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missandaei · 7 months ago

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Notes On a Virtuous Affair

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: One would think this road ends in something virtuous—a greenness so dazzling it hurt the eyes—and not the sort of man waiting in his far out removed solitude.

He was the experienced one, you the innocent. It should have been different. Maybe it should’ve felt different. And yet, there was something in him that made you feel very much the conquering one, you the baptizing one.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Post outbreak; Jackson Joel Miller; Dom/sub undertones; Rough Sex; Impact Play; Face Slapping; Spanking; PIV sex; Ass Play; Oral Sex (m!receiving); Come Eating; Throat Fucking; Unprotected Sex; Potentially Toxic Dynamics? (haha?); Complicated Feelings; They Love Each Other in Their Own Weird Way, Ok?; Older Man/Younger Woman; Idk What This Is, I Don't Expect You to Either;

A/N: miss you guys, sorry for the disappearing act <3

Word Count: 3.1K

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Notes On a Virtuous Affair

Sunlight spills over everything, and the pastoral green leads you to him.

One would think this road ends in something virtuous—a greenness so dazzling it hurt the eyes—and not the sort of man waiting in his far out removed solitude.

But there’s an incongruity afoot here that only you appreciate.

The secret lies in that there’s a riddle woven through the three miles you pilgrim to see him weekly. The first, a boon, the green lush wasteland, if a thing that’s alive can be wasted. The second, an honesty, I’ll venture this distance for him. The third, a precursor, when your muscles start to tingle, your thighs, hot and itchy, nape, coated in a taste of salt. Your feet crunch along the gravel and dirt, protected by the soft leathered boots inherited from Lucy who’d died last Monday. A good start to the week, with new boots, and a thoughtful gift she’d left you, your friend, when your own shoes were so worn from all the walking you do for him. The end of the world changes death, finds good things within it.

The sun warms the bridge of your nose, and you tip your face up to the too-bright light, trying your hardest to look straight at the intensity of it. He’s very much like this too. Why would you look directly at the sun if not for the hurting it brings? Your palms splayed forward at your sides, the breeze moving through your fingers, and the world is all around you alive in this apocalypse.

Jackson is left further and further behind as you move towards him, and what no one understands, not even Joel Miller himself, is that there is something virtuous about this affair.

“I’m gonna fuck your mouth now,” he says down at you, bare as the day you were born and kneeling before his clothed and towering height. Nothing but the heavy hanging length of his cock is naked for you, the first you’d ever seen in your whole life. If he had his way, the only one you’d ever see for the rest of it. The wide head is slick and glossy, the way it bobs obscenely from his open jeans looking like the weight of it would hurt, the way it juts from the bed of hair at this groin like a threat to you.

You know now, after all his focused training, that it only hurts him when you don’t tend to it as he needs, that it’s only a threat when you fail to do the same. He’s shown you the rules of hurting, in all these months you’ve come your three promised miles to him time after time. Shown you how it comes easy, that of hurting someone you love. A running in place sort of thing. You know all the steps that will come, the exact spot you’ll tread in. The way to propel yourself forward to finally leave that same place, avoid it, if you want.

“Open wider. Won’t fit like that,” he clicks his tongue, voice a burr as he grips his throbbing flesh and with the other too big hand, also like a seeming threat, but not, he gives you a quick, softly stinging slap to the high of your cheekbone. The sound, fast and snapping like his disapproving tongue. You swallow a moan, looking up at him with that look in your eyes you know disturbs him, adoration, letting the hinges of your jaw go loose, saliva pooling beneath the cover of your tongue. “Don’t you want me?” He asks.

And you blink once, moan crossing the bridge to a laugh if your mouth wasn’t stretched wide as it’ll go. He sees it though, skipping water in your eyes and gives that half smile, the mean one, the one that says he has all the answers in the world, knows all the things there are to know, that one you like best. Good girl, and his voice makes no sound, only the shape of the words on his mouth. You haven’t been good enough yet to hear the real thing of them out loud. This tells you that you must apply yourself to the task at hand, making him come.

One heavy tap to the flat of your tongue sticking out for him first, and then he’s slicking that fat head against the surface, giving you the first real taste, salt and musk trickle down the back of your throat and you moan again, eyes screwing shut tight, cunt aching something fierce. Leaking just like the tip of his cock leaks too.

That’s the thing about this thing, the one you see very well and Joel still fails to. The two of you, as disparate as you might seem, are the same in all the basic but most important ways. Too much in common for him to look at in the eye comfortably and still do the things you do.

“Open your throat. Get me hard.” In your head, he calls you baby. In reality, only sometimes, when you’re extra good, does that happen. But in your imagination, where it matters more, he doesn't ask nice, but you are his baby.

He slides back, back, hits the end of your throat, pulls out against the wet heat of your tongue. You keep your jaw wide until you feel him harden entirely, until he stretches his neck back, tendons jumping stark, clench of his jaw fluttering with a choked groan. “Suck me,” your permission to savor him like you need to.

Hands pressed firmly to your bare knees, not digging at your soft wet like you’d like, or pawing at him as you’d like even more, you close your lips around him, cheeks hollowed and suck hard, tonguing at his slit on the pull back so that he’s bearing his teeth at you in a growl and shoving forward again hard, a snarl as the cinch of your tight throat strangles the head of his cock on every one of your swallows. Your eyes water, but he pets softly at the same spot he’d stung earlier with his slap.

A game you used to play with your siblings, who could slap one another harder until the other gave out. It’d taken a while for you to come to the realization, but eventually, you’d realized the memory of it in your mind as it exists now wasn’t innocent the way it should’ve been. That there had been something you’d liked about it in a strange way—that hurting. That the first time you’d asked Joel to play the same game with you, you’d wanted him to slap you other places just as hard until you gave out also.

The games were part of the thing. His own strange rules, like the way you couldn’t touch him sometimes—you dig your bitten down nails into the soft skin of your inner thighs—only when he said it was okay was it allowed. The way you were never allowed to touch your cunt unless he said so also. He had weird things about him, turned strange by the dangerous ways of life. Like the solitude, the house out and away, the begging you had to do for him to have you.

Sameness.

He wraps his fist in your hair, more sting, “Gonna fill your belly with my come, yeah?” His thrusts pick up pace, pulling your head back as far as your neck allows so that he can fuck your throat in full, jaw hanging wide, and you’re just the wet and willing hole you know he sometimes wishes you could always stay as.

The thick cock against your tongue throbs once, twice and then he’s spilling hot and heavy down your open throat, sweet salt against the back of your tongue while you try and breathe through his strangling, tears spilling.

When he pulls back, slipping wet and heavy from your mouth you fall forward onto your palms, breathing fast, almost hyperventilating, stinging with the forced will to remain obedient. Your spine burns beneath your skin and your sore jaw hangs unwillingly open, sloppy mouth dripping a string of semen between your splayed palms.

He crouches before you, dripping cock like your mouth, milked to heavy softness hangs long and sated between his thighs. And he pets your crown, the vulnerable shell of your ear, whole body on fire so that every inch of skin hurts without his touch, hurts worse with it.

“Good girl,” he says now with voice.

The walk seems longer some days. A thousand miles plus an eon instead of merely three. Especially on the days you’re more desperate than usual. The ones when your stomach feels full of sugar for him and the memory taste of his cock is already aching in your molars. Those days your steps are hurried, look in your eyes frenzied to get to him, to escape the things you leave behind. A too full house, your sister’s squalling, teething baby, your little brothers, and too many mouths to feed and not attention to be had, not enough mother for everyone to get loved.

There’s reasons for this game between the two of you, you’d had to come out and find your attention somewhere else.

Your love too.

And if it comes with a sting sometimes, well, so had your mother’s. You like it like this now.

The first time he’d touched your cunt: show me that pretty pussy, baby, and he’d had you from that very first sweet word, you gonna let me finger it? You’d spread wide, leaked into the cup of his palm like a whore, you’d needed to make sure he was for keeping from the first try, you see. So you’d done all he’d said, taken four fingers and only cried a little bit but whined a lot. Been all, hurts, Joel, high pitched and dragging his name out on a puppy whimper.

He’d given you that first lesson in hurt the very first time: Yeah? Supposed to. A real mean man. And then made you gush into that very cupped palm so that he could drink of your sweetness.

The third mile comes to an end, the precursor, over, his house in view. It’s all quiet and slumbering and the long grass pulls you forward with its wind blown sway. The wide door to his shed is propped open, half finished rocking chair up on the workbench that sways with the intruding gust. The grass whispers behind you, the dark woods across the field moan, and he’s nowhere while the Tetons loom in the distance.

You drag your fingers along the slats of his house as you pass, everything is so quiet, like he’d never been here. Like he’d gone and left you the way he’s promised he’d never do. Your belly feels bloated with heat, heart turned into four incongruous chambers that no longer beat in tune, memories of him rioting between each thump. Your cunt goes soft and drooling in your panties as your fear beats higher and higher, and you come to the mouth of the shed, peering into the cool darkness of this little place where he makes his beautiful things. The things that go into people’s homes to be used by people’s families to be stored in people’s memories.

The gleam of the sun does not cross the threshold, and you brace your palms on either side of the wide door, the air thrums and he’s not here—yet—you slide the toe of Lucy’s old boot across the border of sunlight into sanctuary and peek your closed-eyed face into the shade right before you’re taken bodily to the ground by his heavy weight. Palms catching splinters, his strong chest heaves into the line of your spine, strong arm at your waist to pull your breath from your lungs and your legs from under you.

He forces you belly first to the ground, other hand circling your throat in the imitation of a strangle lest you lose yourself and decide to struggle for the first time ever. But you dig your fingernails into the dirt, scratching for purchase in preparation of what’s about to come, all the fight going out of you; body, half in shadow, half in sunlight. Your bones feel salt bleached. An over abundance of sodium in the blood that renders you catatonic for him.

He nuzzles soft at your nape while his hand shoves under your dress, ripping your underwear down your legs so that the elastic cuts into your tender skin to hurt. All incongruous movement, this man is.

“Didn’t your daddy ever tell you not to go creepin’ ‘round strange men’s homes?” His voice is so deep, drawled, broken up into different notes of lust and anger and temerity. All the strange things that make Joel Miller up.

Yeah, you sigh into the dirt. “Told me exactly how it’d go for me if I did.”

You hitch your rump up then, presenting your cunt for fucking. The breeze doesn’t do half to soothe the throbbing wet. The sort of ache that’ll only be fixed by something heavy inside the hurting place. The sound of his belt quiets the disparate chambers, the beat in your ears of rushing blood is uniform now, there’ll be a wet spot in the shape of you in the dirt when he’s through. You lift your hips higher, knees scraped rough as you spread wider, face pressed to the ground and your fingers are well and burrowed in their little gouges now.

He smacks the heft of it against you asshole, spits and presses a little. He likes to scare you sometimes. Nooo, Joel, all whining stutter, but with your back arching deeper like a little babied liar; you don’t mind where he puts it, only that he puts it somewhere.

“Hush,” he soothes all nice, spanks your ass once all not— “Gonna teach you a lesson.” And shoves inside, bumping against your womb on the first try, stretching your hole too wide, too quick. And there’s no prep, no qualm. No need to hesitate when you own a thing. You swallow your animal cry, ah ah ah, you want to hear how good you’ve been out loud. He grips your hips tight enough to bruise which is what you know he wants and fucks hard and fast, each swing whistles with ownership.

He fucks you in the dirt like an animal, and this affair is virtuous.

He teaches you the truth about hurting, about ownership, about so many things that only a man like Joel Miller could teach a girl like you. And all the while he tells you that you’re too pretty to take such an ugly fucking.

The way he works your cunt, hungry, balls swinging wet so that they sting like his slaps, tip battering hard so that it aches like gratitude.

These are the things three miles give you. A whole man to teach you about the whole world.

The slick squelch of your overwhelmed cunt sounds loud, no more disparate heartbeat, no more green grassed whispers. Only the sound of his grunting above you like an animal remains. “You’re the perfect little cunt. You know that, baby?” There it is, you sigh. Start to tremble around him like that, like his good baby that you are, desperate flutters, little gash being fucked into obedience like you need. Your overwhelmed pants make little dirt dream clouds before your eyes as you start to come for him, crying his name, crying your love, crying that you’re so, so thankful.

“Don’t stop, Joel. Not yet.” And he loves it when you beg, loves it when your cunt pulls tight like a knot.

“Not yet,” he promises because he might be a real mean man, but he loves you like separating salt from blood.

Complicated and precise.

When he’s through with you, there’s sunlight spilling over everything again. It’s journey goes on and on, and his semen drips from your cunt now. He turns gentle, thrusting still, making sure it’s fucked deep, pulsing in time with your own throb. Rhythms merge between the two of you.

