#AND TET COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DEVASTATED BY CAUSE THERES NO WAY THIS DOESN'T HAVE CONSEQUENCES AND SERIOUSLY BAD ONES AT THAT

[ravensmadreads]

TAYLOR - I-

Chapter 6 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 9305

chapter summary: a honeymoon of sorts.

chapter warnings/tags: relapse, depictions of drugs/alcohol/actions under the influence, dubcon because neither character is sober, lots and lots of smut

a/n: this chapter is particularly bittersweet for me. so begins the continues the downward spiral. highly recommend reading this on ao3 so you can see the proper formatting for the text!

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“Refill on your whiskey, sir?”

His fingers hover over the keyboard on his phone. Her question broke his concentration, if there had been any at all. He has rewritten that last line at least three times now. 

“Sorry, what did you say?”

The flight attendant smiles at him, a tall brunette with a bob down to her chin. If she recognizes him, she gives no indication.

“Your whiskey, sir. Would you like another? We still have an hour before we land.” 

He rattles the plastic cup that’s mostly ice water now and then throws the remnants back. He nods.

“Thanks.”

She takes the cup and puts it in the trash bin in her trolley. She unscrews the bottle of Buffalo’ Trace before preparing a new cup. 

This early, the plane is mostly empty. The lights are low, the air is warm, and most passengers are asleep. The flight attendant speaks softly as the plane rattles in the wind. 

“Is this your first time visiting New Orleans?”

He nods.

“On your honeymoon?” She nods to the woman asleep in the seat next to him, her head on his shoulder. He spins the gold ring on his finger with his thumb. 

“Something like that.” 

She wipes the bottom of the cup with a small napkin before giving it to him.

“Congratulations, then.” She smiles brightly. “As they say, laissez le bon temps rouler.”

The trolley squeaks as she rolls down the aisle, gently asking those still awake if they’d prefer coffee or anything stronger. Beneath the half-closed window blinds, a strong pink light peaks through. 

His glance returns to his phone. He still hasn’t sent the text he means to. It won’t go through this high up, but he doesn’t want to look at it once the plane lands. 

He looks at the woman next to him. His heart swells. He kisses her forehead. He goes back to his phone, types the first thing that comes to him, and taps send. 

It’s not his problem right now. It’s not going to be for the next two weeks. Two weeks and he has to be back in Los Angeles to start touring for the press junket. He intends to make the best of it. 

He clicks the phone to lock it, and he slides it back into his jacket pocket. And without much thought or hesitation or anxious overthinking, he slides off his wedding ring and pockets that too. 

He picks up the sleeping woman’s hand and kisses her knuckles. She stirs in her sleep and he smiles. 

Maybe it’s the second glass of whiskey he’s had in two years, but he feels good about this.

His last text sits, waiting for reception. 

 

“Dieter, you cannot be serious.” 

He slips his hand into yours and kisses your knuckles. He can do that here. “I am.”

You let yourself be dragged, mouth agape, as he guides you past a cobalt blue swimming blue, lined by red brick. Your baggage bumps and clatters as it knocks over the ridges. He leads you through a green door, where the French Colonial style homes have been refurbished into individual rentals. Black metal railings puff and curl on the upper balconies. Pastel green shudders line white windows. Flowering dogwood trees bend and wave in the breeze from their stations in the courtyard between doors. 

He leads you down to unit 162, gold and embossed on the front of a green door. Grinning over his shoulder, he unlocks it with a comically large brass key. 

“Hey, now, I’ve seen Skeleton Key,” you tease. The humidity in the air makes his curls extra tight, scooping up the back of his neck. “This isn’t going to end badly for me, is it?”

“Depends on how you define ‘badly’,” he shrugs and shoulders his way through the door. 

Inside is a gorgeous kitchen that manages to straddle the old and new. Modern appliances tuck up against the wall on the right, while on the other wall sits a beautiful square kitchen table, with fat knobs and white molding. Above the table, the entire wall is made of chalkboard.

You frown at the French written there in an elegant hand.

“What does that mean?”

He shuts the door behind him, smiling. “It’s an old Creole saying. It means, let the good times roll.”

You smirk at him, eyebrow raised. “Expecting a lot of good times here, Mr. Bravo?” 

His hand takes a big squeeze of your ass as he pulls you into his chest. You giggle as his sharp nose trails along your cheek. 

“It’s certainly on the itinerary.” 

He can almost smell the desire that flickers within you. You bend your head to catch his mouth, but he turns away at the last minute. He runs his finger underneath the strap of your white dress. It's currently in the running for his favorite of yours, tied only with those fucking denim shorts. 

“Go look upstairs. I’ll get our bags.”

Your cork heels clatter as you bounce up the white wooden stairs. He smiles to himself when you gasp. He takes your bag and his and follows you up.

The white shutter doors are flung open to tempt some bayou breeze, offering the beautiful view into the courtyard below. From this cottage, you can see over the private wall, down into the street on the other side. You smell sugar and molasses, and you sigh. Inside is a white bed with a brass frame. The tan walls are offset by a single wall of red brick, similar to the pathway outside. Above you, a fan spins, a much needed relief to the humid heat. 

You stand out on the porch, clearly enjoying listening to the music that can be faintly heard from Jackson Square, hands wrapped around the railing. The breeze blows your dress and any remaining anxiety around the phone in his pocket is gone. 

He hasn’t heard from Chloe.

He hasn’t heard from Heidi. 

He’s made a decision. It’s time to fucking commit. 

