#FUCK THE GUN LOBBY

[sweeneytodddemonbarber]

Me ‘eart goes out to the workers and customers at Giant Eagle in North Olmsted; they just lost a cashier named Susan Peterson to gun violence at the hands of her own former husband and both of them were killed…something must be done to stop the madness…

I BLAME THE WHOLE REPUBLICAN PARTY, TRUMP, DEFASCIST, AND DEWINE FOR THIS SHIT!!! THEY VALUE THEIR PRECIOUS FUCKING GUNS OVER PEOPLE’S INNOCENT LIVES; THEY BACK THE GUN LOBBY AND THE NRA, THEY WANT TO BAN ABORTION NATIONWIDE, THEY PASSED OVER 500+ ANTI-LGBTQ LAWS THAT ARE BASED ON LIES AND CONSPIRACIES ALL IN THE NAME OF THEIR SO-CALLED CHRISTIANITY!!! THEY ARE NOTHING LIKE YESHUA WITH THE WAY THEY’VE BEEN DOING THINGS!! COME 2024, WE ARE VOTING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE FUCKING IDIOTS OUT OF OFFICE AND WITH NO JOB!!! THEY FUCKED AROUND AND THEY ARE GONNA FIND OUT!!! 🏳️‍🌈🤬🔥

@iloveyoutoinfinity

[mymarifae]

hsr's a great game it's like "hey here's this guy who's a cyborg cowboy of all things isn't that fun. look at how wild and flamboyant and entertaining he is! an automatic censor was installed into his universal translator when he got his rockin robot bod so he can't swear anymore and this is especially funny in the cn and jp text of the game because his swears are replaced with things like sweetie, baby, and cutie."

"also his entire homeland was wiped out by the intergalactic capitalistic monolith that's been cruelly siphoning valuable resources from countless planets with little to absolutely no regard for the residents. they spared nothing once their boss gave them the go ahead to use military force. not even his baby daughter, who had just barely learned how to walk."

"he never got the chance to erect a grave for her. or the other loved ones he lost."

[vintageseawitch]

something i'm growing more & more curious about: aren't the NRA & Republican polticians who get money from them nervous about a potential trump win? Project 2025 wants to change this country into a dictatorship & one of the classic maneuvers of dictatorships is private citizen gun removal. with all of these politicians getting all this money from the NRA, are they getting compensated in other ways? what will happen to the NRA?

[whentherewerebicycles]

walked for an hour and a half in the woods but it wasn’t enough I needed an extremely involved cooking project to immerse myself in. so I spent four hours watching donna noble episodes of doctor who and making this ottolenghi veggie tart with roasted eggplant, sweet potato, zucchini, bell peppers, tomatoes, ricotta, feta, and thyme. made a few notes for next time (like use a better quality pie crust and swap out the zucchini as it released too much water). but on the whole it was extremely good at distracting me and extremely delicious to eat.

[dresdendollie]

fruity bitches playing mw2 have pink sniper rifles

[valiantlycleverinfluencer]

Yo. Actually though I wish the news cared about any other shooting in the world half as much as this one. Care about Derek Chauvin and all the other shooters who actually killed innocent people with powers that were put in their hands by the state.

[antimony-ore]

I guess I am greatful for burger king because it taught me I can predict most human behavior

[weneverlearn]

Here's a piece I recently wrote for GVPedia's Substack page, Armed With Reason. It was kinda Xmas-focused, but better late than never. It's packed with loads of old toy gun TV commercials I know lots of you zanies will dig. Also, guns suck.

For honest, well-researched information on America's gun epidemic, check Armed With Reason, GVPedia, and Gun Violence Archive.

[bunnyhugs77]

High Demand

ꕤ- Pairing: Dealer! Jungkook x Reader

ꕤ- WC: 2.6k

ꕤ- A modern day Romeo and Juliet

Content: college student! reader, grumpy jk, brief texting! au, jk is lowkey whipped, drug use (marijuana), reader is his special customer, vaping, opposites attract, suggestive themes, minor jealousy, idiots in love (but they won't admit it), shot gunning, grinding, fwb?

Other Content: thigh riding, high sex, jk titty appreciation, unprotected sex (no.), hand job, soft dom kook, reader is a little needy, brief switch! koo, hickeys, pet names, spit, biting.

Shaking your head with a small giggle as you looked at your phone before tossing it aside. You're totally his favourite. You know he's stubborn and he would never admit it but deep down he loves delivering to you the most.

Looking around your sad and dimly lit dorm, all the lights were off and your roommate was gone for the weekend doing god knows what with her weird ass biology major boyfriend who would collect rabbit tails in jars for 'science'.

You were looking at one right now actually, it seems they left one behind, on the coffee table. It was just fermenting in... you actually weren't sure and didn't want to know.

Your eyes felt like they were on fire the longer you looked at the stupid philosophy paper you were writing. The bright light from your laptop was beginning to drill into your head. Your head lolled to the side glancing at the time on your phone.

It was almost 11:30, and time for a break. Abandoning the device on the couch for a quick wake-up shower; by the time you'd gotten changed and returned to the living room, you could expect Jungkook any minute now.

Except, this is Jungkook we're talking about. He's always late.

That's why when you heard the familiar rattling of the rusty fire escape you were startled. It was a little past midnight. Climbing through the window in nothing but your basketball shorts and a white tee.

Pleasantly surprised to see Jungkook scaling the platform with a bag of takeout pinned in between his teeth. The sight of you looking down at him from where he climbed made his eyebrows raise but of course he couldn't say anything.

Not until he was finally close enough for you to grab the bag from his mouth and he stands up. You climb back inside first with him following behind with a pained sigh. "I'm so sick of coming here. Got me climbing walls like its fucking subway surfers." He curses while you place the food down on the table.

Completely ignoring him, practically drooling as you slowly peeled open the bag. "And I thought you said you weren't gonna bring me anything." He snatches the bag.

"I didn't."

You let yourself fall onto the couch, arms crossed and unbelieving. "Oh yeah? So you just coincidentally craved Wendy's and decided to haul it up three flights up a ladder from your mouth when you could've just eaten it in the car?"

"Yeah exactly." He shrugs, obviously lying.

"Give me the bag, Jungkook."

"Fine. But I'm charging you extra for the delivery and the labour of bringing it up here." He hands it to you and you roll your eyes knowing it was nothing more than a bluff.

"It's not my fault you're out of shape," you mumble unwrapping the burger. "Oh yeah? Is this what out of shape looks like to you?" He says it almost offended but challenged.

Choking briefly on your food as he lifts up his shirt, revealing the defined abs that you have such lewd memories of. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You try climbing 3 flights up a ladder and tell me it's easy." You shrug,

"Not my fault you're banned from the campus." He drops himself down beside you, reaching for the bag of fries and taking some for himself. "But it is, if you hadn't called me to drop off a stash for Angelica's dorm party maybe I could still take the stairs."

You drop your half-eaten burger with apologetic eyes, "How was I supposed to know they were doing random security checks in the lobby? At least you didn't get arrested." You pout and he scoffs.

"Bare minimum." He says via grumpy mutter under his breath so you offered up the rest of your food to him as a peace offering. A little sad that he actually took it but you were getting full anyway.

As he finished up the rest of your food you couldn't stop yourself from asking, "So do you still do drops with Angelica?" He nods with his mouth full of the last bite, stuffing the wrappers back in the bag.

"How often does she call you?-- for deliveries I mean." He chuckles, licking his lips, "Jealous?" You take the trash off the coffee table and bring it to the kitchen to toss it in the garbage. "You're delusional."

"I can't help it if I'm in high demand." He manspreads, his arms stretched over the back of the couch. "Just shut up. Do you have my pen?" He reaches for the pocket inside his leather jacket, pulling out the slim box.

Already knowing that you were going to use it now, he began to unbox it while you collected the cash you needed. "40 right?" You say handing him the small spread of bills, "Yeah, but for you, I guess I could make it 30." He shrugs conceitedly.

"Because I'm your favourite." You say and he shakes his head, "No. Because I ate your food." Which he paid for but you didn't dare to say that out loud, you were getting cheap weed.

"So who's your favourite then Jungkook?" He hands you the pen, "Listen. I don't climb up the fire escape when I do deliveries for Angelica, I make her come to me. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Trying to tug the pen out of his grasp but he holds it firm until you respond, "I guess I can work with that." He smiles softly, letting you take the first hit as his arm wraps around your shoulder.

The two of you passed the pen back and forth, with little giggles here and there and wide eyes on the episode of SpongeBob that was playing.

By now the dark living room is illuminated by nothing more than your roommate's lava lamp and a strip of purple LEDs' taped behind the TV. You could see the smoke as it floated past the few sources of light.

"Open." He directs, taking a particularly long hit, leaning into you and blowing the pungent smoke into your mouth, sucking it in from his lips.

The pen is now forgotten as it rolls between the cracks of the couch. Straddling Jungkook's muscular thigh as he flexed it every now and then, taking hits from his blueberry Ice vape and blowing it to the ceiling, giving you a prime view of his sharp jaw under the soft purple lighting.

The sight made you shake, gyrating your hips almost desperately as you chased the feeling of friction on his denim-clad thigh. "You like that? You feel good fucking yourself on my thigh?" The question was rhetorical, you were too dazed to answer him anyway.

Your heavy-lidded gaze slowly rolls up to his pretty face once you feel his hand move from your hips to gently wrap around your neck, not applying any pressure, just there to let you feel the weight of his hand. "Answer me," He says, and you fall forward "Yess, feels so good." You moan, and Jungkook has danced this dance with you enough to see you were close.

But of course, he couldn't let you cum so soon, not yet. His hands flew to your hips and pinned you down on his thigh, restricting your range of motion. "Please," You beg and he wishes he had a little more willpower but he couldn't say no to you, not when you looked so fucked out when he's barely touched you.

"Fuck. Take your shirt off." Leaning back and crossing your arms over the base of the shirt, you pried it off your body desperately. Leaving you in your black lacy bra and it pulled out a guttural groan from Jungkook's chest.

"You little whore." he grits through his clenched teeth, grip tightening on the arm of the couch nearly ripping the fabric.

This position was no longer giving him what he so desperately craved. Shrugging the jacket from off his shoulders and taking off the tank top underneath letting your eyes roam over his built upper body, oh how you wanted to just...

Without thinking your tongue striped up the expanse of his bulky pecs. This was new, but Jungkook was so high out of his mind anything and everything you did felt like he was on cloud 9.

Your mouth dropped down to wrap around his rosy nipples and you could've never anticipated the worked-up reaction you got from him. "Oh shit, shit shit." He gasps, hands gripping your waist tight enough that you're sure there will be bruises by the morning.

Letting your tongue lap around his nipples with pure hunger, an inexplicable flame burning in your core as you were finally the one who got to watch the other be reduced to a moaning mess.

His once soft moans turned a little breathy and high-pitched, His hips bucked causing you to jolt in his lap, he was getting close.

"Didn't think you'd like having your tits played with so much?" You tease him but he didn't find the humour in it. He holds you by the throat once more, this time applying a generous amount of pressure, pushing you off him.

Unbuckling his belt and you knew what that meant. He slides out of his pants, followed by the boxers that were the last barrier between your moistened lips and his throbbing cock. "Let's put that smart mouth of yours to good use, yeah?" He hums, watching as you sink to your knees, hand carefully wrapped around his base, starting with slow pumps.

"Spit on it." Doing as told, you let a wad of spit fall from your pretty, plush lips and coat the shaft of his dick, you worked your palm up his length. Already satisfied with the way his head was thrown back.

"Just like that," Reaching for the vape, he takes a few good hits, the head rush mixed with the pleasure had him seeing stars-- the object falling from his hands immediately the moment he felt the warm heat of your mouth wrap around his sensitive tip.

"Y/n-" He breathes out, almost scared, he was so close, too soon. He's never struggled to hold himself back this badly before. What were you doing to him?

The obscene sounds of you choking as you struggled to take all of him in your mouth, letting your nose touch the soft, trimmed hairs near his base. Focusing on breathing through your nose before you felt a heavy hand on the back of your head, pushing you lower.

You were quite literally slobbering on his dick, gagging with every buck of his hips. "That's it, princess. You're doing so well--Shit. Mouth feels like fucking heaven." His praise rushes to your core and has your left hand trailing down to rub yourself through your lace underwear.

The rough friction being more than enough to get you there, "I'm gonna cum, baby. Where-- Shit!-- Where do you want it?" He gasps, his hips snapping, pushing his length down your throat almost erratically. You don't answer, only hollowing your cheeks to take him deeper, making your desires clear.

Your own fingers quickening their pace, your own sounds travelling through his dick in vibrations and pushing him right over the edge with you, filling your mouth with his warm cum.

Swallowing as if it were second nature. "Stick out your tongue," He says softly. His chest rises and falls rapidly as he tries to regain his composure from his overwhelming climax. Your tongue was out and cleared of any of his cum and it made him crazy.

He remembers the first time he'd brought an order to you over 6 months ago. He thought you were nothing more than a cute little philosophy major, never did he think he'd have you beneath him like he does right now.

Looking up at him, daring to give you an almost angelic gaze while the two of you ruined each other. Tainting each other with your own touches. "Kiss me?" You ask it so cutely, tempting him with the pout on your lips. You weren't being fair.

His body didn't give him a choice before his lips were on yours, his hips grinding into yours. The feeling of his solid dick rolling against your skin making the butterflies go ramped in your stomach.

The way you licked over his bottom lip with your own made Jungkook weak, stumbling on his elbows as he held himself up over you. Soft groans could be heard the deeper the kiss became.

Messy and intimate. Your hand crept up the back of his neck to tug at the dark locks of hair on his head. There was a loud pop and the two of you paused.

With Jungkook between your legs and with you under him, your heads turned slowly towards the coffee table where the jar was, dedicated to the fermenting rabbit tail. "What the fuck is that?" Jungkook slowly sits up, "My roommate's boyfriend's weird biology shit. I dunno, it freaks me out too." You sit up, now remembering what the two of you were in the middle of doing.

"That shit's not gonna blow up or anything right." You gently peck him on the lips but his brain seems preoccupied by the jar, "who knows," you say, kissing right under his ear and that seemed to get him to zone in on you.

Catching his bottom lip under his teeth as your kisses became more eager, suckling on a certain spot on his neck, his head falling back against his will. "Fuck, Y/n-- Don't you dare." You pull off his soft skin with a soft pop, admiring the burgundy bruise left behind.

"Oops." Your apology was ingenuine and bratty, and Jungkook hated brats.

Tearing you out of your final pieces of clothing before manhandling you into his lap. "Sit on it." He demands and you follow without question. Moaning out loud as his dick spread your lips apart like butter.

Sliding down with ease and a stretch of your velvety walls that were currently squeezing Jungkook for everything he's got and he's got nothing left, everything was yours.

"I-Shit! You feel so good, Kook!" He couldn't bother to correct you on the annoying nickname you were incessant on using. "Yeah? You like that- fuck, you feel so good." He curses, bucking his hips up into you as you raise your hips trying to match his thrusts.

He was fucking you so good, so ruthlessly, your head falls onto his shoulder and you needed more than just the couch to hold on to, your teeth sank into the muscular meat of his shoulder and his pace faltered.

"Shit shit shit! Do that again." He groans, picking up an inhumane pace that had you bouncing all over the place until he stilled you in his arms. His grunts and breathy moans came out right beside your ear only pushing you to your orgasm faster.

"J-jungkook-!" You pant, unable to speak, feeling like your insides are being rearranged, "Me too, baby. Cum with me." You finish first, and with a few more unsynchronized snaps of his hips, you were being filled to the brim with his cum.

The room is filled with nothing but the sound of muffled music playing from your neighbour's next door and laboured breaths. Jungkook gently lays you down on the couch beside him, staring into your eyes.

This felt so intimate. You felt his gaze deeper than just behind your eyes, it was as if he was looking into your soul. His eyes were tinted red as he looked at you with an adoring gaze. "You're cute." He says it casually as though he hadn't just fucked you.

Your eyes roll before they close, feeling the sleepiness begin to kick in. "Bet you say that to all your customers." Mumbling the words into his chest while he began to grin a little.

"Nope. Only to my favourite." Your eyes shoot open.

"I knew it."

[retrievablememories]

cherry bomb | jungkook (m)

pairing: jungkook x fem reader

summary: “get fucked or die” becomes the motto to live by when a serial killer begins targeting virgins on your campus.

genre: smut, horror/slasher, college!au

word count: 7.1k

warnings: multiple minor character deaths, blood, gore, violence (including gun and knife use), mentions of alcohol consumption. virgin-shaming and slut-shaming, oral (fem receiving), riding, virgin!reader, first-time sex, protected sex, hair-pulling, biting, fingering, dirty talk, virgin kink/corruption kink, fuckboy JK. is JK a sub or a masochist here? answer: i don’t fucking know!

a/n: inspired by the movie cherry falls (2000). heed the warnings. remember that this is fiction, not meant to be entirely realistic, and characters' views/actions don't represent my own. if this kind of content is not up your alley just block me or make use of the wonderful filtering option in your account settings

sources for the fic dividers: one | two

link to part 2

CHERRY BOMB

don't wanna die? come out and hook up with a sexy girl or guy.

virgins get in free!

THIS FRIDAY

NOV 3, 20XX

[address here]

"very corny." you shake your head, looking at the party flyer in your hands. you'd just torn it down from the bulletin board in your dorm lobby; unauthorized advertisements aren’t allowed, and your job as RA involves these menial-ass tasks. "this is literally life or death...why are they turning it into a joke?"

"it is a joke," your friend camille says, snatching the flyer out of your hands to look it over. "think about it. 10 students get killed since we came back in august, and the semester isn't even over yet. the school administration and local police haven't done nearly enough to address it or stop any more deaths. and the common denominator is that all these people were suspected or confirmed virgins?” you haven’t seen the evidence yourself, but the daughter of one of the local policemen claimed every victim also had virgin carved into some part of their dead body. “yeah, i'd say it's a joke to pretty much everyone at this point. this is what happens when you let the students come up with a solution."

camille hands the flyer back to you, and you hold it limply. "but...it's not like you can look at someone and tell if they're a virgin. the killer must've known them all personally. it just doesn't make sense."

"some of those people had no mutual friends. nothing connecting them whatsoever. not even shared extracurriculars. it's gotta be a perverted stalker with a fetish, maybe. a scorned hacker who somehow got into their private conversations 'n' shit? or maybe he consulted the cards to know who’d fucked before and who hadn’t.”

“oh please.” you scoff. “now you’re being completely ridiculous. tarot cards aren’t gonna tell you if someone’s a virgin or not.”

“then you come up with a better explanation. either way, these folks—" camille points to the flyer "—aren't taking their chances."

"hm..." you keep staring at the flyer, looking at the shiny-red cherries, condoms, sex toys, and other sex-related objects decorating the paper. whoever designed this really wasn't playing.

"so, are you gonna go?" camille asks with a sidelong glance. "free admittance, after all."

your neck burns under the collar of your shirt. "are you?" neither of you have had sex yet, for differing reasons. camille's reason was almost complete indifference to the whole act.

she gives you a look that says i could give a shit. "...you know the answer to that one, dear. so you're not even thinking about it? as much as you have cried to me and lorelai about not being able to find a man you like enough to give it up for, our killer here probably already knows. you practically have a ‘come kill me’ bullseye on your back.”

"i don't know," you say, because you genuinely are thinking about it. “and stop trying to fucking scare me.” despite your logical brain trying to reason with you, you still feel a sense of underlying terror about being the next victim. "the virgin killer," as they'd nicknamed the freak, clearly prefers a specific type of victim, and all kills have been random and unpredictable other than that—and the fact that every victim attended your university. he also seems partial to using a knife on his victims, but even that isn’t guaranteed—3 of the 10 had been killed in ways other than stabbing. "i don’t know why you’re so nonchalant about this, though."

camille shrugs. "if he comes for me, i'll just spray him with my illegal mace and kick his nuts into his throat. then tie him up and wait for my dad to come blow his head off. there are some advantages to having a gun nut for a dad."

you chuckle at the absurdity of it. "you've got it all planned out, then."

--

FRIDAY, NOV 3

taking a rideshare to the party was a smart idea on lorelai's part, because the two little shots you took to pre-game already have you feeling woozy. or maybe it's just your nerves.

the cherry bomb is located at a mansion that isn’t really a mansion, but a large once-abandoned house one of the fraternities fixed up years ago for throwing off-campus parties.

the party is stacked wall to wall with people when you enter, though from what you can see, no one has actually started fucking yet—maybe they're saving that for the supposed orgy later in the night. you just hope you can get someone in one of the backrooms before that happens, because you're not really keen on having everyone in your class knowing what your tits look like.

you have one simple mission here tonight—lose your long-held virginity and get off the virgin killer's radar. once that's done, you'll make your exit.

"actually, i'm surprised anyone else showed up. other than you, who wants to willingly admit that they're still a virgin in college?" lorelai shudders. you roll your eyes and try not to feel offended, sucking your teeth.

"you were more than welcome to stay back at the dorm."

"no! i'm here for moral support, plus i don't want to be alone tonight. i don't care who this killer targets, it's getting too crazy out here to just be letting your guard down anymore."

well, you won't argue that.

you and lorelai dance to the song booming over the multiple speakers, scanning the room for potential hookups all the while. you become more alert when you recognize a familiar length of black hair coming through the front door, plus the tattoos and piercings to match.

you're not surprised jungkook came. he has his pick of untouched and easily corruptible virgins here, which has always been his thing; you've heard him brag about it to his seatmates more than once in your shared elective. not to mention the stories you've heard from the women who actually fucked him. as far as you could figure, it was the usual male ego posturing bullshit about being able to say he was someone’s first—and likely best. for that reason, alarm rises when he makes eye contact and starts making a beeline for where you and lorelai are.

"oh, here comes the campus bicycle," lorelai says, voice deadpan.

you continue watching him from the corner of your eye, trying to see if he's just approaching someone in your general vicinity, but no. once he shoves his way through the crowd of dancers, some unashamedly groping at his body as he does, he stops right in front of you two.

"so, are you here for the same reason i am?" he asks you, grinning like the devil himself. "or are you looking to get that sweet little cherry popped?"

the backs of your knees sweat. "um—latter, i guess." you hadn't meant to answer that honestly, but to say you are caught off-guard is understating it. you can count on one hand the number of times you and jungkook have talked to each other in class, and never about anything of this nature.

"you're not gonna ask me?" lorelai says.

jungkook gives a hearty laugh; you didn't think it was that funny. "everyone knows you're not a virgin, why waste my time?"

"wow, okay. fuck you. you're no saint yourself." she huffs.

"anyway…" jungkook returns his attention to you. "have you really never done anything before? not even sucked a dick? there's no way someone hasn't tried to hit that. not even some 'backdoor action only' like those weird religious girls?"

"is that any of your business? i didn't know we had to give a rundown of our lack of sexual experience before getting laid around here." you snap.

jungkook's eyelids lower a fraction. "i'm tryna decide how easy i should go on you, babe. i mean, if you wanna take this in one of the rooms. otherwise, i'll let someone else have a go if you're not interested."

unfortunately, you are interested, despite his overly blunt manner and objectifying language. even though you know you’ll just become another entry on his long list of flings—someone he’ll tell his boys about later—maybe the fear of death is making you impulsive.

but maybe his looks are playing a part in it, too.

he's imposing with his physique and his all-black attire, his shirt so tight that you can clearly see his pectoral muscles and his nipples, his unbuttoned leather jacket doing nothing to hide those details. you can easily imagine yourself running your hands across those pecs, squeezing them, rubbing your fingers against his nipples and making him moan underneath you, feeling and seeing his abs contract through this stupid-ass shirt that must've been painted on. this brief fantasy immediately dampens your panties.