His rules are strange, his claims over you equally mysterious. He won’t say things out loud, won’t let you touch any real part of him, but his strange truths ring loud anyways, and when your heart isn’t disjointed, you hear him perfectly well.

When he lays you out bare and trembling across his messy bed, the groaned pains of his age and rutting in the dirt like an animal sound from him as he drapes himself alongside you. Large and hairy, feet hanging off the end of the bed, entirely real with one knee propped up so that his thick cock lays heavy and soft over the swell of his belly. Your heart beats soft and overfull now.

You watch the sun set across the planes of his chest and bask in the blue dark as the night draws breath around you. The work of meting out obedience to little girls who come searching for it is toiling, and you watch him melt into sleep, but right before he’s just gone away from you, with a single finger petting at the jut of the old broken bone in his shoulder, your whispered plea: Will you give me a falseness? You don’t call it a lie. This is a virtuous thing, after all.

Lies aren’t allowed in this house.

He breathes a deep sigh, and you watch the fan of his long lashes sweep open, staring up at the shadowed rafters of his home. You swear you can see each and every individual whisker in his thick beard, dark and gray dispersed throughout. You see every single detail.

He’d told you once there were ghosts here, in this house, and you’d learned later it wasn’t a lie. This became more and more obvious the more you got to know him.

He stares up at them now.

When he’d taken your virginity, when it’d left you the way you’d always imagined it would, covered in tears and blood and semen, you’d made that promise to each other. That you wouldn't lie, that he’d have all of you, that you’d not touch all of him. The ghost lay beside you in the damp bed of your lost innocence that day. It’d been just so ever since and over many miles of three you’d come to appreciate the realities of it. Who could be more connected than two people who always tell each other their truths exactly as they are?

“Give me a falseness,” you say again, not a lie.

“A good kind of a bad kind?”

You flip a mind’s coin, wish you could see the exact ghosts he sees— “Bad.”

He turns to look at you, this half smile he wears is your second favorite one now, the honest one, and it’s all there for you to see. All the disparate chambers of Joel, just like your heart beating in your ears. You suppose the ghosts don’t matter then.

“I don’t love you.”

And you nod solemn. Bad, like a whisper, like your game.

You smile back, the one you know he likes best, the one that looks like his.

Netherfeildren’s Masterlist

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missandaei · 7 months ago

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missandaei · 8 months ago

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but your honor he's my quinquagenarian pudgy-bellied dewy-eyed skrunkly pathetic joel-joel teddy bear meow-meow, what do you MEAN he's a violent murderous monster who's committed horrible crimes

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missandaei · 10 months ago

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Honey, Stomach, Mine ; 2. More Intelligent Than a Face

Series Masterlist ; Part 1.

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics; Dystopian Society; Outbreak not Cordyceps AU; Angst & Yearning™️; Slow Burn; Sexual Inexperience; Cock Riding; Size Difference; Size Kink; Sex Ed for Omega’s 101; Power Dynamics; Creampie; Discussions of Heats and Knots and Slick, Oh My!; Virginity; Emotional Hurt/Comfort; Young and Needy Omega; Possessive Behavior; Age Gap

A/N: FYI I do mention that she has small breasts in this one only because I usually write big boobs and thought it was time for some itty bitty titty committee representation.

Word Count: 13.9K

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2. More Intelligent Than a Face

Existence is a strange thing, a needful thing. Something to be sated, filled, satisfied, this ordeal of being a living, breathing person. And to be an unusual sort of person, someone with needs extra to what the regular sort would require, doubly strange.

You had always thought, in different ways, that the mating program, although a choice thief, a freedom thief, was also benevolent in its control in some ways. After all, it gave those of you who were of the not usual sort, alphas and omegas, that such thing that you needed so badly.

Each other.

A bad, terrible, devastating thing that in turn gives you something necessary, life changing, life fulfilling, even, perhaps.

When your aunt had died and you’d been taken away and then put away and then shut away for what seemed would be forever, it had not, at first, in your child’s mind, seemed so terrible. But with the years, that existence you bore that needed, it began to hurt. It eventually became a very terrible thing that in turn, had taken away your ability to recognize yourself, as well. The reality that you’d been caged because of what you were, perhaps not particularly who, but certainly, what, was, at first, difficult to see. And then, when you did see it, even more difficult to look at.

A thing caged because of what it is. And again, existence is a strange and needful thing. Caged because of what you exist as; caged because of what you need because of what you are. Caged because they can give you what will sate you.

You open your eyes slowly, the bright, waning golden light of dusk shooting over the edge of the end of the world; bleeding pinks and violets feeding the fire. And he’s there, in a deeply set arm chair pulled up by the hearth, staring into the flames, and you realize, like you’d never truly considered before, that the cage was in part also his fault. That in ways, you’d been put away also because of what he is. You wonder if this should make you angry, resentful. If it should mean you should not want to be here, langoring so comfortably in his home that he’d brought you to. This man who you do not know, who does not so much even look like he wants to know you. In ways, your caging is his fault. And certainly, concretely, the prolonging of that caging was entirely of his doing. So why is there no resentment?

Once, one of the other omegas had said that they were brainwashing all of you. Preparing you, ripening you for slaughter. He’d come in later than the rest of you, when he was more grown, more mature, when he’d seen more things in his before life. He had lots of opinions, lots of thoughts, said that your before life, those ten years of living with your aunt, of only being a child like all the rest of them and not an omega, did not count. He said you’d been too young to understand all you’d lost. A boy named Leo. He was kind, but he was angry. And his anger frightened you. It was something you did know, in the sense that you could recognize it, for you’d seen anger before, but you could not understand it. For some reason, maybe you were built wrongly, and Leo was right, and you should have been angry like him, but you could never find it within yourself to muster it. Maybe there was nothing wrong about it. Maybe everyone was simply built and made and felt differently and that was fine too. But you knew that he was wrong on some accounts, particularly, that your before life had counted, that your aunt, who you remembered with so much love, had counted. And most of all, what he was most painfully wrong about, was that you did, and deeply, understand all you had lost.

After all, you could only see the sky for one hour a day, every other day, now, and that one hour made your understanding of everything around you, everything happening to you, keen and painful and humiliating in a very clear way.

The last rays of the sun wash Joel in vibrant orange reds now. A slash of glowing vermillion across his face, something almost violent about the streak of light, something possessive, and you focus your eyes intently on the sight of his face. This man, this alpha, who for all intents and purposes would or could own you as declared by the government or nature or even Leo and all he’d said would happen once you’d been claimed.

But there was one last thing he’d been wrong about, that young, angry boy, and what you felt was the greatest chasm between the way the two of you had existed within your new designations, which was that, at one very recent point in Leo’s memory, he had belonged to someone, to somewhere. He’d had a place and a home and a family, and he had belonged, and you had never had that. Your aunt, despite her love for you, had been too old and tired to want you, truly want you. You had never been wanted in any soft, true way by anyone before. And looking at him now, you don’t think Joel could ever be capable of wanting anything in a soft way, but you do think he could want something in a true way, and you’re certain that could be more than enough for you.

“Why didn’t you come for me?” Your voice, scratchy and small from sleep, floating away from you towards him. He jerks, the twitching returned, head snapping towards you, eyes wide, moving forward in his seat as if he’d spring out of it and towards you without thought. His scent seems to be heightened somehow now. As if your sleep had awakened your senses in new, keener ways. You can feel him tickling the back of your throat, threading his way through your hair, beneath your clothes, between your legs.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, ignoring your question. “When was the last time you ate? You need to eat.” And again that frown, too many fast words.

“Why didn't you come for me?” You press. “They told me you didn’t know if you wanted to come, that you wouldn't answer. I want to know why.”

He sighs a heavy, heaving thing, falling back in the chair, and turns back to the fire, and you want to whine and cry until he puts his attention back on you. You feel so… so– you don’t know. Little, unmade, with a need to be big, to grow and grow and grow so that all the things you feel and want might fit inside of you, so that he might fit inside of you. You feel hungry as if your gums ache and sting with a desire you’ve never tasted before. But also, and despite all of these conflicting, churning things, you also feel so inexplicably at ease. He’s just there, and you are just here, and you’ll make him answer, you know you have it in you to make him do the things you want, and you can’t say how, you don’t know how, but you understand that you do.

There’s power in that – even as you are, all you are not, you can see it – the ability something small possesses to make something big move, do, be. There’s power in that.

You whine low in your throat, and he turns back to you, something dark and tumultuous in his eyes, brow crooked sternly, but he opens his mouth. “I was going to leave you there,” he says, and you immediately wish he’d shut it. Never mind, you want to tell him, you say all the wrong things.

“But why? I was waiting for you.” Whine, whine, whine.

“I didn’t want this. I never have.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want me?” You ask again, just to be absolutely certain you’re understanding that you’ve once again found yourself in a place where you are not wanted for, or despite of, the thing that you are. The logistics, the intricacies of it don’t seem to matter as much anymore, after everything, the before life, the not life, all that matters now is the yes or no.

But he goes silent again, attention back toward the fire, the sun set, no more glowing vermillion slash, very little hope now too.

He ignores your question again. “Tell me about the place they kept you,” he says instead.

“There’s nothing to tell.” You want to cry now, for the first time, besides the tears of initial happiness when he’d finally walked into your white box, you want to cry. You dig stubby nails into the round of your knee, hard as you can, trying to make it hurt and distract. “It was very calm and very quiet.”

“Did you have friends?” He won’t turn back to look at you, and it makes you feel very lacking. Very much like the nothing they tried to make you feel you were before.

“No. They wouldn’t let us.”

“They wouldn’t let you have friends?”

“No. They said it would agitate us – too much socialization. Really, they just didn’t want us realizing, becoming angry and aware”

This makes him turn, makes you feel, within yourself, the anger you’re telling him of, like oh, now, when I’ve been shocking and honest, you look at me – after I waited all that time for you. There is no resentment about the cage, only for the waiting. You should stick your tongue out at him, make him an ugly face, turn over and go back to sleep and ignore him the way he’d ignore you. But no, you think, let him see that you do understand, and you do know some things, that you are angry, and Leo was right.

“What did you do then?” He asks.

“I read. I learned about myself, about you. About what we are.”

His gaze is so intense now, a ricochet, a scream, something very persistently sad. “And what are we?”

“People just like all the rest of them. But with more necessity.”

“How do you mean?”

You tip your head side to side, bright fire eyed gaze to bright fire eyed gaze. Your cheeks feel molten, sweltering, sweat at your nape, the fire in the hearth so bright, but not as bright as you; your belly glows. This is what you are, this is what you’d been made into. “There is so much necessity in existing, don’t you think?”

He tips his chin, he doesn’t understand.

“We need so many things. We require so much to be alive, to be what we are, to be satisfied and content.”

“Do we?”

“The things we are, yes. I think so.”

“You don’t seem like you spent years in that place,” he says, voice slow, molasses in the notes. There’s something hypnotized slumbering in him that forces something satisfied to swell within you. Your belly glows.

“I had a before life. People forget that.”

“I read in your file — you lived with an aunt.”

You wait for the: only for ten years, but the diminishing does not come. “Yes. She was kind, and I remember all of it, even if the rest of the world forgets it happened.”

“Did they ever mistreat you? At the facility–”

“No. Never. There was nothing.” You’re the one to turn away now. The sun has entirely gone away, a single glowing sliver just at the drop off of the end of the world. You stick your hand out straight ahead of you, fingertip following that line of fading light through air and space and sea.

He watches you unblinkingly, and asks, “What do you mean?” The far off light glows through your skin, through your fingernail; he follows the path of your hand.

You can pretend in your mind that you feel the warmth of it against your fingertip, that it scorches the way it glows, heats the length of your limb, feeds the same glow in your belly, but there’s no more possessive streak of light to wrap around you; now, the heat only lives within you. This is what you are, this is what they said would happen, and now it’s finally happening. You let your arm fall back to your lap, limp, and turn to look at him again. He looks so angry, and you feel so incredibly sad for him. This cold perch, this cage that is not white like your box, but dark and struck right on the edge of peril, this place he chose to exile himself to. They were honest, in the things they'd told you all, the truth of the way alphas exist out in the world. Lonely and ostracized and feared, brainwashed to your reality maybe, sure, the way Leo claimed. But in certain things, they’d been honest, and you’re glad for it, that you have the ability to understand him now from this vantage point. The reality of how he exists, the reason for that look in his eyes, it all makes sense to you.

“I suppose that can be a kind of bad thing… a mistreatment. Making nothing of us, of our lives, taking the whole world away until someone chooses to come and give it back to us.”

