with your daughters or—”

“No, I’ll—It’s just me here. Call whenever ya want. I mean it. You never have to ask.”

He expects you to rebuff him, make some kind of joke that’ll make him blush and feel a little bad about how earnestly he spoke, but you don’t. “Okay,” you murmur, voice small and soft, a vulnerable animal curled in the cave of your mouth. “Okay, Joel.” 

Joel rubs a hand over his jaw, a fang of niggling worry wedging between his ribs. “You okay?” 

“I’m good. Promise.” 

He decides not to press you at that moment. “All right, Cherry, I’ll talk to ya tonight. Have a good day.” 

“Joel?”

Jesus, he loves the way his name sounds in your mouth, the too gentle caress of the syllables, the curl of your tongue around the vowels. 

“Hm?” 

“Thank you.” And then, whispered, so quietly he almost doesn't catch it, “And for the record I’ll ride you anytime, cowboy.” 

He’s still chuckling when the line goes dead. 

~

You overthink calling Joel later that night, pacing circles around your tiny apartment, biting the edge of your nail. The floor aches and creaks beneath your feet, yellow pool of light strumming over your bare legs. 

He probably thinks you just want to call to get him off, a whore’s apology for being busy earlier. Maybe that’s what you should do, pour filthy words into the phone like smoke from your lips, talk him to the edge of an orgasm. 

But you don’t want that. You really want to talk to him, have the solace of his gruff voice in your ear, like the warmth and comfort of whiskey and coffee stirred beneath cream. 

You light a cigarette and keep pacing, trying and failing to marshall your thoughts into something cohesive, an answer to yourself about why you itch to call him, why the seeking, searching part of you so badly wants to hear his voice, be soothed by it. 

Better to just do it, better to just find out in real time, identify the feeling in the moment and panic later like you always do. 

Your colleague, both in the same program as you and also a research assistant, had glanced up from her computer and leaned around the monitor to look at you when you’d picked up Joel’s call. 

She’s a trust fund baby with perfect teeth, a sleek slick backed bun, and the ability to pay her tuition in full at the start of every semester and not worry about how she’ll pay her bills after doing so. The money from the assistantship is pennies to her, but good experience, as she often said. Despite all that, you work well with her. 

“Boyfriend?” She’d mouthed, then eagerly cupped her chin in both hands. 

Worse, you had thought, not able to stop the immediate flood of embarrassment and shame. If she knew, she’d probably wrinkle her nose at you. No, something much worse, just your kind of sugardaddy, or maybe just a man you whored yourself out to on the weekends. 

Is there really a difference?

The thought had made your stomach turn, your smile weak as you walked away, hating how instantly you were soothed by the sound of his voice. 

You anxiously smoke your cigarette down to the filter then wash the day off, get comfortable in a worn out sleep shirt, eat a handful of dry cereal for dinner because you’re low on groceries again, and fret some more. You soothe yourself by digging out the pint of ice cream in your freezer that Joel’s credit card had granted you. 

Sugaring is an exchange. You’re trying to remind yourself of that. It’s why Joel wants to take you out and buy you things and give you his credit card and share hard details about his life. He wants to give you those things, in exchange, so it’s okay that you’d asked to call him.

It’s fine. 

He wants you to want things from him. 

And so before you can overthink it anymore, or convince yourself of the contrary, you select his contact and pop in your headphones, settling on the couch with your ice cream. 

Your apartment is tiny, with light blue walls laden with cracks that fissure at the tops of the walls, tile floors that remain spotted no matter how many times you scrub them, second hand furniture that you’re actually proud of finding—a warm-toned, thick wooden coffee table weighed down with notebooks and textbooks for your qualifying exams, a comfortable sofa in a trendy print that a sorority girl decided she hated and gave you for free, a tiny, basically brand new TV that plays silently in the corner, plants saved from parking lots, lamps from estate sales. 

You’ve done your best to make it cozy, livable. 

The phone only rings twice before he answers. Was he waiting for you? A wing flutters in your chest. “Hey, Cherry.” 

“Hi, Joel. What are you up to?” 

There’s a grunt as he stands. “Not a whole lot.” 

“Waiting for me to call and finish what we started?” You want to put the offer out there, just in case he’s expecting it. 

He chuckles. “No, honey, wonderin’ what you want with me at all.” 

You bite your lip and churn your spoon around the bowl in your lap, watching the ice cream melt into a pink blob, chucks of chocolate floating on icy floes. Sincerity rises to your lips like a poison and a balm at once. 

“It’s been a bad week.” A curl of embarrassment grips your throat but it's true and too late to take it back. You don’t want to make it something less than it is. “I guess that’s all. It’s just been a bad week.” 

There’s a long pause, your voices replaced with the creaking of floorboards, the clatter of a screen door opening and closing. “I’m sorry to hear that. Tell me how I can help you, darlin’.” 

Your eyes sting, and you suddenly feel very small and far away from him, from your internal self and your own life. “Talk to me. Tell me about your day,” you request softly. “No matter how boring. Just tell me about it. I just want to listen to you.” After a moment, you add, “If that’s okay.” 

He blows out a long breath. In the interim silence, you hear the singing of a thousand night bugs. You can practically feel the coalescing, pulsing warmth of the outside air he must be sitting in. 

“Are you outside?” 

“Yep. Sittin’ on the porch.” 

“That sounds nice,” you hum. 

You imagine him nodding, crossing his foot on his opposite knee, looking out across a dusky purple lawn. “It is. I play guitar out here most evenings.” 

The spoon scrapes against the side of the bowl as you scoop out a bite. “That’s one of the only things I miss about home. Being outside. All I can do here is open my window.” The fleeting image of your childhood home flashes through your mind, overgrown front yard, wildflowers and bluebonnets, lightning bugs in the dark, a fat yellow moon hung over the sky. 