"…i'm interested," you affirm, dragging your gaze back up to his eyes, and he smirks from knowing you were obviously checking him out.

knowing the direction this is going in, lorelai taps you on the back and whispers in your ear. “have fun but don’t do anything stupid, yeah? i’m not playing auntie to any offspring you and this dude pop out, sis. use protection.” then she makes her exit to go find herself a partner for the night.

“so, come on.” jungkook nods his head in the direction of the stairs, and you follow him through the crowd as he leads you up the winding staircase. you squeeze past two girls kissing on the staircase railing, their motions a bit unsure as if they’ve never done it before but clearly still enjoying themselves.

jungkook pushes a few doors in until he finds an empty room, and you try not to ogle at the random couples you see along the way. not even an hour in and the two shots must be wearing off, because your body is beginning to buzz with nervousness again.

jungkook closes the door behind him when you both step into the room, which is lit by one lamp on a nightstand and the open window beside the bed. he reaches for you, and you shiver when his hand grasps the side of your face, the other snaking around your waist.

“scared?” he asks, his voice low. you shake your head, and he grins. “relax.” he leans in as if to kiss you and you part your lips, but he doesn’t do that just yet. he traces your top lip and then your bottom lip with his tongue, dipping it into your mouth as he switches. the teasing nature of his actions makes your body heat up as you watch a string of saliva spread and then break between the both of you.

he presses back in for a real kiss this time, his nose bumping yours. despite all your fears about tonight, you’re able to unwind somewhat and just focus on the full sensory experience that is this kiss—the warmth of his hands and his mouth, the sappy sound your lips make when they separate and come back together, the scent of his cologne, the taste of his spearmint-flavored tongue.

you find yourselves inching toward the bed, him walking you backwards while keeping you steady. just as the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed, there's the sound of a woman's bloodcurdling scream from behind you, and you nearly shove jungkook to the ground in your haste to run to the door. your fingers are scrabbling at the doorknob when you hear a burst of laughter. a guy you don't recognize crawls out from under the bed holding his phone up, displaying a youtube video of the shower scene in the movie psycho, which is where the noise is coming from.

"that was funny as fuck." the guy laughs obnoxiously loud, holding his stomach. “don’t get too carefree or you just might die, girlie.”

jungkook grabs the guy by his jacket collar like he's a kid and throws him out the door; the guy doesn't object because he knows this is preferable to getting his ass beaten by the bigger man. "fuck outta here, you jackass." jungkook snaps.

jungkook stomps over to the closet to yank it open. "any more idiots in here wanna show themselves?" he checks a couple more areas before deciding the room is clear and closing the door again, locking it for good measure.

“okay.” he sighs, stripping off his jacket and shoes. he takes your hand and pulls you toward him as he sits on the bed. “relax, baby. forget about that fucking clown. come ‘ere. why don’t you sit on my lap?”

with a heavy exhale, you try to steady your still-shaking hands as you shuck your boots off and pull your dress up slightly to comfortably sit in his lap, your legs loosely wrapped around his waist.

he squeezes your waist. “so, where were we? i don’t really remember…”

you huff out a half-amused laugh. “really? i’m pretty sure it was this…” you lean forward with your hands on his shoulders and press your lips back onto his. jungkook follows in kind, his hands running up from your thighs to your waist and back again. the rhythm of his hands is hypnotic, distracting you as you try to keep most of your focus on the kiss, and you fear you may be getting overstimulated before anything has truly began.

as you continue kissing, jungkook’s hands creep your dress further up your thighs until your panties are revealed. still feeling up your legs, his hands press further toward your inner thighs, and you gasp into the kiss when his thumb pushes against the seat of your underwear. they have been damp for a while now and you know he knows this, so you aren’t surprised when he breaks the kiss to smirk, though it makes you roll your eyes.

jungkook whispers against your lips, “let’s try something. will you sit on my face?” you stare at him without a word, not expecting this to be the first thing he proposes. at your response, or lack of, he adds, “i want to make you feel good. do you want me to taste you?” his voice is so soft, so unassuming and cloying, that it makes you feel like a lamb clutched gently in the mouth of a wolf.

your brain is already surrendering to it. “yes.”

you get another kiss and a smile. jungkook moves you out of his lap, shuffles further up the bed, and lies down so that he’s flat on his back, his head surrounded by the pillows. he gestures for you to follow.

taking your time, you slide your panties off and crawl up the bed until you’re near his face and he’s lying below you looking like he’s struck gold. he grabs your hips to bring you closer until you’re right over his mouth. you’re embarrassed to have someone looking at you from this angle for the first time, and you’re about to get too into your head about it when he french kisses your inner thigh, blanking out your mind.

the only thing you know from then on is that his mouth is burning hot. his tongue is everywhere. he licks at you delicately to test the waters, and then more firmly when your thighs tremble around his head, in an effort to elicit the same response.

the way he fits his mouth over your entire pussy and sucks it with just the right amount of pressure so that it won’t hurt makes you feel faint. the way he slides the flat of his tongue over your clit only to suck it gently at the end of the stroke makes you cry out louder than you intended. you’re glad he moved further up the bed for this, because you’re holding onto the headboard for dear life.

the only things you’re aware of are your own out-of-control moans and the wet sounds of jungkook’s mouth working you over. all of it has you so overwrought that you’re already reaching your peak, your grip on the headboard weakening.

jungkook seems to know this without you telling him anything. he pauses and looks up at you with a fucked-out smirk and a wet mouth. you don’t know whether to thank him or curse him for giving you a break. “before you come, fuck my face.”

“wh-what?”

“rub that wet fucking cunt on my face.” heat flares through your body at his frank words. “grab my hair and just ride my face.” he reaches up to take your hands off the headboard and places them in his hair. “you can do it, baby. fucking use me.”

it takes you a minute to get over the fresh wave of embarrassment and find a pace that works, because the connection between your brain and body feels like it’s frying and your coordination is off. jungkook helps guide your hips, especially with how you’re trembling from pleasure and close to falling apart. soon enough, you’re letting go of yourself and moving your hips enthusiastically, if a little clumsily, and chasing your climax. you savor the feel of your clit sliding across his wet tongue and his soft hair in between your fingers, and you push his head as close as it can get.

you come while screaming, dizzyingly immersed in the pleasure. you forget that you’re holding his hair as you yank roughly on it. the only thing that matters to you is that jungkook’s mouth is still sucking your clit through the best physical sensation you’ve ever experienced.

when he finally lets go and gives you reprieve, you collapse beside him on the pillows.

“i’m sorry,” you mumble, disoriented. “about your hair, i mean?”

jungkook laughs. it’s funny how shiny-wet his face is—and that you caused it, which is kind of hard to believe in the aftermath of it. “the pain is what gets my dick hard. don’t worry.”

you chuckle breathlessly at that, and for a few seconds you both have that funny little moment to yourselves in all the ridiculousness of the overarching situation.

then jungkook’s hand is reaching for you again. “i’m not done with that pussy yet, though.” he brushes a finger over your hole, and your body twitches from the sensitivity. he slides that finger through the wetness and then uses the lubrication to push only the tip of his finger in. he dips it in and out, teasing the nerves at your entrance, until you’re shifting your hips closer to him to implore him for more. he grants your request by sliding his finger all the way inside.

having a finger inside you feels okay at first, though not as good as his actions a few seconds ago. jungkook decides to amplify your pleasure by placing his lips on your neck, leaving gentle and wet kisses behind, and you become all too aware of the feeling of your hardened nipples against the material of your dress. the pleasure begins to heighten when his finger finds a place inside of you that makes you throb, your walls clenching around him.

“ah…” you gasp and shift eagerly against his body as he keeps stimulating that spot, not thrusting his finger into you but simply stroking it across that area in a come here motion.

jungkook pulls away from your neck to smile at his handiwork. “that’s better, right?” he whispers, watching your reactions. your lips form around the word yes, though it’s difficult to try to speak, and you worry how unsteady your voice might sound. he waits until you’re clutching at his arm, leaving red lines on his skin from your fingernails, to carefully push another finger in beside the first. you try to breathe evenly, though his refusal to let up on that spot has your lungs stuttering for air all over again. his nose nudges your ear as he leans even closer and whispers, “there are so many different spots to find, so many different ways to make you come; i wanna go looking for them all.”

jungkook angles his hand so that his palm is also stimulating your clit, his fingers thrusting slowly now. you turn your head away from him as your body becomes ablaze, unsure what to do with yourself as your climax nears quickly.

“would you let me do that? learn your body like no one else has done?” he kisses the shell of your ear, and even that small action is enough to tip you closer to the edge with how your body is already so fired up. “who else could make you feel as good?”

this orgasm makes your eyes fill with involuntary tears, and little clear droplets bleed down the sides of your face and towards your ears as your body convulses. jungkook kisses the wet trails they make on your face, still fingering you steadily and forcing another urgent cry out of you. you feel untethered from yourself, like you’re not in control of your reactions, and you don’t know whether to be afraid of that or not.

jungkook pulls his fingers out when you have mostly calmed down, watching strands of your wetness drip between them before sliding them into his mouth.

after you come the second time, you begin to tire. the deeds have been done, and if you want, you can confidently go back out to the party now and say you’re no longer a virgin; you’re off the unofficial kill list and can live the rest of your days without having to look over your shoulder with every breath.

…but jungkook is hard against your hip, and in all honesty, you don’t want to leave without knowing what his dick looks and feels like.

“you tired?” he asks, and the casual air of it makes your stomach flip, for some reason. he says it as if this is something you two do all the time and he’s used to asking you this after wearing you out during a good session.

but now’s not the time to get delusional.

“no. i want more.”

jungkook smiles broadly, teasing his lip ring with his teeth. he sits up to peel that skin-tight shirt off, and you don’t bother to stop yourself from staring at all that skin in front of you. your eyes drop further down when he removes his belt and undoes his jeans, pushing his pants and underwear down enough for you to see his v-line but not taking them off. is that an invitation for you to do it? "you hold the reins here," he says, lying back on the bed again. "do whatever you want to me."

“whatever i want?” you repeat, already sitting up. he nods, hands behind his head, and you take the initiative to straddle him again, knowing you’re getting his jeans wet.

you reach for his pecs first, just like you’d imagined downstairs. the firm muscle of them is mesmerizing; but when you slowly circle your thumb against his nipple and his eyes flutter, a small and breathy moan escaping his lips, you’re sure you enjoy this much more.

you play with his nipples and even work up the boldness to purse your lips around one, sucking it softly, and every noise that arises from him makes your clit tingle.

you eventually move your hands to his abs, enjoying how they flex at your touch. you didn't think his navel would be pierced, not hearing that detail in any of the sex tales you've eavesdropped on about jungkook, and you wonder what else you might find out about him tonight.

“you should do your nipples to match.” you suggest it without much thought as you’re teasing his navel piercing, though you don’t regret saying it.

“would you be into that?” jungkook sounds like he’s actually considering it, watching you from below his lashes.

you grin. you don’t know if you’ll actually end up having sex with him again to see them, but you answer, “i’d love it…it’d be sexy on you.”

sliding your hands further down still, you come to the waistband of his underwear, which is peeking over the top of his lowered jeans. for a second the nervousness returns; jungkook notices how your hands twitch with hesitation. “it’s fine, i’m not gonna bite you…unless you ask me to, though. here.”

he slips a hand into his underwear and grips his dick, though he doesn’t take it out right away; he strokes the shaft a few times, observing your reaction with expectant and hazy eyes. the scene before you makes your mouth dry. jungkook quickens his pace, twisting his hand at the tip and using his own precum as lube, until you are overcome with the desire to see it and you pull his underwear out of the way.

his cock is thick and flushed and glossy with precum. you don’t have much to compare it to, but it’s a good size, and all the previous women have said that he clearly knows what to do with it. he releases it and it slaps against his abs, leaving a streak of precum behind. when you look at him in anticipation of what he’ll do next, he grasps it again and starts stroking himself quickly, like he’s trying to get off. the wet slap of his motions and his quiet groans make your walls clench.

“i could keep fucking myself and you could watch, since you seem to prefer it…” he murmurs.

“no, i—let’s go all the way.”

jungkook smirks and answers your decision by pulling a condom out of his jean pocket. you watch as he unwraps it and slips it down his cock. though you’re already straddling him, he grasps your wrist and encourages you to draw nearer to him. “come here, pretty thing.”

when you’re hovering directly over him, jungkook grips the base and teases his tip against your entrance. “ready?” he asks.

“yeah,” you say breathlessly.

it’s a little slow-going, but you eventually end up with him seated inside you. it’s uncomfortable to be taking something bigger than a couple fingers, but it isn’t terribly painful.

“now, try moving your hips like this…” with his hands on your hips, jungkook helps you grind against him so that your clit slides across his pubic bone with every move. the discomfort begins to ebb out of your mind after a little while of doing this, and you laugh quietly.

“i thought…i thought this doesn’t feel good for men,” you sigh, your eyes closing from the bliss of his firm abdomen stimulating your clit. “this grinding thing, you know. or so a friend told me…”

jungkook laughs too, but he doesn’t confirm it like you expect him to. his only answer is, “a sexy woman on my dick will always feel good.”

he seems to be more about showing than telling, anyway. his hands reach for your breasts, groping them over the fabric of your dress before sliding underneath for better access. sporadic moans escape you as he plays with your nipples, making your clit throb harder and sending more warmth pooling in your abdomen.

your breath wheezes out of you when jungkook starts pushing up into you, his hands still squeezing your breasts. “you’re okay, baby…” he tries a few different angles until he pulls a visceral reaction out of you, your walls fluttering around him and your body shivering intensely. “mmm, there it is.”

your motions start tapering off as jungkook continues thrusting up against that same spot that had you in tears earlier. noticing this, he slips one hand back down to your hip and encourages you to maintain your pace, keeping your clit stimulated while meeting his thrusts. “you’re doing good…” he murmurs. “go ahead, keep fucking me just like that.”

you’re glad lorelai makes you go to the campus gym with her every week, because otherwise you’d be about to collapse riding him for this long. it takes more of your strength and stamina than you’d expected. no wonder jungkook stays in the gym.

“oh, fuck…” the way all his muscles flex as he repeatedly pushes up into you makes you wetter; you no longer have the wherewithal to be embarrassed about the gushy noises your pussy is creating. your whole world has whittled down to this one room, and all you can think about is your next orgasm.

“pull my hair again,” he requests, his eyes dark and lost in lust when he looks up at you.

"jungkook..." you grip his sweaty hair in your hand and pull it to bare his throat, and he gives a desperate moan, his member jerking inside you. you've never felt so in control of a situation before in your life. it gives you a straight adrenaline-slash-dopamine rush.

his neck is just there and exposed, flushed from exertion, and his physical responses make you feel so primal, like you could do absolutely anything to him right now and he’d enjoy it. because of this, you decide to bite his neck, if only to give your mouth something to do. his dick twitches again when you do, another pretty moan leaving his mouth.

his voice is strained when he says, “bite me harder.” when you let go, your mouth travels the expanse of his neck to leave marks in a few other places, digging in harder just as he asked of you.

“fuck, y/n—” the pain of your teeth is pushing him close to the edge too soon, so he slips his other hand out from under your dress and brings it lower to circle his fingers over your clit. jungkook adding his experienced fingers to his constant stimulation of your g-spot is enough to cause your release. your body slumps onto his as you squeeze around him, your head falling into the juncture of his neck and shoulder and your eyes shutting so tightly that you see wobbling shapes in the darkness.

jungkook gives you a few more thrusts rougher than the rest, causing you to cry out. your climax and the aftershocks have your mind so dizzy that you only just realize that he’s reaching his own peak, his muscles tensing and relaxing as he fills the condom with his cum. you hear him groan next to your ear, the sound of it filthy and uninhibited.

jungkook lifts your head from his shoulder, his thumbs on your cheeks, and his lips meet yours in a final slow kiss, his teeth leaving their mark on your bottom lip as a parting reminder.

you're still trying to get your bearings and slide him out of you when jungkook suddenly says, "what is that noise?"

"huh?" you remain immobile for a moment so you can listen more clearly, and you recognize the sounds of screaming and feet pounding on the floors in a bid to run away—both upstairs and downstairs. these don't sound like the same screams of pleasure from earlier. "what the hell?"

you and jungkook scramble to collect your clothes and get dressed, thankful that neither of you stripped down completely, and he throws the used condom into a random corner of the room. you're still making last minute adjustments when jungkook stands up and unlocks the door.

"the fuck is—?" his voice cuts off as if he can't finish his thought.

"what? what is it?" you stand up to get a better view around his body in the doorway, and you scream when you see a lone blonde girl lying a few feet away from the door, slumped against the opposite wall with a slashed throat. her pink party dress bleeds red, and her face that catches the illumination of the string lights glints with tear tracks. you look away from her unseeing eyes before you can cry out again.

jungkook seems confused, peering down the other end of the hallway like there'll be someone there to explain. "it...didn't work?" he asks to no one in particular, as you have no answer. you walk farther back into the room as if putting more distance between you and the body will provide some protection. bumping against the window sill, you turn around to look out the window and see several cars peeling out of the makeshift grass parking lot, nearly running over other people or hitting other cars on the way. you release a stifled scream from behind your hands when someone is too disoriented to get out of the way of the speeding cars and is sent flying through the air before landing painfully, their body now unmoving. the offending car never stops to check on them.

the screaming downstairs worsens, countless voices rising to a fever pitch of shouting and wailing, and you imagine this must be what the pits of hell sound like. jungkook whips around to look at you. “we gotta get the fuck out of here.”

you two inch out of the room with him in the lead, peering into jarred-open doorways to see if anybody could be waiting in the shadows. there are a couple of other bodies in two other rooms, and you wonder—even with the loud music constantly reverberating through the house, did you really not hear the struggles that led to these deaths in your throes of passion? the thought unnerves you. the idea that maybe you were only saved by jungkook deciding to lock the door…

the stair railing you’d walked by an hour ago is now broken in the middle, splinters of wood lying scattered on the stairs, along with more bodies lying on the steps just as haphazardly. the scene looks like the remnants of a stampede; you hope most of these people are just unconscious and not dead.

the dancefloor is a swarm of people in various states of undress pushing and pulling each other as they rush for the exit. there’s not as many people heading for the back door, everyone attempting to squeeze through the main entrance in their unthinking panic, so jungkook grabs your arm and the two of you pick your way through the bodies to get down the stairs as best you can. when you enter the mass of people, you’re exceptionally glad for his strength because it’s easier to get through the opposing crowd.

to reach the back door, you must first get through the kitchen. beside the kitchen entrance in a dark corner, you see someone doubled over and grasping the person in front of them for stability.

you realize belatedly that they have a knife in their stomach; the other person standing over them is the virgin killer himself, calmly watching them suffer.

the killer’s face is hidden by the mask he always wears, which you are seeing for the first time now, up-close—a hairy werewolf head with lemon-yellow eyes and a candy-red tongue. it’s so unexpected that you would’ve found it comedic if not for the context.

a guy in a blue sweater grasps the killer from behind in an attempted surprise attack, causing him to jerk the knife out of the other person’s stomach. the sudden movement causes a spray of blood to come flying off the knife, and you have to hold back vomit when drops of the warm, stinking crimson hit your face. though it feels like time has slowed to a mere creep, all of this happens within seconds.

you don’t see much more before jungkook is forcing you to move again.

you, jungkook, and multiple others barrel out of the back patio door, nearly ripping the flimsy screen door off its hinges in your haste, while the classmate in the blue sweater fruitlessly struggles with the killer in the kitchen. your leg muscles flex harder when you hear the person's agonized shout and the mushy rip of flesh being torn seconds later. almost everyone else has taken the same idea to run for their lives rather than stay and try to fight or disarm the killer; the streets are dotted in every direction with students running for any possible safety, many not having arrived to the party in cars to escape in.

thankfully, jungkook is not one of them.

he grasps your wrist painfully hard in his panic and yanks you in the direction of his car, which is so pitch black that you almost didn't see it sitting in the shadows.

when you get inside, you've never been so grateful to be within the safe metal enclosure of a car in your whole life. hands shaking, jungkook jams the key into the ignition and presses the gas pedal so hard your head jerks against the headrest. however, in your temporary relief, you think of lorelai. your vision doubles as you scramble to open your phone and call her, your head spinning with a new spike of fear. it rings for a while with no answer, and you try two more times only to get the same result.

"maybe she got to safety somewhere else?” jungkook tries to reason with you, his eyes bouncing between your face and the road ahead so he doesn't hit any other cars or any random students still running across the streets. "i didn't see her anywhere in the house before we ran out."

"that just means she could be hiding somewhere in there!" you shriek, unable to control your terror at your friend possibly being trapped in the house with the killer.

"well—maybe just let her stick it out, he won't find her if she just—"

"oh god, but i called her like three fucking times; what if he heard the phone ringing? i'm gonna kill myself."

“y/n, you’re overreacting like shit, there’s no way he’d hear a phone ringing in all that noise—"

unlistening, you drop your phone and bang your fists on your head in frustration and anguish.

sighing deeply, jungkook forgoes any attempt to do a 3-point turn, which requires more coordination than he has at the moment, and drives straight up into someone's yard to make a U-turn back toward the house.

you hadn’t gotten too far from the party house, so in another minute or two and with a couple messy turns that cause the wheels to ride up onto the curb, you’re back on the street leading up to the house. before you can reach it, though, jungkook slams on the breaks, and you have to throw your hands out onto the dashboard to avoid flying into it due to not fastening your seatbelt. you’re not very successful; the move hurts your wrists, and you’re pretty sure some of your ribs just got bruised anyway.

“what the fuck?” jungkook shouts.

the virgin killer with his lycanthrope mask is standing in the middle of the street; he turns to face the car. he has a chokehold grip on a guy you recognize as a popular frat member, who is almost bare except for his blue-plaid boxers. you remember seeing the frat guy dancing with his girlfriend when you and lorelai initially entered the party; he was in the group of guys who put this whole party together as a way to “save” the campus’s virgins.

the virgin killer is holding a gun to the guy’s head, and you have no clue where he might’ve gotten it from. the guy’s demeanor is weak, and he’s barely able to stand, which is obviously from the profuse blood loss he’s suffering; the killer has carved sharp letters into his stomach to form two words—“FAIR GAME.”

“fair game?” you mumble, a sickly realization forming in your mind.

“fuck no—" jungkook is already throwing the car into reverse when you hear and see the first bullet go off, exploding the frat member’s head into an unrecognizable mess and making you scream at the top of your lungs. you hear more shots after you close your eyes and tuck your body down, along with the sounds of bullets splitting metal and hitting glass, and you think you might be actively dying—or maybe you’re already dead. even that would be preferable to experiencing this nightmare.

you can’t think as you feel the whole world spinning, your body tossed violently around. in reality, the only thing moving is jungkook’s car as he whips the vehicle around and speeds down the same street you just traveled up.

for a few long minutes, you only hear your own heartbeat, his murmured and frantic curses, and the strained breaths coming from both of you. you keep your body curled up with your knees tucked to your chest and arms over your face. the car’s engine roars as it races down the highway.

you’re afraid to open your eyes and find out, but you have to at some point. plus, the uncomfortable position is making your body hurt. carefully, you unfurl yourself and turn to look at him. “did you get hurt?”

“uhh—no? i don’t think…?” he takes one hand off the wheel to feel up his body as if he’s just realizing that might be a possibility. “but i’m wired off pure adrenaline right now, so give me a few more minutes to be sure…” he looks to you. “are you?”