He flinches, the look shutters, clicks and flashes, a camera capturing the truth of what the two of you have already done to each other without even really knowing one another at all. “I’m sorry I waited. I’m sorry I took so long.” The words cost him something the way all truths cost something. “That I wasn’t there for you as soon as I should have been.”

“Why weren’t you?” You ask, although you know.

“I couldn’t. I can’t. I’m not– I’m not right. I’m not well.” And this costs him more than the rest, you can see. The thump, thump, beat of his heart in his throat. You should tell him to stop, mercy is power, but you think, feel, that this pound of flesh you’re demanding via his truths is what you’re owed for your life and a year of waiting. And anyways, you’ll pay your own pound of flesh in kind eventually, and it’ll cost, even if it’s freely given, it’ll still cost. Everything is equal here, it’s only that it takes a certain kind of eye to realize the truth of that.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything, what I am, the whole thing of it and this. It’s all wrong.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know.” And he looks suddenly angry, aged, wearing all his years and all his very obvious loneliness, teeth bared but on the verge of falling out.

“No…” you say slowly, thinking, rationalizing, a rolodex of truths in your mind. What you are, what I am, what we all are and all the honesties that compromise us. “I don’t, but I understand anyway. They make you all nothing, as well, don’t they? They take it all away, all nothing until you have one of us. It’s a terrible way to live.” And you don’t ask him, it’s not a question, only a very obvious thing.

Your words upset him, put him right at the mouth of madness, all those shakes and jitters returned, but you only lay your head back down on the soft pillow he’d tucked beneath you, hands folded undercheek to wait for the explosion that does not come. There’s something in you that wants to see him angry, angry like Leo, like the boy who’d said you didn't have to be what they told you to be, that reminded you that you could choose for yourself. One of the few things you’d agreed on, despite and inspite of the friendship that they would not let you have but that would have blossomed anyways if they’d given you the time. They wanted to make you nothing, but you didn’t want to be nothing. You wanted very much to be alive and to belong.

You realize, watching Joel muzzle his nature before your very eyes, wondering if the truth of him would have him springing up out of the chair to smother you with his weight and temper you with his knot, subdued with his teeth sunken into the gland at the back of your neck, that you want to see him angry. You realize that you want to see him break, that you want to hear that truth no matter what it costs the either of you. You want to see him honest.

He struggles, a dog fight right before your eyes, but when he wins, it changes the game, turns the truth chimeral. Makes you see him in a different way, and all at the same time, makes you aware and even more comfortable than you’d already been. You’re safe here. He is safe. Most importantly, you want to be here.

“Let me show you your room,” he says after a deep breath.

“My room?” A little seedling of dread and sadness and disappointment.

He shows you to a bedroom hued in soft blues. The sea when it is gentle, the sky when it’s joyous. Everything comfortable, nothing white, like he’d known already.

He stands awkwardly at the mouth of the entry, as if scared to step foot into this serene pool of azure and marr it’s peace. You watch him out of the corner of your eye as you move around, no shoes, no socks, slowly running your fingers over all the soft surfaces, sweaty little toes sunken into the deep pile of the rug underfoot.

“I wanted you to have somewhere to adjust– where you’d have privacy. I’m sure this– that I– that it’s all a shock…” he stutters.

One of his boots inches forward, snaps back, like he wants to follow, like he needs to follow, like nature is right here in the room with the two of you, but he wins that dog fight again, holds back. Frustrating.

“I’m not shocked. But I– I won’t stay with you?”

“No,” he says with a finality that makes that seedling bloom in full. “I also got you clothes. And– and soft things. I know your sort–”

You give a soft huff of air through your nose, my sort… our sort.

“Like things like that. And I also… I also put some of my own things in the drawers,” he nods towards a dark mahogany dresser shoved up against the wall; shy and boyish and hesitant all wrapped into a package that would seem to be none of those things. “They say that helps.”

“Okay… thank you.”

“Went into town to get it,” he says of the robin's eggshell blue duvet, a more dove gray blue wash for the silk soft sheets beneath. It’s all beautiful and delicate and lace trimmed and looking at him, huge and rough and something like a lonely mountain, you can’t believe he’d chosen this for you. “Lady at the store said you’d like it when I picked it out.” And that makes satisfaction smother the seedling, yes, he’d chosen it for you. A good sign.

“You went into town to get me things?”

“I told you I want you to be comfortable while you’re here.” Something about the sentence tickles your mind, but then you’re lowering yourself onto the cloud soft bed, cool silk and cotton beneath your skin, sliding against his clothes, your belly glows bright. You’re full of distractions and truth. “There’re a couple of young women that live down aways.” Young women? You perk up at the thought. Friends? “Ellie and Dina. Two young alphas, and they’re good people. I’ll take you down to meet them soon, when you’re ready.”

“Two alphas?”

“They’re a couple.”

“Like– like in love?”

He hovers at the edge of the rug with that strange look in his eyes again, the one from before – I’m only an omega, you don’t have to be afraid of me – and a palpable desperation to cross the border you don’t think he’s even aware he’s letting you in on, but that you can see nonetheless. Two fingers tucked into the line of his belt, twisted there as if grasping for restraint.

“Yeah, they’re together.”

“I didn’t know alphas could do that… that they’d let you.”

“Reckon it’s why they came all the way out here, to be honest, for freedom. But ‘course they can – be together, that is. We can do what we please, despite what they’d have us believe.” And Leo’s words ring in your mind again. Perhaps everyone sees the truth of what you are except for you. The seedling grows vines, suffocates. All the hope you’d thought would live here seems to have never even existed at all. You feel, for the first time, heavy with all the things you do not know, all the things you lack, all the inexperience and naivety like ignorance thick and cloying in your blood. “From what I understand, Dina presented late, after they’d already gotten together. And by that time it was a done deal, they were in love, no going back. And anyway, they make it work, make it look easy as nothin’, to be frank.” He runs a big hand over the back of his skull, and the way he lifts his arm has the thick of his bicep bunching, fat ball of muscle just there for your teeth to sink into. You shift restlessly on the bed.

“Easy as nothin’,” you say slowly, trying to imitate the dip and pitch of his drawl. Your fingertip follows the line of stitching in the duvet, petting at the seams holding it together. “Is that how we’ll be too?” And although you mean the words, intend the question, you’re suddenly awash with shy regret for asking, even though you can’t say exactly why. Probably for the look on his face, which goes immediately dark and serious, and even yet, you persist. “Will it be easy for us too?” And you’re sure your voice must sound like you’re begging.

“No. It won’t. It won’t be like that between us. You’ll stay here as long as it takes for you to acclimatize to being out of that place,” that place, he says like a curse, and it makes you angry, “To bein’ out in the world, and then we’ll find somewhere for you. Somewhere that’s safe and comfortable where you’ll be able to make your own life.”

“I don’t– I don’t understand,” you tell him, but it’s a lie. You do understand, you see, and very clearly, that all you’d waited for during your life, the before, the not life, the extra year, it had all been in vain, for nothing. It would not be given to you here.

“What don’t you understand?” And his tone is cruel and spitting, making you flinch. “I’m sending you away soon. This is what I’m saying.”

“But I don’t– No–” You’d waited so long. He’s being so mean, and you tell him so.

“Yes. You need to be with people your own age. You need to see the world and grow up,” and what a horrible thing to say, you think – to grow up. As if it were not a thing you’d been forced to do already all on your own, without anyone to help you.

“Well then what do you care about what I need? You make no sense!” And you bare your teeth at him. “If you don’t want me–”

But he cuts you off, broad palm held up in a staying gesture, and it’s so incongruous with all the rest of it, that you want to laugh in his face. “Didn’t say I don’t want’cha.” And that frown again, he makes no sense, the tip of his boot makes landfall in the high piled rug, halfway in, hypnotized and compelled in full. You settle on the bed and feel very calm despite the too fast beat of the thing that moves and lives within you, despite your anger and confusion.

And through the beat and the heat and the sweat on your neck, despite the shyness you’ve forgotten is shyness right at this moment, but that you’re sure will return later because this is what you are and this is what you were made for: him. You ask, “Then are you going to knot me now?” Because if he’s going to send you away, then surely he’ll give you that before you go, surely he’ll still want that from you.

He splutters, going all red in the face as if the notion of a young omega asking the experienced alpha she’s been presented with to do that most basic thing his nature demands, is something out of the ordinary. “What? No– no.” But despite his supposed refusal, he takes two steps forward towards you. Venturing further onto the soft piled rug, leaving large crushing footprints in his wake.

“Later then?” You ask very pragmatically.

“No. Absolutely not. There will be no knotting.”

You shake your head at him, small frown between your brows, but still feeling calm despite the tragedy. Forcing that horrible seedling down into submission, the vines smothering all your hope. “But what do you mean?” And you feel like a child.

“I’m not going to fuck you. We aren’t doin’ any of that. You’re too– you’re too young, practically a girl.” A child. He has an accent that thickens with agitation, the ends of his words sluicing off between his tongue and teeth and anger while he hurts you.

“You don’t want me,” you say, and it isn’t a question anymore, only an obvious thing.

His eyes go very dark, and you want to turn away, look back at the edge of the world and the bright glow of the sun being swallowed by it. “I don’t want that.” And the way he spits the words hurts, making you a thing impossible to desire.

“You don’t want me,” again, repeated, so the both of you can bask in the truth of it.

But it snaps something in the room, or in him, or amidst the honesty being brought out here and now. He takes two ground-eating steps forward to loom over you aggressively, forcing you to fall back on your elbows, looking up at him wide eyed but still inexplicably not afraid, only a greater thing than what can be called merely disappointed. And yet, not disappointed enough to not notice the way one of his knees presses against the inside of one of yours. “I should get to have a fucking choice too, shouldn’t I? Like you, locked away in that horrible place–”

“It wasn’t horrible,” you try and say, but you don’t think he hears.

“The way you had all your choices and freedoms stripped. Shouldn’t I also be allowed to have one single goddamn thing?” Where else would I have gone if not there? “A choice – to say, no, stop, I don’t want this.” He’s so angry, and it is all suddenly so clear, and he finally grabs you, pulling you up by the bend of your elbow, the small joint almost crushed in his massive fist to pull you halfway up off the bed and towards him, getting in your face with all his anger.

Leo’s voice again, you don’t have to be what they tell you to be, you can choose for yourself. This is what Joel wants too.

“You can’t end up stuck out here at the end of the world with some washed up old alpha who can’t give you a quarter of what you need and deserve. I won’t let you. I won’t,” he snarls.

But despite your greenness, your naivety or your ignorance or your youth, you think: how dare he? “And what about what I want? What about my choices? Or are you going to be just like all the rest of them? Like the whole world telling me I’m too insignificant and too stupid to decide for myself? Just locked away in another cage–” You spit at him, trying to claw and shove at him, stubby nails digging at the sun pebbled skin of his throat, yanking at his too long hair and patchy beard, inadvertently pulling yourself closer to him. He grunts, struggling to take you in hand, slippery thing you can make yourself into when you really want, and you, trying your mightiest to hurt him any way you can as he’s already decided he’s going to hurt you with his rejection. “Is that what you are? Just like all the rest of them?” You cry amidst your struggle, choked with tears and being too little to be effective but too big for your own skin.

You shove at his jaw, trying to scratch at his cheek, but he grips you full around either arm, locking you in place and gives you a swift but measured jerk, jostling you into submission, trapping your hands bent as they are up by his neck so that one small palm is sliding to the back of his nape, over the gland behind his ear, at that soft vulnerable hollow, and coming to rest at the one in back, at the base of his neck beneath his collar. Both of you go still as stone, frozen by the truth of what you both are and how inescapable it all is, reality held in the palm of your hand.

Obvious: a designation is not a thing you can ever hide. Alphas and omegas wear it on their bodies like markers. Glands scattered at different places: behind the ears, at the base of the neck, inside the wrists and ankles; vulnerabilities that when acknowledged, bitten, seal a mating bond. Places that if handled properly, turn you into nothing but what you are at your basest nature. And you can’t help yourself – at the feel the spongy patch of skin, slightly raised and slightly rougher than the rest of him, a place that when in rut or in heat, would become, will become, extra sensitive, extra swollen, extra ripe – when you slowly slide your fingers against it, feeling the texture of it, the way it’s even hotter than the already sweltering rest of him.

He growls low and rumbling in his chest, that sound again, and he’s so angry, it’s painted all over his face in shades of defiance; coming off of him like radiation, angry at you, angry at the truth of what you both are, angry at himself and the world and all of it, but he pulls you closer anyways, tugging your forward by his grip on your arms which is starting to mimic the ache you’re suffering at that place between your legs you long to show him, pulling you in so that the tips of your breasts, covered beneath his thick sweater and the too thin, soft bra they gave all the omegas who needed them, brush against the thick of his chest, pulling a soft breath of a moan from your tongue.