You relay the image to Joel, who listens quietly even though you feel like you’re meandering through the memory, lingering on details that mean nothing to him. The minty smell of your mother’s menthols, her raspy singing voice, the grave whine of the truck engine as your father backed down the gravel drive, cursing, working a night shift and never saying goodbye, never,  ever looking back at you. 

“Kinda reminds me of what my mama’s house was like.” Joel breathes out, slow and steady, and you think he might be smoking and not telling you that he is. “Funny.” 

You don’t like thinking that you and Joel have much in common. It unnerves you to think you share anything that close to the chest. 

“So tell me about your day,” you redirect, not subtly, but Joel doesn’t press you for more. And you hate that too, that he understands. “I want to hear you talk.” 

If he were like other men—like a heavy hand on the back of your neck, pressing your nose into the metaphorical carpet, demanding you give up those soft, internal parts of yourself—things would be easier. Then you could hate him and what you do, and loathe yourself all the more for cravenly bending to him.  

But he isn’t. He makes you feel safe, tangled softly in the knotting of silk ropes.

A curl of heat slides lazily in your belly when you hear the scratch of his fingers over his beard, remembering the feel of it beneath your hand. The yearning that follows the rush of want both surprises you and doesn’t. 

Joel doesn’t answer for a moment, and your heart seizes in your chest. “Joel?” Panic flutters beneath your breastbone briefly, that this phone call is too personal, that he does not want to hear from you if you aren’t going to get him off. The shape of how to pull things back on track, make up something less vulnerable than wanting to hear his voice after a couple bad days.

“Well,” he starts, and the feeling disappears. The anxious, avoidant, wanting, not wanting, misery dissipates in a curl of smoke. It’s only then that you hear something, deeper in his voice, the hesitancy and then abandoning of something important for something palatable. Whatever he’s about to say, is not what he intended to tell you. 

“Not much. Tommy stopped by right after I called you earlier.” 

“Your brother.” 

“My idiot little brother, yeah,” Joel answers, breathing out heavily again. He’s definitely smoking. 

And you wish you were sitting next to him on his porch, listening to his voice compete with the cicadas, breathing in the smell of his exhaled cigarette. Your stomach clenches, the thought of you climbing into his lap, letting him blow the smoke into your mouth, in a vaporous, hazy kiss not easily dissipated. The scrape of his facial hair against your palms as you cupped his face, his head dripping into your hands, forehead against your chest, wisps of his hair brushing your chin, his large hands anchoring on your hips, sliding beneath your shirt. 

“He’s workin’ a job right now,” Joel says and the fantasy vanishes. “Needed an extra pair of hands.” 

You hum. “Your hands, huh? So you were busy today.” 

“Guess you could say that. Ain’t nothin’ you wanna hear about, darlin’. Just layin’ concrete.” 

You smile and eat another bite of ice cream. “I’ll have you know I’m a connoisseur of laying concrete.” 

He chuckles, the sound gruff and warm in your ear, “Uh-huh. Right up there with watchin’ paint dry, I’m sure.” 

Actually, you probably wouldn’t mind watching Joel paint a room, or lay concrete in the hot Texan sun. You can see it so clearly—Joel working outside, the sweat beading at the base of his throat and the curving flex of his bicep, the horseshoe of moisture it would leave behind on the collar of his shirt. 

The image of him painting is a little softer, a cool breeze from an open window and the staticky sound of a slightly out of tune radio, the smell of just finished breakfast, Joel’s voice humming as he rolls paint onto living room walls, bright splotches of color on the hem of his worn t-shirt. 

“You’d be surprised at what I can be entertained by,” you tease instead, laughing a little. “Is that all?”

“Told you, I’m not all that interesting, honey.” 

You hum around the spoon in your mouth, the cold metal soothing on your tongue, waiting for him to continue. When he doesn’t, you let the spoon clink back into the bowl and set it aside. 

“You wanted to say something else.” 

He sighs deeply. “How could you know that.” It’s not said as a question, and the flat ending of the statement makes you laugh. 

“I have to be good at sensing things, sweetheart.” 

He chews that over for a moment and this time you hear it, the strike and flare of a match, the sharp initial inhale. “You’re smoking.” 

“You’ve given me a couple bad habits.”

“A couple, huh?” 

“Yep.” He doesn’t elaborate, and then sighs. “Darlin’, you wanted to call me, I shouldn’t—” 

“But I asked for you to talk to me,” you correct. “That’s what I want.” 

You leave it at that, biting your lip and waiting. 

“All right,” he relents. “There’s somethin’ I wanna ask you about.” 

“Okay.” 

“You ever been with, uh, with another woman before?” 

When the surprise fades, an acid green wash of jealousy reaches down your spine and pools heavily in your stomach, cancerously twisted. 

The skin of your heart suddenly feels very soft, easily bruised. The too ripe flesh of a peach that may burst at the slightest touch. A kernel of hurt lodges between your ribs that you can’t seem to pluck out. 

“Am I not fulfilling you, sweetheart?” Your voice pearls and crystals, morphing into the seductive, lush thing you use on men that approach you at the club. “Someone you want to join us next time we see each other?” 

“No, no, ain’t nothin’ like that.” He hesitates, then asks, “Could you answer for me, baby? It’ll make sense, I promise.” Soothing, cooing, lulling. It melts you and you know it shouldn’t. An answer rising to your lips, believing him so instantly. 

You admit to yourself then that you give him the grace afforded a saint, when he could easily have a liar’s snake oil salesman’s tongue.