“no.” your blood still runs cold at the thought of lorelai being stuck in the house or navigating the dark neighborhood streets at this time of night. maybe she doesn’t even have her phone; maybe it was lost in the commotion. the number of possible scenarios makes you ill.

there’s silence for a while; you assume he must not be hurt after all. you start seeing familiar roads that lead back to the campus, and the gears in your mind begin turning, powered by fear.

“do you think it’s safe to go back to the college?” you ask, your voice small.

after a pause jungkook asks, “why not?” though his face begins to look like he’s second-guessing things.

“the killer could go back to the campus…i don’t know. there was so much violence tonight. it’s like he really has a grudge against the students from our school or something. what if he wants more victims? the campus police are already incompetent, but with most of them off the grounds and on their way to the party house…” you don’t finish your thought. you’ll need to warn camille of the potential danger.

“right, yeah…” jungkook’s hands flex around the steering wheel a few times. “we should…probably go somewhere else, then.”

nowhere feels safe. still, you ask, “where?”

changing his route, jungkook glances over at you. “to a friend’s house.”

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

everyone settling into the hotel and figuring out the unsaid rules of cohabitation like

1 - it’s okay for Angel Dust to leave work stuff lying around IF ITS WASHED

2 - if you want a drink you ASK Husk. If you want to die you mess with his drink display

3 - TV is timeshared and if Alastor wants to use his timeslot to turn the tv OFF then no you can’t watch it just because he’s not using it

4 - Niffty can pin up the cockroach kill of the week in the lobby for everyone to wince at but it has to be on the cork board Charlie bought for her and she has to take the old ones down first each time

5 - if you break it you rebuild / replace it. You do NOT upgrade it with weapons while doing so (Sir Pentious THIS MEANS YOU) 5b - as long as it gets rebuilt / replaced no one gets to make a huge deal over something being broken or blown up again (or at Sir Pentious for doing it)

6 - don’t move around the fucking lobby furniture without moving it back afterwards 6b - if it’s in your room then you can do what you want but in all shared spaces the furniture NEEDS to be kept tidy and in proper place unless you want to hear swearing and sounds of violence as Vaggie trips over and throws her spear into a wall in frustration again, ruining the paper 6c - every third time this happens everyone has to sit through another presentation by Charlie explaining how having one eye is different when it’s not huge and in the middle of your head and you’re not basically at ground level

7 - Charlie can sing but only between 10am and 10pm unless it’s an emergency. If she tries singing outside of that whoever’s nearest is allowed to GENTLY hush her 7b - if you hush Charlie at any other time Vaggie will chase you. 7c - the above is NOT a recommended source of healthy exercise (you will have trauma)

8 - and above all have fun and FUCK yourself!

- Whoever changed “be” to “fuck”- it’s okay and you are loved <3

- Platonically. You are loved platonically, by me Charlie, who is writing this while standing next to my beautiful girlfriend.

- hey Charlie puff you alright? Sounds like she had a gun to your head while you were writin’ this XD

- It was more like her lips on my neck but yeah pretty close!

9 - Charlie and Vaggie are not allowed to be gross and cute in common areas they have a room for that sappy shit and need to keep it there thanks

- Homophobia.

- this is hell, toots

- You are literally a gay man Angel Dust

- I contain multitudes. Multitudes of d

- Bonding between friends is WONDERFUL but this is a list of rules not a chat room so let’s end things here ha ha ha ! Great job everyone!!!!

- KILL

- niffty what the fuck did you write that in it wont wash off

- BLOOD~

[frenchkisstheabyss]

♡ ｄｅｌｉｃａｔｅ ♡

♡ Pairing: body piercer!seungmin x chubby!fem!shopassistant!reader (w/ appearances by tattoo artist!stray kids)

♡ Genre: fluff/smut

♡ Summary: For the longest time you've dreamed of getting your belly button pierced but you always stop yourself, too shy about your weight to get it done. While working your usual shift at the tattoo shop the resident piercer offers to do it for you, with a bit of meddling from your best friend Changbin, though it turns out that he wants to give you a little or a lot more than just a piercing.

♡ Word Count: 4.7k-ish

♡ Warnings: reader has some insecurities about her weight, piercings (of course), you're getting your belly button pierced babe so yas there's a needle, strong language, kissing, body worship, unprotected sex, Seungmin has a lil dom moment, grinding, fingering, mirror sex, ass slapping, oral sex (f receiving), pet names (good girl), and otherwise fluffiness.

♡ A/N: Hello my loves, I wrote this as a comfort fic for anyone out there who may be struggling with a bad body image day or who might feel like sometimes that they aren't thin enough to wear/do what they want or get the person that they want. My point being that you're a badass bitch who can get whoever and do whatever. If anyone tells you differently they can eat dirt and tell them I said so, babes - xoxo

♡ Part Two Here ♡

Saturday nights at the shop are always your favorite. It’s a little too loud, a little too hectic, but that’s the way you like it. On nights like these you never know who’s gonna step in from the glow of the neon signs and throw you for a loop.

Like the couple making out on one of the couches while they wait their turn to get matching inner lip tattoos. A decision they totally won’t regret when their two week long romance crashes and burns.

Or people like the guy on the phone insisting he come in for a tattoo you know for a fact all of your boys would die before they took on. 

“Look, man, I’m not judging you,” you say, judging him to the fullest extent, “It’s just that most of my guys aren’t gonna tattoo your di—”

“Delivery!” a friendly voice rings out in the lobby.

The front door dings, announcing the arrival of your usual delivery girl. She’s short and bubbly with a bag hooked in each of her wrists, filled to the brim with food. In a hurry as always, she sets them down on the desk in front of you and flashes a sweet smile before scurrying off to her next delivery. You respond with one of your own, hopping off the phone just in time to shout, “Have a good night!”

Without missing a beat, you scoop the bags up and head down the hallway off to your left. Bobbing your head along to the rock music blasting from the speakers overhead, you make your way to the main floor where tattoo guns are buzzing away. 

“Food’s here!” you announce but it’s too late. You’ve already been spotted and Jeongin’s swiping the bag from your right hand before you can dodge him. 

“Ooh, what’s for dinner?” he asks, already hard at work cruising through tonight’s options. 

“What?” Felix yells from the far side of the room. He’s hunched over his table, focused on finishing a tattoo of a butterfly on the ankle of a girl who’s much more interested in him than a tattoo. 

“She said food’s here!” Jeongin mumbles through a mouthful of food. He makes it a few steps back towards his station, hugging the bag like a newborn baby he’ll protect with his life, before Hyunjin intercepts him.

“Give it here!” Hyunjin demands, almost wrestling a stubborn Jeongin for the bag. 

You feel a tugging at the other bag and by the time you turn to see who it is, Minho’s already passing by with Chan, the bag secured in his hand.

Minho digs through it, frowning, “Fuck, they forgot my sauce again.”

“Christopher, can you control your children before they scare off our customers?” you shout after Chan as he grabs his food and settles down at his station. 

Chan leans back in his chair, kicking his feet up. Checking his watch, he grins, “Can’t sorry. I’m on break.”

You roll your eyes, letting out a huff of frustration. Sometimes the real headache isn’t the weird customers, it’s the guys you work for, but you love them so if there ever were a headache you could tolerate this would be it. 

Turning to head back up front, you stop dead in your tracks when you realize that one of the first people to swarm you for dinner hardly looked your way. Backtracking you spot the stray, Seo Changbin, locked in on an intricate chest tattoo and Han laying across his table, whining like this tattoo wasn’t his idea to begin with. 

You skip over to Changbin’s station, quietly admiring the piece over his shoulder. It’s a compass. Highly detailed. Clean lines. The same flawless work you always expect of him. 

“Aah, you’re trying to kill me” Han says, turning to you for sympathy, “He’s trying to kill me.”

Changbin groans, paying him no mind. “Hey, I wouldn’t have agreed to do this if I knew you’d be such a baby about it. 

Han pouts, poking his lip out, “I am not a baby.”

You giggle, shifting to the other side of the table to get a better look. 

“You are such a baby” you tease, poking his lip back in, “It looks really good. Totally worth the pa—oh my god. When did you get that?”

Your gaze drifts from the tattoo and down Han’s torso where shiny, stainless steel jewelry adorns his belly button. 

“A week ago, maybe two?” Han smiles, happy that you noticed. “You like it?”

“Ugh, I love it” you gush, eyes lit up at the sight of it. “I wish I could get one but I can’t.”

Han seems more excited than you at the mention of it. “Why not? You should get one!”

You freeze, unsure how you want to answer this question. You’re mortified of the possible awkwardness of the truth but you’ve been best friends with these guys far too long to lie to them. 

“Well, I haven’t lost enough weight yet to get one but when I do—”

Changbin stops tattooing, shutting his gun off to stare into your soul. “What did I tell you about that? You’re beautiful how you are. Isn’t she beautiful the way she is?”

He poses the question to someone over your shoulder and, as the figure rounds the corner, your heart almost stops beating.

“Hmm? Yeah” Seungmin, the sole piercer in the shop, nods sipping a drink through one of those cute twisty straws. You find pretty much everything the man does attractive but there’s something especially adorable about this. 

He disappears into his room with a simple wave and a nod that makes you weak in the knees. Every guy here is like a brother to you but Seungmin? He’s different. You’ve been head over heels for him, utterly at his mercy, since he started working here.

As far as you know he doesn’t have a girlfriend but you haven’t figured out how to decipher his trademark grumpiness enough to tell if he has a thing for you too. Far too terrified to make the first move, you’ve settled for drooling over your dark haired puppy dog eyed lover from afar. 

Han nudges you with his elbow, struggling to hold back his laughter, “Ooh, you like him.”

You’re about to knee him in the side but he’s saved by Changbin’s execution of a plot he concocted mere seconds ago. You hadn’t noticed that mischievous look on his face but you have now and you don’t like it one bit. 

“Seungmin!” he calls out, flicking his gun on and getting back to work. 

Seungmin appears in the doorway, more preoccupied with his phone than anything Changbin has to say. 

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Got time to do a belly button piercing real quick?”

“Depends” Seungmin shrugs, finally looking up from his phone, “Who’s asking?”

“Changbin, no” you mouth, only to be ignored. 

Changbin points to you, bubbling with joy at his evil plan. Seungmin folds his tattooed arms across his chest, looking you up and down.

Suddenly you’re second guessing what you wore today. Some combat boots and a short black dress with lace accents. It’s tight enough to highlight your shape but loose enough to flow a bit when you walk. Is it enough? Is it too much? Why are you even thinking about this?

“You?” Seungmin asks, raising a curious eyebrow. 

Fidgeting with the silver heart locket on your necklace, you muster up the courage to actually face him. 

“I was just, uh, I was thinking about it but I’m working so…”

Changbin chimes in, not letting you weasel your way out so easily, “Jeongin can watch the front desk”

“I don’t even have any jewelry picked out.”

“He has emergency jewelry back there. Don’t you, Seungmin?

Seungmin glances back into his room to check, “I’ve got something for her and my next appointment canceled so I have time if she really wants it.”

With no way out, you take a step towards his room, hesitating for a moment. Seungmin gives you a half smile, more than he offers most people. “Come on. I don’t bite.” Not that you’d be mad if he did. 

Giving in, you push forward, glancing over your shoulder to give Changbin a look that says he’ll pay for this later. Seungmin steps aside, patiently waiting for you to enter his room before shutting the door behind you. You jump a little when the door clicks shut and you hear him laughing at you.

“Nervous?”

“Me? Nervous? No way.” 

You’re lying and he can tell. When you spend your time doing dozens of piercings a day you get good at reading people. Plus the way you’re trembling doesn't exactly make it hard to tell what you’re feeling. 

“Well you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of you, okay?” he reassures you, placing a comforting hand on your forearm. His thumb strokes your inner wrist and suddenly your body's electric.

“Uh, yeah, for sure” you nod, your voice light and airy. 

Seungmin gently squeezes your arm, heading over to his closet to search for something. After a few seconds he pulls out a small fuzzy blanket with a cute Halloween pattern on it. 

“I need you to pull your dress up for the, well, you know” he says, opening the blanket up for you, “But if you’re not comfortable you can cover up with this.” 

“Oh, thanks. That’s really sweet of you.” You try not to seem too impressed, taking the blanket as he turns his back to you, busying himself by doing some prep. 

Hiking your dress up over your stomach, you tuck the blanket around your waist to cover your legs. Staring down at the way your soft belly pokes out, your brain goes into crisis mode. You’d imagined yourself half dressed in a room with Seungmin but this was far easier in your fantasies than in real life. You feel so vulnerable, one of your biggest insecurities laid bare, but there’s no turning back now. You’re in this. 

“So, are you gonna tell me what all that was about?” Seungmin asks, careful not to catch even the slightest peek at you before you’re ready. 

“All of what?” you stutter, your mind temporarily going blank. “Oh, that with Changbin? That was just, I don’t know, I’ve been wanting this for a while but I was putting it off…for reasons.”

“Because you don’t think you’re ‘Beautiful the way you are’?”

You cringe at his question, wishing Changbin hadn’t used such a cliche phrase. You squint your eyes, staring into the distance, imagining all the ways you’ll torture him for getting you into this. 

“It’s not that” you deny, gearing up for another lie but you back down yet again, “It’s kinda that. I don’t know. I’m not really a girl with a flat stomach.”

Seungmin snaps on a pair of black gloves, “Can I turn around now?”

“Mmhmm” you nod, your dress gathered in a tight fist of fabric above your stomach.

He spins around, pulls up a chair, and flops down in front of you in one fluid motion. He twirls a black marker in one hand, popping the top off with his teeth.

“Who told you that you had to be a girl with a flat stomach?” he asks, inspecting your belly button for the perfect spot. “I like your stomach. I think it’s cute.”

The compliment has the heat formerly warming your cheeks spreading through your entire body. You let out an involuntary giggle and he cracks a smile, a full one this time. The first of its kind in shop history. 

“You don’t have to say that to be nice.”

Seungmin marks a point, grabbing a hand mirror to show it to you, “You like it? Yeah? Good. Up on the table.”

You hop up on the table and assume the position. Straight out on your back, hands at your sides. You see it every day. No instruction needed. 

“I wasn’t being nice by the way” he says, that handsome face sliding up next to you. “It is cute. You’re…you’re really cute.”

Feeling himself begin to blush, he slips out of view to sterilize the area and get the needle ready.

“I’m sorry if that was weird. Was that weird?” he rambles, mostly to himself. 

Today’s full of firsts. You’ve never seen him nervous before, you never expected to, but the man’s ears are turning red and he can barely string a sentence together. 

“It’s not weird, Seungmin. You’re really cute too” you say, despite your own nervousness. You’ve been waiting so long to say that. It’s a relief to finally get it out. 

“Now you’re just saying that.”

“I’m not. I do think you’re cute. I always have” you confess, “I just never said anything cause I didn’t think you’d like me."

Pinching your skin with a set of forceps, he aligns the needle with the tiny mark above your belly button, “Deep breath in.”

You take a deep breath in and the needle pops through like butter. You feel a quick sting followed by a rush of adrenaline. He slips the jewelry through so seamlessly you hardly feel it and you’re all done. 

“Are you crazy? I’ve liked you forever. Was it not obvious?” he asks, popping off his gloves and taking your hand to sit you up. 

“What? No. It wasn’t obvious. Was it supposed to be?”

Seungmin pauses, truly reflecting upon his attempts at flirting. “I tell you ‘Good morning’ every morning. I tell everyone else to kiss my ass.” 

“So romantic” you joke before noticing how sincere he is about it. 

You instantly wonder if he’s stared at you before the way he does now. The truth is that he has, maybe not in the most obvious moments but every chance he gets. When you’re running late in the morning, hurrying in with iced coffee to win everyone’s sympathy. When you’re all hanging out at Minho’s place and you’re rambling with Han about the dramas you’ve been watching. Or when you’re all out having drinks and you’re simply existing. He has those same stars in his eyes that he does now. Every. Single. Time. 

Realizing how hard he must be staring, he backs his chair up, giving you enough room to move around. Riding high on the thrill of actually going through with your piercing—your thoughts jumbled up by the knowledge that these feelings are mutual—you hop up to check yourself out in the mirror with not a thought given to the fact that the blanket has slipped off.

So here you are, twirling around in front of the mirror with your dress proudly held up. Plush thighs kissing each other. Lacey black panties on full display. A dazzling piece of jewelry dangles from your belly button and your stomach does the happiest jiggle as you delight in your reflection. 

“You like it?” Seungmin asks, coming closer to get a better look.  

“I love it. It’s so pretty” you beam, your gaze drawn to something shifting in the reflection.

Seungmin isn't watching you the same way he was anymore. There are notes of something reminiscent of the former innocence and awe but it’s something different entirely. It’s intense enough that you can feel the air shift in the room. The brown of his eyes seemingly grows deeper the longer he takes in your figure. 

“You can’t look at me like that” you say, your breathing growing shallow as you begin to lose yourself in what you see in the mirror. Watching him watching you. 

“You don’t want me to?” he asks, patiently awaiting your answer.

You don’t feel rushed or pressured. His patience is genuine but his eyes never leave you. They never leave you to question if that look of longing is dedicated to you or not.

You take a deep breath, making one last twirl to face the man that has your pulse racing a mile a minute. It isn’t just the way he watches you that has you on the verge of soaking through your new panties. It’s the way he sits in his chair, slightly tilted back, arms resting on his legs. It’s like he’s waiting for you, that little grin on his lips daring you to come take a seat. 

“I want you to” you say softly enough that you’re unsure if he heard you. 

Seungmin glides closer to you in his chair, stopping when his knees barely graze your legs. He leans forward, fingertips tracing the outline of your thighs, “You want me to what?”

As he asks the question, his breath tickles the surface of your skin and you shiver at the sensation.

“I want you to…aah” you gasp as his hands grip the tender flesh of your ass, pulling you in close enough for his lips to meet your stomach. He kisses it carefully and lovingly, taking his time to let his mouth and hands explore all of the softest, fluffiest parts of you. 

“You want me to…what?” he asks, tugging you down into his lap, his lips still wet from kissing your body. It makes it all the more tempting to kiss him. Surrendering to your impulses, you pull him into a kiss so ravenous and full of need that it leaves his head spinning in the best way. 

You were meant to come in here for a piercing. That was it. Now you’re straddling his lap with your fingers in his hair while his tongue’s halfway down your throat.

Slipping his hands back under your dress, he rests them on your hips, pressing you down into his lap to show you just how hard you've gotten him. Your panties are more soaked than you notice, making the material thin enough that you can feel it all. The thickness of his cock, the texture of his pants, grinding against your sensitive core, bumping your clit each time he raises his hips.

A moan escapes your lips. A weak, cute little thing that only makes him want you more. He breaks from the kiss, charting a course down your neck to tease the curves of your breasts with his tongue. 

“Who told you that you could be this sexy?” 

“I don’t know” you giggle, a small glimmer of your former shyness coming through, “I could ask you the same thing.”

Wrapping an arm around your waist, he tilts you just enough to give him the space to stroke your clit through your panties, forcing more and more of those sensual moans to pour out of you. 

“Just promise me you won’t stop” Seungmin begs, tucking your panties to the side to pet your dripping slit. “Keep being this sexy…this fucking cute…this—fuck.” He sinks his fingers into your core and you swallow them up eagerly, clenching tightly around them. 

You throw your head back, your back arched in pleasure. You know without looking that he’s watching you again. You know he’s getting off on how your breasts bounce each time you grind down onto his fingers, your pussy so wet that his whole hand’s slick with your juices. 

Seungmin navigates your body like magic, picking up on your most tender spots and knowing just when to hit them to make you tremble the way you did when you first stepped into this room. 

Cradling his cheeks in your palms, you come face to face with him, and say to him in the sweetest tone, “Fuck me already.”

Taking you into his arms, he sweeps you up out of the chair, and sets you down on the edge of the table. 

“Oh god, I didn’t know you could do that” you gasp, stunned that he could pick you up. You knew that Seungmin was fit, something more than obvious by the toned body your eyes are graced with when he pulls his shirt off. But fit enough to pick you up like you’re nothing? Now that you didn’t expect. 

“What? You didn’t expect me to be strong? I’m hurt” he pouts, pretending to be offended but not too offended to help you wiggle your dress up over your head. 

You slide back on the table and right out of your panties. “Get up here and I’ll make it better.” 

You spread your legs and he’s right in between them, leaving a trail of kisses behind as he makes his way up to a pussy wet enough to glisten in the glow of the overhead light. He can’t resist having a taste, humming at the deliciousness of your arousal dancing on his taste buds.

The tip of his tongue meets your clit, flicking it slowly at first then picking up an unforgiving speed. Your hands find his hair again and you’re writhing on the table, choking back moans with your fingers tangled in the back of his head.

The slurping sounds that fill the room make you want to cum right now. In his mouth. Down his chin. All over that gorgeous face of his. And he’d welcome it happily. Beg you to give him more even. That’s how badly he wants you. How badly he’s always wanted you. 

Seungmin’s mouth deserts you unexpectedly, leaving your walls spasming and your stiffened bud twitching in his absence. “Add that to the list of things you can’t stop doing” he whispers, crawling on top of you.

You’re beautiful from any angle, there’s not one he can think of where you aren’t, but this has to be his favorite. You look so perfect underneath him. Right where you should be. 

“Getting eaten out?” you ask, planting a kiss on his shiny pink lips. 

“I meant tasting so good but…” he muses, the head of his cock throbbing at your entrance, “I can make sure that happens too.”

That first bit of contact, the very first time you feel his cock raw against your pussy, has you purring. Seungmin feeds you just the tip at first, stretching you out little by little, loving everything about how your body reacts to him. Running your nails across his back, you raise your hips, whining for more. 

“What are you whining for, baby?” Seungmin teases, giving you one inch after another, “Is this it? This what you want?” 

“Aah, yes, I want it. More please. Please” you plead, your eyes growing glossier the wider you’re stretched. 

It crosses his mind to spend more time teasing you just a little bit, it’s in his nature to be a bit of an asshole after all, but you feel way too good to play games with. You fit him like a glove and with every thrust he becomes more and more convinced that you must’ve been made for him. 

“You’re so perfect” he praises, massaging your curves, “Fuck, I love your body. Your face. Your everything.”

Soaking in the praise and the ecstasy of his length dragging along the ridges of your core, you could swear that you were glowing and, actually, you are. Glowing in his adoration and, courtesy of an accidental glimpse of yourself in the mirror, a fair share of your own. 

Seungmin catches you looking at yourself and smiles, pounding into you harder. “Don’t look away” he instructs, holding your head in place, “Have you ever seen how pretty you are when you cum?”

“N…no” you manage, biting down on your bottom lip to keep from screaming at the tremors each thrust sends through your body. 

“Good, we’ll see it for the first time together then.”

Using his free hand, he grips one of your thighs, pressing your leg back so that he feels even deeper than before. The force is powerful enough that you feel it in your chest, vibrating down to your fingertips.

You can’t take your eyes off of your reflection, he won’t let you. Your body moves so beautifully when he’s fucking you that he needs you to see it how he does. You need to see the way your tits bounce and your hips jiggle as the tension builds up inside of you and you’re choking back moans with his name on the tip of your tongue. 

Seungmin doesn’t need you to tell him how close you are. Your body gives him every cue he needs. The tightening of your muscles. The stuttering of your breath. The legs wrapped around his waist, making sure he keeps punishing your sweet spot, pushing you further and further to your breaking point. 

“Mmm, coming. I’m coming” you moan, letting your high wash over you. 

He kisses you on the cheek, refusing to let up on you. “Look at you, coming all over my cock” he coos, committing every face you make to memory, “Such a good girl.” 