“You’re being so mean to me,” you whisper. “And I don’t deserve it. And I waited so long for you and you never came for me, and now this is how you’re treating me,” you say with a hiccup and a tear, and you feel little and big and that place that calls for him pulses and hurts and leaks. He’s so mean and you’re so sad and you want him and you can’t understand why he’s being this way when you were made for him and he for you, and if nothing else was right in this world, then this was the thing that was supposed to be.

His eyes shift quickly back and forth between both of yours, that frown, mouth turned down, his mustache that connects to the patchiness of his beard showing how contrary he finds you. You frown back at him, trying to pull away, whining when he tightens, pulls you closer, right up to his face as if he needs to inspect you even more closely. Your toes aren’t touching the rug anymore, scraping against the thick round of his boots, and you won’t have it. You’ll give him a piece of your mind, you’ll show him. “You think that because I’m little and young and easily bruised that I’m not in control.” It’s not a question. If you could grow fangs, you would. If you could rip him to shreds, you would. “That I can’t control you. But I made you come for me, didn’t I?” Now you laugh at him, now you show him. “I knew if I wrote to you, you’d come, and you did. I made you come. I made you.” And saying it feels like victory, so you don’t care that it makes his face crack, you don’t care that he pushes away from you, letting you fall back onto the bed with a limp bounce, storming out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him. You don’t give a thistle for choices. You want to be selfish, you want to be alive, you want to see the sky. You have the sea now, and you want to be this thing you are because this is already you, this is what you were made into, and you have no choice but to bask in it, and you won’t bend to him or give it up for him only because he can’t accept the same of himself, only because he’s still trapped in his own white box.

He knows, as soon as you make whatever stupid decision it is that you’re making, that something’s off. A shift in the air in the house, his heart beating funny, his scent changing because his body knows you’re not in its immediate vicinity anymore, something that tells him off, off, off, be vigilant, she needs you so much, you can’t fail again. He reminds himself of all the decisions he’s already made, of what he knows he wants and does not want, of what he is and what he is not.

After he’d stormed out of your room – I made you – he’d retreated to hide in his own bedroom, to the other big chair by the fireplace in here, cowering like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs, forcing himself to listen to you cry for hours, the whine and whimper of an omega in need of something he was made to give, and yet will not. As if a little thing like you could make him do anything. Him. He grits his teeth, chews on his own tongue, digs his fingers into the arms of the chair to force himself to remain seated in place, to not return to you, to not give you all the things he knows you need and want to be soothed by.

He can smell your scent changing already, reacting to him, reducing him to nothing, entirely effective in your conquering. And he’d stupidly thought that perhaps the heat, and the rut that it would yield, would wait, give him a moment of reprieve or compassion before it came for him. A moment to think. He thought he’d have more time, a chance to escape the thing he so desperately wants but cannot and will not let himself have, refuses to give in to. His body stirs and smolders, and like he’d done for eleven years and then one, he ignores it. He ignores the truth of who and what he really is.

He sits in his chair, head propped up against the back, and listens to your cries and mewls ebb and quiet until finally, he thinks you might have sobbed yourself to sleep. He doesn’t want to hurt you, he doesn’t mean to hurt you. It’s the absolute last thing he could ever, ever want. Everything, not only in his nature, but in his character, in the things that make him up as a man who’d want a woman like you, is clamoring within him to go to you, to give you what you want, to sooth you with his voice and his scent and his cock. To fuck you into your heat until you’re soft and slick and fevered enough to take his knot, to let him breed you, to let him mate you. His cock stirs and thickens beneath the rough confines of his jeans, that thicket of skin at the base where his knot waits in ready for you, simmering with heat and tightness. He digs his knuckles into his temple until it hurts.

You don’t want me… Of course he fucking wants you. He’d have taken your cunt for himself right there in that white box room, on your rickety little iron cot for all the surrounding omegas and witless betas to hear without giving a single shit what anyone said or thought if he had any sort of right or will or choice. If he had anything more to give you. And then watching you go right to sleep when he’d brought you into his home, the sight of you feeling so immediately safe and content, ready to nest amongst his things and his scent – that feeling of having within himself the things that he needs to be what he is – indescribable.

Pretty little omega – and truly, you’re so pretty. All he’d never let himself imagine or desire or hope for. He’s too old, past his prime and forgotten by the world, but he’s still a man with a working cock, still an alpha, even if only in the simplest of ways. Of course he wants you.

He lets himself languish miserably before the fire, eyes going hazy with exhaustion, the comedown of adrenaline, the presence of warm omega all around him, the taste of your pre-heat scent coating his tongue and throat. He pulls his socks off and lets the heat of the fire warm his feet and thinks he should’ve given you his room instead, let you sleep in his bed, near the fireplace, between his sheets and amongst his scent. He can sleep out in the dirt for all he matters as long as you’re comfortable. And the rational part of his brain wants to laugh at the thought, sitting here alone, realizing that despite his battling, his nature will always win out in the end, that all this fight really means shit. His cock gives a faint throb, his deflated knot rhythmically pulsing in time with his heart, ready to swell and claim what everyone including nature, but excluding Joel, has said belongs to him. Of course he wants you. And if he’s honest, or a fucking liar, he can’t really say which, all his truths and deceptions have become so muddled within his own mind, his past and his present and this future he’s never thought he wanted or had a right to, the year of waiting was more a form of self punishment, restraint as proof of fear, than anything to do with you.

Anger, yes, that everything had been decided for him for so long. That he isn’t even allowed to decide what he is, what he wants. But fear, more than anything, that interminable curse of failure he’s so haunted by and so afraid of. How could nature ever look at him and think him strong enough to take on the role of caretaker, protector, alpha – whatever it is that you need him to be, the whole world in the eye of a young and untried omega – when he can hardly stand the sight of his own face in the mirror? There’s nothing but tragedy setting the stage the two of you stand posed on.

Finally, your cries fade to soft hiccups, and then a peculiar silence he doesn't trust. He waits, ears peeled, his head turned slightly towards the cracked open door of his bedroom, sensing the shift in scent and after a few beats of too loud silence, a thud and a huff, the music of a little mind thinking too loudly and mischievously for its own good. Even the wind seems to blow differently as if it knows you’re scampering about amidst it now, vulnerable to its lashings, and he’s shooting up out of his chair and charging through the house. By the door, he realizes his boots are gone, stolen from where he’d dropped them discarded after he’d left you in your room to cry your salt tears. He forgoes a coat and his flannel, braving the icy wind in nothing but his white undershirt, stepping silent but no less frantic out onto the deck. The truck is dark and quiet, still in its usual spot, and this quells his fear minutely. It occurs to him that you likely don’t even know how to drive.

But when he comes around the western facing corner of the house, it’s worse than he could’ve imagined, and the scar slashed across his right temple suddenly zings like copper, burns like fire at the sight of you. You are, for some inexplicable reason, crawling on all fours, towards the edge of the cliffside. And he’s frozen solid for a second, shocked and terrified, and then moving forward like lightning, tripping over his own two feet and breath before he realizes you’re right at the very edge now, and he needs to move very fucking carefully to ensure he doesnt send you spilling in fright over the edge.

He alters his movements, continues forward slowly, his bare feet over the freezing ground and sharp bric-a-brac of the forest floor, the slabs of stone turning to ice as he nears the edge, and he watches the uncoordinated wallop of your movements, banging your knee with a small yelp, as you crawl like a slow and drunken spider in his too big clothes, dragging his too big boots around your ankles, to the very edge of the cliff side, slowly lowering yourself to plop down with your head and arms hanging over the edge.

He pauses about ten feet away from you and waits for your next move, but you lie still, quarter part of you draped over the edge of the cliff, and he realizes that you’re watching the water far below crash against the rocks.

“Sweetheart,” he calls slow and gentle, crouching down low so that his voice travels along the ground where you lay. “Sweetheart, what’re you doin’?” You start, turning back towards him, one palm coming to the edge of the rock to shove yourself up to peer back at him, rock pebble spraying out over the void with your movement, and his heart and stomach lurch to his throat, almost gagging at the terror. Your eyes are hazy and bright, and he recognizes the beginnings of the fever, it’s tendrils wrapping themselves around you, making you a little confused, a lot needy, and he’s so fucking stupid, he should’ve never left you alone. But he hadn’t thought it’d come on this fast, that you’d affect each other so.

“I wanna go down there,” you call over the small hill of your shoulder, turning back to peer down at the beach. You point down at the shoreline with your other hand, wagging your finger as to emphasize what it is you want.

Jesus fucking Christ, he’s going to have a goddamn heart attack. “Alright, baby. Come back here, I’ll take you down. Let’s go together.” You mumble something, arm flopping out, waving him away. “Please, sweetheart, come back here with me,” he begs, and there must be something in his tone, he’s sure, because you turn full back at that, looking at him suspiciously like you remember his earlier words of rejection and no longer trust him now.

“I’m glowing, sir. I need to feel the sea and the cold.” Your voice sounds not your own, like it comes surfing off the wind to his ears.

“Not, sir. Joel. Only Joel, remember?”

You push yourself up, moving to sit back on your knees, but still right at the edge, still too close. Sweat slides slick and frigid down his spine, the complete opposite of what you must be feeling right now. Only Joel. Only Joel, he hears you mutter at the sea. “There isn’t anything only about you. Leave me alone. Go away–”

“Please, baby. Come back here. Let’s go inside, I’ll give you the sea, I promise. Just come over here – with me.” You turn back at that, shifting on your knees to face him. If you lose your balance, stumble, you’ll topple back over the edge. He just needs to be good enough for you to want to come to him, convincing enough. He puts his palm out towards you, all supplication now. “Come here, sweet thing. I’ll show you the sea, I promise I will.” You start your slow spider crawl back towards him and his scar burns, a sharp pain through his brain, piercing behind his eye, heart beat to death between his ribs. As soon as he gets his hands on you, he’s going to fucking throttle you, he promises. But he’s almost got you, and he dares not move, barely even breathes, his hand is shaking so badly it interrupts his view of you on every other painful heartbeat, and he realizes his eyes are blurry with terrified tears, and suddenly, that anger doesn’t matter even half an ounce as much anymore because then you’re here and crawling into his arms, up into his lap so that he’s falling back onto his ass on the cold, hard ground. He pulls you into himself, clumsy little spider legs wrapping around his waist, your arms going around his neck so that you’re clinging to him.

One of his boots lies lost and discarded back by the edge of the cliff.

“Please, don’t ever fucking do that to me again.”

“I’m glowing,” you sigh into his neck.

“I know you are, baby. It’s okay, we’ll fix it.” He feels you nuzzle at his collarbone, his neck, the gland, already sensitive and swollen behind his ear, already, already, already, God help me, and his heart feels like it’s beating so hard he can feel it move through your chest cavity and reverberate against his hand on your back. Christ, it wasn't supposed to happen this quickly, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to have more time, more choices, more control. The wet of your lips mouthing at his skin, and then the peek of your tongue tasting his gland, and he rumbles deep in his chest, his mind going loose and slacken like an old rubber band, and then snapping back to clarity at your surroundings. Cold wind and now the beginning sprinkling of needle freezing rain, your shivers jittering into his chest.

“We gotta go inside – let’s get up,” he murmurs into your ear, unable to resist nosing at your hair, the small, freezing cold seashell hidden within.

Wait, wait– and then the scrape of small, blunt edged teeth just there at the vulnerable patch of skin. He swallows a scream, and the caged thing rattles and howls inside his chest, his arms going iron and binding around your back, pressing you to him, chest melded to chest. “Wait, please,” again, and now a tiny kiss. “If you don’t want me,” and he never should’ve even insinuated it, it’s the worst thing he’s ever done in his entire miserable fucking life. “Then will you please–” another soft press of lips to his jaw, the corner of his mouth. His hand slides down your spine, he can’t help himself, presses down on the base of your vertebrae, the heat of your cunt along the pulse of his cock, through cotton and denim and cold, just there, just there, he’s so fucking close. “Will you at least kiss me–” but you’re not waiting for another rejection, you’re just licking clean across the slash of his mouth, taking his bottom lip between both of yours for a shy little suck, unsure and inexperienced with desperation. And then there’s nothing caged about any of it, no more white box, no more perch at the end of the world, he squeezes you to himself so that it hurts, and he kisses you.