What does it matter if he does? The only thing you should be worried about is the disclosure of other partners, for your own safety. 

“Once or twice,” you offer. “For money, though. I’ve never gone out with a girl.” 

Older women struggling with their sexualities, wondering why they hated sex with their husbands, coaxing, wandering hands, hungry for knowledge of themselves and another woman’s flesh, ashamed to need a prostitute to do it.

Joel only makes an assenting noise. You lie down across your couch and flip open your own pack of cigarettes, feeling suddenly like you need one to steady your nerves. “So you never. . .came out to anyone?” 

“No,” you answer, sucking in a lungful of nicotine. “I wouldn’t have had anyone to come out to anyway.” 

“Serious?” 

It makes you feel small, and alone. You curl your hand against your chest, pressing hard against your sternum. “Well, I’m not sure my parents would have been amiable towards that, in any case, but—” You pause, thinking, trying to parse how to say it. 

“Said your dad was awful.” 

You nod, though he can’t see you. “And my mother is worse.” 

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he says. “I know somethin’ about how that is.” You know he does, and hope he doesn’t talk about it. You’ve told the truth too much about this particular thing, and sense he has too. Matching tattoos of a bad childhood. 

Luckily he lets it go, for the more pressing issue. “Ellie came by earlier in the week. We’re havin’ dinner sometimes, and this past Sunday, she brought her girlfriend with her.” 

“Oh,” you say softly. “Oh, Joel, that's great.” 

His voice is a little thick when he responds. “Yeah. I think so.”

“No, it really is. That’s a big step forward.” 

He clears his throat and continues, “I just wonder if I. . .I don’t know, did it right.” 

Your fingers release, the aching tension in your knuckles receding. “Well, I think as long as you didn’t call her a sinner and cast her out of your house, you probably did okay.” 

He chuckles, and you can hear in his voice that you’ve soothed him, when he responds. “Didn’t do none of that, no.” 

“What did you do?” 

“Just. . .I didn’t really make a fuss. Just said okay and had dinner.” You smile and rub a hand over your eyes, because it’s so very Joel. Of course, that was what he did. “Told her I hoped she was happy when they were leavin’.” He pauses for a minute, “Guess that’s all I care about. Don’t matter who it is as long as she’s happy.” 

You wish you could see his face, trace the tension lines away. “Then you did good,” you coo. 

“Just wonder if it was enough. I don’t think I can mess up a second time with her.” 

You ash your cigarette and think for a moment. It should scare you, maybe, how natural this conversation is, how easy. 

“You don’t think you’re a good father.” 

You hear his hand working over his jaw again, hear him grunt as he stands, the pacing of his footsteps over his porch. “I don’t know,” he answers softly. “I did my best.” 

Plenty of parents think they do their best. Your own parents would probably say the same, though they would claim goodness too. A good mother, I did my best with what we had. A self congratulatory, dismissive turn of phrase. 

The way Joel says it, you can tell he means it differently, the way parents should mean it. That best wasn’t always good enough, with the knowledge that mistakes had been made, things could have been different or better. 

Joel’s voice is like a frayed edge, a hopefulness that belies what he really believes. “I don’t know how things were with your kids, so I can’t say for certain. But the fact that you wonder and worry for their sake and not your own, tells me everything I need to know,” you say earnestly. “Take my word on that, Joel.” 

“I believe you.” He clears his throat, the porch groans again, the splintering of wood. “Thank you, honey, for not just tellin’ me what I want to hear.” 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I did.” 

“No,” he agrees. 

For a moment it seems like he might say more but then, he sighs and changes the subject. “What is it you were eatin’ earlier?” 

“Ice cream.” 

“Cherry?” 

“Are you calling out for me or asking about the flavor?” 

He chuckles, the swell of it pressing against your ear. “Well, the flavor, this time.”

“Cherry and chocolate, actually. With those chunks of fruit in it. My favorite. I used your card for it.” 

“Good,” he says, and it's like a warm hand on your spine. “Your favorite. I’ll remember that.”

You don’t doubt that he will. “I wouldn’t mind hearing you call out for me,” you say, only a little sly and flirty with it. 

It’s nearly audible, the way you know he’s rolling his eyes at you. You hear him sit down again and breathe a little easier, his anxiety about Ellie assuaged a little. “Uh-huh. Tell me what you’re up to.” 

“Talking to you, sweetheart,” you say easily, reaching for your pack of cigarettes again, lighting another as soon as the other is stubbed out. 

“C’mon, Cherry,” he coos. “Be good n’ tell me.” 

You shiver. “That is not playing fair, Joel,” you reprimand. “I’m talking to you and looking at my notes for an exam I have soon.” Qualifying exams. The thing that caused the yearning to call him, to escape into his voice. You light the cigarette, blow the smoke at your ceiling fan and watch it whirl away. “And I’m smoking.” 

The light from the muted television flashes over your hands and legs in vibrant color. There’s a water stain on the corner of your ceiling. It’s shaped vaguely like Norway. 

“What are you wearing?” 

You hesitate, feeling caught off guard. “I’m really askin’,” he says, before you can decide what to say, if you need to make something up. It’s an echo of your conversation at the diner a couple weekends ago. Who do you want? Me or someone else? “Tryin’ to get a clear picture. What you’re like at home.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I know you’re different with me,” he says. “And don’t you go sayin’ you ain’t because I know it’s not true.” 

You snap your mouth closed and smoke quietly for a few minutes, wondering at what to say. 

“A t-shirt and underwear, but not in a sexy way,” you answer eventually, when you finish the cigarette. “The shirt is very old and it has holes in it, but it’s soft. The underwear covers my whole ass. Terribly unsexy.” 