Finally allowed to, finally where no one could see, he joins you out on the porch and tangles his hand into your hair. He thumbs the curls there encouraged by the humidity and with a sigh, he presses his lips to your hairline at the back of your neck. You wait until he pulls back, to turn over your shoulder to him, his arms ensnaring your waist.

“This is beautiful, Dieter,” you murmur as you nose his jaw, your hand scratching the back of his head. “I don’t know how you found the most perfect place, but you did.” 

“I want to take care of you, baby.” You smell like lemons and lavender, as he runs his nose against the length of your neck. “I want to show you how much I care.”

You stiffen momentarily before folding into his open arms even more. 

The cottage block is quiet, discrete, and rather empty of prying eyes. He intends to take you out, to let you wander as any other normal couple in the Crescent City, but not just yet. His hands rub up your sides, thumbing your exposed skin on your shoulders where the shoulder straps are tied together. The sweet smell of powdered sugar in the humid wind and the curve of your neck is making his mouth water. 

“Besides, I’m making up for my other decisions. One regarding an office and a very sturdy desk,” he whispers in your ear, delighting in the way you shiver from just his words. Delicately, he slides up the hem of your dress and squeezes your thigh as a reward. His hand travels up, then in, and his finger brushes the line of your panties. 

“I’m suddenly very interested in your apology.” You turn in his arms, the bunched up fabric of your dress running against the front of his jeans and he has half-a-mind to take you on this goddamn balcony in the open air. Because he can. 

“Hmm, it’s going to be very long.” 

He eases your legs up and around his waist and your arms glide over his shoulders. Your breath smells like the gum and champagne you bought at the airport. He swears he can see your pulse point flicker on your throat.

“Oh? And?”

“Very complicated.” 

He carries you back into the room and folds you backwards onto the bed. Your cheeks are flushed from the warmth outside as you slide your feet out of your heels and he positions himself in between your legs. You drop onto your back, fingering his belt. 

You mock-frown. “Complicated? Oh, I dunno if I can follow along.”

The two whiskeys he’s had are thrumming in his veins, wants to taste that biting sweetness off your mouth again. He takes you by the heel and kisses your ankle, his other hand diving under your dress and back up to your panties. Your eyes flutter when he finds the spot he wants. He drops your ankle over his shoulder and steps forward, closer. You’re losing the ability to speak –  he can tell by the way your mouth parts as his thumb rubs your clit through your underwear. 

“You won’t be able to do much of anything, once I’m done with you.” 

“Dieter–,” you’re already getting impatient. 

“Oh, don’t ‘Dieter’ me. What’s the saying, good things come to those who wait?”

“I like the other one more. Especially the part about things rolling.”

You grab at his wrist and, as if to demonstrate, roll your hips against his fingers, trying to angle them where you want. He smirks as he twists his hand and grinds the heel of his palm into your clit, his fingers stroking you through the fabric. He nearly loses himself when he feels just how wet you are. The thin strip of underwear you so foolishly decided to wear is hardly anything more than damp twine now. 

You whine as he gathers your slick with his thumb and crowns your clit with it. “Dieter, c’mon.”

“I told you I was gonna go slow. Maybe I need to be reminded of what comes next. What do you need, baby?” 

“Your fingers,” you huff, eyes half-lidded as you watch his forearm flex, not being able to see but instead, feeling exactly what he’s doing to you. Do you always close your eyes when you come? He wonders. 

“You have them.” He steps closer, your ass against his thigh. 

“I want them inside of me.” 

Grinning like the bastard he is, he drags your underwear off one hip, then the other, then he rolls it up your thighs – you gasp when you see just how completely destroyed they are, slick making them sticky – and he tosses them by the luggage. 

Your eyes drop shut when his warm hands return near to where you need them most, but not quite exactly. He’s kneading your thighs, your ass, dragging his middle finger up through your slick and sucking on it. He hums, lips all the way down to his knuckle, and you drip more at the thought of sucking him off. 

“What do you want?”

You swallow, mouth dry. “F-fingers. I want your fingers. Inside of me,” you clarify, as you learn how to ask him properly. 

There should be an award for the amount of restraint he shows by not flipping up your dress and watching as he slowly presses his finger into your pussy. He wants to watch, but he also wants you a little bit angry with him, teased to the point of frustration, so he explores you with his finger. And then a second one. 

Your walls pinch his fingers and your back arches. “Oh, yes, Dieter, that’s it.” 

He brushes and strokes and fucks you with his fingers. Slowly. Methodically. He follows every line of your face, every twitch of skin, as you frown with pleasure. Your nails bite his wrist, your other land flat out next to you, fingers clenching the blanket. If there are stories of the Legendary Dieter Tongue, there had to be fucking songs about his fingers. 

He groans and drops your ankle from his shoulder, pushing your thigh to the side and exposing more of you. 

“Do you like this, baby? How you’re spread out for me?”

You nod, bottom lip chewed beyond recognition. He curls his fingers and you moan, the sound stifled and muted. He gently presses down on your lower abdomen to feel himself fuck up into you.

“I’ve already opened your legs. Do I need to open that mouth too?” He leans over you, somehow getting even deeper with his fingers, the sound lewd and squelching. He kisses you on the corner of your mouth because he wants to keep your lips parted. “You have to be loud for me, okay?”

You huff, skin pink, and nod. 

“Let me hear you say it.”

“Yes, Dieter. I’ll be loud for you.”

“Good girl.” And he adds a third finger. The stretch is exquisite and you let him know with a moan that digs into the ceiling. 

“Told you you’d like it if I took it slow.”

“Yeah,” you mutter, voice strained. “But I want it rough later. I need it, Dieter.”