Hand twisted too tightly in your dampening hair, he pulls your head back, and with a rumbling grunt sends you deep and languid into easy submission, the steady deep timber of the sound wringing the desired effect on you. You twitch once, as if he’d tugged on your strings, his pretty puppet, and then go soft and open and easily penetrated, jaw hinging open so that he can lick inside of you, tasting all you have to offer which he refuses to accept he’s actually taking and which you’re all too desperately eager to give.

He takes it all regardless.

Slick mouth against slick mouth, out there in the cold rain and wind, rolling around in the dirt, he tastes you the way the two of you were made for. Pulling your hips closer, rolling his up to meet all the heat you have to offer which will only get hotter and hotter the more he continues down this path. You claw at his hair, the gland at your wrist rubbing against the one at his ear, marking him with your scent and pheromones, marking him as yours. And he swears he can almost feel that glow in your belly too, a little wriggling comet in his hands, set to burst. The crescendo of your whining climbs higher, your mouth hungrier, and Joel feels insane for a second, entirely outside of himself, lost to his senses. All he is, is what you need him to be, something hard and strong and solid for you to mold yourself around, and it’s so right it’s wrong. Not what he’d planned, not what he’d decided.

He rips his mouth away from yours, panting, forgetting his name and his sense and everything else he is besides a hard cock and a now equally smoldering belly. “Wait– wait,” he begs, burning comet, too willful to tame without teeth, surging in his arms. You rub yourself against his face, your hair sluicing through his, your soft tits against his chest, his neck, bumping his chin while you try to climb him perched in his lap like you are. “Wait, please–” he tries to sooth over your huffing whines, and then a sharp stinging little bite to his jaw line.

No, no.

“Stop. We have to stop, please. This isn't what’s supposed to happen. This isn’t what I want.” And you hear that.

The comet burns out, you go still in his arms, and it feels worse than anything. He wishes he could swallow the words back immediately because then you’re pushing back and away from him. Scrambling out of his lap, escaping his arms as fast as you can.

“You’re horrible! Get away–” He dodges a small, kicking foot – the bootless one. And you’re stumbling to your feet, tripping over the too big shoe wrapped around your too small foot. He pushes to stand, as well, gripping you about the elbow, avoiding a weakly punching little fist now. This is truly getting too ridiculous. The two of you need to come to terms with each other, meet in the middle, forgo the theatrics you seem all too desperate for. He ducks away from another ineffectual punch, grips you by the scruff of the neck, unruly kitten that you are, and pushing you forward, hooks you under his arm, lifting you clear off the ground and rendering you entirely captured, bent in half, a wilted flower over the strong of his forearm.

You squawk indignantly, kicking your feet against the back of his leg as he stomps over to his abandoned boot, slowly filling with rain now, fuck this shit, and trudges through the mud back to the house, ice cold droplets dripping off the tip of his nose. The two of you are well on your way to soaked, but he thinks it might not be such a bad thing, considering the ball of heat radiating from your belly, the one in his own mimicking you. It seems to pool in the palm of his hand, where he’s got you hooked and caught over his arm, honey collection of magma.

Let me go! You’re screeching. “Leave me alone! You don’t even care about me and I hate you and I want to see the water!” More kicking and clawing.

When he finally dumps you back onto your rumpled bed, undignified yelps and pathetic little growls, he’s at his wits end. Taking you firmly in hand, heavy hand back at the nape of your neck, thickly calloused palm scraping against the quickly swelling gland there, other pushing at your hip to drape you over the edge of the bed like a rag doll, he folds himself over you, smothering you with his weight and heat, forcing you into calm. You go shocked frozen, wracked with shivers and then finally, blessedly still and quiet. This was all you needed, for Joel to follow his instincts.

He presses you into the bed with his too heavy weight, thick arms caged around your head, pert little ass tucked up against his pelvis, and he breathes you in, lets you settle.

“You need to behave,” he rumbles, and all you do is sigh bleary eyed and exhausted by your own willfulness. “You’re not to go outside all alone at night like that again, do you understand me? And you are especially, never, ever, to go that close to the cliff edge again.”

“But the sea–” you whine and shift, rubbing your little cunt against his now fully hard cock, perfect position that he’s got you in, presented to him like this. He presses tighter against you, growling deep in his chest to shut you up.

“Promise me.” But you whine, shifting, starting to cry a little, too far gone to the start of the fever he’s done nothing to really sate. There’s still time yet, for your full heat, but these beginning symptoms, they need to be soothed just as well, tempered just as diligently as the full blown heat would be. If for nothing else, than for the sake of the omegas' comfort and happiness. He bends his knees, shoving the thick of his erection up against the apex of your thighs, pressing you further up onto the bed and tighter beneath him, and nosing through the mantle of your hair, he finds the gland at the back of your neck beneath the collar of his sweater and bites down gently. Not breaking skin, only giving you teeth to feel, to be soothed by, that blunt clasp that’ll dull your own sharp edges for now.

He laves his tongue along the scorching patch of skin, the texture different to the rest of you, different, even, to his own glands, like silk, like water, something liquid about the feel of you here beneath his tongue and teeth. You let out a terrible little sound that has the threads of his control snapping, providing cause for concern, and he growls softly, pleased, in response. It’s a sound of submission and acceptance and praise, from the both of you equally, all at the same time. He lets you settle like this, petting at you with his tongue, giving you the scraping edge of his teeth like a threat, every so often. Grinding, because honestly he can’t even fucking help it, against that scorching little cunt he knows would already, even now, be so soft for him. Perhaps, not soft enough yet, not ripe enough yet, to take his knot and everything else he wants to force on it, but soft enough for him to teach you how to take a good fucking.

A virgin, never even had a heat before, and trapped here between his teeth and beneath his cock. It would all be so easy, it would all feel so right.

But that is, Joel thinks, just the thing of it. It would feel right – but would it be right? He can’t yet tell.

You cloud his judgment, seduce his nature into wanting to give you everything and anything you could ever even think to ask for, and he can’t yet tell if it’s just you, that sparkle and that light and that heat like a comet that lives inside of you that he’s coming to suspect is wholly yours, nothing to do with biology or designations or markers that tell of what you should and should not be, that’s got him so desperate to please you. Or if it’s only nature, trying to force him into another choice he’s not made for himself.

You wake slowly, disturbed out of your sleep the way one feels when they’re being spied on by something too large and too scary to look at right in the eye.

You shift in the blue bed, cool and calm now, all that glowing heat from before that’d forced you out into the cold and the wind, hungry to throw yourself through space and time out into the sea, reckless and free, gone away now. All you feel as your eyes blink open slowly, is a shivery, damp cold rattling down the line of your spine. The room around you is dark, the glow of the slumbering fire out in the living room peeking in through the slightly left ajar door of your bedroom.

He’d stayed until you’d gone boneless and calm, trapped beneath his weight and between his thick strong arms, letting you suck on the gland inside his wrist as you’d pleased. And when finally, you’d been just on this side of awake, he’d changed your clothes and slid you beneath the soft sheets and weighted duvet, and sat in the cozy sofa chair by the window until you’d been too exhausted by the embers in your tummy and the tight want between your legs to fight sleep any longer.

The chair sits cold and empty now, and above it, the wide window, the pitch black of the world beyond is bright with unknown terrors, and you huddle into your nest of pillows and blankets, hiding beneath the edge of the duvet.

You’d never had a window in your bunk, had not experienced the night in years and years, and looking at it now, put on display as it is through the clear pane of glass separating you from all of that unknown, you feel suddenly terrified, nothing but little. It feels as if you were to look away from it, it’d reach through the glass and pluck you out of your bed, whisk you far enough away that he’d never be able to find you, come for you again, and also, like if you don’t stop looking, it’ll eventually begin to look back. You wiggle backwards, bum finding the edge of the bed, and then sliding out, feet first, gaze still peeled on the window and the night, walking backwards out of your room and pulling the door shut on your way. At the very last moment, you peek through the sliver of the door edge and frame, nothing but your nose remaining in the blue room, and you swear the night stares back now.

You shut the door with a snick, and turn to rush on tipped toes in search of his room.

He’s sleeping on his back, one thick arm thrown over his head, the other laying across his belly, and you peer over the edge of the bed, hands clasped beneath your chin, watching the up and down of his breathing, the flicker of his eyes beneath his lids. He has long eyelashes and funny whiskers and hair everywhere. Under his arms, and across his chest and his belly, leading down below the sheet covering him, to the thick lump there, that place you don’t know yet, but do understand. He’s hairy, and he’s big, and the aching place you want to show him comes awake in response to all this man you have before you. And although the house is warm, the fires stoked diligently to keep you as toasty as you need, another shiver runs its way down your back. So taking hold of one of his thighs, you hoist yourself up onto his too tall bed, knobby knee stabbing him in the side as you climb on top of him, planting yourself right in the middle of his broad expanse. He gives a rough grunt, shocked awake by the little creature climbing its way all over him, hands shooting out to steady you by the hips as he jerks startled.

“What in the Sam Hell–” You ignore his spluttering, rubbing your bottom against his stomach, finding a comfortable position to drape yourself over him, wilting like a felled weed snuggled up against his chest, tucked just below his chin, giving an entirely contented sigh when you settle. “What the fuck’re you doin’?” He has such a nasty mouth. Someone should wash it with soap for him.

He tries to roll over, but you cling, bearing your sharp little teeth to latch at his collarbone, holding tight, refusing to be shoved away again. “M’cold–” you fuss, chewing and slobbering all over him as you pull yourself closer, hitching a knee over his hip, burrowing your foot between the bed and his back.

“You have t’go back to your bed. You can’t sleep here.”

You whine, chewing harder, and he grumbles, but his hands slide from your hips to your back in a soothing pass and you slick your tongue against the flavors of his skin. He tastes so good, and he smells so good, and in a tiny voice you know will get you what you want, you say, “The window is too big and it’s so dark. I’m scared, alpha.”

He groans, grip going tight and strangling around you, fists bunching in the oversized clothes he’d swaddled you in after he’d dried the rain and outdoor chill off of you before putting you to bed. “Can’t I just stay here? I promise I’ll be good like you told me to,” and you nuzzle against him, making sure to thoroughly cover him in the headiness of your scent. Everything is so warm and right, and he’s so thick and comfortable and strong everywhere, perfect for laying on top of like this. The hair on his chest is prickly, tickling your face where you rub yourself against it, and he rumbles low, a deep sort of purring sound that you feel vibrate in your tummy, big wolfish man that he is, but his grip goes loose and soft after a while, stroking and soothing and petting along your slopes and planes. Convinced. Ha.

You hold very still, breathe very slow, make sure not to spook the beast while he accepts the fact of you here atop him until he finally says, already sleepy and relaxed again, “Alright… but you’ll behave like I said.” And eventually he rolls the two of you over, little omega barnacle that you’ve turned yourself into, and tucks you into his warm side.

The third time you wake to him, there’s fire everywhere. And an ache in your womb so sharp it sends shivers through your whole body. You cling and grind and tremble; forget your name, where you are, nothing more than that sticky throb in that place that you want to give to him so, so badly.

He’s draped atop you, heavy arm caging you in, thick chest covering your back, smothering you between incredible strength and, soft, Joel smelling sheets. You cup the ball of his bicep, it’s big and hard and hot, and drag your palm along the thick slope. He’s so strong, he could crush you, hurt you, make you into anything he wanted, and you want all those things, you think. You want him to do whatever he wants if only he’ll make the ache go away. Fire and glowing bright heat everywhere, most of all your belly, your heart, somewhere so deep inside you’d never known it existed until he’d come and made you aware of it.

Your fingers slide along his wide forearm, hairy here too, thick wrist, hard, strong bone beneath, and then the soft spot on the inside that belongs to you now. You stick your tongue out, tasting the spongy patch, scraping your teeth along it. If you bite him, you’ll be able to keep him forever, he won’t be able to send you away, but there still remains – even if just for a little bit longer, before the heat you’ve been waiting your whole life and a year for to finally take you – a part of you that’s still rational, head only halfway gone to the clouds. That part which reminds you that more than anything, you want him to choose you. Without the bite as a deal breaker, bond sealer, only because he wants you, only because he likes you.

But you can taste him, it doesn’t mean you have to bite him, and you the tip of run your tongue along the inside of his wrist, gently suckling at his gland, the flavor of him so much stronger here, as if his essence is more concentrated at this small place. And the ache between your legs, in your tummy, deepens, spreads and blooms and ravages. The inside of you feels sensitive and swollen and big and little all at once, and you shift your bottom, trying to rub yourself back up against him, your sucking mouth pulling sharper, a whine bubbling in your throat because you need something, something more, and you think you know, and you know you understand, but you’re not sure, and if he could just wake up and show you it would all be so much better.