The vision of you is almost too much. Your legs spread out, your brain all fuzzy, your body overstimulated, and your juices pooling on the table below. He can’t hold back anymore. He can’t ignore the tightness and the warmth of your velvet walls fluttering around him. 

“Oh fuck” he hisses, pulling out just in time to coat your swollen pussy in a thick glaze of his cum. It’s hot and tingly on your clit, tickling as it drips between your folds. 

You stroke his back, comforting him on his way down from his high and he does the same for you, his fingertips running up and down your thighs. The room falls into silence. Not an awkward one but one of comfort. One where you hold each other as long as you want. Not minding the heavy breathing or the sweaty bodies. Just enjoying being together before it dawns on the two of you that you’re both still at work. 

“Shit, shit, shit! The front desk is definitely on fire by now”  you fuss, rushing to throw your clothes back on. 

Seungmin’s not nearly in as much of a rush as you are. He’s having too much fun watching you freak out to care about if there's a bunch of agitated customers waiting up front or not. 

Grabbing you by the wrist, he spins you into a hug that calms you down in an instant. 

“So what if it is?” he asks, brushing your hair out of your face, “I have to ask you something important first.”

“Important? Important like what?”

“Important like I know we don’t close until 2am tonight but could I see you after, maybe?"

You shrug, acting like you don’t care when you’re literally screaming on the inside, “I guess so.” 

“It’s like that? You ‘guess’ so?”

Seungmin slaps your ass and draws you into a kiss that has you ready to drop your panties for him for a second time. 

“Fine. I more than guess. I’d love to see you later” you blush, playfully pinching his cheeks, “I’ll wait for you up front then?”

He nods, getting one last squeeze out of you before turning you loose. “Let me see it one more time.”

Knowing exactly what he means, you take a step back to flash him your new piercing. 

“Yup, still very hot” he winks, casually leaning against the table he just fucked your brains out on. 

You smooth your dress back out, giggling as you skip back out onto the floor to find that everyone’s staring at you. Machines are buzzing but no one’s actually doing any work. Even the customers are staring at you waiting to see what happens next. 

Clearing your throat, you hold your head high, and march across the floor. You manage to hide your excitement just long enough to make it back to the hallway where your joyful squeals can flow freely. You can’t remember the last time you felt this excited about something. About someone. About yourself.

You aren’t too big for a belly button piercing. It looks sexy as fuck on you, you must admit. And you aren’t too big for Seungmin who happens to look sexy as fuck on you too. You feel beautiful the way you are, truly, and there’s a boy sitting at his station, too busy thinking about you to get anything done, that thinks so too. 

[a-hazbin-reader]

I know Alastor craves Wifey’s attention, but does Wifey crave his attention in the same way?

🥴

Alastor X Reader Headcanons

✅️Romantic

❌️Platonic

TW: None?? I think???

Description: ☝️⬆️

Alastor loves having your attention but he loves it even more when you seek him out, he loves being needed by you

He tries to hide his giddiness though, he can't be caught grinning like a fool because his wife wants a hug from him

He has a reputation to uphold

He's in his radio tower and you suddenly sit yourself in his lap mid broadcast? He's wrapping an arm around you and kissing your head while you bury your face in his neck

He cuts out the broadcast for a moment to give you the proper attention, tilting your chin up so that you look at him

"Just a moment, folks! Hello darling, stressful day?"

His claws are scratching along the back of your neck, sending a pleasant tingle down your spine as you lean against him

"Mmn... just wanna be with you..."

Suddenly you're being squeezed tight, your face smashed into his neck so you don't see the heat rising to his face over how cute you are

Anyone who might've been listening would find the screams of the broadcast suddenly interrupted by sharp crackling radio static

He's trying to get out of bed and you whine that you want him to stay?? He's going to try his hardest and resist the urge to jump back in

That is until you wrap your arms around him and press your chest to his back, rubbing your cheek on his shoulder

"Just stay in bed...we could have a lazy day..."

Alastor has to rub a hand over his face to hide his blush, his smile tight from trying not to coo over you, giving you a small kiss

"You have to get up too, my dear~ Come on, I'll make breakfast."

He stands up only to feel you hanging off of him, legs wrapping around him with determination

"No. I stay with you."

"Fine then, I'm going to get started on our day."

"I'll be right here~"

A small bleat escapes him, actual steam coming out of his ears as he helps support your legs

"Darling please! What will everyone say?"

You just close your eyes and hum, resting your head against his back as he laughs at the absurdity of the situation

"Don't care. Going back to sleep..."

Nobody dares look at you two as Alastor walks about the hotel with you strapped to his back, they all do their best to pretend like it's not happening

Except Angel who laughs as soon as Alastor walks into the lobby with a mug of coffee in hand, ears down low as he tries to hide his embarrassment

"Ha! Whipped!"

There's been plenty of times where you've just come to him wanting his affection for a moment before scampering off

You've even interrupted overlord meetings because he left without giving you a goodbye kiss, you always found an excuse to get in

One time, you even showed up with trays of food, trailing behind Rosie and Zestial, who both helped you crash the meeting and carry food

Carmilla was visibly surprised at the sight of you, doing a double take and cautiously sniffing the air

"Y/N..? What is all this..?"

You don't miss the way your husband's cheeks light up as he tries to look as innocent as possible, realizing his mistake

"Alastor forgot his lunch and I just couldn't let all of you go hungry..! I hope you don't mind~"

You brought out the big guns with the food, and none of the overlords even make a fuss about you being there

You come around to your husband's chair, hearing him audibly gulp as you lean down to kiss his temple

"Hello again, my dear-"

"You forgot to kiss me goodbye, darling~ What's a girl supposed to think when her husband won't kiss her?"

You sound so pitiful and cute, he can't help but stand up to squeeze you into a proper hug before walking you out to try and preserve some of his image

"They're just so cute, aren't they? Young love and all that~"

"...they are."

"Aren't they both like-fucking old?"

"Eat your food."

It's already gone, Alastor

"Forgive me, my dear... I was in a hurry and didn't realize-"

He feels even worse when you wrap your arms around his neck and give him a sad face, resting against him

"You owe me...at least 12 kisses and not little ones!"

He's fumbling to find the words to say, using one hand to push away your kissy lips while he looks away from you

He knows he looks so whipped right now-he needs a moment to compose himself

Once he's able to look at you again, he knows it's all over, a soft blush on his face as you kiss his palm and stare at him

"Darling..."

"I just want some attention from my husband, is that so bad?"

He can't deny you anything, leaning in to give you a soft kiss and rubbing your cheek, you nearly kill him when he pulls away and sees your lovesick expression

"I'll be home soon, I promise. You'll get all of my time and attention after that, deal?"

You close your eyes and nuzzle against his hand, practically hugging his arm to keep him there

"Mm...making deals with a man like you is dangerous, what do you want in return?"

Alastor can't help but grin, pulling you in closer for another kiss and stopping just before your lips touch

"I've already got an adorable wife~ Buuuut~ If you're offering something then maybe we go out dancing later?"

He kisses you before you can answer, pressing his forehead to yours as he smiles at you

"It's a deal then~"

Reluctantly, he lets you walk away after giving you a few more kisses only to realize later that you got exactly what you wanted

When he walks back into the meeting, everyone's eyes are on him before they suddenly look down at their meals

"What?"

Carmilla coughs awkwardly and Rosie pushes a mirror towards Alastor, who discovers his face is covered in lipstick marks

He can't even bring himself to be mad, sighing fondly as he takes a napkin from Carmilla and wipes his face off

What is he going to do with you...

I hope you like this one!!

[comatosebunny09]

first class | sylus

summary: sylus likes to play dangerous games. today, you happen to be his rook piece. warning(s): female anatomy described, explicit language, dirty talk, bodily fluids, exhibitionism, reader's attire is described, profanity, blue balls of the female persuasion, praise kink now playing: devil's advocate - the neighbourhood notes: something i threw in @muvaginger's inbox. i'm sorry for my mind. thank you for reading, lovebugs.

Sylus, but calling you when you’ve just gotten off work.

“Are you home?” he asks, all husky on the other end. He knows you aren’t if the telltale shadow cast by a crow circling overhead is anything to go by.

“Not yet.”

“Well, get there.” Amusement resides in his voice. You have half a mind to tell him off for bossing you around like that. Like you don’t secretly enjoy it.

“Yeah, yeah. On my way.”

You hang up and shove your phone into your pocket. Put your helmet on, throwing your leg over your bike’s seat and settling on the cushion. Start it, the engine purring to life beneath you. After waving goodbye to Tara, you peel off, zipping through the energetic streets of Linkon towards your home.

Inside the lobby, your phone buzzes again. You roll your eyes, shoving your earpiece into your ear as you trudge through the lobby.

“What!” you grate out.

“Moving a little too slow there, kitten.”

If only you could punch him through the phone. You tamp down your anger, switching tactics. “What’s this about, anyway?”

He chuckles low and throaty, the sound of it prickling your brain. “Patience is a virtue.”

You scoff. “You’re one to talk.” Asshole, you add inwardly.

You catch the elevator to the floor where your apartment resides. Slide your key in, easing through the door into your entryway. Barely have time to set your keys down before a sharp rapping snaps your attention to the door.

“Open it,” Sylus orders.

Hesitant, you pivot towards it. Fingers twitch near your hip where your gun’s holstered. Slowly, you reach for the handle, mindful of your steps.

A soft laugh rings in your ear.

“Easy, sweetheart. It’s not an ambush. If I wanted to off you, I would’ve done so by now.”

“I never know with you,” you clip back, turning the doorknob.

After mentally counting to three, you throw the door open and peek outside. Silence and an empty hallway greet you. You glance left and right. Up and down the hall until a large, crimson box catches in your peripheral, seated on your doormat. You fetch it, admiring the black ribbon intricately wrapped around it.

“What’s this?” you query, kicking your door shut once you’re back inside.

“A gift.”

“Another one?”

His tone swims with nonchalance. “What can I say? I enjoy spoiling you rotten.”

You test the weight of the box. Shake it, hearing tissue paper and something heavy stir inside.

“Open it.”

You oblige. Tear the ribbon and top off, eyes curiously raking over the box’s contents. Inside is a long, black trench coat. Beneath that rests a long-sleeved, silk blouse. Deeper still lies a simple miniskirt, and you test its material between your fingers. It all looks and feels incredibly expensive despite its simplicity.

“Put it on,” Sylus instructs through the stillness.  

“What? Why?”

“Because you have a train to catch in—” A brief pause. “One hour.”

“What the fuck? A train? An hour? Sylus—”

“Time is ticking, sweetie.”

The phone clicks with his exit.

You throw the clothes onto your couch, scrutinizing them over folded arms, chewing your lip. It’s 50 degrees out. Where the hell does he think you’re going dressed like this? Does he plan to use you as bait or something?

Your phone buzzes again on your coffee table. You fetch it to see a QR code for a train ticket sitting in your inbox.

“Shit,” you hiss, scrambling for your bathroom to shower. He’s serious. There really is no time to spare.

He’d better have a good reason for being so cryptic.

—

“The second to last car,” he husks in your ear. “Meet me there in five.”

Your lips contort into a scowl. You rip your earpiece out, wending through the train’s other passengers to pursue your goal.

In the corners of your vision, the scenery outside the windows eases by. Greenery nestled beneath the snow, somewhere remote. It’s beautiful. You take time to admire the sights before finding your way to the second to last car.

The door slides shut behind you. It’s quiet, save for the occasional rumble of the train upon the tracks. The passengers here are sparse. It’s a luxury cabin, decked with armchairs, faux plants, and an expensive carpet.

You survey the area, spotting an unmistakable thatch of white nestled in the rear seat. Try to mask your giddiness as you make your way towards the back. It’s been a few days since you’ve last seen him.

Wordlessly, he motions to the seat across from him when you venture to his side, wearing that customary smirk. You plop down, folding your arms. Bite back a smile of your own, favoring a frown.

“What’s this all about?”

Sylus leans back in an easy slouch, and the way he manspreads makes your mouth water. He peers down at you from his nose, draping a long arm over the headrest of his seat. His turtleneck and coat do little to disguise the power of his body. The tendons in his neck dance. Jaw flexes. He motions to your lap with a flick of his gaze.

“Touch yourself,” he rasps.

Your eyes grow comically wide. “Excuse me?!” you hiss, mindful of your volume. Look around to ensure no one’s the wiser to your conversation. No hello. No I’ve missed you. No preamble whatsoever.

His smug look doesn’t waver. “Don’t make me repeat myself, sweetheart.” There’s an underlying edge to his voice. One that doesn’t leave room for argument. Still, you contest him.

“Sylus, there are people here!”

That enraged whisper thing you do—it’s endearing.

Sylus’ eyes darken with something sinister. He hasn’t stopped watching you since the moment you sat down. Hasn’t stopped raking his eyes over your honeysuckle thighs, your hips.

“They can watch,” he drawls with an innocent shrug.

“Sylus!”

“Sweetie, I’m not asking.” Though he bears an expression of amusement, you can tell he means business. Consequences typically follow when you don’t heed him. Delicious consequences.

You swallow thickly. Sylus’ silhouette blurs as you survey the car over his shoulder. There are at least three other passengers here, all seated near the door you came through. More than enough distance between you. Your lover bleeds back into focus, his brow raised in challenge.

With a weighted sigh, you shift to make yourself more comfortable. Loosen the tie of your coat, drawing it open whilst easing your hips forward. Hesitantly spread your legs, feeling Sylus’ optics tuned to your every move. Something hot and sticky has already begun to gather in your panties, and your nipples tighten beneath the frail silk of your blouse.  

He cutely cocks his head to the side when you hesitate. Eyes narrow. “What’s wrong, sweetie,” he croons all low. You feel it coiling in your stomach. “Scared?”

You cut your eyes to him, mouth drawn into a tight line. Of course you are. You’ve never done anything like this. He’s introduced you to all kinds of things. Uncovered fantasies lurking deep in your mind. Discovered all the erogenous zones on your body you never knew you housed, but—

Exhibitionism is new. Dangerous. And somehow, the thought of it makes you wetter.

“Go on,” he soothes. Encourages, irises dipping into a mysterious shade of garnet.

Your body moves of its own volition, spellbound. Thighs part a little more, hands smoothing over plump flesh. You sigh out, leaning back as you drag your nails over the inner curve of your thighs, bunching your skirt up towards your hips. A little more enthusiastic now, teasing your swollen outer labia with the knuckles of your thumbs.

Sylus’ mouth parts slightly. His gaze flickers downward, entranced by the show and the soft hitch of your breath. He looks back into your eyes, clicking his tongue in discovery. Reaches out a sizable hand, leaning towards you with his elbows digging into the pockets of his knees.

“Panties. Take them off.”

Your tummy sparkles with heat. He quirks a brow. He’s serious. It’s not enough to touch yourself like this in public. He wants you bare and exposed, staining the armchair with your heat.

Without a word, you shimmy out of your underwear. Thin and frill as they slide down your calves, over your ankles to pool at your feet. You compliantly deposit them into his hand. A bitten-off growl brews in his chest. He falls back against his seat, stuffing your panties into his coat’s inner pocket for safekeeping. Signals for you to keep going, fully invested in this game.

You repeat the process from before. And it’s a new sensation now, the crisp air of the train car kissing your sticky pussy. You try to think of other things. Try to distract yourself from the smolder of his gaze and how it makes your body hum and your mind fill with smoke.

You think about his fingers instead of yours, stroking down the slit of your pussy. His fingers rubbing at the hood of your clitoris, drawing it back to stroke your pretty, swollen clit. His thumbs sliding over your nipples, causing your back to arch, his tongue laving at the space behind your ear…

Your hips stutter. You stifle a moan. Sylus slides in and out of focus, your vision fogging around the corners. He chuckles amorously, shifting in his seat. “Don’t stop,” he nurtures, eyes burning like a feverish flame. His dick sits heavy in his slacks, slowly hardening and twitching.

You salivate. Knowing that he’s enjoying this as much as you gradually are—fuck. You bite your lip, propping your leg on the chair’s arm. Spread nice and wide for him, your pussy on full display.

You rut against your fingers, your face screwed up in rapture. Legs quiver each time the pads of your fingers bump your messy clit. You construct a rhythm that’s maddeningly slow and torturous. Feel that sparkling rush lazily pooling between your thighs, but it’s not enough. Wanna be filled and stuffed to the brim with cum.

His cum.

A glimpse at Sylus reveals something that makes you throb. He’s touching himself. Humping into the palm of his hand, hot and weighted through the thick layers of his clothes. Fuck. You pulse.

“Syl,” you sob quietly, wetly, wantonly. “Syl, please—”

“Use your fingers,” he breathes all ragged. “Inside.” Angles his head back until it thumps against the headrest. Doesn’t look away, still rucking his hips up into the heel of his palm like the slow undulation of a wave.

You indulge, circling the pucker of your pussy with your fingers. Steadily work one inside, and you sigh, tossing your head back. Caress your tits with your free hand, plucking your nipples to their peaks as you drive your finger in and out. The lewd, squelching sounds you make as you torture yourself causes your walls to clench down.

Sylus’ voice crackles, pouring through the fizzy haze that’s settled over you.

“One more. You can take one more, can’t you, sweetie?”

You moan at how his voice oozes like warm milk and honey. You’re obedient, gradually adding another, pumping in and out. A thick ring of cream collects around your knuckles. It’s still not enough. Never enough.

“That’s my girl,” he lauds, relief in his timbre. “So good for me. So, so good.”

“Sylus,” you sob, fucking yourself a little faster. Wish it were him instead, filling you up and pumping you with the briny edge of his cum. There’s a warm fluid trickling down your leg. Heat spooling in your tummy.

He greedily ingests the sight of you fucking yourself, groaning hoarsely. You’re so close to spilling over the edge, so close to losing yourself to an orgasm. And you would—

If not for the sound of footfalls nearing your position.

“Shit!” you hiss, snapping your legs shut. Work your skirt into some semblance of neatness, throwing your coat over your legs. Your cheeks and neck are aflame, pulse pounding in your throat, pussy throbbing.

You don’t make eye contact as the gentleman passes, too busy looking at your fingers in your lap. He’s none the wiser to the goings on in your section—or, at least, he acts like he isn’t—as he bows with a small smile, slipping through the door behind. Sylus tracks his every move, and if looks could kill…

Your heart thrums heavily in your ears. You caution a glance at your boyfriend, taking in his flushed cheeks, his heaving chest. He’d thrown his coat over his lap to disguise the monster pressing against the seam of his trousers.

You lock eyes. His lips pull into a scowl as he sits up, pitching himself forward. Cants his head to one side, voice abrasive and low.

“Did I tell you to close your fucking legs?”

A thrill racks through you. It’s rare that he curses, only sullying his tongue when he’s upset or too far gone. It turns your stomach to a primordial ooze. Without warning, Sylus gathers himself up, snatching your wrist along with him.

You stumble like a baby fawn to your feet, gazing into those eyes that dwindle like liquid spilled over burning coals.

“We aren’t done here, sweetheart,” he promises with a tense jaw. Tugs you from your seat and down the aisle, all the while fishing for something in his pocket. A quick glance reveals a barcode, and a number printed in bold letters on a bit of plastic. A keycard. The sneaky little…

He peers at you over his shoulder as you both maneuver through the throng of passengers in the remaining cars, back towards the front. Your features warm with a smile. Legs tingle.

You weren’t aware that this train had sleeper cars, but you’re grateful to know it does. Your body buzzes with the prospect of what’s to come. He’s not done with you, indeed.  

hair down | masterlist | nuisance

[g4yforethan]

nonsense

pairing: deadpool x male!reader

summary: reader and deadpool reward themselves after an easy battle against criminals

warnings: cursing, smut, verse!deadpool, verse!reader

a/n: somethin about the deadpool suit makes mee...

“hey listen let’s lot make this any harder than it has to be okay?” you told the masked criminal as he came lunging at you with a hammer. you grabbed his arm and knocked him to the ground and blew him a kiss. "fucking cocksucker." the man shouted as he moaned in pain. you struck his head and knocked him out. " you're not wrong. gotcha now huh?" you smiled as you made your way to the front of the bank and found wade. "hey baby boy think you can help me out here?" he was in a chokehold with two other criminals in the front lobby. they held his arms down and restricted him from using his gun. “ugh you always have me doing all the work!” you rolled your eyes as you ran and kicked both of the men in the neck as they instantly fell to the ground.

“can we go home now?!” you asked as you felt fatigued from the long hours you two had been at it. wade came over and carried you back to the car. "listen y/n i enjoy your company and enjoy having intercourse with you but this is getting a little tiring." he replied as he took off his next and started the car. "oh come on you know you love me. actually because of our hard work how bout we go back and discuss this intercourse since you brought it up?" you grinned as he sped off back to the apartment. you two got back and you quickly got out of your suit and into your underwear. wade was going to do the same when you stopped him. "noo wade. you know i like it when you keep the suit on." he grinned as he kissed your neck as you felt on his ass. "woah easy there tiger. one more move and you're gonna get my prostate going." you rolled your eyes as the two of you moved to the bedroom.

you laid wade down as you got on top of him. he gripped your waist as you grinded on his growing bulge that was noticeable through the suit. "so about the whole intercourse thing... you still down for it or?" you replied as you kissed his neck. "only if you slam me with that dick of yours and vice versa, i think we can make some plans." he grinned as you went down to his crotch and unbuckled his suit. you took his long dick inside your mouth as you pulled his pants down enough to see his hole. you sucked on his cock while slowly sticking your finger inside him. "that's the stuff y/n holy shit!" he moaned as you put 3 fingers inside him while stuffing his balls in your mouth. he grabbed his hand and forced to swallow every inch of his cock. you threw off your underwear and stroked your dick. "ready for the real thing?"

"just fuck me before i nut all over this bed!" wade yelled as you slowly entered him. he gripped the bedsheets as you lifted his legs for ease. you dug inside him and hit his prostate while he rolled his eyes back. "that's the fucking spot y/n." he moaned as his hands started to grip your ass. "fuck yeah but you still gotta do me too." you whispered in his ear as he quickly pulled you over and pulled your legs up. "jesus you were really quick there huh?" you said as he smirked at you. "anything to get into that tight hole." he shouted as he dug inside you and slammed his cock inside your hole. you moaned while wade grabbed your dick and started jerking off for you. "fuck come on y/n let's cum at the same time!" wade yelled. "fuck im coming wade!" you yelled as you came all over your chest and felt wade fill your hole with his. wade laid down next to you and sighed. "fuck that was so good! i could really go for round 2...what do you say y/n? y/n?" he looked over and found already asleep and softly massaged your face. "go to sleep go to sleep...let my dick put you to sleep. say goodnight and let me cum in you twice!" he sung as you slapped him on his face and turned the other way.

[pinkrelish]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐲𝐞𝐬" 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲.

singledad!mechanic!eddie x fem!reader

✶"Can I kiss you?"✶

NSFW — smut, blowjob, swallowing, ball worship, cock worship, grinding, dry humping, first kiss, slow burn, flirting, mutual pining, eddie is touch starved, mild angst, 18+

chapter: 10/20 [wc: 25.1k]

↳ part 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11 / 12

AO3

Chapter 10: The Intentional Second Date

Smoke trembled past his lips in stuttered bursts.

It was Eddie’s second cigarette of the morning. Not completely out of the ordinary for him; sometimes he needed a second one when Adrie gave him trouble before preschool, or if he had a bad night’s sleep and relied on nicotine to help delay the impending headache, but that’s not why he was smoking again today. Adrie woke up, got dressed, brushed her teeth, and told him she loved him in the carpool lane. She was a dream. His nightmare, on the other hand, was coming to fruition. Because of course he couldn’t remember where he’d set his wallet if it weren’t chained to his pants on a sober day, but drinking enough to where he should’ve been plastered? He remembered it all. He remembered it all.