That intensely satisfies him. He beckons you towards the edge just for that. He thumbs your clit in purposeful, deliberate circles as his fingers curl and twist inside of you. “We’ll stay here as long as you need it, alright, baby? For as many orgasms as you can give me. And speaking of, I’d like one now. Please.”

Maybe it’s the low gravel of his voice– laced with need and want – or the faint tease of his mustache and beard against your throat, or it’s the final relief after a thousand denials. For once in your life, you listen to him and the orgasm sparks out from your core and up through your spine. Your back, hips, shoulders arch off the bed as that wildfire sends you into orbit. 

He should make you clean yourself off him, but he wants that scent, wants his fingers coated in you. He watches you ride your orgasm and he licks his fingers. His pants are unavoidably uncomfortable right now. As you spiral back down from your high, he takes you by the waist and pulls you up near the head board, to give himself enough space to lie down. 

“Fuck, Dieter . . .” 

“I hope you do,” he grins as he bends your knees, planting your feet wide enough for him to get between your legs. You do your best impression of exasperation while still trying to remember which room you’re in. Your skin is glowing from sweat. 

He knows he’s sweating too, feeling it in the valley of his spine, and he doesn’t want to overheat this quickly. While you finally center, he takes off his shirt with one hand over his head. He unzips his pants and your eyes widen, hips arching up, so eager and willing to take him.

He kisses your knee. “Not yet, baby girl. This next one is for me.” 

He peels down the hem of your dress and his mouth floods with spit. 

Your cunt is pink, swollen from the pump of his fingers. It’s wet and your curls are wet and he knows that is the only thing in the world he needs to drink when he’s so parched. You ache to be filled again. 

Jesus fuckin’ Christ.

He hums in appreciation and drops to his elbows between your legs. His bare shoulders up against the back of your thighs and his fingers pressing into the creases of your hip, he spares a glance at you. 

Your chest is flushed, breath hitching, and your hair has fallen down from its bun. You can feel his breath on your exposed cunt, the burn of his beard feeling as warm as though you held your hand out over an open flame. 

As an actress, you are confident, striking, and serious. 

Under him, you’re reduced to pathetic whines and humping the air. 

“Baby, please,” you huff, voice small as if truly uneasy. 

He licks one bold stripe up the length of your cunt, swallowing your slick like he would chase an errant drop of melting ice cream– and then he goes back for seconds. 

It’s not sweat-drenched whiskey. 

It’s better. 

“Oh, Dieter,” you sound on the verge of tears. He strokes as far as he can reach with his tongue, before sliding it back out to wrap warmly around your clit. He sucks once and your hands fly to his hair. He sucks again and your moan is strangled, coming deep from inside of you. 

He holds you to him, mouth and tongue wrecking every single sensitive part of you they can reach, his gaze on your face. He adds his fingers back in as reward for yanking so divinely on his hair. 

He doesn’t feel like he’s conquering, though he should. After all those fights, he finally managed to make you incoherent, but watching your face contort with pleasure, your moans making the heartbeat in his neck spike, he instead feels more possessive. This isn’t a stupid fuck for him. This might not even be to get back at Chloe. This doesn’t feel like backsliding. How he feels about you is entirely unique to any of the other fucked up shit in his life. This is different.

Mouth more attached to you than if he had fangs, he eats you whole. He grinds his hips into the mattress and the rough rub of the zipper on his hard cock makes him groan wet, damp air into your pussy. 

You vibrate against the sensation, as if you are overwhelmed. He drops his forearm across your hips like a steel bar. He’s not letting go until you rattle out a second orgasm. He tongues that one spot that made your breathing stop with his fingers inside of you. That white hot heat inside of you is blooming, the fires expanding every time you look down and make eye contact with him. He’s watching you with determination and focus as though you were an intricate puzzle he wanted to pick apart, its guts all exposed, and remake to hear it click. 

He’d rather be flung into the sun than take his mouth off you but he can’t talk to you the way he wants. He mouths the words in between licks.

You’re so fucking beautiful.

I can’t stand it when I’m not around you.

Your cunt is so pretty. 

I wanna fuck you on all fours but I know your legs won’t work after this. 

You’re not allowed to come for anyone else but me. 

He takes off his mouth for a moment, you hiss at the emptiness, and then he blows warm air all the way up your cunt before taking your clit into your mouth and sucking, adding his three fingers again.

Ecstasy makes black spots cover your vision as he carries you through another orgasm, pleasure sparking out from your core again, your muscles locked in sweet rapture. He swallows and laps up your release into his mouth, greedy and eager. Your hips jerk and he stays latched on, thumb rubbing what could be comforting smooth circles over the bunched up fabric of your dress – if his hand wasn’t so fire hot. 

He thinks you were close to squirting and he remembers that little spot on the left side for later. 

He leans back onto his heels, chin, cheeks and the end of his nose glistening, as you sink into the mattress, your legs and back muscles spasming slightly. 

In all your jerking and bucking, the strap on your shoulder became undone. The top of your dress is uneven. 

He finally lets himself picture what he only suspected earlier. You are absolutely not wearing a bra. He strains in his pants. He palms himself, knowing he’s not going to last but he needs to see those pretty tits of yours bounce. The last time he fucked you, he could only imagine. The time “before” that, they were bound with tape and he refused to look at them anyway. 

“Baby, can I?” 

You tear your eyes away from his swollen red cock, visible through his zipper. He’s fingering the other strap’s knot, waiting for permission. You nod, your irises swallowing the lovely color of your eyes. 