You press back harder, arching so that the aching place feels the heat of him behind you, that hard ridge there that makes your heart pound all through your body. You’d shucked off your leggings and the sweater he’d put you in through the night, too hot and sweaty with the big beast smothering you as he’d been, so now you’re left in nothing but one of his too big t-shirts and the soft, cotton white panties all the omegas always wore. You whine again, gnawing on his wrist for real now, and a big paw of a hand comes up to wrap around your hip, stilling your wriggling. You feel him lean closer, burying his face in the back of your hair, groaning, hot bullish breath fanning across your nape. He rumbles deep and it only makes you feel worse, more desperate, more hungry for that thing you don’t know how to ask for. You want to cry his name, beg him, but your tongue feels fat and swollen inside your mouth, too full of blazing heat to form actual words. He just has to know, he just has to be able to tell.

“I know,” he mumbles against your nape, nosing around to your ear where he presses his mouth. “I know, it’s alright.” You gurgle again, pulling his wide palm to cover your face completely, nuzzling against his rough palm, muffling your pathetic animal sounds of supplication. It’s okay, it’s okay, you can hear him murmuring and you’re not sure who the words are for, but you feel certain they’re not for you. He’s scared, you know this. Between all the things you’re so uncertain of, this you’re sure of. He’s afraid, and it’s your job to reassure him, to show him how well it will all be once the two of you come together.

You push your face harder into his palm, and you feel him hook his fingers into the elastic of your panties, tugging the soft fabric wide, tugging them down your legs, and there’s that same need, yes, that comet bright glowing heat, but also, and something you can recognize as more your usual self, a desperate sort of shyness. Something coming unraveled and unspooled for the whole world, him, to see. You can feel the slick uncoveredness at the apex of your thighs, running down your legs, a blossom of heat and vulnerability there at that place, the core of you, and it doesn’t feel shameful, necessarily, but painfully exposed. Your softest place bared for him to see. And yet, alongside that, the knowledge that this soft place is only for him, that you only ever want it to be for him, and so this can, again, be nothing but right.

“Look at all this slick you’ve made for me, what a sweet girl you are.” There’s such reassurance in the timber of his voice, it makes the heat change, something swirling but steady, constant. You spread your own palm against the back of his hand covering your face, line your fingers along the backs of his, little and big, matched alongside each other, and you press his fingers against your forehead, squishing your nose against his palm, Hiding there in the cup of his hand from the whole world and him, waiting for this truth of yourself to finally be revealed to you.

His palm strokes along your bare thigh, I know, I know, he keeps saying, and they’d told you all that your alphas would know, that they’d show you, and there’s reassurance in this, that some part of what’s happening is unfolding as they said it would. It makes you feel not so small, not so untried and naive. You try and lay as still as possible, willing the flames into patience, breathing in your own hot breath from the cup of his palm. I know it hurts, we’ll make it better, I promise. He shifts behind you, the rustling of fabric, and then his hand on your bottom again, moving in a slow circular motion, steady and reassuring. He moves to your leg again, lifts it and then something hot and hard and big, coming to rest on your inner thigh, and he lets your leg down, starts the soothing rub of your bottom again.

“We’re gonna go so slow, alright. Only a little at a time and not the whole thing today. We gotta wait for your heat to settle in all the way, time it all right so that my rut doesn’t start before you’re ready to take me. How does that sound, sweetheart?” But your tongue is still fat, your words still jumbled and missing, and all you really want to ask is if he’s changed his mind now, if he’s finally decided he wants you, and you think you’re crying, sipping salt water from the palm of his hand. “I know I wasn’t how you needed me yesterday, and I’m sorry for that.” He presses his forehead against the back of your shoulder, hand sliding up your hip to your waist, dragging his shirt along as he goes, uncovering you for himself. And you feel so intensely, that you belong to him, and you can’t understand how he could have ever not felt the same way.

You hitch an agonized little sob, muffled by his hand, and he rolls slightly so you’re half draped atop his chest, his palm rubbing soothing circles low on your belly now. And forcing you out of your hiding place, he pulls your face back to look at him, gripped around your jaw. His face is very serene, and this settles you, makes the words he’s saying clearer, more meaningful. “Can you hear me silly thing, or can all you think about is taking a cock right now?” You scrunch your nose at him, you know that word, it’s his hard thing between your legs.

“It’s so heavy, alpha,” you sniffle, feeling the weight of it pressing against you there.

He nods, warm look in his eyes that crease at the edges. “That’s how it’s going to feel inside you, baby.”

“The knot?” A seedling blooms again, this one very different now, full of hope once more. You realize you’ve found your missing words.

He shakes his head, not yet, and drags his palm up the inside of your thigh, squeezing and kneading as he goes, and you want to complain that he moves so slow, that he needs to do something else, you don’t know what, but something. You want to click your teeth at him, bite him again, anything to make him go.

And then: “Drippy little girl,” and he’s finally there and a moan that’s almost a scream because he’s cupping a place that is so unbearably sensitive and raw and full of heat and wet like you’d never known was possible.

Oh, oh, ah, ah, ah. “It’s alright,” he says, rubbing gently back and forth, a slick sound that is loud and embarrassing coming from between your legs. “It’s alright. This’ll help for now. We won’t go inside.” And he grips the heavy thing, his cock, in his own palm that’s all slick from your leaking and presses it against you. He rolls over completely now, shifting higher in the bed so that you’re sitting full on top of him, back to chest, bum to belly, and he spreads your thighs wide with his other hand, pulling your shirt up to bare all your nakedness for him to see. You wonder if he can also see all that burning shyness you’re suddenly so chock full of.

“Look at these pretty little tits,” he murmurs, cupping one small morsel in his palm, squeezing so that you’re arching against him, mouth agape like a fish, trying to find sounds that seem to have suddenly gone missing once again. “That’s right, I know.” He moves to the other one, squeezes and pinches and shakes it so that it jiggles in the cup of his hand. All the while he strokes his cock between your legs, pulling his hips back every so often so that it slides against you, coating it in all that wet slick you’re spilling for him.

You look down at the place where it juts out between your thighs, and it’s so big. Dark and angry looking at the end, thick and covered in veins that make it look even angrier and about to burst. You ask him if it hurts him, and he laughs a little and says it isn’t anything you can’t fix which makes you seven different shades of pleased.

The hand at your breasts moves up to your face again, and he turns your head, searching for your eyes. “We started off badly yesterday, yes? But we’re gonna do better today. I promise.” He slides his hips back again and this time he presses harder against you, his hand flat against the underside of his cock so that the top is slicking all along you. Sensitive little cunt, he says when you tremble and shiver and keen, and that’s when you know that’s what it's called. Your cunt. That place that belongs to him, that you want to give him so badly, that you want him to want so badly but that you barely even know yourself. No more experience than the greedy, frantic digging at the soft, hot flesh beneath your hand in moments when everything had felt too tight and needy to do anything else.

“Gonna break you in so well, baby. Gonna teach you how to come, how to fuck, how to take a knot.” And now the wide head presses against you, against a place that is so, so incredibly sensitive it almost hurts. You suck in a sharp gasp, trying to jerk away from the hurt, but he holds you in place against him, presses again, yeah, I know, yeah I know, like he’s trying to put it inside you, and yes, you think that’s what it is, that’s what you need, even if it might hurt. “You’re gonna get everything you need jus’ from me,” and his words are slurred and dripping slacken from his tongue.

He starts to move faster, you think he’s swallowed the same stone of desperation you did, rough grunts and huffing pants, and “So fucking small, it’ll never fit.” Jesus fucking Christ. And on every slick slide forward that wide angry head of it, his cock, bumps the crest of your sex, catches at your hole. You watch it in shock as it presses in just a little, and it hurts and feels like you’re full of bubbles and everything is sticky and your tummy glows with heat.

“Your little cunt needs this,” he grunts, the head catches, he presses, presses, pulls away, you want to bite and scratch and demand he go all the way, and you’re nothing but a pounding heart and a clenching cunt and you want more, and when he slides again it notches full on at the tiny opening, he pauses, lets it rest there before he presses not even half a centimeter further, only giving you the wide stretch of it, letting your cunt flutter and grip around the very head.

“Look at that–” And he peers over your shoulder to look at what he’s doing to you. “Look at your tiny cunt stretching for me.”

You cry, trying to pull away, trying to shove yourself deeper, to take the whole of it like the greedy thing you are, but he holds you in place and lets you flutter and flutter and cry until something in your womb pulls tight, and with his fingers swirling at the apex of your sex, the little nub that is so sensitive it pulls a warbled, baying moan from your tongue, an ah, ah, ah, he gives you your first orgasm with him. A desperate thing, too much and not enough, and with his other hand he’s squeezing, shoving his fist along the rest of the length of his cock, pressing it hard where you meet, and then he’s feeding you a blazing heat, filling you with it, stirring your insides to flutter and shiver harder. Forcing you to cry and beg for more, “Please, please, please,” more.

“You’re not ready yet.”

And although you’re not entirely certain for what, you promise, “I am, I am, I can take it.” You know he’s supposed to put it all the way inside, that then, the knot will come. And although you’re unsure what it will specifically be like, what will become of you during or after, you know you’re ready to discover it all.

“Not yet.” And he’s grunting it through clenched teeth, his hips churning, spitting tip grinding at your hole, something hot and thick sliding wetly all over and between the two of you. “You’ll do as I say. Your little cunt needs this, needs me to be patient with her.”

He lets the slick weight of himself fall away from you, leaving you feeling stretched and bruised and all shivery on the inside, yet still hungry for more. And he pulls his hands along the slopes of you, leaving trails of sticky wet along your skin. The proof of all you are, invisible but tangible, with a taste and a smell and a feel.

You lay your head back on his shoulder, the heat swirls and simmers for now, and your cunt, your cunt, your cunt, you want to give it to him in full, it throbs and trembles against his slick cock. “I’ve never had a heat before,” you tell him although you know he knows. He probably knows everything there is to know about you, which, admittedly, is not much.

“That's alright.”

“It will come soon, yes?” You peer over your shoulder to look up at him, and he nods down at you, that warm, eye creased look on his face again. You like the sight of it so much.

“Will I go away from myself?”

“No,” he says gentle, “I won’t let you. I’ll keep you here with me. You have nothing to be anxious about.”

He rolls the two of you over, keeping you in the comfort of his embrace, and he’s huge and steaming and naked behind you. His hairy chest, his hairy legs all along the smooth and sensitive curves of you. And his thing, it’s still trapped between your thighs, heavy and sticky with your wet, and still kind of hard but not as much as before. You reach between your legs to touch it, and he jerks and hisses but lets you do as you please. Curious fingertips gently along the thick round end of it, down the long length to find two heavy and hot weights hanging lower.

“Where is the knot?” You ask uncertainly, shy with all the things you don’t know.

“Here,” and he grabs your hand, moving your fingers to the base of it where there’s an area of skin, of a different sort of texture, rougher, thicker, around the circumference of it. You prod gently at it, not understanding. “See, it’ll swell when it’s inside of you, and then we’ll stay connected for a time, and I’ll fill you, and that’ll help your heat. And after a while it’ll go down, until you need it again. Did they explain to you how it’ll happen?” His cock is thick between your thighs again, beneath your exploring fingers. A little harder and bigger than it was before. His body, something like a wonderful miracle you need to know everything there is to know about it.

“Yes, but not– not all the way, I don’t think. They said you’d show me.” You turn back to look at him, searching for confirmation, reassurance, but instead ask: “Why did you change your mind?” And finally, of his own choosing, he grips you by the throat, and presses a small kiss to your mouth. The greatest victory of the day, and it’s only just begun.

“It’s exhausting, not letting yourself have what you need.” Need, not want. He shifts over you, coming up on his elbow and rolling you so that you’re on your back and looking up at him. You bring your fingers up to explore along his face: the hooked nose, soft mouth, heart brandished beard. He sighs that bull sigh, and you giggle as it tickles your throat and cheeks. Need, not want. That stings. “Fighting against what you are constantly– and you reminded me that we still have control in what we are. That there’s still choice in this, decidin’ to be what we are without resenting it. And we need each other, after all.” Need, not want.

“I don’t think you need me.”

“No?”

“No.” The truth that you very much feel like you need him, you keep to yourself. And anyways, he knows. You know he knows.

“M’thinkin’ I didn’t know I did. Or couldn’t say it out loud.” And he mimics your exploring fingers: thumb against the fan of your lashes, up the slope of your cheekbone, prying your mouth open to catch the edge of your bottom teeth and look inside. There’s a warm look in his eyes, like he’s pleased with you, like you’ve done a good job. “Think I’m realizin’ how wrong I was. How I want this all too.”

Want, not need.

He bends his head and kisses your mouth, kisses your breast, shows you how much he wants it.