He hums, contemplative about it. “I don’t know about that.” 

“Oh, c’mon, Joel.” 

“Serious. You ain’t looked bad once since I’ve known you. Doubt you do now.” 

A flood of warmth, the gentle press and fold of those words. It quiets your mind. This is something you always do well. “I can take a picture for you.” 

It crosses your mind to offer to FaceTime him but you genuinely don’t know if you could handle it, having him look at you that way, and Joel is a little more old fashioned anyway. “So you can add another to your collection.” 

“Mm. That’d be nice, darlin’. Only if you’re up to it.” 

You’re already switching to your camera, cycling through angles and poses in your mind. “Did you like the other picture I sent you?” 

“You know I did.” A door opens and thwacks shut again, the sound of a facet being turned off and on. “Made me feel like a dirty old man, jerking my cock to your pretty picture.” 

Your belly lurches, saliva pooling in your mouth. “I told you Joel, you’re middle aged.” 

He grunts. “Whatever you gotta tell yourself, darlin’. But my birthday is comin’ up at the end of the month and I think I am old now.” 

You grin to yourself. “Fifty-three, huh?” You hum thoughtfully. “My dirty old man,” you preen, making it sound like a moan. He agonizes over how young you are, but you think he’s starting to like it. “Fucking yourself looking at my tits. Did you wonder what the rest of me looked like?” 

“Jesus,” he mutters. “You takin’ that picture or not?” 

“Perfection can’t be rushed.” He laughs under his breath, and you listen to the distinct sound of him pouring coffee grounds into a pot, switching it on, leaning against a counter. You rip your headphones out of the jack and put him on speakerphone. You start to tug your shirt up and over your head but think better of it. “Joel?” 

“Hm?” 

“Two questions for you. Do you want to see me in my granny panties and ugly ass shirt or do you want a nude?”

“Surprise me.” You decide to do both, propping up your phone against a stack of books on your coffee table. “What’s the other question?” 

You set a timer on your phone, try a couple different poses and settle on one. “Have you jacked off looking at my picture?” 

He makes a sound that’s something between a groan and a growl in your ear. It’s so distinctly an old man grousing kind of noise that you almost laugh. “I’m old, you know,” he complains, bitchy about it. “You could give me a heart attack.” 

“Have you?” You giggle. 

The first picture is a good one, heels braced on the edge of your couch, shirt pulled tightly down against your core so your tits strain at the fabric, nipples poking through, knees splayed wide, the ghost of your pussy lips showing through the fabric of your underwear. Your expression is coy, leading, beckoning, arm flung behind your head. 

You leave your face in the picture, even though it might be a mistake. You want him to think about putting his cock in your mouth. 

“All the time.” Your belly lurches as you sit up and peel your shirt off, letting it drop to the floor before following suit with your panties. You do the same pose, arching your back a little more, so the light catches how wet he’s made you already. 

“What do you think about doing to me?” 

“I think about you lettin’ me pay your rent without a fuss,” he says dryly. 

You laugh and the camera catches it as the timer goes off. “You messed up my picture.” 

“I ain’t jokin’.” 

“I know,” you say, setting up your phone again. “That’s what makes it funny.” 

He sighs. “You ain’t lettin’ me be very good at this whole sugarbaby thing.” 

“I’m trying,” you say. “Really.” 

“I know,” he coos. “Know you are, honey. I’m just sayin’ next time the bill comes due, send it to me. Just one month. You’ll have so much extra money lyin’ around you won’t have to ever see me again.” 

You laugh softly. “I’ll think about it.” 

“Good girl. You take them pictures yet?” 

“I’m sending them now,” you say, laying back against the arm rest, selecting the pictures you like best. “One of each, with the ratty t-shirt and without.” 

You hear his phone ding and he curses and pulls it away from his ear. While he figures out how to talk to you and look at messages at the same time, you tug your shirt back on. 

“Jesus, darlin’, look at you.” 

“You like ‘em?” 

He hums, not answering. 

“Hey,” you reprimand softly, “we’re still talking, Joel Miller.” 

“I can look and talk.” 

“Not very well,” you tease, though you can’t really bring yourself to care. “Will you touch yourself?” 

There’s a rustling sound, Joel settling down somewhere. “No.” 

“Joel,” you whine. “Be good for me.” 

It doesn’t quite work on him the way it works on you, and he laughs. The sound is nice, sun-dipped, makes you laugh too.

“Are they not good enough to masturbate to?” 

He chokes out another laugh, seems to sip from the coffee he’d made. “Nope, they’re plenty good for that. Still lookin’ actually.” 

“Oh,” you murmur, and it’s like he’s standing there in the room, looking at you spread out on your couch, t-shirt pooled around your hips, panties still discarded on the floor. 

What would he say of your shitty little apartment? The ancient AC unit that sputters and spits and only sometimes cools the air, coughing like an old man. The painted over lightswitches and hinges and window sills. The scent of your perfume to cover the smell of decay and neglect. No matter how nice you tried to make it, how proud you were of the furniture, there’s no covering the misery of it. 

Would he still kneel by your couch, put his tongue between your legs? Would he still say you’re pretty if he saw the ichor of your life? 

It does not comfort you to know with some measure of certainty that he would. He’d want to strip the paint from where it wasn’t supposed to be and fix the air conditioner and oil the hinges of your door.

Your father suddenly comes to mind, usually drinking, always absent even when he was right in front of you. Not cruel, not like your mother who pecked and prodded and criticized at every turn, sometimes lashed out in violent, abrupt episodes. 

You’d never considered your father’s lack of attention a failing, not when your mother’s attention posed a threat. At least he left you alone. But maybe that inertness, that blindness, was a kind of abuse in itself. 