He plucks the strings loose and, pinching the fabric by your waist, he gently tugs your dress down. You arch as the hem drags across your sensitive nipples and he groans when your tits bubble up as the dress gets to your ribs. He continues pulling, his heart pounding in his ears, and then you’re naked for him. He takes in a breath and your cunt throbs at the sound of adoration. 

He feels it. His brain inhales this moment in a snapshot, a flash and a pop of smoke, before he’s ready. This moment will always be there. 

You’re scrambling to meet him as his fingers dig into your hips to pull you up. His arm digs around your back, pressing the back of your neck towards him as he kisses you desperately, wildly, as though some sort of apocalypse was minutes away from unleashing hell on earth. His forearm hooks around your low back as he pulls you into his lap, thighs tense. 

His nose and mouth run the length of your neck. He feels your pulse jump under his lips and there he finally uses teeth. He bites you and sucks just enough for your hips to jolt in his lap. Hickeys are not part of taking it slow but desire is rubbing itself up his spine, his cock so hard it was painful. He palms your breast, gathering the weight and flicking your exposed nipple. He ducks his head to taste the sweat as it runs from your throat down your under the swell of your breast. 

He slips his pants down and off, with your arms around his neck. The second he’s freed, you crowd him, hand dropping to his lap to squeeze him. 

“Don’t,” he hisses, “later. Need to be inside of you, now.” 

With shocking strength and dexterity, he picks you up by your thighs and hauls you to his chest. You reach back, finding him below you and slowly, slowly, slowly sink down. 

He was right. He took his time with you and now, with a single thrust of his hips, he’s inside you with barely any resistance. But –

“Fuck, Dee, the stretch,” you gasp into his ear, head tucked into his shoulder. He murmurs filthy secrets of desperation, mapping you from the flush of your ass, all the way up to the knot of your spine in his hands. He has you, you’re here. You want him. You want his cock. He tugs your knees around his hips, shifting him inside you. From collar bone to pelvis, you are skin to skin– your breasts pressed flat against his chest, your stomachs riding up against each other, you’re seated on him and he is fully inside of you. He grinds his teeth, his mouth pressed up to your shoulder, and then, his hips roll in and out of you, an inch at a time. 

Slow. Tense. Filthy. 

You whimper.

“That’s it. Take it, baby, take all of me.” 

It’s almost too much. You’re sensitive and sore from your other orgasms but just as the last one ebbs, another one is kindling, pleasure knotting again and again in your core. He fucks you almost like he’s bored– playing with a toy, a cock-sleeve, a place to rub one out. But it’s the drag, the controlled thrusts– he’s making sure you feel every slide and touch of his cock inside you. His pace is maddening. 

He pulls away from clutching you to him, pulls back to look you in the eyes. His hands slide and grip you by the hips, pushing you down so that his thrusts are that much deeper, almost painful. You tighten your grip around his shoulders, burying your face into his neck, the sweat and the heat radiating from him like a solar flare. He knows you need it hot and fast but he doesn’t want it to end yet. He knows he’s being mean, too much teasing, overstimulation. 

He fucks you like he’s trying to break something. Or fix something. He squeezes his eyes shut, breath ragged and mouth parted. He cups the back of your head, the smell of your hair making his eyes roll back in his head. 

“Tha’s right, baby, hold on t’ me. Grip me. Let me do the work. I’ll get you there. I’ll do it.” 

“Dee, please, move faster,” you moan. “I’m almost there. Just give it to me.” 

He tightens his grip on you again, easing you against his chest – he’s trembling, control slipping– but he doesn’t change his pace. It’s steady, it’s constant. Your orgasm is staggering, lumbering towards you, so large and all consuming you almost fear the weight of it. 

“I can finally-finally fuck sweet baby’s pussy the way I want to.” He puts a hand to your cheek, your jaw, upturning your face to him to kiss you. He thrusts lazily and you feel like you’re going to drown. His back is damp. He’s so warm. “I’m gonn-nuh— make it last.”

“Fuck– please. Please. Dieter, I wanna come. Please.” Your voice is wet, like you might cry.

He can’t resist begging. Or praise.

“Gimme one more like this and I’ll fuck you like you want, alright?” 

You squeeze your thighs around his ribs, the only sign you can give him that yes, you’re listening, yes, he’s wrenching another orgasm out of you– thank you, Dieter, oh God, Dieter – 

Just as you crest the wave, he shifts up onto his knees in a particularly brutal stroke, holding your knees to his waist, his other hand wrapped tightly around the curve of your shoulder— and starts jackhammering into you. 

It’s like he’s rung a bell inside of you. 

“Oh, shit—,” 

You can feel your body ringing. 

Your next orgasm nearly knocks the wind out of you. You call his name – “I’m here, baby, tell me what you need,” – and his fingers dig deeper into your shoulders. There’s no comedown, you’re still coming, as he rams his hips into yours. 

“I’ll give you anything you want – just keep saying my name.”

You aren’t sure you’re actually saying anything over babbling words of praise, his name, and some blend of it all. 

The puffy pain around your cunt makes you dizzy and now there’s wetness all over his thighs. You arch in his arms as your orgasm steam-rolls you flat, eyes rolling in the back of your head. The steady buildup then his new pace hits you like a train as the detonation in your core sends you into orbit.

“Oh, fuck, that’s it, baby—,”

Three strokes later, he tumbles over the edge after you with a gut-deep groan. 

You’re marked in his fluids and he’s marked in yours. 

He’s shaking as he lowers you down and your limbs slip off him, every ounce of strength and control seeping from you and into the mattress below. You’re both sweat-streaked and panting, the humid air nearly drowning you. With a care you certainly couldn’t have performed, he crawls back, and one more aftershock leaves you trembling all over. 