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missandaei · 10 months ago

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Me at 3am clicking “keep reading” on the most jaw dropping, earth shattering, pantie dropping, smutty fic when I have to be up in 3 hours

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missandaei · 1 year ago

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When he’s so much taller and bigger than you you feel his weight pushing you down into the bed as he’s pounding you

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missandaei · 1 year ago

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the masculine urge to make all her decisions for her so she only has to worry about being a good little girl for me

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missandaei · 1 year ago

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"It was her pussy, Tommy. ...Reader's pussy healed me."

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missandaei · 1 year ago

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— looking back

joel miller x f!reader

rated e - 2.2k

tags: jackson-era Joel pov, angst, canon-typical violence/references to death, established relationship, Joel is an ass man, consensual somno elements, posessive!joel, body worship, dirty talk, male masturbation, spitting, touching, come marking

a/n: easing back into writing and started 2 little wips that are sort of "introspective-joel-pov-smut-fics" - here is the first one! 💕

“Fuck. I need you.” He rasps - an edge to his voice, “Would you let me look at you, honey? Just let me look.”

Or - Joel gets off just from the sight of you

He’s strung as tight as a bow. The lingering adrenaline a notched arrow, leaving him about to snap. Blood seeps into his jeans - splattered across his knees, where he had jerked the knife from the man’s neck.

It had been a mercy killing. A stranger, but they had all seen the bite. He had been the only one to do something about it.

He’s told others that you get used to it. The killing - that after a while, survival wins out.

You get over it.

But you don’t. Instead, it clings to him like a shadow, following him home - down the worn, familiar path. Inside the gates, back to Jackson.

Heavier than it’s been before. An itching beneath his skin. If he was over it, he wouldn’t have to turn himself off. Shutting away a part of himself, only to fight to come back - clawing his way out later.

An aching reminder at how short life could be. That yes, things were different - but he was never really safe.

Not really.

His path brings him to you. A beacon, guiding his way back.

His - your - home coming into view, just as the dawn creeps over the fall, wooden fences. The misty grey brightening into gold and pink with the sun, as he’s unlocking the wooden door, shouldering it open.

A look thrown out the window as he scrubs his hand clean in the kitchen - seeing that the garage light is on. That she’s home, that she’s okay. An automatic check, before his weary feet take him upstairs.

Joel sheds the layers, the jacket thrown over the railing at the top of the stairs. Fingers fumbling with his belt, pulling the worn leather through the loops before his stained jeans crumple on the floor, as he pushes the cracked door open.

The light from the hallway stretches across the wooden floor, creeping into the dark room. Where you still lay sleeping, curled on your side within the blankets and sheets. Missing him in your dreams, that space next to you long empty.

Cold - where your fingers reach out, searching for him.

His path diverts, moving to you instead of the attached bathroom. The edge of the bed sinking under his weight, a soft sound as you stir.

“‘Welcome ‘ome.” You murmur, still half-asleep. A little wiggle as your bent knee hitches higher, the oversized shirt you’re wearing bunching up around your hips.

He reaches out, just the ghosting of his fingers against the soft skin near your knee. The fluttering of heavy lashes as you fight sleep, only to be pulled under again.

Joel’s hand shifts. A warm palm pressing against your thigh. Against soft skin, so different than his own calloused touch.

Home.

It is, isn’t it? As close to he’s had in years. Decades. The old apartment in the QZ had never felt that way, not with the faded floral walls. Those small rooms that still held ghosts.

But here, his own touch lingers. Yours, melding with it. It would never be like before - the picking out of furniture, of paint. But it’s his clothes in the closet. His worn guitar that rests against the couch. His wooden carvings lining the top of the mantle, above the fireplace.

And you - you're scattered throughout. Woven blankets and thick sweaters. Books, covering damn near every surface.

A little bottle of found lotion tucked away in the bathroom. He can smell it now, as he leans over you. A bristly kiss pressed against your cheek, the curve of your shoulder.

Amber, vanilla, caramel.

He’s pulled back to the memory, the light shining in your eyes when he handed the beaten bottle over. The minuscule amount you had worked into your knuckles - the soft sigh of contentment.

A bright laugh when he had pulled you close, the murmured “smells good” against your throat, as you had squirmed in his grasp - smiling as you read the fragrance notes out loud.

Something stirs in him, then. The press of his thigh against yours, as he leans over. Eyes dragging down to the bare curve of your ass, his hand tracing cup your thigh to palm your flesh.

His already uneven breath hitching, as you sigh. That little smile - his name - murmured out as you rock instinctively into his touch. Still on the edge of sleep, lulled off into a deep sleep with the cooling of summer.

Waking you up wouldn’t be unusual. Half the time you’re already up after these early-morning patrols. Waiting for him.

How he waits for you, on those few days where it’s you out there, instead of him. His jaw working with irritation until you’re home and back and safe, and he’s stripping your clothes from you himself.

It’s selfish to wake you, on a morning where you sleep so deeply. Even with the stress that’s eating at him, simmering in his veins.

But maybe… maybe he can just-

Joel is leaning, his mouth against your neck. A shift as you stretch, baring your skin to him as your lips curl in a smile. A soft, sleepy hum as you reach for him, fingers curving over the thick muscle of his forearm.

The hand on your ass drifting up - across to the small of your back. Meeting noting but warm, bared skin beneath your shirt.

“Fuck. I need you.” He rasps - an edge to his voice, “Would you let me look at you, honey? Just let me look.”

Heavy-lidded eyes open then at the sound of his voice - his words - as you tilt your head. A slow sweep over the breadth of his shoulders, the curve of his stomach. The spread of his thighs as he kneels behind you. The already half-hard tent of faded boxers.

You had been waiting for him. Anticipating his return, eager for his touch. The cloud of sleep begins to clear as he palms himself, the bed shifting as your hips shift, thighs spreading open for him.

“I can take care of you,” Your voice is scratchy - husky, in the early morning. A hand pressing again on your back as you begin to roll over, holding you in place.

“You already are,” Joel groans, as your hips tilt up, off the bed. Knees pressing into the mattress as he nudges your thighs wider, fitting between them, “Stay just like that, alright?”

The combination feels erotic. His smell on the shirt you wear. The tingling throb between your thighs, the desire in his voice. How much he wants - enough that just the sight of you has him hard, thumbs catching on the waistband of his boxers to free himself.

You relax into the bed, as you watch. The weight of his hand as it moves to squeeze your ass. A pressure as he tugs, opening you up.

“Fuck.”

Joel spits in his palm, before it’s wrapping around his cock. A rough groan as some of that need is eased, with the sharp stroke of his fist.

Just letting himself look. Admire.

A sight that is only his, fingers sinking into soft flesh. The way you trust, how effected you are already - the shallow rock of your hips as the sound of skin-on-skin fills the room.

“You got a pretty little pussy, honey.” He hears himself saying. Watching how you clench at his praise, the little gasp that follows. “Pretty little holes. All for me, right?”

He can feel the weight of your gaze. Darkening, as your hunger grows low in your belly. Darting between his face and the sharp flick of his wrist.

Rarely getting to see him take, like this. Usually he would have been buried in you, by now. There’s the urge to ask, but there’s a power in this - wanting to watch him get off to you. Not having to lift a finger to do so.

“All for you.” You sigh, “Always.”

His jaw grits, teeth clicking together. A bead of precum joins the slick of his spit, that angry fire in his belly transforming.

So different that the little mouse he had taken to bed, all those months ago. Your hands covering your mouth, muffling the moans, until he had pried them away. Pinning them against the pillows, whispering filth in your ear.

Now, he can see the greed in your eyes. The way you glisten, when his own gaze drops. The shift of your thighs as he takes a second to rub himself against the curve of your ass. Dipping down to press against your core.

The tip coming back slick, in a new kind of way - fueling the pressure, building in his belly.

Your moan breaks the early-morning quiet. His name on your lips again - more urgent than before.

The little beg only sends him closer, a rough groan in his throat. His own hand too familiar - used to the quick and precise touch he needs to get off, when he had to.

In the before. In the during - when it was only words that the you of you had exchanged. Heated looks that lingered late into those lonely nights.

Hasn’t felt the urge to, since he’s had you.

He expects you to ask him to fill you, eyes caught on the enticing lift of your hips.

Caught off-guard for the briefest second, a heat flushing over his cheeks, when you shift beneath him instead. Flipping over, onto your back.

Eyes bright, teeth sinking into your lip as you smile.

“Wanna watch.” You admit, and that tension in his shoulders settles in his chest, turning sweet.

His fist tightening around his cock, as your thighs splay over his. Opening yourself up under his gaze, stretching out in front of him.

And fuck, what a sight. There’s a rolling wave deep in his core that he chases with the rock of his hips.

His hand fits perfectly against the curve of your waist, eyes caught on the way your fingers catch on the hem of your shirt.

Pulling it up over your breasts, a path that his eyes follow greedily.

“Christ, darlin’.” The words rumble in his chest.

A rough exhale as your own gaze drops to his fist. The pace that he’s picked up - the peek of the flushed tip when he strokes down to the base.

Already about to burst, like he’s a man half his age. Could say it’s just his own touch, the urge to relieve the weight of his stress.

But he knows it’s more. That warmth in his chest, a tenderness that has only softened the rough stone of his heart since he’s left Boston.

It’s there in the way that he could linger on the slick place between your thighs. But instead he’s watching you watch him. Focusing on the part of your lips, the shine in your eyes.

“‘m close.” Joel breathes, his words low. Rough. “Where do you want it?”

He’ll catch it in his palm if he needs to. If it helps you go back to sleep, after. He hasn’t given up on that wish - to let you drift off for a little longer.

The look you give him, the little smile that turns mischievous, has his stomach twisting into knots. Like butterflies, he thinks.

Your hand drifts down, knuckles brushing over the jerk of his. Soft fingers tracing over hot, swollen flesh. Only to curve over your mound, to spread yourself open for him.

“Fuck.” He breathes, again, “There?”

The answering hum is low, desperate.

“Wanna hear you ask me.” Joel pushes - needing to hear you say it, knowing it will push him over the edge.

You squirm beneath him, affected by the edge to his voice, the soft command.

“Want you to come on me.”

“Where, baby?” The word slides from his lips without thought.

The eye contact breaks, your gaze darting away with embarrassment. But after a moment it’s back - the soft heave of your breasts as you suck in a breath, steeling your nerves.

“Want you to come on my pussy, Joel.”

He can’t help the rough groan, ripped from his chest. The shift of his thighs as he pulls back, as that pressure builds. The pleasure surging instead of ebbing, as he tips his cock downward.

The next stroke of his fist pushes him past the threshold. Relief sings in his veins as he spills across your mound. Painting your abdomen with his release, eyes fluttering closed as his hearing goes fuzzy.

Drowning out his long moan, as you push yourself up. He meets you instinctually, arcing over you as his mouth is drawn to yours.

As his spend drips down the crease of your thigh, so warm against soft skin.

It feels like a weight is lifted, like he’s back in his own skin again. Relaxing into the fingers that scratch into his hair, the tongue that sweeps against his.

But it’s only a few moments before he remembers. Coming back to himself, as he fits his hand between your thighs.

Fingers dragging through his release, bringing his slick fingers to circle against your clit.

Because there’s no way you’re going back to sleep after this. Not if he knows you - which he’s now certain that he does.

"Thank you honey." He murmurs, with lips that press against your cheek.

The smallest smile after, as your own part with a moan - as he croons against your skin.

"Now let me take care of you."

thank you for reading! was excited to explore a little idea I had 💕

(tags: @celestianstars)

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missandaei · 1 year ago

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☀︎ your summer dream masterlist ☀︎

joel miller x f!reader

ONGOING SERIES~

series playlist

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader rating: 18+ minors dni series warnings etc: [NO OUTBREAK] we'll call him dad's buddy!joel, fairly soft!joel, age difference (28/50), alcohol, food, smut (will specify with each chapter), fluff, anxiety, mentions of infidelity, mentions of divorce, jet skis????, secret relationship. no use of y/n.

series summary: fresh on the heels of the worst breakup of your life, you find an unexpected kindred spirit in joel miller, who's agreed to tag along for seven days at a tropical resort with you and your parents.

Drive your car down to the sea / All the while you build a scheme / Take her hand and walk on with her / Make it real, your summer dream

prologue

day one–(re)introductions

day two–show

day three–?

day four–?

day five–?

day six–?

day seven–?

*follow @swiftispunkupdates and turn on notifications for updates

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missandaei · 1 year ago

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illicit affairs | joel & tommy miller

Summary | Two attempts are always better than one, right? If you're serious about getting pregnant then you can't just hope that Joel can manage to do it by trying once every month. It might be wrong, but seeing him camped out on the couch gives you the perfect excuse to try one more time this month, without distractions.