He hadn’t bothered to see you off to college or come to your graduation. He’d never visited and wouldn’t know if you needed help. Even if he knew about your shitty situation, he would have shrugged, not offered to fix the hinges and lightswitches and whatever else, said that’s life, kid. 

If he knew you were prostituting yourself, he wouldn’t try to help you out of it, but tell you he was disgusted. 

He hadn’t bothered to stop your mother from hurting you in whatever ways she could. And maybe you’re wrong, don’t know enough about Joel as a parent or at all, but you can’t imagine him standing idly by while his daughters were harmed. 

“Darlin’?” You become aware that Joel has been speaking to you, that your chest is tight. “You there, baby?”

“I’m here.”

“Okay,” he says, voice uncertain. “Not that I’m distracted from you, but it looks like there might be mold on the wall behind you. Landlord should be able to—“

God. 

You sent him fucking nudes and he’s concered about you breathing in mold, had to have looked at the whole picture to even see it. Who does that? Why didn’t he just look at your tits and tell you he wished he could come on them? 

There’s a funny ringing in your ears. Joel’s advice on how to handle the mold and your landlord going mostly unheard. It’s not mold, you want to say, the wall is just stained, you’d thought it was mold, too, when you moved in, but if you open your mouth, you’re afraid the tightness in your throat and pressure behind your eyes might turn to tears. 

Yes, Joel would kneel there on your carpet. He’d fuss with your air conditioner and beg you to move somewhere nicer. 

Do you shy away from being taken care of because no one has ever taken care of you? Possibly. Do you have daddy issues? In addition to mommy issues? It seems likely at that moment. Watering down your psychology to that makes you hate yourself more, the flare of shame so familiar it feels like home. 

It makes you ill. It had been enough when it was only your mother. The realization is not helped by the fact that the epiphany has come to you while you’re half naked and on the phone with a man who’s older than your dad. 

How fucking cliche. 

There’s the practical side of you, too, that says not to trust a man at his word, that Joel really gives a fuck about you beyond keeping you happy enough to keep fucking him. 

But you’ve been in tougher spots than this one. If he wants to buy you things and take care of you, you should let him. If he finds someone else he wants to fuck or decides to move on, well, you took care of yourself before he showed up and you could do it again. 

Besides, he’s right. You can save money. You would not be as desperate as the first time around, with nothing and the threat of eviction hanging over you like a sword. 

The tight feeling in your chest unfurls, resigned to the way the wind is blowing. 

It would be nice, to know what it feels like, for someone else to handle things. 

“Joel?” 

He stops talking abruptly. “What?” 

“I’ll let you pay my rent next month.” 

There’s a long pause, then Joel chuckles. “Are you tryin’ to distract me from the mold?” 

“It’s not mold. It’s a stain.” 

“You okay?” 

You swallow. “I think so.” Then, worriedly, a little. “It’s not you. Just thinking.” 

“Tell me.” 

“I’d rather you get me to stop thinking about it.” 

“Uh-huh,” he mumbles. “And how would you like me to do that?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” you answer quietly, coquettishly. “Get creative.”

He grunts. “I’m still lookin’ at your pictures.” 

“Are you?” 

“Never said how pretty you are, did I?” 

“Not this time.” 

He chuckles. “Well, I ain’t been lyin’ to you about it.” He pauses for half a second, not giving you enough time to respond with something sexy or snarky or maybe just whiny. You want him to say it, and your new found acceptance of what you’re doing with him makes you want to demand it. “Did you, uh, put your clothes back on?” 

The way he mutters it, like a secret in your ear, even though he apparently still has your nudes open on his phone, makes you giggle. “Just my shirt.” 

“Cherry,” he says softly, and for the first time, you wish you could know what your actual name sounds like on his tongue.

It’s too much, too big. Between the spate of jealousy earlier, your little revelation mere minutes ago, you know uttering your name is not wise. 

“What?” You answer, voice crushed velvet in your cheek. “What do you want?” 

“Why don’t you touch yourself for me, darlin’? Since I can’t do it for you.” 

You snake your hand down, between your legs. “Tell me how. Or you want me to tell you what I’m doing?” 

“No, honey, you just relax. Just listen to me.” 

Heat curls up in your chest, a dormant, sleepy animal. “Okay.” 

“Well,” he murmurs. “When you ever agreed that easy?” 

“I’m easy with you all the time, Joel.” 

“You’re always holdin’ the reins though, aren’t you? Got a real tight grip too.” 

You want to pout or deny it. Instead you aim to distract him. “You know I can still feel you,” you murmur. “I’m sore.” 

He grunts, the sound surprised and horny in a way you can describe but that makes wet pool between your legs. Distractedly worried about your couch, you reach for a blanket to shove beneath you. 

“Why don’t you just rub her for me?” He says after a moment. “Think you can do that?” 

“Mm. Tell me how.” You press your hand lower. “Tell me what you want me to do. Please.”

There’s something soothing about the way he directs you, not demanding but coaxing and slow, the words caressed and stretched in his mouth. It’s like his accent lengthens, deepens, drawing to a crawl. 

You only touch where he says to—teasingly at your thighs, the parted folds of your pussy, down to your aching hole, then your peaked nipples. Not your clit, which aches, a throbbing curl of want coiling tight in your belly with nowhere to go, circling ceaselessly, chained. 

It’s all tracing, teasing, slow. It feels like he’s there with you, watching you, though his fingers are better than yours, bigger, thicker. Your own don’t apply pressure the same way, curl the way his do, skim your skin so carefully. 

You close your eyes and let him paint you a picture—his head between your legs, his hot, lithe tongue doing the frustratingly insufficient tracing, a chuckle against your skin when you lift your hips toward his mouth, hands gripping your hips, pushing you down, bringing you close to his mouth, tilting your body up. 