Dieter is red faced. He’s got crescent-moon indents on his shoulders and neck. It smarts but he’d leave that pain for days if he could. Though a little-light headed and desperate for water, he slips his cock out of you, his hand on your knee. He pushes your knee to the side, just enough to watch his cum leak out of you. He scoops it with his thumb and pops it into his mouth. His eyes close as he sucks. 

“Jesus Christ, Dieter,” you moan, flopping your arm over your eyes as if another minute of watching him will send you into another tailspin. 

He chuckles weakly and moves your knee to crawl into the empty bed beside you. He tucks his arms up under the white pillow and tries to breathe, his perfect ass exposed to the air. Your last few pants are louder than the spin of the ceiling fan. It might be several minutes, if not hours before feeling returns to your limbs.

“So why New Orleans?” You ask, only a little breathlessly, your arm still over your forehead. 

“Are you kidding me?” He lifts his head, the hair at his temples darker than the rest of it. He’s only marginally offended. “Sex like that and that’s the first thing you say?” 

“Well, there were other things on my mind,” you shrug against the pillow beneath your head. “That was the only thing that was coherent enough to voice out loud.” 

“Damn fucking right.” He kisses your overturned wrist before rolling onto his back with a groan so deep, you’d think he was restarting. “And I, uh, don’t know. I’ve always wanted to go see Jackson Square and I think I’ve been kicked out of my own house, so now seemed like as good a time as any. I just need to be in a place with a lot of people right now.”

You lift your head as if expecting to see a full orgy at the foot of the bed.

“Well, you might be off track there. With the tons of people thing.” 

He smirks and adjusts to his side. He cups your jaw in his hand, thumb on the other side than his fingers. With an encroaching dark haze in his eyes, he lowers his hand around your throat. Not squeezing. Not even putting any pressure. But just a reminder. A thought. A promise.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” 

You press your chest up against his forearm, tilting your head back to give him more room. You’re not actually interested in more sex but it’s this game you play. Coin flip. See who can survive the longest. 

“You did promise to be rough with me next time.” Your fingers tighten around his wrist and at your hip, you can feel his cock twitch. 

His hand compresses once around your throat before he lets go and lets out a deep sigh. He pulls away, huffing, and collapses back onto the bed. 

“And people call me crazy.” 

You smirk, now completely satisfied. You stretch like a cat in sunlight. But then something he said earlier makes you frown. You roll up onto your elbows, looking down at him.

“I didn’t know you were kicked out of the house. Why did you say anything?” 

He takes the inside flesh of his cheek and worries it between his teeth. He’s not sorry, exactly, but this is not at all where he wanted this conversation to go. “Thought it was kinda obvious when I asked you to come with me to the airport at three in the morning.” 

You stare at him, something transfixed in your gaze, before you nod. You lean forward, a curtain of your hair closing off you and him from the rest of the world. His stomach flip-flops; rarely do you let anyone see this soft side of you.

“I’m glad you did,” you whisper as you kiss him, gently, patiently, sweetly. “It’s not like this with other people. For me.”

Beneath the curtain of your hair, it’s just the two of you. He strokes your cheek with his thumb, awe-struck that he finally has you. He feels it humming under his skin, his want for you, itching to dig his fingers in. It’s a high unlike he’s ever known. “You’re all I have, you know. Even when you don’t want me, I’ll still want you.”

“I always want you.” 

When you finally pull away, the light outside the window has gotten heavier, shadows forming in the corners. 

“Sun’s going down,” you say, the light of the (still) open shutter doors making the outline of your head glow. “Probably cool enough to wander the streets, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, in a little bit.” Looking up at you, he tucks your hair behind your ear. In the warm late afternoon light, you’re radiant and he is transfixed. Finally, all mine. “I think there was something about a promise in there.” 

Your eyes twinkle as he pulls you back down on top of him.

   It’s nearing ten o’clock when you’re finally seated at your table. The restaurant is dark, hidden away from the noise of Jackson Square and Bourbon Street. The only indication that anything existed inside of the low, squat building was a copper sign, a cut out in the shape of a Magnolia tree. But Dieter seemed to know where he was going, going on about having heard rumblings about the jazz music and grilled oysters. He simply walked into the unmarked building with all the confidence you’d expect from a man so boldly named Dieter Bravo.

The hostess seated you in the corner, each table designed with half walls, making them slightly enclosed like a carved out egg. The set of the man with the cello on stage in the front of the room ends and you clap softly, along with the rest of the room. Except for Dieter. He’s flipping through the bourbon offerings and has his hand on your thigh. A gentle hum grows in the room as its occupants return to hushed conversations before the next act arrives.

When he told you to bring a nice dress, he couldn’t have fathomed this is what you would bring in his wildest dreams. 

It’s long, gossamer, and so dark blue it looks black. The front is held up with a silver halter that connects around the back of your neck, exposing your sinful chest. But his favorite might be the back. Or rather, the lack thereof one. The material cups your chest, but drops like a chandelier down at the back of your ribs. It flows and pools at the base of your spine and the instant he saw you in it, he had you pressed up against the nearest wall to lick your shoulder blades. 

“Dieter, I will strangle you if you mess up my hair,” you huff breathlessly while at the same time digging into his own curls. 

“Why are we going out? Whose stupid fucking idea was this?” He rubbed the crotch of his dress pants up against the curve of your ass, as if he hadn’t actually had his cock in you from this angle less than an hour ago. After a bottle of champagne to celebrate, the shower to finally clean off hadn’t really gone as planned. 