Warnings | Joel Miller being a fucking stud as always, breeding kink, size kink, dubious moral choices by both reader and Joel, Tommy getting cucked (as usual), dirty talk, unprotected PiV sex,

Word Count | 2.7k

Authors Note | Well..... this certainly isn't how I anticipated this series going, but it makes sense, right? Can't just fuck once a month and expect to make a baby. I am absolutely feral for how much you guys are enjoying this series that wasn't meant to be a series and I hope you continue to do so in the future. And also, don't worry, Tommy is back next time in full force, I promise! If you've not read parts one and two, you can find them linked below on the series masterlist - this probably won't make much sense otherwise.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

When Joel wakes the next morning, crick in his neck and lower back screaming at him for a night scrunched up on his brother’s couch, it’s the smell of bacon and the sizzling sound of something cooking in oil that hits him first. He pushes himself up slowly, running a hand over his face before his eyes search for the wall clock. It’s just after seven, he doesn’t have to pick Sarah up for another few hours.

The next thing that strikes him is your voice. It’s quiet, like you’re trying not to wake him up, but you’re singing, or rather humming along to some song on the radio. He doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t care to find out, he just sits and listens for a while, letting the sweet sound almost lull him back to sleep.

When Joel hears the clatter of plates being moved around, he stands, stretching out his back until it cracks in several places. God, he’s getting old. He slowly and softly makes his way to the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe as he watches you. You’re moving scrambled eggs around in the pan on the hob, two plates on the side that already have slices of bacon on them, and he can see slices of bread sat in the toaster waiting to be made. It’s domestic and he realizes he really shouldn’t like seeing it as much as he does. He shouldn’t be here, this should be his brother, but he doesn’t exactly hate it.

“You didn’t have t’make me breakfast.” He speaks, you don’t jump which makes him think you knew he was there all along.

“You didn’t have to sleep on the couch all night,” You counter, looking at him over your shoulder, “I guess we wore each other out, only right I send you off with a hearty breakfast.”

Joel doesn’t really know what he’s doing when he walks deeper into the kitchen. He’s driven by the fact that all you’re wearing is a large flannel shirt, obviously not one of your own, buttoned up over some underwear. You’re fucking magnetic to him, he knows you shouldn’t be, should be as far out of his reach as possible, but he’s only doing you a favour right? The more he repeats it to himself, the more he might believe it.

“What do you think you’re doing?” You speak as his hands play with them hem of the shirt, although your voice is teasing, it doesn’t warn him to stop, almost dares him to go further.

Joel hears you chuckle as his hands palm your ass, “You gonna tell me to stop, pretty girl?”

“You’re trying to get me pregnant, are you not?” You ask, shifting the pan with the eggs off the heat.

“That I am,” Joel is now pressed firmly against your back, hands wandering underneath the shirt to rest on your hips, “But you gotta tell me if you want me to stop, just me and you this mornin’, sweetheart.”

“I’m still good to go,” You murmur, moving your ass into him, feeling his already growing erection in his jeans, “So, give me what I want, stud.”

He doesn’t need telling twice. Never does. He lets his big palm sink beneath the waistband of your underwear, fingers dipping almost immediately through your folds to sink down to where you’re already soaked. He knows some of that has to be him from last night, but as he drags his fingers up, covered in slick to your clit, hearing how you’re already moaning his name, he knows it’s not all him, this is your slick, mixed with him, and it drives him wild. Drives him wild that he’s marked you like this, that you’re just walking around with a piece of him inside of you.

He's almost shocked by how quickly he brings you to the edge with his fingers this morning. Clearly, you’re still sensitive from the four orgasms he gave you the night before, something that still makes his chest puff, his male ego boosted that he went one better than Tommy for you.

“Still all sensitive for me, aren’t you, pretty girl?” He leans down to whisper into your ear as his name falls a mile a minute from your mouth, “Gonna come for me?”

“Fuck – Joel – ohmygod,” He can feel your legs starting to shake, he makes sure the arm he’s got pressed to your lower belly keeps you upright, pressed against him, “Don’t you dare stop.”

“Didn’t plan on it.” He chuckles, letting his tongue lick hot stripes to you ear before he sucks the lobe into his mouth and nibbles.

He feels your legs buckle, but that palm manages to keep you upright as you come for him. The way his name sounds in your high-pitched squeal when you let go for him has his cock throbbing in his jeans. If he was any younger, he could almost guarantee this alone would have him spilling himself into his jeans already.

He lets you catch your breath for a moment as he undoes his jeans, stepping out of them and his underwear, though he leaves his shirt on. He has to be inside you right now or he thinks he might pass out. He drags your own underwear down your legs, kicking them to the side once you’ve stepped out of them, before he’s literally slamming his cock into you with full force.

“Jesus Christ, Joel,” You keen, “Fuck, you’re so big inside me.”

“I know babygirl, I know,” He stills for a moment, letting himself get used to the way your pussy is clenching him, literally pulling him in deeper, “A lot, ain’t it?”

You let out a sigh as Joel pulls himself out before slamming back into you, “I can take it,” You whine, pushing back to meet his thrusts halfway, “Fuck me harder, Joel.”

He brings a hand up to fist your hair, pulling your head back so you’re arching into him, “Careful what you wish for,” He moans, “Beggin’ me to go harder, filthy girl.”

Joel can’t quite believe how good this feels. He thought, when he slid his cock into you from behind that he might feel guilty – bending his brother’s girlfriend over the stove without him knowing anything about it – but the way he’s got his hand tangled in your hair, pulling you back so you arch perfectly for him, his hips snapping into your ass in a way that has his vision blurring, he can’t find it in himself to care. Maybe that makes him a piece of shit, but you asked for this just as much as he wanted to give it to you.

He uses the hand tight in the strands of your hair to pull your face to the side. He presses a wet kiss to your cheek before he can’t stop himself from asking for it any longer, “Kiss me, pretty girl,” He growls, pulling your mouth to within a hair’s breadth of his own, “Give me that last piece of you, I know you want to.”

He can see you hesitate. Can sense the flicker of doubt across your face. He won’t force this, but fucking hell does he want it. Wants to feel those pretty lips on his own, wants to know exactly what your mouth tastes like. He grips your hip with his free hand, fingers digging into the skin, sure enough likely to leave bruises there, as he continues his pounding into you.

All of a sudden, you turn your head fully, your own free hand coming up to tangle in the curls on his head pulling his mouth to yours. The angle makes it messy, more of an open-mouthed mash up of tongues that anything else, but it fucking lights Joel on fire. He pulls away and slips his cock from your tight heat, turning you around so your back is to the stove. He pulls your naked body to his own and attaches his mouth back to yours like his life depended on it.

He can feel his cock slipping between your slick folds as he focuses his attention on his mouth attached to yours. It’s depraved, the way his tongue melds with your own, licking into your mouth like he’s a man starved. Which he technically is, he can’t remember the last time he kissed a woman, let alone one as perfect as you.

When he pulls away from you, hands on your ass to lift you up so he can carry you to the kitchen island and sit you on top, he focuses on the string of saliva that attaches your mouth to his. He pulls away just enough that it breaks, settling on the hair on his chin. He almost busts his nut all over your lower belly when you lean across and lick it from his face, grin plastered on your mouth like you know exactly what you’ve just done to him.

You reach down between the two of you, gripping Joel’s cock in your hand, guiding it back to your spread cunt, “I think you better put this back inside me, huh?” You whisper, looking up at him through your eyelashes, “Think you might be about to come, am I right Joel?”

“Fuckin’ hell,” He curses, head to the ceiling, “Gonna be the fuckin’ death of me, pretty girl,” He takes his cock from your grip, sliding it slowly back into your slick pussy, watching as you throw your head back in pleasure as he does, “How many babies you want?” He asks, royally pushing his fucking luck now, “Tell me you want more than one, tell me I get to come inside your pretty pussy forever.”

“You’ll have to ask your brother.” You and your smart fucking mouth, Joel thinks, looking down between the two of you where he’s splitting you open, watching as his thick cock slides effortlessly into your cunt, like you were made for him.

“Didn’t have to ask him this morning,” Joel growls at you, hand resting at the base of your throat, “This was all you, babygirl.”

He doesn’t think before he takes hold of the material of the shirt you’re wearing and yanks it open, buttons flying all over the kitchen surface. Joel lets it gape open, those big hands of his gripping the soft skin of your waist as he starts pounding into you again. He leans down and captures one of your nipples in his mouth, rolling it between his teeth, soothing it with the pad of his tongue, before he switches to the other side.

“Such pretty tits, baby,” He groans, moving his lips up to kiss across your neck, “Even prettier when I put this baby inside you.”

His cock is brutal inside you. He can see the start of the discomfort on your face, still sore and stretched from last night. Truth be told, he doesn’t think he can hold on much longer, not when he looks down at the sight of you, spread out, dripping slick onto the countertop, legs spread as far as humanely possible, tits bouncing with every hard punch of his cock inside you.

“Want me to fill you up, babygirl?” He asks, leaning down to capture your lips one last time, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get you alone again, he knows kissing you in front of his brother would probably get him shot, so he’s going to take it all whilst he can.

“Give it to me Joel, fuck,” You moan, hands gripping his shoulders to keep you upright, “Look at me whilst you do it,” You demands, “I wanna see your eyes when you pump me full of cum.”

You’re looking up at him, bottom lip bitten between teeth as he stuffs his cock into you twice, three times. He looks you dead in the eye as he lets your name drop from his lips, hand gripping so hard at your skin it’s painful. He does exactly what you say though, looks straight into your eyes as his cock fills your full of his cum. Dark and dangerous, like predator has caught its pray, spread it out underneath him and fully devoured it.

He lets out the softest of groans as he slips his cock from you, watching as his cum drips from your pussy. It’s depraved, but he takes two of his fingers and pushes as much of it as possible back inside you, curling his fingers up inside you, before he slips them out, covered in his own cum and the slick from your pussy.

He holds them up to your mouth, “You wanna taste, pretty girl?”

Joel swears he sees the devil when you take hold of his hand and drag that perfect little tongue over his fingers. He thinks he might feel his cock begin to harden again when you take them all the way into your mouth and swirl your tongue over them to get them clean, he’s only a man, he can’t help but imagine what that mouth might feel like wrapped around his cock.

He helps you down from the counter, passes you the underwear he discarded early and then slips out of his own plaid shirt, offering it to you for ruining the one you were currently wearing. You could very easily wander up the stairs and get another shirt, but you take it from him, wrap it around yourself and do up the buttons.

“Sit down,” You speak softly to him once he’s got his jeans on properly, “I’ll finish breakfast.”

Joel watches closely as you pour coffee and reheat the eggs slightly, piling a significantly bigger portion onto his plate than your own. You butter the toast and then sit down next to him, eating in silence. He expects it to be awkward, but it’s the complete opposite. It’s comfortable, warm even, just two people enjoying breakfast together before they must go back to their respective lives outside of each other.

When you’ve both finishes, you take the plates and stack the in the sink before Joel realizes he’s still got to pick Sarah up. You smile at him when he stands, going to unbutton his shirt to give it back to him when he puts a warm hand on your arm.

“Keep it,” He says softly, “Looks miles better on you than it does on me.”

Your head dips and then you smile, “Thank you.”

He doesn’t really know what you’re thanking him for – the shirt? Probably not. But he smiles and kisses your cheek all the same before he’s making sure he’s got his keys and then he’s leaving.

All Joel can think about on his drive to pick Sarah up is the massive fucking line he’s just crossed. He can paint it in whatever light he wants to – normal couples fuck all the time, at every possible moment, when they’re trying to have a baby, so why should this be any different? That’s all it was, is what he repeats to himself, all fucking day, thinking of the way you begged him to fill you up again, the way your lips felt against his when you finally gave in and kissed him. But there’s still that fucking niggling feeling that he’s fucked it all up, mixed his own feelings in somewhere along the line. He should have never been with you without the knowing stare of his brother, looking out for any signs of concern.

If only Joel knew that Tommy knew exactly what was happening that morning. If only he knew that you’d padded quietly down the stairs and found him soundly asleep on that couch, first instinct to reach for your phone and sent Tommy that text message.

Joel seemed to stay the night on the couch. I know you’ll be driving, so totally get if not, but mind if we try again this morning? Might have a bit more luck relying on two instead of one this month.

You’d waited just moments for Tommy’s reply, standing at the foot of the stairs, watching Joel’s chest rise and fall in his sleep.

Course not sugar, you can tell me all about it when I get in and get you all to myself.

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