His mouth, wet from feasting like your body is a last meal, caressing up your body, kissing your thighs and belly and chest, eventually your lips, cock heavy against your thigh and between your legs. 

An unbidden image, dragged by the scruff with your teeth to the front of your mind—Joel cooing at you, asking if your pussy is wet enough, leaning down to spit lightly on you without waiting for an answer. 

Your whole body tenses, toes curling. 

“Joel,” you mumble when he tells you to put your hands on your tits again. “You’re being mean.” 

“Just wanna make it good. Since I can’t fuck you.”

A moan escapes your lips, head tilting back against the armrest, wanton with lust. “You’re denying me.” 

“No,” he says, soft voice like the flutter of an unseen bird. “I’d never do that, Cher. I’m teasin’ you.” 

Your hips lift, pressing against something that isn’t there. “Just as bad,” you murmur.

“It’ll make it better when you come.”

You bite your lip. “Joel? What do you think about? When you look at my pictures?” Your fingers are against your thigh again, caressing the slope to the crease of your leg. It’s a pretty thought, Joel looking at your nudes on his phone, jerking his cock. The part of his lips, how he would pant and moan and thrust his hips into his hand. “I told you once, remember? What I was thinking about. It’s your turn.” 

It seems so long ago, Joel asking to watch you touch yourself for him, watching with a heavy gaze, a stranger that really wanted to know what you look like when you came. 

He grunts, it’s a pained sound, like it’s torn from his chest. “Couldn’t forget that if I tried.” He’s cooing at you, placating. 

The AC sputtered out a few minutes ago, and you can feel the outside heat trickling in around the poorly sealed window, sweat gathering at the back of your neck and beneath your breasts and behind your knees. 

You’re still rubbing your nipples, pinching, feeling the weight of your breasts in your hands, squeezing gently, then harder. 

“Joel?” 

“I think about the same thing you do,” he answers, voice a little rougher than before. “Puttin’ my head between your legs. Think about what it feels like to have my tongue inside you.” He pauses for a moment, and you shiver and moan a little. “You doin’ okay?” 

You nod and hum. “I want to come, Joel.” The tension in your belly isn’t a thing of desperate passion, it’s a lightly snaking need, tracing the edges and corners of you, mellowing you out, easing your nerves. 

“Mm, I know you do. Go on, but I wanna hear you.” 

A whine presses against your lips. “I don’t—” 

“I know,” he says as you finally press your fingers against your aching core, thumbing gently at the bundle of nerves, trying to build the pressure slowly like Joel does and not quite succeeding, tucking one finger and then two inside, moaning at the ache and still mourning that it’s not his thicker fingers, spreading you wide. 

Your hand doesn’t feel like his, even when you close your eyes and think of him leaning over you, his forearm braced against the armrest by your head, his body close and warm above yours, the sound of him grunting, thrusting against your thigh because he can’t help it—

“But I can’t see you,” he murmurs. “So I need to hear you.” 

You pant, making the conscious effort not to snap your teeth around the noises you make. “That’s all?” You ask. “Eating my little pussy?” 

He inhales shakily, tension and need looping through his voice, deep and graveled as he denies himself. “No. But I’m better at showin’ than tellin’.”

A shuttering breath passes your lips. “Oh. Give me a demonstration next time?” 

“Mm. You gonna come for me, pretty girl?” 

“Yeah,” you sigh, thrusting your fingers carefully, circling your clit, letting yourself breathe heavily and freely until a gasp and croaking moan drip from your mouth. It’s a sleepy, curlicue of an orgasm, a disbursed heat that sweeps through your whole body slowly and gently before it suddenly peters out and leaves you drained. 

Joel is murmuring little praises, his pride, in your ear, the gentle reassurance that you are so good. Did good, listened so good and let go of your reins for a minute. 

The air kicks back on as you lie there, spent, your legs still folded out, knees bent. You shiver and yearn for the soft hotel sheets, Joel’s arms curled around you, the 

“You feelin’ any better?” He asks softly when you sit up and reach for your cigarettes again. The habit is becoming worse by the day. It reminds you of your mother and wastes money besides. But you aren’t as hungry when you smoke, so you tell yourself it’s okay. 

You feel lazy and good but cold, a little alone, the empty room poking holes in your heart. Joel is the giant that leans down and peers through, like you’re a lightning bug in a jar. 

“I am.” Joel doesn’t immediately answer, waiting, so you continue. “I’m just. . tired now. Always.” 

“Y’know,” he starts slowly, his voice syrupy in its caution, careful. “If there’s some weekend you don’t wanna come out to me, that’s fine. I’ll send you the money, anyway. You ain’t gotta worry.” 

A smothering swell of. . .you aren’t quite sure what. Affection, maybe. 

Maybe it's an illusion, on his part and yours, all just a part of this dynamic you have with him that will snap like a poorly sown thread when it’s over, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s the first person to ever want to take care of you, for any reason. 

“Isn’t that stealing?” You tease eventually, swallowing down the feeling, the tears coating the back of your throat. You close your legs and curl on your side, lighting the cigarette in your hand. “Getting paid for a service I didn’t provide?” 

Joel doesn’t take it as a joke. “Nothin’ to service. It would be a gift.”

“I like servicing you, Joel.” 

He grunts and you smile. “I’m serious. I know how hard you work. Don’t—” he sighs, interrupting you before you can even begin, “don’t turn that into some kinda joke.” 

You press your lips together. “Fine. But I do work hard, on that we can both agree. Can I tell you something honest?” 

“‘Course you can.” 