“You made the reservations, dumbass,” you said before hissing as he sucked the soft spot below your earlobe.

He still can feel the bubble of the champagne under his skin, in his mouth. Still pouring over the bourbon selection, he mouths your shoulder, gently using teeth. He’s being overtly playful, the low lighting and single burning candle at the center of the table as the only nearby light source making him even more daring. But he knew he’d be admonished – it was too much in public and –

His breath catches in his chest when you lift your hand slowly from the edge of the menu and palm him over his pants. Like him before, your eyes don’t leave the menu, as if morbidly interested in the catch of the day from the Pontchartrain. 

“Don’t dish out what you can’t take, Bravo,” you say lowly, cupping the curve of his shaft before dragging your fingers back up to his crotch. 

“Th-that’s cheating,” he hisses, fighting the urge to roll his eyes back in his head. “I wasn’ even close to touching you anywhere n-ngh-near there.” 

“Well, that sounds–,”

“Is that fucking Dieter Bravo?” 

You retract your hand so fast, it bangs the table underneath, as you both look up to watch a young man with bright blonde hair, a blue suit, and an annoyingly punchable face approach the table.

He snags the chair from another table, twirls it around, and sinks into it like he owns the place. And judging by the Jaeger LeCoultre watch around his thin wrist, he very well might. 

Dieter blinks as his pale face solidifies in the half-dark. “Oliver? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Come now, dear boy, that’s no way to greet an old friend.” His posh accent speaks of boarding schools and yacht clubs. “Especially one you haven’t seen in ages.”

Those pale eyes slide to you and his lipless mouth drops open.

“Well, if I had someone half as stunning as you to keep me company, I too would fuck off and not look back. Oliver Hastings, madam.” He reaches out across the table and you take his hand, which he quickly presses to his lips. His blue eyes sparkle in a way that makes Dieter put an arm around you. You don’t look at him, but a small smile uncurls across your lips. 

“Pleasure to meet you. Where did you two meet?”

Oliver and Dieter exchange knowing glances. 

“A club in the Netherlands. My people knew his people,” Oliver says, simply. It was as close to the truth as time allowed.

“I never thought I’d see you in New Orleans,” Dieter says, genuinely surprised. “Didn’t figure this was your scene.”

“Oh, it’s not.” Oliver sniffs. “What are you drinking and can I have some?” 

He pokes a pinkie into each of your drinks, unimpressed.

“I’m here on business,” he continues and turns to wave down a waitress. 

“You don’t work, Oliver,” Dieter says, smirking. “You never have.”

“One of the pleasures of being distantly related to the Queen of England, I suppose,” he says when a waitress comes and asks for their drink orders. You gape up at Dieter while Oliver looks away. 

“That Queen of England?” You hiss at him and he grins.

“A bottle of your most expensive bourbons and three glasses. They do drink bourbon here, right? That’s a thing?”

Dieter nods, still grinning. For all his immediately off-putting mannerism, there was a charisma about Oliver that one could perhaps only buy. 

The waitress leaves to get their order and Oliver inches closer and wraps his arms over the back of the chair. 

“So, yes, on here for business, not that kind of business, but the other kind of business. The kind of business that the wealthy elites and ravers alike all fall over themselves to get.”

“I wonder if that sort of thing is hard to get through customs,” you smirk over the dredges of your red wine. 

Oliver stares at you as if seeing you for the first time all over again. And then he smiles wickedly.

“I’m sorry, I just cannot get over the fact how stunningly gorgeous you are. Did I already ask your name? You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve forgotten, I haven’t slept in three days.”

“I’m Natalie Lorraine. I’m Dieter’s co-star in an upcoming movie.”

“Ahh, well, that explains a lot of things, doesn’t it? American movie stars are rather quite fit, aren’t they? Much more than our old birds back home. Well, I can already guarantee that I’ll be first in queue to buy a ticket.” 

The waitress returns with the drink and glasses. “Thanks, love,” Oliver says and hands her a one hundred dollar bill. “I’ve got it from here.”

Shocked by the tip, the waitress nods and wanders off. 

Oliver uncorks the bottle and begins pouring out three fingers for everyone.

“Oli, you still haven’t told us what exactly you’re doing here in New Orleans,” Dieter teases. He runs his thumb nail lightly over your shoulder and in return you put a hand on his thigh. 

The British man smirks and caps the bottle. “I still haven’t told you what exactly I’m doing here in New Orleans. And I could. Or I could just show you.”

In a move that would have impressed the most skilled of card sharks, he coaxes out a small plastic bag from his sleeve with his middle finger. 

Inside are three gold dots on white cards. “They call it Stevie. Because it looks like gold dust when you rub it on your skin. Or put it in your drinks.” 

You sit forward and Dieter’s fingers nudge the knots of your spine. “What is it?”

“Bit like ecstasy, bit like Molly. None of the bad comedowns.”

Dieter snorts and chews on the leftover ice in his glass. “That’s what they all say.”

Oliver gasps softly and puts a hand over his white-collared chest. 

“Are you doubting my stock, Mr. Bravo?” 

Dieter rolls his eyes. “How long does it last?”

“Eight hours, twelve max.” 

You take the bag and hold it up in the low light. “And it’s new?”

“Originally started as a pain-killer that could be absorbed on the skin. FDA never approved it so the pharmacy that developed it went under. The blokes that made it tinkered to make it more of a party drug and here we are.”

You look over at Dieter, an excitement in your eyes that he hasn’t seen in weeks. He’d be offended if he didn’t feel the same sort of stirring. 