Oh, he remembered it all.

And when he heard the front employee door to the auto shop unlock, he held his breath, and counted down the routine seconds for you to pop your head out in the alleyway and greet him, and when it didn’t happen.. He knew you remembered too.

The morning smile did not come. No greeting. No laughter. Just nothing. Nothing happened except for the glass door to the lobby opening, and you going inside.

He fucked up. He fucked up. He fucking fucked up.

He made things weird, and now you were avoiding him, as you had every right to after he tried to initiate phone sex without warning— Consent? Consent. Both of you were inebriated to some degree, and he’d never felt more like a creep.

Oh, God.

His knees went weak.

Anxious bile sloshed in his seizing stomach. His face broke out in a cold sweat. Knots constricted tighter. Heart beating in his throat. Decisions—mistakes—put stars in his vision. His world was ending, and it pounded at his temples. This was it. This was it. He fucked up.

“Good morning, hand—Oh?”

Eddie froze.

You leaned more than your head out the door, and stepped onto the concrete slab. All your tender attention was on him, studying his pale face, and his hunched form. Your eyebrows swooped in worry at how he was crouched to the reedy weeds instead of standing tall with his back against the gray bricks. A frown slighted your smile, insulting your beauty when you saw him bent down, knees to his chest, holding his head while his other hand shook hard enough the cigarette pinched between his fingers fell amongst the rocks.

“Eddie? You don’t look good. Are you okay?”

His lips parted.

Was he dreaming? Was the lift of delight in your tone when you first went to greet him, and then the drop to concern ebbing your voice deeper when he appeared ill a figment of his imagination? Were you about to call him handsome? Was this the second chance he didn’t deserve?

“Eddie?”

“Yeah!” His exclamation helped him stand, and the twitch of your lips battled his nausea. “Yeah, I just had a long night,” he lied.

Lightheaded, he concentrated on keeping balanced in his woozy lurch towards the wall.

Sharp edges of rocks slid against one another under your winter boots. “Aw, I’m sorry.” Your apology was sincere, as was your silly quirk of swinging your arms to point finger guns towards the garage. “I brought donuts this morning, and went ahead and made coffee, so they’re both fresh if you’re the type to dunk.” You mimicked dunking a donut into a mug of coffee. “Maybe it’ll make you feel better?”

Endearing. Genuinely, honestly, so fucking adorably endearing.

“Yeah, that sounds great right now.” The pet names returned to their restricted status for now. He had to know for sure. “Did you, uh, like playing with us Saturday?” It was a coward’s way to dance around the real question burning his esophagus, but it was a valiant introduction.

“I did! It was a lot of fun. I’m glad you invited me. And, hey, uhm, I didn’t say anything weird to your friends, or anything like that, did I?”

“No, you didn’t,” he responded in an even tone, stomping his curiosity from fluctuating his cadence with hopefulness when you chose that of all things to ask him.

“Good! My memory went a little fuzzy after my fourth drink, you know, when Lloyd kept trying to get us to sing along to that adventuring song he made up. I didn’t know if I said anything weird, or rude, or something by accident.”

Salvation reigned upon him.

Eddie’s lungs allowed him to breathe at the kindness alcohol spared him, and finally, he could relax. Your fretting stemmed from making a good impression on his friends, and with his reassurance, you stopped fidgeting at your nails, and the color returned to his cheeks. “You don’t need to worry about that. Seriously, they loved you.” His grin struggled to blossom. “Do you not remember anything else?”

In contrast, your grin was a field of wildflowers swaying under the summer sun.

“Not really, it’s pretty spotty around the time they left, but I do remember a few things,” you said, taking another step towards him. “I remember you throwing a napkin at the back of my head. I remember falling asleep in Robin’s car. I also remember asking her to pull over on the side of the road. I remember waking up in the living room, on her dad’s recliner of all places. And boy! do I remember being hungover.”

Closing the few feet of distance remaining, your confidence was established in your ability to pinch the sleeve of his coveralls and tug at it in a playful, flirty way, coasting your frosted sigh over his embroidered name patch.

You claimed him, heart and soul, “But I remember us dancing, too. I’m so glad I remember us dancing.” Softer, “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“I’m the sweetest?” he repeated in a mumble, complying with the tug to open his arm in a curve, which you fit into.

“Of course you are. You sure you’re not sick? You still look like you’re about to puke.”

As if your grip on his tricep wasn’t enough of an anchor on reality, the backs of your fingers gliding down his cheek were, checking his temperature like he was worthy of being doted on. A fortunate thing, a blessing; having your hand guide him from the river Styx with a simple brush, thumb tracing the edge of his lip.

Yeah, his heart clenched. “I’m okay,” he rushed to whisper, wanting the words to sprint after your fingers falling from his chin. He kept the connection alive by copying the stroke along your spine, over your denim jacket. 

The wintry redness returned to his face, he knew. His racing pulse brought it there, splotching warmth to his skin. There was not enough bravery in the world to ask how much of the dance you recalled; whether your memory ended at your head on his chest, or your wrist to his lips, or your foreheads together with your noses smashed to the other’s cheek, but he did gleam one thing for certain.

You beamed up at him with eager eyes, as if those intimacies flashed in the sun’s reflection, and you wanted more of them.

He said, “I think I’ll feel better after a donut. Or three.”

“Or a nap, or three,” you countered.

“Sweetheart,” he exhaled, a rasp present in his throat from smoking, “I’m not gonna waste my time napping when I could be eating donuts with you.”

A wry laugh played at your lips. “How romantic.”

“I’ve been known to be romantic from time to time.”

You hummed in interest, arching an eyebrow. It was a challenge. Oh, really? you asked. Show me, then, you said.

Stepping back, you dragged your hand down his arm and embraced the motion, seeing it through to his elbow, forearm, the heel of his palm. Feeling but a faint outline of his form beneath the thick sleeve of his canvas jacket and light blue coveralls, yet still clinging to him as if he were your heater. Your warmth. Another body laying next to you in a cold bed.

“C’mon, handsome.” You urged him inside by your feeble grip around the stretchy knit cuff covering the plastic bead bracelet around his wrist. “Let's see if getting some caffeine in you helps you look less like a corpse.”

He snorted, and obeyed. “Whatever you say, dear.”

By all means, it seemed you didn’t remember the phone call. No doubt you were stone cold sober for the bad jokes, dorky innuendos, and inappropriate behavior that would be frowned upon at work, but you didn’t bring those up, so he didn’t either. He was in the clear.

Fate forgave him. And now, he could move on with the ‘thank you’ he owed you in good faith.

————

It was days later when your stapler ran out of staples.

You clamped it shut a few more times until you realized, and opened the second drawer on the short filing cabinet beneath your desk. After a cool slide of metal on metal came a rattle. Instead of your extra sticky notes, folders, and office supplies being visible, a foreign object sat on top of them. Perplexed, you reached in and grasped the lime green box. An index card was taped to it, and removing it jolted the waxy candies inside, sliding them against the cardboard in a merry cascade.

Setting the Mike and Ikes aside, you read the thin, angular handwriting on the note, written in red.

DO YOU WANT TO GO ON A DATE WITH ME? (circle one)

              YES    or   NO

ARE YOU ONLY SAYING YES BECAUSE ITS YOUR POLICY?

              YES    or   NO

By outward appearances, your mouth was tugged downwards at the corners, but make no mistake, it was not a frown. No, no. What your expression was overcome with was so sentimental, so empathetic, you had to pout.

Besotted, you hugged the card to your chest, and reflected on the heaviness of his expectant gaze when he passed by your desk this week. The longer eye contact, the anticipatory lift of his eyebrows wrinkling his forehead when you waved at him. He must’ve put this in your drawer days ago, and you had kept him waiting by accident, poor guy.

You weren’t about to keep him in suspense any longer.

(Though, maybe he should’ve put it in the top drawer, which you opened daily for your highlighters, if he wanted a quicker response.)

Pen to paper, you selected your answers, jotted a line, and tucked the notecard inside a manila folder with two invoices he needed to fill out. You pushed your rolly chair away from the desk, and dug through your purse before going to the breakroom where Eddie sat hunched over the round table, shoveling a chicken Rice-a-Roni meal in his mouth (haphazardly) with his left hand while writing in his DND notebook with his right.

You stood at the vending machine with your hip jutted out, sinking to one side with utmost concentration on your pursed lips, perusing the rows of choices. There were just so, so many categories to choose from. Chips, candy, chocolates. How could you ever decide? You crossed your arms, and tapped your chin at the dilemma, taking your time. This was a wise use of your work hours, of course. Flirting with your coworker by passing notes, and watching the side profile of his smirk break through his curtain of curls in the glass reflection.

Finally, you settled on F4, and slotted in your quarters, punching those buttons.

The Kit Kat bar was deposited in a loud clunk.

“Hey, didn’t know if you saw,” you started casually, and held the manila folder out to him with an imposing grimace, “but you forgot to fill out a couple of lines at the bottom of these invoices. Can’t have you slipping up, and not finishing your paperwork before working on your little roleplaying game, now can we?”

Eddie shifted his gaze from the bulky folder failing to stay pinched closed, to your face. Fawning, he arched into an overly apologetic expression to match your performance, and placed a hand over his heart. “Oh, no, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. Did I forget to do that? Silly me.”

“Better not let it happen again, Mr. Munson,” you warned, placing it on the table and leaving.

“Never, never,” he promised.

Back at your desk, you sat in your chair, calm and poised. And approximately two seconds later, you kicked off the floor into a fierce spin, dizzying the lobby around you. The place was a blur, your stomach swirled, and still, your goofy grin refused to wane. But, you did stop eventually. The antics had to come to an end. You did have work to do, afterall.. Which you ignored when you heard him rip into the foil wrapper in the other room, and you couldn’t possibly concentrate on calling a warehouse to check on an order of headlights when your ears were tuned to the flimsy chair scraping across the tile, and his heavy work boots stomping down the hall.

“Filled out those forms for ya, sweetness,” Eddie said with a wink.

There was a weight to the manila folder when he dropped it on your desk, and tapped twice on his way out to the garage. Not a physical weight, but a gravity that wasn’t there before, now concentrated in his keen eye contact. An invisible significance.

The relationship had changed, just then, in the trade off of boring invoices.

Opening the folder, the index card was deemed more important than the paperwork. Your gaze stalled on the thick circles around YES, and NO. Yes, you’d go on a date with him, and no, it wasn’t because of your policy. Below them, your thick handwriting flowed together.

what did you have in mind?

I RETURNED THOSE KIDS MOVIES FOR YOU.

  YOU CAN THANK ME FOR SAVING YOU

    THE LATE FEE BY WATCHING SOME

       HORROR WITH ME AT MY PLACE

PICK YOU UP SATURDAY AT 6?

Fighting back another sickeningly stupid willowy sigh at his charm, you wrote a lovesick reply.

In usual Eddie fashion, he left the very last box on the second form blank, so you had to go out to the service area, and address the mechanic bent over a car engine. Not that you were complaining. The back of his coveralls hugged the slight curve of his ass, and his hair was not only pulled into a low bun at his nape, but he wore a bandana tied to keep his bangs off his forehead.

“Hey there handsome, couldn’t help but notice you left the date box on this form blank again.”

“Oh, did I, pretty girl?” He spun, and rolled his eyes to mock himself. Wiping the grease from his hands on his coveralls, he took your pen. “It’s my old age, y’know. Things always slippin’ my mind.” Mumbling to himself, he pressed his palm to the back of the folder, and sketched out a sentence into the page longer than a few numbers warranted. During the arduous process, he looked at you with sorrow, and complained, “These dates are just so tedious to write out, it may just take me all night to complete.”

You refused to give him the satisfaction of a smirk at his (possible) insinuation.

All night? He wished.

Eddie surrendered the folder and pen, and smiled at you, stretching the streak of soot on his chin and cheek. “There you go. All filled out. Not a ‘T’ uncrossed, nor an ‘I’ left undotted.”

“Thank you,” you over-enunciated as a goodbye.

The very second the glass door came to a slow close behind you, you sat at your desk with the folder, and threw a subtle glance out the window to the garage to make sure Eddie wasn’t watching you lose your mind over two short words exchanged in quick succession.

sounds perfect :)

YOURE PERFECT =)

For the second time since you moved to Hawkins, you had a date. And judging by Eddie’s sway from foot to foot with his hands laced behind his neck and his head hung back, listening to the traffic outside echo off the cement walls, he was thrilled for his second date, too. He dropped into a steady bob at music that wasn’t playing. A too-large grin teased at his mouth as he paced to the motor he was repairing, and bent over it. His boyish excitement spilled like an overpoured mug of coffee into his unabashed giggle, and glance in your direction.

Eyes locked, he didn’t steal your breath. You gave it to him willingly.

————

Saturday’s setting sun was just another audience member to your date night routine. Robin and her mom leaned in the doorway of the bathroom the entire time you were shaving, and due to the opacity of the shower curtain, you were unable to convey your glare to the degree it deserved.

“Well, why doesn’t she wear this instead?”

There was a shock of laughter mixed with Robin’s scoff. “Mom, if she wore that Eddie would pass out on the spot. What if he hit his head, and they had to call an ambulance? You know she can’t drive him to the hospital. No, this bra still gives sex appeal without causing an injury. And besides, calling 9-1-1 would put a damper on them—”

“Rob,” you groaned.

“—spending a wonderful evening together,” she finished.

The thunk of a walking cane neared, and her dad’s hoarse voice sounded from down the hallway, “My! The rowdy Munson boy is getting lucky tonight, is he?” he proposed in a faux British accent after watching BBC nature documentaries all day. “Do you think he’d have dinner with us tomorrow? We haven’t seen him since Robin threw that New Year’s party years ago, and almost set the roof on fire.”

Oh dear God get me out of here.

Once you were finished with your shower, freshly scrubbed and smelling nice, you humored them by wearing the outfit they picked out. It was pretty much what you would’ve worn anyway. A short black skirt made modest by nylon tights to stave off the chill from Eddie’s trailer, and an oversized crocheted cream cardigan with tiny pink flowers, the hem of which hit you at your waist, showing a tempting preview of your stomach when you raised your arms to fix your hair. The pale lavender bra (the reason for their debate), was covered by the aforementioned sweater, and you weren’t sure if the sheerness of the lace mattered much when Eddie’s daughter may be present, or in the next room over. It didn’t occur to you to ask if he’d have Adrie with him, so, such is life. The bra may stay a secret despite their efforts to doll you up. But the sudden realization he may see you in it tonight clenched your stomach with excitement..

The clock struck 5:55, and an ominous roll of thunder put everyone on edge. It electrified nerves, and stood hair on end, setting forth premonitions of bad weather and foul fortune. Doom, it was; and it came, and came, neverending. Except.. It wasn’t thunder. It was Eddie Munson’s brutal music.

His little black car came flying down the road, and swung into the driveway, screeching to a halt heralded by flung rocks spat by his tires, and a flock of songbirds splitting the sky.

And yet?

Charm bowed before Eddie’s easy strut. Pebbles dodged his stride. Clouds of hellish dust evaded the shine on his laced up boots. His tight jeans flaunted the subtle flex of his thighs, and his belt sloped on his narrow hips with each uneven stride, daring the world to stare at the extra length of stiff leather flopping outside the confines of the belt loops, attracting all the attention he desired to the places he wanted.

You were still in the living room struggling with the buckle on your Mary Janes when the intense, raw screams of his heavy metal music stopped, and the muffled guitars faded away. He showed up, shockingly, on time, and you shot out the door before the heavy slants of sun breaching the leafless trees could beat down on his trademark jacket rattling with dainty chains.

“Hey there, sweetness.”

“Hey!” you blurted in a huff, racing down the steps. Flustered by his punctuality, you made the first move of the night by snatching his hand and dragging him away.

Slighted by your absence of drooling over how cool he looked, Eddie grunted in objection, but let himself be steered away. He glanced over his shoulder at the three faces peering at him from the window, and spared them a tentative wave. They were nosy, but not in the unkind way he was used to, and for that, he was thankful.

You apologized at a hurried pace, “Sorry, but if you step foot on the porch, they’re gonna ask you a bazillion questions, and never let us leave.”

“Ah,” he said, short of a laugh, “but let me get the door for you. Wanna impress them.”

“Impress them?” Dregs of sleepy sunlight highlighted the twist of your lips. “You come in here like a bat outta hell, blaring your music loud enough that I’m surprised you’re not hard of hearing, and you’re worried about impressing Bobbie’s parents?”

Refusing to let your fingers slip from his when he felt your grip go weak, he tightened his hold, and opened the car door with his other hand, sidestepping awkwardly to avoid the wide swing, towing you around him.

“Is that so strange?”

“It’s a little strange.”

“Good.” He established the bond of your palm cupped to his until you sank into the red plush passenger’s seat. At the groan of the hinges, and a hard slap on the metal, he finished, “I like being strange—” Punctuated by the door slamming shut. His cackle was far away. Shrieking silence filled your ears, interrupted by your elevated pulse pounding in your chest, and the tink of a pebble pinging the bumper when one was unfortunate enough to come into contact with his boot as he strode around the front of the car with his hands in his back pockets, stretching his shirt over the curve of his stomach.

What a lovely thing he was, truly. To lord the power of sheer captivation over you, and still ground you with a humble gaze and tender smile through a windshield flecked with dirt, as if stealing one of your five senses was a normal feat and returning it to you wasn’t an act of benevolence.

He folded himself into the seat beside you and staggered his legs until he could relax fully into the position, and turned the key in the ignition. His music took residence in the sense he stole. You tensed in anticipation, but it wasn’t offensive. The previous song was ending, and with you being boxed in with the speakers bullying your ears from every angle, you heard the animalistic screams as something more haunting, more beautiful. They were organic. Emotional. Conveying a longing which flowed into the next track; a restrained piece laced with sweltering lines, where each croaky utterance heated your cheeks fiercer and fiercer. Carnal of a different nature.

Intentionally avoiding eye contact with Eddie, you twisted enough to see the carseat behind you was empty. “No Adrie?” you asked to confirm a suspicion.

“She was invited to a sleepover for one of her friend’s birthday parties tonight,” he said.

You reeled at the information, but not for the reason you assumed. “Wait, what? There’re people out there willing to have a hoard of five-year-olds running around their house? Like, with the screaming and everything?”

“Crazy, right? Some people still have their sanity, I guess.” He stamped the gas and clutch, revving the engine with an amused answer poised on his plump lips. “Or enough downers to get them through the night.”

The guitars increased in ferocity, drowning out his wistful reminiscing on such substances helping him through the day, pre-Adrie.

It was then you noticed an interesting detail about his compact car you didn’t fully appreciate last time you were in it: there was no center console. You didn’t need to check. The lack of separation was confirmed by the heat radiating from his heavy palm draped over the gear shift, and the blunt edge of his nails skimming your tights when he clicked the stick into a lower slot, dragging it along your leg. The armrests were raised, and they too touched at the base. It was no surprise when his long hair swept your clothed shoulder as he twisted around to look out the back window and put the car in reverse, avoiding the Buckley’s dented mailbox, and lurching you against the seatbelt.

The lyrics peaked in sultry aggression.

So, no Adrie. “Am I meeting your uncle, then?” Oh, how your question was thin against the strong note the singer held. His wavering timbre penetrated you in waves, releasing a ripple of tingles from head to toe. Creating a change in the tension existing between you and Eddie when he answered in a deeper register.

“No, he’s uh, he’s gone for the weekend,” he said, drumming his rings on the steering wheel, squeezing his fingers over the gear stick to shift it into drive. “Out playing poker with his friends. So, uh, it’s just you and me. S’that cool?”

So, no Adrie, and no uncle.

“Yeah—Yeah, that’s cool,” you replied. Whereas his voice went lower, yours went higher at the acknowledgement. Fainter, wispier. Fluttery with the nerves in your stomach. Restless like butterfly wings beating on gusts at the explicit implication matching the subject matter pumping through the speakers.

Tonight was your first real date with Eddie, in his trailer, alone.

Soon, the dense thicket of rural Hawkins was replaced by houses and population; gone were the fields of deer, and approaching in a blur were stout brick buildings, and stop lights swinging in the slight breeze.

He slowed at the intersection where Family Video’s neon sign struck red over the black pavement, and stopped. Eddie, being an opportunist, saw the boring wait for the light to turn green as fortuitous. It granted him the ability to gaze upon you as he wished, ready to take you in after your rushed greeting. You had robbed him of the movie-esque scene where he’d walk up to your door, knock three times, greet you with a stunning grin and compliment you until you were giggling and swooning in his arms. It was only fair he drank you in now, in the low liquid blue of the early night.

Beyond bewitched, he didn't register how methodically he traced his eyes over your body; devouring details the generous neckline of your cardigan allowed him, reaching the narrow channel of shadow where your bra assisted your chest, and the small gaps the tiny pink flowers woven into the yarn created in the chain loops, gifting him a charitable preview of the delicate lavender beneath. Appreciating how below that, your skirt wrapped your legs snugger than his arms had ever been privileged, and your tights graced skin he’d never felt. Perhaps he even lingered on the strap of your Mary Janes draped around your ankle, wondering if he’d be lucky enough to circle his fingers there one day, too.

Flattery raced your heart. You’d never been the subject of someone’s study to this degree, as if you were artwork to be admired. Not from any of the dates you’d been on, anyway. Not in a meaningful way, consumed wholly by someone you considered a close friend. And not while a man sang about vulgar acts in a gorgeous way.

Eddie remembered to breathe when green flashed in his periphery, and his gaze evened the playing field when he caught you dedicating entire prayers to the indecent crease at his hip and inner thigh where he rested his large palm.

“Baby, you’re beautiful,” he exhaled.

Not you look beautiful. You are beautiful.

Meeting him head-on, you smiled. “I don’t have the lexicon to describe you.” His expression faltered to a confused pinch between his brows, and you reassured him, “Handsome isn’t good enough anymore. Never was. No words are. They need to invent new ones.”

Leaning in, he scrunched his nose, and teased, “You can just call me hot.” Which would’ve been a decent line; imposing himself so near his words caressed the gloss on your lips, and finishing the hard plosive—Hot—with the bite of his charismatic wolfish grin. But the aggravated honks killed the mood.

Two cars behind him laid on their horns, and he was startled into the reality of holding up traffic. You openly laughed at his change in demeanor, at how he scrambled to get the car going before they got angry again, all flustered and stomping too hard on the gas, sending you both slamming backwards in your seats.

“Yeah, real hot stuff you got goin’ on,” you teased in return.

He stuck his tongue out in concentration as he checked the rearview mirror, speeding to put distance between him and the other cars. Dangerously, he slid his gaze to you once more, prioritizing you over the road. “Are you really gonna deny I'm the hottest guy you’ve ever met? Even with all your city boys, actors, and freaks who’ve been on bigger stages than me? Guys who took you to fancy sit-down restaurants in a suit and tie? Men who drone on about finances because they chose a viable career not covered in grease? Are they really hotter than me?”

His tone was flat, and his face neutral, cracking a cavern of curiosity wide within you.

Your instinct was to treat the insecurity as genuine, but the moment you opened your mouth to restore his confidence, he smirked.

“Just kidding, baby,” he broke the act. “I know I’m the favorite.”

Glowing with confidence, he took his hand off the gear shift to jab at your ribs, but he underestimated how thick the crochet was. Instead of tickling you, it was more of a soothing stroke along your side. And he didn’t stop. He kept up the intimate gesture, brushing the fabric with his curled index finger three times. Giggling, himself, at nothing other than his own thoughts.