You ash your cigarette and take another long drag, blowing smoke at your ceiling. Norway covered in a fugue of hazy smoke that the fan takes apart slowly. “I like when you say things like that,” you murmur. “It makes me feel safe.” 

“Cherry—”

“Wait. I’m not done. I lied earlier.”

A pregnant pause, thick with something unsaid. “‘Bout what?” He asks cautiously, a little gruffly. 

You breathe out smoke, put out the cigarette anxiously. “When I said I wanted to call because I had a bad week,” you admit. “That’s true, too, I guess. But the main reason was because I missed you. I just missed you and I wanted to hear your voice.” 

“Cherry?” He says, a gentle urgency in his voice. “You listenin’ to me? Really listenin’?” 

“Yeah,” you say, and your voice cracks. You can feel your wetness between your legs and you suddenly hate it, afraid of what he’s going to say. 

You hate being vulnerable, and viciously and untruthfully wish that he was mean and rough and violent and awful to you. It would sever the attachment and attraction and affection so cleanly. But he’s not. 

“I’m one call away, anytime you need me. For anything, for nothin’. Clear?” 

You close your eyes. 

“Even if it’s just me? And not to. . .send you naked pictures and have phone sex?” He laughs and little and so do you, but then the tiny, uneven, childlike need makes you continue, ruins the attempt at humor. “Even just to hear your voice?” 

“Darlin’.” It’s like he’s caressing your face, soothing back the tear that sips from beneath your eyelid even though you don’t want it to. “Even just that.” 

Previous / Next

[geeficrecs]

John Price is a domestic menace who is so in love with you it’s borderline ridiculous.

Price is up at the crack of dawn, even when he’s home. Military habits die hard. But instead of rushing off to train, he takes his time watching you sleep. He adores how peaceful you look, face buried in the pillow, hair messy.

“Too bloody gorgeous for your own good, love.”

He always makes coffee first thing in the morning. Your coffee is made with care, perfect sugar-to-milk ratio. His? Jet fuel. The man drinks pure black coffee like a lunatic.

If you wake up early, he pulls you into his lap, letting you sit between his legs as he rests his chin on your shoulder, sipping coffee together in comfortable silence. This man cannot cook for shit. You let him try once, and the kitchen almost caught fire. His ‘specialty’? Scrambled eggs that somehow taste like regret.

If you’re cooking, he’s always hovering. Arms wrapped around your waist, chin on your shoulder, murmuring- “What’s on the menu today, sweetheart?”

You have to swat him away because he steals food off the pan.

“John, I swear—STOP PICKING AT IT.”

“I’m just taste-testing, love.” (No, he’s eating half of it.) Price is a touch-starved bastard. He constantly has a hand on you—your thigh, your back, your waist. He hates sleeping alone. If he’s home, you are glued to him.

Post-mission cuddles? He holds onto you like you’re his lifeline.

Comes home, sighs deeply, collapses onto you. He buries his face into your neck, muttering “Missed you so damn much.”

He physically cannot sleep unless you’re in his arms. If he has nightmares? You always wake up to comfort him. He tries to brush it off, but you cup his face, run your fingers through his hair.

“You’re home, John. You’re safe.”

And just like that, the tension leaves his body. This man walks on the side of the road closest to traffic. Always. Hand on your lower back when walking through crowds. If anyone even looks at you wrong? That stern Captain Price glare™ is activated.

One time, some guy at the grocery store got too close to you— Price instantly went into overprotective husband mode.

“The fuck you lookin’ at, mate?”

You had to drag him away before he decked the poor man. Don't let this man near laundry. “John, you can’t just throw your combat gear in with our clothes.” “...They all get clean, don’t they?” Absolutely not. One time, you found a grenade pin in the washing machine.

“JOHN WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!”

“…Souvenir?”

You ban him from doing laundry after that.

When he gets rare days off, he’s the laziest bastard alive. He’s in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, sprawled on the couch. If you try to get up? Nope. He pulls you back down.

“Where d’you think you’re goin’, sweetheart? You’re stayin’ right here.”

Movie nights? You lay on his chest, and he rubs lazy circles into your back. He snores. Loudly. But if you ever tease him about it, he denies it. “I don’t snore, love.” “John, I have video evidence.” “…Fabricated.”

[geeficrecs]

mdni • price x f!reader

captain price has a ritual and his men know better than to disturb. every time 141 gets back from an op and rumbles back to hereford, they unload, debrief, file the necessary reports and then some, all that dreary bureaucracy that needs to be done within the first couple hours of touching back onto english soil. and then, at the first opportunity, he fucks off. captain’s privilege, he says.

the others do too—on the town or to the bunks or to their own flats or wherever—but price never joins them. he has his own destination in mind and it’s a solo journey, so quit nosing about trying to find out, sergeant. he’s only ever gone for a few hours, six at the most, before he rolls on back to base, squares his shoulders, and throws himself back into work. at least he always seems a bit lighter when he comes back.

said destination is a pub not one, not two, but three villages over. the further from base, the less likely it is for him to run into one of his men, and he’d just hate it if that happened, would feel like a dog dragging mud in through the garden door, crossing his wires. he might not like it about himself, but john price is a greedy and selfish man, and the pretty little thing that’s been tending bar for the past few years is a morsel that he wants to keep all to himself, cradled in his jaw and savored.

the dingy pub is nondescript and uncreative, a local establishment that’s been around since anyone can remember and hadn’t changed a whit. price found the place back when he was first made captain and started looking for further out watering holes, looking for some peace and quiet away from the places where the recruits drank. he almost wrote the place off his lists of spots before he saw the flustered young bartender duck in for her shift.

since then, he’s been a regular—for a given value of ‘regular’, as much as a military man can be—ever since. started swapping conversation after the third or fourth visit. polite conversation turned friendly, then raucous with laughter, then warm and teasing.

that’s as far as he let’s it go, naturally. with a job like his, he’s married to his work; there’s no room, no time in his life for a sweet little wife, no matter what he dreams at night with his cock fisted in his grip or whose face he happens to see play the role. he tried the whole wife thing once, chased after it, even, and all price has to show for it is an alimony payment set to automatically go out every month.