Oliver leans forward, his pale eyes looking up under pale lashes. By the upward tilt of his mouth, Dieter knows he knows he has you both. 

“C’mon, Dieter boyo, for old time’s sake. You should show lovely Natalie here how to have a good time.” 

He’s fine. He’s not hurting anyone. He’s having fun. He’s in control.

He can stop at any time.

You know he’s going to say yes before the words form in his mouth. You lunge forward and kiss him on the lips. 

“Alright-y then!” Oliver pops open the bag and on three fingers, he plucks up each of the gold dots. 

“To old friends,” he says as he dips a gold dot into each of their drinks, “and new.” 

Your eyes glitter as the three raise their glasses. 

“To friends.” 

And he drinks. The gold mist swirls.

   If the time he spent with you in New Mexico was slow, like molasses, dripping in sunlight, the rest of the trip in New Orleans is a blur. 

   He stands on the precipice of a mountain, the wind whipping through his hair and his cheeks. Lights unfocus and flash. There’s music and then there isn’t. There are sensations –

“Oh, God, Dieter, faster, harder, more – please, more,” 

Sweat flows down his neck, down his back, your nails digging into his shoulders. Your voice is high, breathless, as he drives himself deeper, deeper into you. You are warm and pliant beneath him and he thinks he’s going to choke on the taste of your neck under – 

– the paint is cool underneath his palms. He wipes streaks of yellow and red and green and blue up the side of the wall. He can smell the chlorine from the pool outside and the birds are singing and he thinks he can taste the yellow in the back of his teeth. The morning air is fresh and curls itself up in his bare chest and –

– he wants pastries, sweets, his mouth is tangy with the taste of your cunt –

– giants on stilts wander over his head, their pants gold and green and purple, you curl up next to him giggling and it's the most perfect sound he’s ever heard in the world. The crowd around you pushes you closer to him and he’s struck by you, by everything you are. He stops you in the middle of the street, the dark night sky arching above the streets, his hand up by your cheek, your beautiful eyes black and wide and tripping –

No, wait, I have to go back. Go back to her.

– The mural in the kitchen grows. It expands up into the ceiling, down onto the floor. The kitchen table and the chairs are thrown out into the brick courtyard. He paints and he paints. But he doesn’t know what it is yet – 

– the bed is a mess, blue paint everywhere. Your beautiful thighs are smeared with blue. His eyelashes feel heavy with paint but he can’t tell what color. His chest is cold and sticky. You’ve got one hand pressed up against the headboard, your thighs spread around him as he finds the missing warmth in the clutch in your cunt. Your tits, stained with purple, bounce and sway with the forces of his thrusts. The shutter door is open, fluttering in the wind, and it’s raining beyond the balcony. It’s pouring and he’s pouring out blue. He stains your cunt with orange, his thumb pressing up into your clit and you shriek. He can feel the white in him burst out and coat your chest and throat in his own paint –

– it’s quiet. You lay on the grass next to him in front of the St. Louis Cathedral. You’re pointing out constellations in the sky, a white powder near the corner of your mouth and the sweet scent of out-of-reach beignets hovers near your lips. As you talk, he reaches over and swipes the powder from your lips. You giggle because he’s only made it worse. There’s powder all over his hands –

You’re an artist. It rages in your blood.

No, it’s paint – 

– he wakes up and it’s quiet. 

The racing has stopped. The universe has settled. He lifts his head, barely able to comprehend where he is, but beyond grateful for all of it to end. He’s back in the cottages, on that white billow-y bed. It’s morning. The world is still quiet. He drops his head back against the fluffy pillow and sighs deeply.

But that smell is . . . it’s familiar. That sweet smell and . . . something else.

Girlsex. 

He glances down, suddenly recognizing a weight on his chest. 

Your back curves down his side. You’re covered in paint and powder and his own cum, but you rest soundly with your arm across his chest, the rise and fall of your breathing slow and deep. His cock actually aches from overuse. He picks up your hair and twirls it in his fingers, marveling at the way the light catches it. The way it smells like him. 

“Dieter Bravo,” you mutter into his clavicle. He smiles, his right leg hanging off the mattress. He skims his toes along the warm wood. “That’s not even your real name, is it?”

He can feel you grin against his chest and the drowsy, unused thing in his heart stretches. 

“Just as much as Natalie Lorraine is yours.” 

You both laugh quietly, too spent to really do anything else. You lift your head and purple is smeared by your cheek. He wants to lick it into his mouth. He feels like you are peeling him down to his bare essentials and he doesn’t know what you’re going to find. You’ll have to tell him when you do.

You kiss him, gently, as much as your aching body will allow. He hums. If he never comes again and can only kiss you like this, he’ll be satisfied. 

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” you whisper against his lips. There’s only gold light separating you from him. 

“Okay,” he says, thumbing the apple of your cheek. There’s nothing he ever wants to hide from you. “Dieter Bravo is a stage name. My real name is–,”

– he wakes up again, just as your tongue slips a thin, square paper into his mouth. The air is moist and his jacket is too hot but the thumping beat of the music curls into the base of his spine. The building behind you shakes with noise and you’re next in line to enter the club. The crowd of people behind you vibrates with excitement. It smells like piss and vomit. 

“See you on the other side, baby,” you murmur into his throat.

   Music. Music music music. 

It’s in him, it’s grinding up in his teeth, he swears he feels it behind his eyelids. It’s coming out of him, leaking out of his pores and thrumming in his pulse. His heart — it slipped out of its natural rhythm and attached itself to the new beat, this new pulse — and he is everywhere and nowhere. He exists only in this sea of pumping, sweating bodies and never existed anywhere else. 