Gone was the swell of empathy clogging your throat. “My favorite idiot,” you corrected in an exasperated mumble, yet leaning into the shy affection.

The cassette played static, then began a new song. Angsty still, but not quite as on the nose as the last. This, along with another dig at each other, eased the pressure preventing you two from relaxing into the evening. The awareness revealing itself in nervous glances and dry swallows digressed into your normal dynamic as friends with the benefit of flirty innocence without the stress of expectations. Those motives could stay locked between your clenched thighs, and aching against his jean’s zipper. Tonight was the first foray into real time together, and if you watched movies and it ended there with no moves made, or romantic elements explored, then so be it. There wouldn't be any unnecessary impatience, or snap decisions made to cross those final platonic boundaries if one of you chickened out. This date would be perfect, regardless.

Right?

You could endure another day of him acting confident in front of others, only for him to buckle under the pressure and pussy out before kissing you, right?

..Right?

Whatever. The night was young, and oh, how Eddie’s giddiness for spending time with you emerged. The instant he arrived at the trailer, he jammed his thumb into the seat belt latch and commanded you to stay put. Naturally, this didn’t go without a snort from you, but it escalated to true laughter when he stumbled out of the car, and sprinted around the front in a flustered jangle of chains beating on jeans, only to play it off as cool once he reached your side and opened your door for you. “You’re silly,” you commented. His chest rose with a panting breath, and his lips jumped into a playful smirk at his own oddities. He stepped back, and swept his arm in a classic bow.

The friction burn from the seat belt slipping through your grip was balmed by the chilled leather beneath your fingers when he offered his elbow to you. You set your heeled shoes on the uneven ground, and wobbled on the deep tire tracks scoring the dried mud, and again, he was twisting this way and that, trying to figure out the best gentlemanly way to help you balance. Not that his brave palm on the small of your back wasn’t warranted in the treacherous battle of shadows in the underripe evening, but even you couldn’t stop your snicker when he, too, met you with a side-ways glance.

“Nervous?” you asked, bringing attention to the situation for what it was.

“Me? Nervous?” He arched his eyebrows up, then brought them into a swift furrow. “Nah, never. I’m just making sure my girl doesn’t twist her ankle before I get to cook for her on our second date,” he ended with a suggestive tone, canting his head to yours. Foreheads near.

Ah, the buzzing of springtime bees was trembling your fingers again, gripping him when the hive in your stomach fed honey to your hungry heart, pumping, pumping a sugar rush.

Acknowledgements. His girl. Cooking. Second date.

He was sweet. And you were trapped in the sticky nectar thrumming in your veins. It was a futile effort, after all, to convince yourself you two could act as normal friends do around each other. Truly, you lost that war when you inclined your head to his, and divulged in the same grin he wore.

“Cook for me?” you repeated in a voice of ambrosia, which he partook.

“Mhmm,” he hummed amongst the drone of television programs filtered through bug screened windows. “I wanna watch movies with you, cook you somethin’ nice, and remind you that I’m not the guy I was at the movie theater—” He flinched at the last part, accepting your weak slap to his chest. Pleased with himself for finally swooning you, he trained his gaze on your giggly sway, and squinched his eyes with mirth.

“Eddie, I’m well aware you’re not that guy.”

“Oh?” he lilted. “But aren’t I? Still got the outdated haircut, stick in the mud attitude, and leather jacket.”

You slipped a finger beneath the jacket, and poked at the macabre skull on his tee. “Got a different shirt, though. Last time you were wearing a rattlesnake, now it’s..?”

“Metallica,” he finished. A softer expression deepend his dimple. There may have been a particular meaning behind it you were missing, but he didn’t share. “Good memory, but may I also bring to your attention that it’s fucking freezing out here?”

Overcome by a shiver, you retracted your prodding, and he removed his hand from your lower back. The warmth was sorely missed. You agreed, it was fucking freezing and pantyhose were not a replacement for snow pants.

Eddie jostled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door for you to enter first, trailing behind you with a welcome to his humble abode, as if you hadn’t been there several times before. But you supposed the circumstances were different when he showed you in, and a certain coziness defrosted your cheeks. The trailer was lit by a singular lamp in the living room and the nightlight from the bathroom. An electric radiator generated heat near the armrest where his pillow stayed, and at the other end of the couch was a messy pile of blankets in varying textures and thickness. A stack of three VHSes sat on the coffee table near a collection of never-used cork coasters. In the kitchen, a spread of groceries occupied the counter, along with a page from a magazine, but Eddie stole your attention before you could puzzle together the ingredients he laid out.

“So, which one do you wanna start with first?” Eddie asked, drawing your gaze to the VHSes fanned in his palms, fingers stretched wide to contain the movies.

Subtly, he wiggled the one on the end. The green HORROR sticker on the cover appeared new; unblemished, without creases or dirt. You recognized the drippy blood stylized title as the same one printed in the local newspaper warning mothers of its gore and perversions. Less subtly, he darted his eyes to it, and made encouraging noises while presenting it closer to you. It's not like you cared what order you watched his surprise selection in, so you went with the new release he was most eager for, as opposed to the other schlocky B movies.

“Sweet!”

Adorably, he told you to make yourself at home, and you both found yourselves bumping into each other in the entryway. You bent to unbuckle your shoes, and he shrugged off his jacket. Maybe you swung your knee into his shin, and he flopped the leather sleeve atop your head in retaliation. And when you stood, he jabbed his elbow into your arm before kneeling to untie his boots, and you picked a long, curly auburn hair off your sweater, holding it out and away from you as if it were revolting. “Is this what it’s like living with you?” you asked with an excessive amount of mock disgust.

“‘Fraid so,” he consoled, looking up at you as he worked the knot out of his laces. “At least—until I go bald.”

You tilted your head as you tried to picture him without his wild haircut, and after some consideration (and curious fingers kept laced tight to discipline yourself from running them through his curls to test the tamability of such rowdy layers cut without rhyme or reason), you concluded, “I think you’d still be the most attractive person I’ve ever met.”

His expression widened at your honesty. Pushing himself upright, he rocked side to side as he toed off his boots, and stepped beyond them, narrowing the distance between his ego and your lifted eyebrow. “Most attractive? Yeah?”

Before his head swelled to hot air balloon status from a compliment he pried out of you, you stopped him.

“Bald or not, you’re still Eddie,” you expressed. “And that’s what I like about you the most; your Eddieness. Regardless of your hair, you’re still that guy that’s willing to trip over his own feet so he can open a door for me.. and cook for me, apparently.”

You drove your gaze to the ingredients on the counter, but he distracted you from venturing into that part of the date.

“Uh-uh-uh,” he tsked. “Movie first, then dinner. I’ve been wanting to see this one, so make yourself comfortable. Get some blankets too, I know the radiator sucks.” The warmth it gave off rarely brought circulation to his toes when he was sleeping, much less kept him from shivering on the windy nights. “Lemme get us something to drink, and I’ll put on the movie.” He chose to fill two bright red plastic glasses with water and bring them to the coffee table. They were the type of textured cup one would find at a pizzeria, and he set them directly on the wood, because why bother with coasters when most of the varnish had been worn away over the years.

Water itself shouldn’t be a surprise, but the fact he chose it over beer stood out.

Interesting. You made yourself snuggly as instructed, and sat in the middle of the couch where two cushions met. Amongst the pile, you picked the thick blue and white striped comforter, and draped it over your not-quite-numb legs. He crouched in front of the TV, and popped open the VHS case, brushing his calluses over the frosted plastic cover, and shut the case with a satisfying snap. Lining the movie up with the VCR slot, he pushed on the flap, and it was accepted into the mouth of the machine—kuh-chunk, slide, whirring reels, a fuzzy high-pitched noise—staticy snow played, then the first commercial started, flickering a woman’s face mid-scream across the screen.

Eddie turned off the lamp, and in the sudden darkness, he slid his socked feet in timid steps across the carpet to avoid a pinky toe colliding with the coffee table, and he fell into place next to you.

The cushions sank with your combined weight. The seams separating you clashed. Hip, thigh, shoulder. Layers of clothing blazed from the heat of his proximity, setting fire to your cheeks. You weren’t touching, not really, not yet, and you both stared at each other with lips slightly parted.

Your voice went unnaturally airy as you offered him the blanket, “Want some?”

And his voice was lost to the sensation of his bare arm making contact with your sweater.

He nodded.

Predictable for the genre, the next commercial advertised a pair of tits before the camera cut away, and the woman was assumed to be brutally stabbed by a masked serial killer.

He shifted. You shifted.

The comforter slid across your lap. He stole the warm pocket of air you were generating for yourself, and replaced it with the cold half of the blanket. It may have been an innocent movement, but him yanking it caused you to press against him more than you already were. His arm went rigid with tensed muscles the further you sloped into the crevice where the cushions met, stiffening against your soft body like a brick wall you had no choice but to lean on. You tried to help the situation by breaking the silence between the next commercial.

“Do you want to know another Eddieness I find endearing?”

During the first part of your sentence he didn’t react. He watched the TV; jaw tight but not clenched; it was only on the last word did he turn his head, and set those big eyes of his on you.

You went ahead and answered, “It’s how shy you are.”

The hint of a deeper emotion eased from his gaze when he closed his eyes in a slow blink, and raised his brows, processing what you said. “’M not shy.” His smile grew at that, stretching half his mouth in shadow, making his nose appear larger, rounder.

“And awkward.”

“I’m not awkward,” he complained, tone soft and playful.

Lit by the soft grain of the movie starting on a scene of a young boy running inside pitch-black house, Eddie’s eyelashes clung to the remnants of light, curling longer, and longer. His lips lifted at the corners, testing a sneakier grin at the idea of you finding him both shy, and awkward. Words he hadn’t heard in years. Descriptors he would’ve called himself when he was still in high school and dipping his toe in the dating pool, but not since then. Not since he dabbled in liquid courage at parties and gained some experience from the confidence alcohol afforded him.. and lost when he discovered the consequences of acting impulsively, and his casual assuredness was ripped from him when his daughter was born.

Or, yeah, maybe he was always shy and awkward as you presumed, he just didn’t care about people’s opinions when he wasn’t invested in starting a future with them. Which was fine by him, you could call him dorky if you wanted, because here he was in the midst of a boyish rush of adrenaline when the lack of stressful music coming from the TV became ominous, and the excitement of his plan working vibrated in his chest.

“Oh! And you’re—” Whatever adjective you were about to use was bitten short.

Paying more attention to him than the movie, you missed the build up of the masked killer’s reflection in a mirror, and were caught off guard by the boy’s sudden blood curdling scream trilling above the heart-racing violin screeches. It wasn’t even a good jumpscare—totally predictable—but you still jolted from it.

Eddie lurched into a devious smirk. “Movie getcha, pretty girl?”

It was your turn to be defensive. You pouted, “No. It just surprised me, is all.”

“Aw, come on,” he implored in a gravelly urge. Under the thinning comforter, between the mountains of compacted cotton from overwashing it, there was movement, and the unmistakable contact of the back of his hand on your nylon tights. He bumped you once. “Here, if it’s that scary, you can hold my hand, okay?”

As snarky as his teeth glinted, as teasing as his words were, both of your chests rose with a mutual suspended breath.

This was the line. The barrier. The emotional boundaries were dust, only the physical ones remained. He invited you over them as gingerly as a grown adult man could when on his first true date in years, and the fresh fear of making a move on his crush spiked his rejective-sensitive nerves.

“Yeah, you’re right,” you exhaled. Holding his gaze with the same fondness which existed in your heart, you found the edge of his hand after some sightless venturing. At the graze of skin on skin, you dropped your head to the side, and appealed to him, “It’s so scary.” Across the room, the TV played a calm, serene daytime scene with birds chirping in the background. “So terribly scary,” you repeated, facetiously pitiful. “There’s no way I’ll get through to the end all on my lonesome.”

But rather than hold hands perfectly between the both of you like the pious churchgoing teenagers you’d felt yourselves become, you went in for the kill.

Drawing back, you wedged your fingers between his arm and his ribs, and after a beat, he understood and lifted his elbow. You snaked your hand along his forearm, and down to his awaiting palm. His jeans were rough; his palm was too, torn asunder by his trade to ensure a roof over his and his family’s head, but the spaces between were softer. Love gentled the joints digging into your bones. Your fingers had to stretch to accommodate him, and the wintery dryness pulled at your unlotioned knuckles, but the twinge was forgotten when you focused on your hand in his hand. Your hand in his hand. Your hand in his hand.

You dragged your attention away from the entanglement of your selves finding a missing half under the blanket, and searched his face. His eyes flicked from the same knot stirring under the comforter, and the wrinkles in his expression flourished. He thinned his lips into a tight smile. His cheeks were never that full, but there was a roundness there you’d give anything to discover by touch. You’d been closer to him before, like in the kitchen when you counted his freckles after your painfully geeky dagger innuendo, but if you leaned in any further, your vision would blur.

An obvious awkwardness dwelled in the intimacy of your entwined arms, and tensed bodies.

“So, so scary,” you promised during the exposition dialogue taking place on a sunny morning between the characters eating cornflakes at a large dining table. “I’ll probably have to cling onto you the entire time with my eyes shut.”

His voice cracked high pitched, “Yeah?” Feathery soft, on the verge of disappearing altogether. “Guess I’ll have to be the brave one, then.”

“So very brave,” you said, sweet as sugar.

He snorted whereas you giggled, converging with heads together, and a laugh shared, hands held so very bravely. A breakthrough. One second at a time, you melded into his shadows, as you belonged. You angled yourself toward him and tucked your legs onto the couch, freely huddling your knees against his thigh. Your joined hands were nudged onto his leg more, and the clasp became sticky from perspiration. That was okay. There was a thrill in being the reason each other sweated. He curled in his fingers harder, nesting them between the peaks of your knuckles, and you returned the honor by hooking your fingers between his, lightly squeezing him back. One second at a time, he sought your sunshine, as he belonged. He made sure the pressure of his arm and elbow boxing yours in against his side wasn’t painful, slouching a bit so the top of his leather belt wasn’t digging into your forearm. He was thoughtful that way. Concerned for you and your comfort. Didn’t matter if his lower back would be killing him by the end of the first movie, you were wrapping your free hand around his bicep and rubbing your thumb under the short sleeve of his shirt, back and forth. Back and forth. Then, you were resting the side of your head on his shoulder.

He heard you—felt you—inhale deep. Why? Was it to fill your lungs with the scent of his deodorant, the cheap cologne he spritzed at his chest, the drip of Old Spice aftershave on his shirt collar? Was any of that better than oxygen?

Curious, he tilted his head as if something in the movie had him stumped, and he put his nose to the top of your hair, and took a small breath.

A different shampoo than usual hit him first, but below that, clinging to your clothes, was the smell of Robin’s home. He was struck with the thought of what his home smelled like. Was it good? Bad? Could, over time, over months, over difficult questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask, could maybe by the end of summer your two homes combine to make one unique scent?

That would be the dream. And a dream, it may remain. But what a lovely reality it would be; you staying, and your scents mixing to create a new one.

So lost in his thoughts, he didn’t predict the fake-out jumpscare of a murder of crows taking flight after an eerie bout of silence, and he was the one to flinch.

“Aw, movie too scary for ya, big guy?” you cooed.

Eddie sealed his lips in a frown, and tucked his chin to create the maximum amount of wrinkles when he looked down at you. “Maybe a little. Good thing I have you here with me, though. Right?”

You nodded most ardently, squishing your cheek over his scorpion tattoo—just another place on his body you made your home—and grinned up at him.

“Of course, babe.” You called him babe. He smiled so fucking hard. “I’m here if you ever need me to hold your hand.”

You squeezed.

He squeezed back.

Scenes went by on the tiny TV across the room beyond the condensation pebbling on the plastic cups threatening to fall on the coffee table where Adrie’s box of crayons spilt into her coloring book. A story unfolded in the flash of blade, a clatter of piano keys, and a quiet neighborhood who knew no better. The movie played, but neither of you paid attention.

Your gaze was keen to the way his lips stayed parted after he licked them. His gaze was invested in your expression, how you viewed him with such kindness he was seldom shown. A tenderness he was rarely given. He tried to show you the same sincerity, but your eyes were fixated on his mouth.

Self-conscious, he asked, “Is there something on my—?” He rubbed the back of his wrist over lips.

You answered him with a belittling pat on his chest. “No, big guy. You’re good.”

Your tone didn’t sound ‘good,’ but you pulled the blanket up to your chin, and laid your head on his shoulder again, wrapping your other hand around his bicep until your fingers were stuffed between his arm and side. He interpreted your change in mood as a signal the conversation was over, and put his eyes on the movie. Though, his brain was busy toiling over why you were staring at him, and wondering if the pats on his chest were still echoing beneath your ear, or if it was simply his heart threatening to strangle him from the angst of not understanding if he did something wrong already.

At least he was holding your hand like a real boyfriend would. That had to count for something.. Right?

~~~

The credits rolled, and neither of you moved until you pointed out a name scrolling by, and a laugh so akin to a man being punched in the gut wheezed out of him, it caused you to erupt into your own embarrassing goose honk laugh, causing you to both double over in a fit.

Somehow, his nose was nuzzled to your hair. His inhale was cool on your scalp, and his words were a humid huff. “Bart Horsedick,” he said, “Whatta name.”

“You should name a character after him in DND.”

“Mm! You know what? I will. He’ll be a local legend with all the ladies, and tries to charm his way into the party by constantly making passes at the girls. Erica will kill him for sure.”

With a groan and a wince, he sat up straighter, and you lifted your head off his shoulder, making similar complaints about your neck. It was tough work being brave during the scary parts for each other, regardless if neither of you were paying enough attention to care about the reveals.

He asked, “How’d you like the movie? Even that last scene kinda got me.”

“Yeah, it was good,” you answered in the same tone, searching for anything to say that wasn’t, If you don’t kiss I’m going to fucking scream. “I wasn’t expecting the second killer to be the news reporter. That was kinda cool. And that final death was super gory, with the guts ‘nd all, but uh, I’m starving, and ready for something campy.”

Heeding his lady’s request, Eddie dashed around the room, turning on a few of the eclectic lamps, and jabbed the backwards arrow button on the VCR until the movie was playing in reverse at a hilarious speed. “Be kind, rewind, y’know.” Once it clicked, he took the tape out, and put the next one in.

You followed him into the kitchen where the groceries were laid out on the counter. Some were things he already had, like the half-empty bottle of olive oil, and two government supplied cans of vegetable stock, but from the fridge he added an unopened tub of butter, a container of mushrooms, and a wedge of parmesan cheese. He put them beside the onion, fresh sprigs of parsley, and special bag of rice. Ingredients he bought specifically for a meal he didn’t know how to make, but knew it was impressive, and wanted to try cooking it for you.

You picked up the magazine clipping and raised your eyebrows at the recipe.

He fidgeted, spinning his rings. His voice was hesitant; falling back on self-deprecating humor as a crutch, “I know you’ve probably been to France, or, uhh, Italy or whatever,” he guessed, “and’ve learned from experts on how to make it perfectly, but I thought maybe I’d give it an attempt and hope it turns out edible. Just forgive my shit knife skills, and if I pour too much broth, or don’t stir it the exact number of rotations, or some pretentious bullshit like that,” he finished, gaze solidly on the floor, toeing at a scuff on the vinyl to occupy himself. “‘M not exactly a chef outside a can of Boyardee, so..”

Some of his mumbling was lost on you as you read the bottom of the page. Narrowing your eyes at the title printed beside a number in the corner, you put your fist on your hip. “Edward Munson.” He snapped out his worrying at the use of his full name. “Did you rip this out of one of my lobby magazines at work?”

He rolled his lips inward to curb his grin. “No, no, of course not, dear,” he promised, finding it the most opportune moment to turn away, and organize the ingredients in no practical order.

“I swear if I go to work Monday and find Better Homes and Gardens missing page 57—”

“Okay, okay—I’ll tape it back in, but give me some credit, will ya? I didn’t rip it out like some animal.. I cut it out neatly with scissors.” He eyed your harmless smirk, and plucked the mushroom risotto recipe from between your fingers. “Now, if you’d like to get out of my hair, you may,” he said, gesturing at the TV with a knife. “Skedaddle. Go watch the movie.”

“You don’t want me to help? Or at least to keep you company?”

It wasn’t often he was tripped up on what to say, so when his mouth hinged on a mute excuse to get you to leave, you registered what he was going on about earlier, and shook your head.

“Wait, Eddie, I worked in kitchens prepping vegetables when the cooks were too drunk to come in on time because they went home with some random woman from a bar, and were too hungover to know what day it was. That’s why I’m like, okay-ish with a knife. You don’t really think I’d judge you for how you chop an onion, do you?”

A few words were stammered. You shushed him from bothering.

If his confidence had trouble surfacing when everything was out in the open and not hidden under a blanket, then you’d give him another nudge; a single stroke of your knuckle along the monster tattooed on his tricep. The muscle reacted to you, flexing the wyvern’s clawed feet. You did it again. And again. Pinching his sleeve and tugging at it, doing all the cutesy, flirty things you’d learned over the years, including dropping your gaze to his pretty pink lips. Employing your best strategies, you laid it on thick; swaying your hips, and bringing in your arms to frame your chest. “You could heat me up a can of Chef Boyardee, and it’d be the best meal I’ve ever had, as long as I got to share it with you.”

Shy, shy, shy. He brought his shoulder up and ducked his face from your view, giggling at your heavy adulation. “You don’t have to flatter me like that,” he mumbled, sounding not unlike he was wrapped in a ball of lovesick yarn. Overly smitten, ooey gooey with the warm fuzzies in his chest. So very, very adorable, sneaking a glance at you with an unbelieve amount of precious crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

How sweet.

It’d be sweeter if he could take the hint and share those kinds of things with you, but you could be patient and wait until he was ready. Again..

Just.. keep making everything so obvious for him, and try to ignore the sting of rejection when the guy you’ve liked for months finally invites you over for a date, and still won’t kiss you.

At least you were saved from the worst of your downward spiral by the bad B movie and its body melting scene.

“Ooh!” Eddie pushed the cutting board away. “That effect was really cool!”

Since he was already making his way to the TV, you trailed at his heels, and crouched beside him, sinking to your knees while he pressed the rewind button, and clicked Stop/Play twice. The lead up to the moment played again. You sat in anticipation, wholly aware you’d just watched this interaction between the college girls putting their best effort into delivering their lines, only for them to fall flat when their acting was off the charts horrendous. Eddie regarded them with the same sort of awkwardness, rotating his hand in hurried circles until one of them got obliterated into a goopy pile of human remains, and you began to dissect the undulating puddle of sludge.

“How do you think they made that one?” he whispered, mesmerized. “The way it pulses like that?”

“I think it’s from a balloon inflating beneath it. Watch the way the flesh cracks, and the blood oozes out. I think it’s something like that pushing it up from under.”

He hummed, and rewound the tape a few seconds. “Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean,” he said, tapping his finger on the thick curved glass. “And look at that bone. It actually looks like a charred, brittle skeleton instead of those cheap femurs everyone gets at the party store for Halloween.” You also agreed with him in a hum. The extra touches of effort were impressive for a low budget film like this.

The movie continued inches from your eyes. You rested on your calves, flattening the plush carpet under your shins. The harsh fibers were dulled by your pantyhose, and if this was a spot Eddie had to scrub clean after Adrie spilled juice, you weren’t aware of the stain; you were only aware of the hair-raising sensation of being watched.

You directed your attention to Eddie’s pointed stare on the side of your face, about to ask if there was a reason behind his adamant inspection when—

He dropped his gaze to your lips.

Sparks ignited behind your ribcage. Hopefulness latched onto each long second wherein he resisted flicking his eyes back to the screen. Each passing breath a choice to follow the gentle curve of your mouth, and stay there to revel in the simple pleasure of studying the unspoken language evolving between you two, sinking into his own warm grin for you to decipher. He was still crouching on the balls of his feet, and you had to wonder if he leaned over to kiss you now, would he lose his balance and cause you both to fall to the floor? Would he catch the back of your head in his palm to soften the crash? Would his hips fit perfectly between your legs? Would his jeans drag along your inner thighs? Would he whimper when you held him? Would he grind down on you at the first sign of reciprocation? Would he already be hard?

Your thigh muscles ached at the racing thoughts, clenched so tight in response to the needy throb between them.

Was the unspoken language shouting now?

Eddie’s throat bobbed on a stuttered exhale; his chest shook at fractions of his inhale, as if he was experiencing the same tightness there from the rosy desire blooming so greatly, struggling to cope with the oxygen in his lungs when there were far sweeter things they’d rather be filled with. “I—” He stopped. “I read a review on the back of the box that said this movie was scary too,” he informed you in whisper, right when a godawful green alien appeared and shot the worst CGI laser you’d ever seen from your peripheral vision. “Better hang out with me in the kitchen, where we can keep each other safe.”

You urged your yearning away from his mouth to the neon colors of a spaceship glancing off his cheeks, to his large nose, to the tips of his bangs skimming his eyebrows, to the bags under his eyes, and finally, you caught the last moments of him roaming your features with utmost care before your gazes locked.

The floor beneath him creaked.

Briefly, you considered closing your eyes.

The carpet flattened in a muffled rustle.

Briefly, you considered uttering his name.

The dry air in the room vanished with his humid huff coasting over your forehead.

Briefly, you considered begging him when he pushed off his knees, stumbled slightly towards you, and stood, offering you a helping hand.

He said, “Gotta make this dinner for you before I starve, sweetness.”

Kissless, you fought against your inner bitterness, and accepted his fingers. To hide your wilting resilience, you put a swing of vigor in your voice, and happiness on your face. “Yeah, watching hot blondes perish into goo really makes one hunger for sloppy rice with mushrooms.”

Well, at least you could always make him laugh.