(his ex-wife couldn’t handle him in the end. she was the type of woman who needed him at every hour to keep her love alive and couldn’t stomach the weeks alone while he was deployed, and even when price was home, she didn’t have an appetite to match his when he slipped himself off his leash. they both jumped into it without looking ahead. such is life.)

so he ignored the hungry need for a woman beside him, and even if he ever did go down that route again, it couldn’t be her. she’s young and bright and untouched by blood. playful flirting and occasional brushes of fingers hovered somewhere plausibly deniable as a service worker buttering up a favorite patron, or—and price only lets this thought loose for a moment before snatching it and shoving it down with a growl—a friend. he’s gone half the year anyway, or something like it. every time he comes, he carries the irrational, ugly fear that in she’s moved on, moved out, got a new job, left the country, got married—

when he shoulders through the door now, sawdust sticking to his boots, his girl’s—because that’s what she is, even if it’s only the sight of her that he lets himself claim and hoard—wiping down glasses behind the sill, the pub just about empty as all the old timers went home. his first thought is that she’s still there, thank god. his second’s that she’s changed up her hair. it looks good. price pointedly ignores the way the sight of her with her new hair and those pretty lips makes him chub up a little.

his girl’s eyes crinkle a little when she looks up toward the door. “john,” she says warmly, and before he’s even seated at his usual spot on the bar, she’s filling him up his favorite pint. “how are you doing, handsome? just got back from saving the world?”

a snarling, hungry, traitorous part of his brain tells him that his wife is being so good, keeping him fed and watered, and the only thing next on her wifely duties is to keep his balls drained. he tells it to go stuff itself.

“still working on it, sweetheart,” price says with a sip. maybe it was worth it, when she asked a while ago why he showed up so irregularly, to tell her that he was SAS, if only for the way she called it after. saving the world. that’d be nice.

this time, though, he notices something else that’s new besides the hairstyle, and it makes his beer taste like dust in his mouth. a glint in the light, on his girl’s left hand.

not really his girl anymore, is she?

price swallows down his mouthful and tries to quell the sudden heat that rises in his veins, a raging anger that feels, inexplicably, like he’s been stolen from. his molars clench together for dear life as he rearranges, tames, quiets himself. it was fine. it was fine! she’s just his bartender, is all. his friend. modern country and whatever, she could go meet whoever, get engaged to whoever, fuck whoever, and if she was happy, then—then price would have to be happy for her.

(she better be happy, he thinks. if whatever little boy she’s found isn’t making her feel like a bloody princess every god damn day then he doesn’t deserve the fingers he touches her with or the cock between his legs—)

this was good, even. with a ring on her finger, price’d always have a reminder that pretty girls didn’t owe him anything, don’t belong to him like a dog with a bone. kill the fantasy, keep his head on the missions. a better soldier. it’s that tightening thought that lets him calm himself enough to say “congratulations are in order, i assume?”

his gi—the—she furrows her brow in confusion, but she follows price’s gaze—how could she not, with him practically burning a hole in her finger with his stare—and laughs. “oh, that,” she says, easy as ever. “no, nothing’s happened.” she wiggles the ring off her finger and sliding it across the counter to price for his inspection.

under his touch, the tell is obvious: it’s plastic, cheap, almost gummy plastic. the faux diamond is cheap acrylic, only close to sparkling because she’s gone through and polished it up. it takes him a moment before he puts it together, but before he does, he briefly becomes so angry that he thinks he might actually kill a civilian for treating her this way.

“bought that online for five quid,” she keeps going. “just to stop some of the patrons from asking questions, or flirting, or, you know, trying to introduce me to their nephews and that kind of thing.”

a decoy ring. a dummy, a shield, something with no actual suitor attached to the other end. price is so relieved that he can feel every muscle in his aching body untense, and it pisses him off because he knows he shouldn’t care this much about his friend’s love life. “smart,” he says, his voice a bit thick before he clears it. “smart. though, you know, sweetheart, you could always try telling them you’re not interested.”

“please, john, you think i haven’t tried?” she shrugs. “no, most of them don’t listen without seeing a little proof that that seat is taken. always thought they could convince me otherwise. the ring shuts up most of them, and the few that still don’t get the hint, i end up having to tell them stories about ‘my husband’ before they piss off.”

the word husband coming from her mouth makes something rumble in price’s chest that’s becoming dangerously difficult to ignore. he tries a chuckle, tries to focus on the feeling of his beard bristling his own cheeks and not the way they would feel against hers, and tries to lighten the mood. “so, what, you just make up stories about this husband of yours? grand tales of romance?”

but she looks away, and—is his girl flustered? she picks up a rag in her hands and starts wiping idly at the counter, like she’s trying to avoid his eyes. “oh, you know,” she says. “i keep it simple. just enough to, er, get them to stop, and consistent, so they can’t pick holes. he’s—he’s in the military. leads a team.”

then, quietly, “he’s out there saving the world.”

the dog slips his leash.

when price finally leaves to make the long drive back to base, his shirt rumpled and his chin wet with slick, he keeps the plastic ring in his back pocket, not bothering to give it back. why would he? she doesn’t need it anymore, because he’s going to buy his girl the real diamonds that she deserves.