The only thing centering him, the only thing real, his living heart outside of his body, is you. Your sweat-streaked hair is in his face, the damp back of your neck is inches from his mouth, flooding his senses with the taste of your sweat, your scent. For a moment, he thinks he can see the electric blue synapsis of your brain firing in pace with the music, with the LSD in your body, and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He wants to feel the threads with his fingers. 

He wants to bite through your neck and slurp your synapses up like noodles. 

“Baby,” you murmur below him, barely audible above the thunder of the music, “you’re squeezing too tight.” 

He blinks and the image is gone. He sinks his jaw over your shoulder, loosening his grip on your elbows and sliding his hands over your forearms. He tries to focus on dancing, swaying with you between his thighs.

“Sorry, darling, sorry.” He holds you to him, oozing back into that blackness with you as a warm light. 

Your ass, in that black leather skirt he bought you, moves out of sync with the beat, with the swaying you had both fallen into, and rubs him through his jeans. The light travels to his crotch. 

It’s like someone dripped honey all over his brain. 

“Fuck, baby.” He noses your ear and takes your earlobe into his mouth with the curl of his tongue. You moan and, with his hands over yours, he pushes the heel of your hand over your clit. His grip moves around your waist, to the bare skin between your skirt and your high-cut top. He can’t see in the purple haze of the twitching lights and thick, fluorescent fog but he can feel you. You are dripping with sweat, almost feverish. He thinks about the blue in your brain and his dick jumps. He laves the knot of your neck with his tongue. 

“I want you. I want you right now.” 

You lean back into his damp chest and clutch the back of his head in your hand. You draw his other hand to your thigh. Your breath reminds him of flowers, flowers pressed into a book, pressed until they aerosolized. He can’t find your eyes in the dark, in the haze, and in the pulsating light, your face looks blurred. “Then don’t wait. Fuck me here, baby. Right now.” 

In the beat, the cleft of your ass rubs his cock and he thinks he can see the blue in him. Glowing blue in his gut. He nods, frantically, hand leaving your thigh to undo his belt, then the buttons of his jeans. 

He rucks your skirt up, the leather sticking to your damp skin, and he adjusts his hips. You moan, feeling his cock hard at your back. He’s sure his dick is glowing in the dark. 

“Are you ready? I can’t get you wet like you need it–,”

“Baby, I am wet. Just need you. Need you rough.” 

He thinks he might puke blue but the blunt head of his cock rubs in between your sweaty, warm thighs and the pressure in his stomach collapses. If he doesn’t fuck you right now, he’s going to break apart. 

Your skirt clutched in his hands, he swipes your underwear to the side and slides up into you in one stroke – now you’re both blue, from the tips of your heads down to your toes. He doesn’t even move, it feels so good – he says this outloud. You whine loud in his ears, the music distant and far away. You’re closer than you were before, even if it didn't seem possible at the time. 

He grinds his hips and you throw back your head against his shoulder, gasping, nails digging into the backs of his hands at your hips. He throws his forearm around your waist, before grinding his hips back and forth – never leaving you. He wants to be this close to you forever. He can’t imagine ever pulling out of your sweet, hot cunt. He thinks of his cum leaking down your thighs and he groans low in your ear. He wonders if his cum will glow and everyone will see who you belong to. 

He wants his cum all over you. His hips jerk back an inch before slamming them up again. 

“Tha’s it, baby,” you whine. You thread your fingers through his hair, tugging slightly. “Keep going.”

He does. At some point, he hears the blood in his cock thump to the beat of the music, and he wants you to know.  

“Can you feel that, baby?” He slurs in your ear. He pushes your wet hair over your shoulder and presses his teeth into your skin. “You’re takin’ me. All of me. Wanna paint you blue.” 

His hand slides over your thigh again, his thumb diving in towards your center, then up. He hopes to find your clit but your entire cunt is hotter than a furnace and he’s afraid of rubbing up against metal. His hand ghosts over your clit and you cry out. 

“Fuck me harder, baby. Leave a bruise. I need you.” 

There’s a memory of being surrounded by people, but it’s not here. It’s not now. It’s ages ago. A lifetime ago. The only thing that ever existed was your cunt squeezing his cock. 

“I’m gonna fuck you up,” he hisses. There’s a chemical smell in the air and he thinks it’s from the lights or it might be from inside him. No, there’s only music inside him. Music he wants to share with you. Gift to you. Fall to his knees and lick up inside you.

You both only exist in blackness and there’s nothing to press you up against, but he tries. He adjusts his hips, his grip, and he fucks you deep.

Pretty thing.

Pretty girl.

Pretty cunt. 

Blue. Blue in your hair. Your eyes. Gonna paint you in blue. 

He wants to split your skull and live in your brain. 

Your moans are higher, airless, gasping, begging. The pressure behind his gut is a black-hole and he wants to fall, wants to drift. 

He braves metal burn and presses down on your clit with his middle finger. 

You are gushing blue. 

He fills you up a moment later, hips stuttering, thighs quaking. And that makes you come again. 

It’s never ending. It’s a cycle. It’s infinite. You’re infinite. If you ever leave him, he’ll die. Broken blue. 

“I love you,” he whispers in your ear in a voice so soft he purposefully won’t remember it the next morning. He drags you into his chest, to feel his heart burning for you. Only when he gets like this again, which is soon after, does he remember. When he’s sober, it’s only a feeling. When he’s out of his mind, higher than God, he has to say it. 

“I love you. I fucking love you. So much.”

When he’s this high, he doesn’t remember if you say it back.