~~~

Onion skin crunched under Eddie’s heavy chop. The papery layer was discarded. Laying the halves on the textured cutting board, he dragged the knife in long slices out from the root, then rotated to dice it into cubes. He blinked away fresh tears, and beside him, you scraped the sweated mushrooms into a bowl, and placed the pan back on the burner for him to sweep his prepped vegetables into. They sizzled on impact. You stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon, and made sure nothing seared to the bottom.

Steam rose from the bowl of cooked mushrooms. Slippery oil slicked their surface, adding to the smells of onion and garlic. Condensation fogged the tiny window above the sink. The rice began to toast. A burnt popcorny, yet pleasantly floral fragrance mixed with the sour note of cheap white wine bubbling down to nothing, and salty splashes of broth.

Mostly, the continuous stirring was done passively because you were both watching the movie from across the room. When it was your turn at the stove, you grasped the skillet handle and moved the spoon around in some sort of pattern, but your upper body was twisted towards the TV. When it was his turn, you took his place at the wrap around counter, bending over to rest your forearms on it, savoring his body heat baked into the surface under your palms before it faded and was replaced by your own.

The last VHS was inserted. No commercials on this older tape.

You grated the last of the cheese into the rice, and tipped in the mushrooms. Behind you, there were two metallic latch sounds followed by two loud bangs. Eddie sucked in a hiss, and apologized. You were too busy portioning out the risotto to see what in the world he was doing, but the sharp clicks of his lighter were distinct, as was the notch turns of the unnecessary lamps being turned off, casting you in dimmed ambiance.

Garnishing the meal with parsley, you scooped up the bowls and turned.

“Ta-da,” he said meekly, opening up his arms with weak pizazz.

You were stunned at the effort.

The collapsable ends of the green table hung by their hinges, making the surface area impossibly intimate. On top, there were three lit candlesticks to set the mood, and underneath, the seats of the chairs almost touched. The whole thing was incredibly sweet. Thoughtful. Endearing. He had trouble meeting your eye.

Eddie glanced at the unscented candles burning bright for practicality’s sake. The first wet drip of wax joined the others melted down the side since the last time he used them when the power went out. Not exactly romantic. “Has, uhm, anyone made you risotto before?” he asked, and tacked on, “At home?” when the fear of not being the first smacked the words out of him.

“No,” you stated. “No one's ever done something so sweet for me.”

His lower lip twitched, and he ran his tongue over his teeth to quell the giddiness from exploding. And to stop himself from celebrating too soon.

As you carried the bowls towards his attempt to recreate a fine dining experience, he tried to push aside the thoughts of inadequacy—the candles, the fact he couldn’t take you to a real restaurant, the flowers he decided against because he no longer had a vase, the nagging voices in his head that told him this whole idea was stupid—and instead, he focused on anything else. Anything, anything else.

“Here, lemme help you, sweet—Ow, ow, ow, ow—Jesus, do you have hands of steel or somethin’?” The candles wobbled when he dropped the bowl on the table, and you both froze as they teetered back and forth, praying your second date didn’t go up in literal flames.

When they came to a rest, you both sighed.

“Hands of steel, huh?” you mused. “I think they feel kinda soft compared to yours.”

Quickfire, he picked up on the age-old flirt you used on him months ago (back when he was dumb, and genuinely thought he was the one flirting with you by suggesting you come back to him when you found a spider as big as his palm), and he concurred, “Maybe we need to compare them again. Y’know, really get in there and make sure I have the toughest hands in the Midwest.” Adopting a southern drawl, he stuffed his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, and puffed out his chest. “Can’t let a lil’ lady who answers phones with ‘Yellow?’ have stronger hands than me, now can we?”

You pinged him with a wry expression twinged with cringe, and sat down, scooting your chair in, and looking up at him still standing. “You are so pitifully dorky.”

“I sure am, sweetheart,” he said proudly, falling into the chair across from you.

Your knees collided under the table; bone on bone due to his inability to wear jeans without holes in them. They knocked painfully, and while he did remember to apologize when you winced, he was distracted by the silly notion that his bare knees were the second body part to make contact with your tights. The back of his hand during the movie didn’t lend much to his senses, now he had a better feel of the texture, and how it rubbed against his skin. A strangely marvelous thing. And he was getting ahead of himself, sure, but he wondered how your tights must feel under the same rugged palm he was offering to you upturned on the table while below, his thoughts were erring away from respectful visions of circling his thumb over your knee cap while you were stretched across the couch with your legs in his lap, to something he felt unworthy to ask for.

Oh, but how he ached to be the one who was trusted to keep you warm when you were undressed..

Your chair squeaked. You changed the position to where your legs were bracketed by his wide spread. Perfect, because he brought in his stance and crossed his ankles behind yours, locking your thighs and calves between his, as if you were his possession, unable to escape. Indulging him, you giggled, and squirmed to the edge of your seat, taking his hand. His right, your left. A polite union of criss-crossed fingers. Mountainous calluses mapped against rolling hills of satin. Flickering candlelight dancing off the silver band of his ring. Kind, and sweet.

He gripped his spoon in an unnatural way, dragging it through the risotto, and bumping the ceramic.

“I can hold your other hand,” you offered, motioning at where you could link his non-dominant hand in the space between your bowls.

His voice was made of mushy tenderness, but his clipped tone left no room for argument, “Nah, I like it this way.” If you didn’t understand why yet, you did when you traced his gaze to his wrist. The beads had shifted from where they dug into his flesh. Squares from the blocky letters left indents in his skin, as did the corners of star beads interspersed throughout the round ones. Opposite D-A-D-D-Y, your sleeve was bunched up from cooking, baring the precious nickname M-O-U-S-E.

Your eyelids fell half-closed. The fondness on your lips wasn’t a result of the risotto—as delicious as the first bite was—no, the sentiment was much too darling. Almost as if you could hear the dormant vocabulary you awoke running hot in his veins. My girl, my girl, my girl is wearing the matching bracelet my daughter made for us, and I’ve never wanted anything more than another excuse to call you my girl out loud; I want it so bad I could cry.

“You did such a good job on this,” you complimented the risotto after taking another bite.

Fate. “It only tastes good because I had my girl’s help.” Under no circumstance was he about to make eye contact after saying that. In fact, he avoided sound altogether when he angled his spoon so he wouldn’t scrape it along his teeth a second time, and blew on the porridge-like rice before sliding the richness over his tongue, alighting his mouth with mellowed complexities for such unassuming ingredients. As he ate, he listened to you eat too. As he glanced, you glanced too. As he embellished his grin with a secret, you snuck in one of your own through the mysterious sharpness in your eyes boring into his too. He didn’t question it, didn’t breathe, didn’t make a sound above the panicked yelling happening in the movie in the other room; for now, he was content with holding your hand and calling you his girl.

The pressure to continue conversation waned.

He squeezed.

You squeezed back.

~~~

Dinner was finished in cherished bites. The movie was in the process of concluding, as most of the cast had been killed off by the time Eddie uncrossed his ankles and released you. He blew out the candles and stood, already regretting the act when the imprint of your body faded from his between his legs.

While he filled the sink with soapy water, you put away the forgotten ingredients, and wiped up the counter with a wet rag in absentminded circles, thoroughly invested in the slasher’s “forest chase scene” probably filmed in someone’s mom’s backyard.

Once the frothy bubbles sloshed to the rim with each dish put in, and the clammy air was brightened by the scent of blue Dawn liquid soap, Eddie rolled the stretchy bracelet up his forearm and began dunking the glass cup used for measuring the broth. He ran his hand around the inside to rid it of the gritty residue left behind. Dipping the thin washcloth, he submerged his hands up to his wrists in skin prickling hot water, and brought the cup out, exposing his chafed knuckles to the sting of cold air. He washed it, rinsed it under even colder water, and handed it off to you. You toweled it dry, and put it in the cupboard next to the fridge.

Over and over, he washed, you dried. He washed, you dried.

Routine, monotonous, robotic and quiet.

Outer input died away. No more movie, no more hot water, no more spoken conversation, no more meaningful glances, nor more intimate nicknames, no more inappropriate touches stolen under the guise of a drunken night. Just his thoughts, insecurities, anxieties, and hopes and the instant foreboding stress wrenching his stomach with fear of those hopes never coming true.

The air was thick with awareness.

You were in his home. The date was coming to an end, and so was his bravery. This was his chance, and he was letting it slip by him. Again.

He’d run out of excuses. Or rather, he reasoned with the excuses, and now he was facing the real problem. All the stuff from months ago about him not knowing if you liked him, your flighty lifestyle, the dynamic of being coworkers and worrying if it’d make things weird, the conversation he never had with Adrie; forgoing divulging his hobbies, his music, or his past with you because he didn’t see the point; those things he conquered. Those things no longer bothered him. Those things had answers putting them to rest.

Now, there was nothing keeping him from pursuing you except his own inhibitions..

Sad, how even when he had the courage to get this far with you, the differences in your lives served as a reminder he was just a poor boy from Indiana whose greatest aspiration was owning a trailer of his own so his uncle could have his room back. You had a drama degree—hell, you went to college in the first place. You had real dreams, and achieved semblances of those dreams before coming to Hawkins. A star as bright as you shouldn’t have to peter out in a town in the middle of nowhere. You needed the city to thrive, to perform on stage again. It was your calling, wasn’t it? Munson wasn’t calling you like your previous life, was it? You spoke of your accomplishments so highly. Would you ever learn to speak of him that way? Would he, one day, become one of your stories? A memory you moved on from?

Or did he deserve to ask you to give up everything you loved and earned to settle down in a dead-end shithole that hated him, and help him raise a child that wasn’t yours, tying yourself to his reputation forever?

What if he asked those things of you? Would you say ‘yes’?

Shit.

While the sea of doubt churned in his head, he rinsed off the ceramic bowl you used to eat from, and blinked the sting from his eyes after staring off into space for too long. He waited to hand it to you until you had put a pan away in the lower cabinet under the wrap-around counter, and accepted the bowl, drying it off and ping-ponging to the other side of the kitchen to the upper cabinet above the toaster. You didn’t have to guess. You knew exactly where it went. You were familiar with the precise drawer the spatula went in, next to the cutlery one where you tossed in the spoons. There was a beautiful domesticity to it all; washing dishes with you as if it were a nightly occurrence. Like you lived here. Together. You, him, Adrie, and his uncle—preferably not in that arrangement, and not in this trailer, but the vision.. the vision was there. You and him rejecting the bullshit small town mentality, and creating a life in Hawkins you could both be proud of, free from strife. A do-over, in a way, with you at his side, and his daughter on your hip.

The pit of self-loathing in his stomach yawned.

Those idyllic fantasies were too much to ask for. Too much to even risk speaking out loud. He could feel the rejection welling up behind his eyes as it were, wobbling at his bottom lip. The crushing reality of being a lonely single dad with nothing to offer—

You slammed the cabinet door shut, and tossed the towel aside. “So, are we gonna pick up where that phone call left off, or not?”

Eddie stilled under your loaded stare.

You remembered you remembered you remembered—

“If you adore me so much..” you added.

Jolted into action, the last dish slipped from his fingers, splashing and bouncing sluggishly off the bottom of the sink. Adrenaline hit him in droves. Frantic stings of want pushed him forward. Chores were forgotten. Mind blank. The soft thuds of his stride thundered off the thin walls. Pace quickened. Pulse beating in his throat. Vice grip on his heart. Months, weeks, days, hours of keeping his starvation alive through longing looks and inside jokes and hands brushing hands in fragile innocence, denying the vital comfort he craved to experience with the one person who made him feel special; the yearning reached its peak.

Predatory hunger rushed color to his cheeks at the remarkable sight of his dearest dream going slack with surprise.

He secured his fate with his arm wrapped around your waist, sweeping his hand upwards and dragging your cardigan with it. Water dripped to his elbows, cooling the wicked fever igniting his skin. He poured his strength into bringing you into him at the same time he stepped into you, forcing you back, back, back until the distance keeping you apart was eliminated, caging you where you gave him his final nudge beyond the brink of composure. His hips coaxed you side to side. His legs boxed you in where he commanded. Each motion pressed his strong, needy body to yours, driving the edge of the countertop into your lower back. Sway by sway, a dance of insurmountable patience built over months met its breaking point. You went pliant for him. No fight, only a small noise when he engulfed you in his aggressive embrace.

You gathered the hem of his shirt in your weak fists. His sudden leap over the platonic line broke goosebumps across your exposed midriff, tightening your nipples against the delicate lavender lace. The tremble in your knees was juxtaposed by his steady hand tilting your face up to his.

Sudsy bubbles burst on the peach fuzz beneath your ear from where he cupped your jaw. Droplets trickled to the base of your neck, curving over your breasts, and beading on the surface of your cardigan. He swept his fingers in an untamed stroke over your cheek. He tested a deeper angle, fitting his broad grasp to your chin and compelling you to lean in with the heel of his palm guiding you, drawing you forward, supporting the pout of your bottom lip with the base of his thumb.

His nose whistled when he took a shallow breath. The wet, soapy trails left in his hand’s wake went cold against his sigh coasting over your skin. Again, he tried another breath. Deeper; initiating the unadulterated intimacy of his stomach filling out and pushing against yours. More. The great expanse of his shoulders squared with confidence, and his muscles braced under your tender exploration. Your weak grip left his waist to climb up the confines of his arms, passing over his ribs and the flat plane of his pecs to place the lightest touch at the base of his neck. Closer. The serious glint in his eyes blurred as he neared.

The tip of his nose butted the apple of your cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” he spoke aloud for the first time, words breaking on the whisper.

You answered him in a faint, insatiable, “Yes.”

He imposed himself more. Frame on frame. Unyielding body leaned and curved around your softness, channeling every repressed feeling he’d had since you met into pinning you against the counter. Gradually, he dropped his head into a better angle; grinding forehead on forehead, tracing his perfect nose along yours, tilting so his mouth hovered fractions above a decision.

He teased, “Are you only saying that because it’s your policy?”

You smiled against the edge of his thumb after spying his sly grin through your heavy lashes. “No,” you stressed the single word, speaking through the mild irk of impatience building like an itch that could not be scratched in the marrow of your bones.

Anticipation clung to the prolonged gossamer blinks before they lulled into closed eyes, and slow swallows of air until lungs were poised on a held breath.

Every syllable of his next question dragged his lower lip across yours. “Are you my girl?”

“Eddie—”

The whine. The beg. The genuine plea of his name.

Organically imperfect, he smashed his mouth to yours. It was a harsh collision of teeth to lips, and a startled grunt at the abrupt impact, but neither of you cared. Reservations were off. You clung desperately to his shirt, stretching the cotton around his neck and biting the ball chain necklace into his throat, striving for a needier kiss; sparking a heady rush of awareness to the oversensitive areas reacting to the animalistic push and pull of him gaining control, advocating for his own fight in the flex of his thighs driving you into the creaky doors of the cabinetry. The fervency spurred him on. You combed your fingers through the downy curls at his nape, and he did not hesitate slipping a hand under your sweater to smooth his palm to your bare waist. And fuck, how you arched your back on instinct.

Nasally grunts of pain descended to pleasant hums from the throat.

Unable to divide his attention, the kisses went sloppier. Rushed. Awkward, and clumsy. He slotted his mouth to yours with too much force, to the point of bruising your spit slicked lips, and the wet smack pulled a submissive whimper from the places he’d yet to take. The flush blotching his throat ran hot like flames, heating the Old Spice aftershave on his skin. The scent aided the dizzy lurch in your head, lost to the dull lamplight beyond your eyelids, rocking you onto your toes and falling back on your heels in the swirling give-and-take of his unstated needs reaching levels of crisis only you could solve. A pain you could cure as you crammed your nose to his cheek, spread your fingers firmly against his skull, and kissed your friend harder than he kissed you.

Hums lowered into a depraved moan.

The intensity of your reciprocation fueled his ego. Seeking, he moved his chivalrous hand from cupping your face, downwards. Grabbing, seizing, squeezing. After refraining from so much for so long, he was mesmerized by the curve of your shoulder, the sway of your lower back, the waistband of your scratchy polyester skirt. He roved until he found your ribs, and he molded his fingerprints there, branding you with the sensation of his thumb beneath your underwire bra. It was a messy exploration. His excitement had him bearing his weight down on you, and when your strained feet failed to steady him, your ankle gave. Knees bumped; he stepped on your toes. He fell into you and matched the pain of the counter prodding your tender flesh with the bulk of his leather belt scraping your stomach. No apology. Not with words. It was the safety and protection of his arm crooked between you and the laminate countertop which rescued you, and as a reward, he dropped his forearm from the cusp of your hips and feasted his thick fingers on a handful of your ass, rocking you into him.

There was no other way to react to the blunt suggestion.

Heavy, uneven breaths were panted across the other’s sore lips as you both withdrew to gauge the next step. He scoped your features with urgency, darting from your relaxed brows, to your keen gaze. There was an etching of insecurity marring the honey in his gentle brown eyes when you were too dazed to remember to smile, jumping to conclusions in his worrisome ways.

He really did worry too much.

Bringing your hand out of his curls, you grazed the strained tendon on the side of his neck, and worked your way up. You trailed your knuckles along his cheek, swept them under his wispy bangs, and put your fingertips to his temple, triggering a shivered sigh and fluttering lashes at the new touch.

You answered him as you combed his hair away from his face, “I’m your girl.”

The instant sincerity of his red, swollen lips kicking up into an uneven grin invoked a raw tenderness to his pink nose scrunching in playfulness, and the corner of his eyes going tight with happiness.

“Yeah?” he asked, voice hoarse from the exertion of kissing you senseless.

“Yeah,” you promised in another caress.

For a moment, he held your gaze with the importance of someone understanding what it meant to be by his side and to be seen with him out in Hawkins public; as if he were on the verge of crying from the sheer gratitude of your policy landing you here, in his arms, on this night, wanting to be his.

Eddie peered into your eyes again. His wide pupils and dusky cheeks spoke of the nature of his body, but behind that, lurking beneath his fibrous sinew was the same innate marrow telling him this was okay. This was right. Just let go.

Just let go.

He listened.

As wild as he took you minutes before, he was ready to luxuriate in the nuances of affection. He pressed his mouth closed in a dry swallow, and raised his hand from your ribs, beckoning your cheek into the stifling heat of his palm. The throbbing pulse in his neck beat a rhythm to his chest, rising and falling in a quick cadence until he was able to discipline his attention away from the obvious snag of his zipper on your skirt.

He relaxed into another kiss. It may have been the hundredth of the night, but it was pivotal. Something changed. The frantic clashing lessened, and the cravings heightened.

Consistent as he was in taking things slow, he knew how to make you feel cherished. He took your bottom lip between his and dragged it as he broke the chain from one kiss to the other, as if the extra second he claimed a part of you was crucial to his survival. Truly indulging in the full potential of someone witnessing the many bad days of his life and still wanting to cook dinner with him. Someone enjoying the harmonized hum of your lips converging while you scratched small circles on his scalp above his ears. Someone willing to hear his shameful complaints about fatherhood, and not judge him when he took his lunch break in his car, cranking the seat back to rest his blood-shot sleepless eyes, instead of sharing a coke with them in the breakroom. Someone he’d come to rely on; a constant in his life.

He poured his coffee pot’s worth of trust into you, and you answered him with the blissful endeavor of your fingers scaling his forearm, brushing through the thin hair growing like wheat and pushing the beaded bracelet up to his wrist, cupping your hand over his on your cheek. D-A-D-D-Y. M-O-U-S-E. In turn, you drank his insecurities and added your own, overflowing with the mutual truth that neither of you had been in a stable relationship lasting longer than a month, and this whole thing should’ve been very scary.

But it wasn’t scary.

It was slow and steady.

The heaviness of his body returned. Hands wandered aimlessly. Arms entwined, untangled, confused themselves on who was where. Attentive fingertips glided over woven yarn and cotton, following the dips and curves and slopes; basking in the reverence of married threads and validation. Legs shuffled, spreading and accommodating. Jaws went slack. Languid tongues merged, lazy and hot. He palmed your ass in a lax grip, easing your hips flush against his. You answered with a purposeful roll intending to earn some friction, but you couldn’t reap the benefits on account of one problem..

Your skirt was stretched to the fabric’s maximum allowance, creating a taut buffer keeping him at bay. Any motion was nullified by the hindrance. Noticing this, he shifted to be better cradled by your thighs, and a delicious gift was granted with the tandem action of your bodies joining.

He flattened his hands on the countertop behind you and blessed you with a proper long drawl of his hips; pausing in an open mouthed kiss because the noise you made—the noise you made—the noise the noise the noise you made—

Your quick inhale faltered, flattering the hard press of his cock with a shameless gasp.

Eddie halted at the top of the motion from your involuntary praise, and locked eyes with you. Just like when he made you laugh, he wanted to witness your pleasure, soak in your reverent stare and pride himself on the way you asked for more—by sinking back and away and rutting upwards, instigating a filthy tension on the layers separating you; panties, nylon, polyester skirt, seams on seams on seams of harsh denim, and his choice of boxers; and God, you thrived on the bulk behind his zipper caressing you for the first time where climaxes were born. Your moan hinged on his satisfaction, and in a dare, you pivoted the descent of your roll towards the right, capturing between you his stiff length tenting towards his pocket. And when you arched into a slow grind on the base—sliding him along the curve of your clothed heat—he released his own pretty noise.

“Mm—fuck,” he groaned into your mouth.

Gravitating elsewhere, he left messy kisses on your jaw and brushed his nose over the peach fuzz on your cheek to put his love-bitten lips to your ear. Gravelly with want, he asked, “When did you remember what happened that night?”

A dirty throb pulsed where he buried himself between your legs, striving for the angle which had you grasping at his narrow hips as a silent plea for him to drive into you harder.

“Oh,” you panted into his hair sticking to your mouth. Answering casually as you could despite your face running hot, and your voice straining light with a joke, you answered, “I never forgot. I lied when you asked me.”

“You—?” The word was a quick huff of air against your neck. He pulled away enough to look at you, but not divorce your stomachs from touching. Two deep creases formed between his brows, shadowing his squint with incredulity. “You lied to me?”

A pang of doubt weeded its way into your insecure hands around his waist, forcing you to question if he was really mad at you for pretending you didn’t remember the exact details of last weekend in order to bolster his confidence into asking you on a date instead of wallowing in silent guilt for thinking he did something wrong and end up pushing you away, sabotaging himself from ever acting on this.

You were about to speak your mind—that is, until his lips crooked up, and he invaded your space with his big eyes, big nose, and even bigger grin.

“You lied to me,” he said with a snap of wolfishness, tonguing his sharp canine after the bite of his words; hosting an overabundance of admiration in his half-lidded gaze raking over you, alighting every sinful nerve in your body.

Time to pick up where that phone call left off—

“Yeah, I did.. But you didn’t.” You sank your hand between your bodies, and flattened your palm to the front of his jeans.

His breath hitched.

Skimming, teasing, playing with him, you strung his lust taut, tracking your fingertips over the hardness and sweeping them to the very end, circling an outline around his head like a Siren’s call to his fiery blood. His biceps flexed against your arms. The laminate counter squeaked from his sweaty grip on the edge. Vinyl flooring creaked at his antsy rut into your hand, and you gave in to your own curiosity.

Wrapping your fingers as best you could through the thick denim, a spike of cold excitement washed over you at the sheer girth you struggled to handle—much less the long, long drag of your palm from base to tip—sending an ache to your cunt begging to be stretched by him.

Slightly over seven inches, indeed.

Lacking poise, you blurted an unintelligible word, and his smirk underscored his heavy kiss.

“Told you I didn’t need to overcompensate,” he taunted.

His newfound smugness was allowed. Encouraged, even, by your firm strokes, again and again, creating a damp patch on his pants at every pass of your thumb. You were fascinated by his ability to engulf you in another tender union of lips when your senses were overwhelmed by the impressive size filling your palm. Intoxicated by the gentle glide of his considerable tongue along your bottom teeth. Dazed by his pitiful groan when you increased your pace, building and building the wicked friction burn from his jeans on your soft skin, tending to the flames of your arousal, sensitive nipples peaked and receptive to the warmth of his lean chest pressing down on you.

Needing him, you closed off the kiss and played into your appeal with a saccharine pinch to your expression, and a cloying sweetness to your tone. “You do so much for your family,” you murmured. “You work so hard to provide for them, always staying late at the garage, covered in grease and dirt, fixing cars until your hands are torn and your back aches. Making sacrifices without a second thought. Always putting their needs first.”

Stroking his hard cock, you asked, “When was the last time someone put your needs first?”

Eddie screwed his eyes shut and fit the bridge of his nose to your forehead. When he spoke, his embarrassment influenced his mumble, “S’been a long, long time.”

“Sounds like you need me to take care of you, handsome.”

He tensed to suppress his shiver from your sultry tone, and withheld his whimper at the prospect, meeting your gaze in a nervous flick. “I don’t, uhm.. have..” His assured demeanor ebbed to stuttering shyness. “I didn’t, uh, buy any condoms, and all the stores are closed by now..”

Your face fell flat.

You threw your exasperated stare to the ceiling, and searched the series of events which would lead to him asking you on a date, at his home, at night, without anyone else present, and somehow not think to buy condoms. “Why didn’t you buy any?”

He shrugged, frustration evident in his tone. “I was afraid of being a dumbass and leaving them out in the open where you could see them—like with the groceries or some shit—and give you the wrong impression, like my goal was only to invite you over for that reason, and, I don’t know, think I’m coming on too strong, or something, and make you uncomfortable.”

You gripped your beloved dumbass by the chin with your unoccupied hand, and put an end to his fretting. “Or, I would get the right impression, and we’d have that box opened within ten minutes of me walking through the door.”

He blinked dumbly.

Before he could ask if you were serious, you steered the conversation to its original topic with a gentle squeeze where the dark spot on his jeans bloomed, and said, “We’ll worry about condoms next time.” He throbbed in your palm. Next time. “After all the romantic stuff you’ve done for me, I want to show you my appreciation.” You slid your fingers through his belt loops, and leaned up, nosing your way through his frizzy waves to whisper a fantasy in his ear. “I want you in my mouth.”

You put the power of suggestion in your aggressive tug, snapping your hips together.

Ripples of electric pleasure stood his arm hair on end. The alertness in his expression glazed over. He lazed in the feeling, hardly able to open his eyes to follow the bounce of your eyebrows and the deep cut of your smirk; matching with his own goofy smile going lopsided with enthusiasm.

Since his birth, there were few instances where he felt wanted, or loved, and for his dream girl to waltz into his life and be so brazen about her attraction to him with no hidden motives, empty sweet-talk, or ill intentions—

For possibly the first time in Eddie’s ostracized existence, he felt desired.

Each low tug on his jeans was another boost to his self esteem, guiding him step by step further beyond the platonic line. Deeper, and deeper into new territory. Crossing the threshold from cracked vinyl to plush carpet, and with it, entering the fear of the unknown he wasted countless hours resisting. There’s no going back after this. Acquaintances was a laughable notion, coworkers was a tricky dynamic left to be dealt with on Monday, and friendship was the foundation of him opening up to you.

Every decision persuading you to the edge of his bed was made in careful consideration. Choices were presented and chosen without impulse. Nothing about him was casual. Not anymore. The slow crawl towards this relationship was impeded by his past, and instead of giving up, you stayed true to him. Because you saw him as worthwhile.

Eddie sank to the couch, and before his back made contact with the cushions, he had his fingers cupped to the backside of your thighs, proposing a bend to your knees. In a fluid motion, he dragged his rough palms up your tights and coaxed your legs on either side of him, running his heavy hands over your skirt and up to your waist. He relaxed into the sitting position with an arm crooked around your ass while he treated himself to a handful, gathering you as close as possible until he was satisfied with the places he could reach. Not once did his eyes leave your face. He tipped his head back to watch you go from standing at the end of his knees, to straddling his lap. Wholly enamored.

Blue cast from the TV’s standby mode contrasted the dim glow from the old lamp on the kitchen counter, highlighting his blushy cheeks in eventide colors, and cleaving a defined shadow down his bobbing throat.

Earned muscle and bulky denim and seven inches of bliss prodded the delicate meat of your inner thighs. You sat high on his lap, releasing the tension in your body in increments, settling yourself on top of him. He kissed you. Short and sweet; a brief encounter compared to before, but with your senses amplified by the deeper connection you two fostered for one another, it was the best kiss of your life. And it served as a chaste prelude to his next devotion.

Taking the lead, Eddie moved on from your lips, working downward in a dreamy, drunken daze, reveling in skin-on-skin. Want—more—please. When he couldn’t access the vulnerable underside of your chin, he urged your head up with a determined bump of his nose to your jaw, and continued to praise you in stray kisses and greedy palms. He showed you what he wanted by dragging you forward in his lap, and you didn’t need to be told twice by his white-knuckled grip.

You grinded down on him, and your mouth went slack with a fragmented moan.

“You’re so pretty when you do that,” he slurred, voice husky and low.

The bulge behind his fly parted your aching cunt. With your legs spread wide, you found your perfect middle and worked the stiff seams against your need. Each rut glided him along you, slipping over the nylon and stretching your pantyhose taut. You beared down harder, obeying the faint throbs of desperation, and turned them into inadequate stirs of pleasure, fleeting at each pass.

The first stitch of nylon broke. Then, another.

His generous kisses went wayward, favoring your jawbone as a means to end, tucking his teeth into the pocket beneath your ear and nipping at your vulnerable pulse. You swallowed under the threat, and dropped your head back, revealing the neglected expanse for him to cherish.

Cascades of euphoria flowed down your neck. Teeth grazed, his tongue tasted, the cold tip of his nose drew sentiments on your throat. For every dull sting of his untamed bite, he apologized with a softer, and softer affection. Lessening in aggression. Soothing your sweltering skin with cooling breaths on the streak of spit he left behind. You shivered despite the sudden break of sweat in the humid entanglement and embraced your urges, squirming against his jeans and circling your hips in measured thrusts, tilting into the motion for your own sake and blanketing your thigh over his achingly hard cock by chance. “Christ, sweetheart.” His muffled moan set your blood on fire. Your fingers went tight on his shoulders, digging into the muscle shifting beneath your nails, wrinkling the fabric of his favorite shirt.

More nylon stitches popped.

Too lost in your own efforts, you hadn’t noticed the loss of his possessive hold on your waist until your hard nipples brushed two solid objects.

Yarn fibers tickled overtop the sheer mesh cups of your bra.

Eddie nuzzled at the base of your neck and rested the slope of his broad nose there, moving his lips on your skin when he remembered, but otherwise his attention deviated elsewhere. At his leisure, he thumbed the top button of your sweater through the loop, and drifted to the next. Another, and another, exposing the sheen of perspiration on your chest to the stagnant air in his living room. His deft fingers undressed you with undue ease. Each loosened button raced your heart, and you repaid him by widening your knees and sinking fully onto his lap, laying your plush inner thigh on top of his length in a satisfying squish, and staying there.

A weak whine tinted his pretty, “Feels—good.”

Feels good played off the thin walls stacked with ceramic mugs. Feels good joined the sporadic pitter patter of raindrops on the tin roof streaming to the grassless earth outside. Feels good warmed you like the oil filled radiator at the end of the couch, popping and crackling when the heat droned higher. Feels good manifested in your cardigan slipping from your shoulders and falling to the floor in a mute drop; rooted itself in his ringed fingers dipping into your waistband; was proven by his other palm molding to the curve of your hip as if it were shaped by the same artist; and confirmed by the unambiguous focus to your right side.

Feels so fucking good burst forth in his hand’s unyielding snatch on your waistband and decisive jerk forward, ripping through the last of the strained seam trapped against your satin underwear.

The pantyhose split at the gusset, and your plump pussy spilled out, perfectly framed by the gaping nylon hole presenting your wet cunt to the thick denim. You draped him sweetly. Curved over the immense rise behind the creased zipper, creating a stiff peak before sloping to the soft give of his stomach. It didn’t take more than a single experimental thrust for your thin panties to slide into your sticky need, working them snug to your heat and inciting the first true tug at your core. Whispers of relief roused at your center, but it wasn’t until your second try, when you tilted your hips and Eddie guided you down onto him, genuine satisfaction was achieved.

The low rumble from the bottom of his chest filled you with oozy pride.

You concentrated the friction on your clit, and Eddie concentrated on anything else.

He stopped sealing his kisses, letting the envelope of his lips fall open, slack, and inarticulate, never beginning nor ending the ode to your neck. His mouth hovered wherever his head hung, and in his stupor, he could do little more than use his tongue to cut a fat line through the luster beneath the hollow of your throat, letting the salt sit in his mouth before swallowing, grateful. With each movement, the scratchy grain on his jaw from that morning’s shave buffed your sensitive skin, and he lapped at the rawness he caused in apology. The higher you rose over the swell of his cock, the lower he prized you in sloppy drags of his ample lips. He cupped his ringed fingers to the underside of the lavender lace and used his heavenly tongue to lick the top of your breast, accentuating the curve for his teeth to savor you in a lovebite. Your nipples begged for him, and your back arched for him. Your mouth fell open with a gasp—”Eddie”—drawing out the last set of vowels before they devolved into a whimper. Soon, his head was a heavy burden between your tits, and you wrapped him in your naked arms, cradling him there with your fingers in his hair. Spit from his sloppy kisses smeared on your cleavage, wetting the stubble on his cheeks, and he remained smitten, moaning into them with each bounce on his lap.

He was so wrecked on intimacy. 

Loading your lungs with another sigh of his name, you rocked your hips in whichever way felt best, not paying attention to the way your inner thigh rolled over Eddie’s fat cock, again, and again. Satin on denim; faster, and faster, tensing your leg muscles and releasing them like a quick stroke down his length. You embraced him with your chin to his hair, panting over the frizz sticking to your lips. Tender, always. Committed to lauding gentle kisses to his scalp even as you chased the one thing on your mind. Grinding in quicker thrusts. Listening to his muffled praise, but not hearing him go quiet, or noticing his body go still when his thighs edged into a hard flex under your ass. You were oblivious to his hand falling from your bra, and his fingers anchoring onto your waist. You were too engrossed in the act, rutting like animals do. Lurching towards the inevitable one desperate grind at a time, quicker.. quicker.. Heeding what your body wanted. Racing, faster.. faster.. 

Abrupt pain bloomed where he shoved his palm into your thigh to stop you.

“You’re gonna make me cum,” he panted in a ragged breath.

A new heat rushed to your cheeks. The dirty word spoken from his mouth engulfed you. It tingled and danced over your skin, firing signals of excitement in pulses. With clarity, you realized the few direct strokes during what was supposed to be foreplay had him tensing and trembling, trying to keep his release from arriving too early and making a mess of himself before getting to the real deal. Your nipples tightened at the knowledge, and your legs clenched on instinct. You almost made him cum his jeans. What a compliment.

Your puffy clit was sore from the brief friction, and you felt every centimeter of space he put between you and your reward, but it was like a switch flipped in your brain.

The sharp throbs of his fingers clamped onto the meat of your thigh and his thumb jammed into the soft muscle were forgotten when you looked down at the man who shied under your observation; his face aflame with the awareness he ruined your release as well and his, and his bashful eyes worried with remorse. He was the reason you craved the early dawn, and weekday nights. He was the reason your heart crowded your throat when you woke up and your first thought was to reach for the bracelet on your bedside dresser. He was the reason you took a liking to heavy metal and board games. He was the reason your body reacted to wafts of earthy tobacco in the air, only to be disappointed when the person behind you at the grocery store was just another smoker who hand rolled their cigarettes, as if they had the right to smell like Eddie Munson.

You looked down at the man who lived an isolated and thankless life, who found joy in the small things and loved with his whole heart, who had few outlets to express himself and receive love back, and nothing mattered to you more than giving him a reason to look at you differently come Monday morning.

You thumbed the edge of his jaw with a promise. “I’ll go slow, pretty boy.”

He made a choked off noise in response.

Eddie’s eyes followed the nuances of your movement as you rose from his lap and planted your feet on the carpet. His stance widened to make room for you, chest falling with a silent exhale; peering at you with a question between his brows, as if he were contemplating his luck. When you bent over and placed your palms on his thighs, you stole his gaze from the intimate way your cleavage shifted under gravity, and honored his lips a last time for the foreseeable future, about to show him how fortunate he really was.

You sank to your knees, dropping dry kisses onto his shirt in a path to his belly as you went, and lifted the hem. The bottom of the inked sword and dragon greeted you. Sparse hair fanned as you raised the shirt above his tattooed navel, and pushed it to the crease where his sternum and belly met. His stomach wasn’t as flat as when he stood, giving him a slight curve where it pushed past the edge of his belt—a roundness when he sat relaxed. You laid your elbows on his thighs, and avoided touching the large subject in your peripheral, instead shaping your hands to his hips, and bowing your head.

His muscles jumped under your lips.

Finally, you knew his ticklish spot.

He sucked in a breath, and squirmed at the scattered kisses to his sides. You applied more pressure, mashing your mouth to him with a giggly hum, and teased your wet lips through the thick curls leading downwards. The hairs grazed the sides of your mouth and nose. The warm metal from his belt buckle brushed your chin. You’d never guessed you’d come to know these sensations when you first met him and he made it clear your enthusiasm for life was not appreciated, but here you were, stroking your thumbs up his leather belt, bordering your grin with his happy trail.

Eddie skimmed his fingers over your wrists. “I’m not gonna last long,” he warned.

“That’s fine,” you assured him in a quick peck to the significant outline you’d become obsessed with, feeling him twitch beneath your lips. “We have all night to work on that.”

“What—? Jesus Christ, uh—okay.”

Sitting back on your calves, you held his gaze while you pulled the extra length of his belt through the loops in a smooth rush, and worked it through the handcuff buckle. You tightened the slack and loosened the pin with a nimble finger, undressing him with the ease of an expert.

Asking from a place of your own curiosity, you wondered, “How often do you jerk off?”

His eyebrows disappeared behind his tousled bangs.

Not yet used to you being so forward with him, he stammered on his tongue, but held his composure, much to the surprise of both of you. “Not that often, I guess.. Uh, a few times a month.”

You snorted. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know that, right? You can tell me if it’s everyday, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m gonna judge you.”

The two halves of his belt flopped to either side of his waist. With it out of the way, you pinched at the stamped button at the top of his stupidly tight jeans, but you had trouble getting a good grip on it. Here, let me—he mumbled in a small voice, lifting his hips off the couch to undo it himself, popping it through and revealing the waistband of his forest green boxers.

It was with great determination you aimed your gaze above his obvious grandeur when he started talking.

“I’m not lying,” he said during the sturdy grind of the zipper being tugged down. “Not exactly like I have a door to lock when I need some alone time around here, sweetness. Plus” —he grunted at the freedom his unzipped jeans granted him, pushing them lower on his hips— “I’m usually too worn out after work, and just wanna crash on the couch. Not to mention taking care of everything around here is exhausting. Just don’t have the energy most days.”

Reading the precious draw of sympathy between your brows, he sat on the edge of his bed, and reached into the fly at the front of his boxers. “But, uh, there has been a recent change in my life that’s motivated me to.. take better care of myself. More often.” A certain motivator who sat between his legs with her hands in her lap, piqued and obedient. “Lot more often than a couple months ago, before she started working with me.”

He wrapped his fingers around himself and stroked upward, moving his knuckles against the fabric. He’d been rambling to ease the anxiety from his nerves until only the adrenaline remained, and with his pretty girl biting her bottom lip at his impure thoughts, his stalling came to an end.

Out came his hand—broad palm and thick fingers stretched full—and you stared in silent awe.

The back of his pale wrist and rosy knuckles were the first to show. Prominent blue veins led to his crooked hand, thumb and foremost fingers grasping his base while the last two struggled to collect the rest. His wet tip grazed the top of his boxers, peaking the fabric and dragging it along in a mouthwatering sweep towards the opening, and out it bobbed in flushed hues of pink and needy red. Below, he used his other hand to lower the fly, and cupped his palm to his heavy hanging fruits. They slipped out one plump roundness at a time to display their greatness against his dark jeans in a weighty sway.

Eddie’s cock leaked a bead of anticipation for you.

Starting with a lazy tug, he stroked himself. The arousing sheen smeared around his tip glistened, shining anew with the pass of his fist. As predicted, he curved to the right, and the fact he could hardly overlap his thumb to get a good hold on himself spoke of his size. All of him was beautiful, and you felt beautiful when another drip of precum swelled from his pretty head, threatening to fall before your very eyes.

He was thrilled by your shock. “Want it?”

“Need it,” you responded in a faint exhale.

With a smirk deepening his smoky tone, he kept moving his hand up and down, and granted you permission, “It’s all yours.”

You snapped your attention to his face, and inched forward until you were snug against the couch, eager and motivated by the lustful stretch in your thighs exposing your soaked cunt to the air. Good and pleasing, you clasped your hands politely in the folds of your bunched up skirt, and framed your arms around your chest.

Dipping your head, you lolled out your tongue for his approval.

His expression was the highest compliment; revering you with crinkles at the corners of his heavy-lidded gaze, lips stretched into a genuine smile which emphasized the elusive dimple on his cheek, and defined the bags under his eyes. Strands of his finger-swept messy curls stuck out at odd angles after you had your way with his hair, grazing his high cheekbones, and thick neck.

His heart pounded louder in his chest the longer he stared at your offering.

Weight pressed down on the plush middle of your tongue. It left, then happened again, again. Again, he tapped the fat head of his cock to the sticky wetness, mixing his salty taste with your spit. Bestowing you the gift, and taking it away. Teasing you. He slapped his heaviness down in a dull throb of owning you, and lifted it off to run his fingers over his own length, jerking himself off at an easy pace he wouldn’t cum from before putting his weeping tip to your tongue once more for you to admire, but not indulge. It was the cruelest, and hottest, thing he’d ever done to you.

When he next rubbed his head along the supple muscle and took it away, you tempted him into giving you mercy.

His lungs stuttered at your first demure kiss to the underside of his cock. You listened to his shallow breath on the second, released in a short ahh on the third. On the fourth, you vied for privilege to spoil him. He relented. How could he not?

To give himself a better angle to watch, he propped one of his hands behind him, and dropped his cheek to his shoulder, where his hair poured in a mass of tangles. The broad grin he wore waned to a subtler emotion as you hummed for the silky skin thrumming against your lips, feeling him shift when he lifted his thumb from taming his hard-on down.

Eddie marveled at how you balanced his cock on your pout. Amusement—and an unending amount of tenderness—gentled his features. He was sweet on you. You were sweet on him.

Treating him how he deserved, you rolled your tongue around your mouth to gather spit, and pushed it past your lips to wet his slick head, making your kisses slip against him in a smooth glide. You showered him in small pecks at first. Short kisses with the cutesy sounds pressed to the sensitive ridges which earned Eddie’s involuntary moan; low and thick, drawing from the months of pining for this moment. Venturing into more, you darted your tongue out to test his reaction when you licked the valley between the halves of his plump tip, and you winced. His cock kicked up, and fell in a smack. It was painful, probably bruising the delicate inner flesh of your lips when it smashed them against your teeth. You thanked him in an acquiescent whine.

It was addictive—a daze. With nothing but gravity to keep him in place, you cherished your favorite mechanic’s cock openly and honestly. You flattened your tongue to him in a loving lap, and chased it with a long drag of your lips up the underside to the round head, struggling to keep your eyes open from the bliss of tasting his reward, and suckling noisily for more.

Eddie accepted defeat in a sudden, disappointed grunt, “Yeah.. I’m not gonna last long.”

He fell backwards in a dramatic flourish.

Sprawled almost flat, his shoulders hit the cushions, and his body melted into the position with his fingers laced over his eyes as a shield. A groan of despair reverberated in his throat. Poor Eddie, can’t last long with his favorite receptionist’s mouth around his cock. A giggle bubbled from your chest, and you were about to repeat your promise to go slow, but the words wouldn’t form.

Your mouth had other plans than wasting their time on reassurances.

In his melodramatic moping, his dick left your lips and flopped onto his belly—which was a loss you felt in your soul—but with how he slouched into the cushions, a fruitful endeavor presented itself. Swung, and bounced, actually.

You leaned in, and became acquainted with your hand around his girth; familiarizing yourself with the naked warmth in your palm, and his airy whimper when you did.

The top of his boxers brushed your knuckles as you drifted your hand up in a single stroke. One fluid glide on the cock which belonged to you. He did say it was yours, after all. And though the thought alone had you wishing it was stretching your tight cunt in a blend of pain and pleasure, you had a yearning for what else moved up and down when you pumped your fist.

“Eddie?” you called. He peered at you from the shadow of his fingers. Innocently, you traced the bottom of his sack, and oh so carefully settled them into the nest of your unblemished palm. “Are these mine too?”

A croak broke his speechlessness. “Y-Yeah, those are yours, too. If you want them.”

Please was written in your grateful lurch towards his cock. Thank you was expressed in your lush moan when he entered your mouth.

“Baby,” he whined in a docile sigh.

You sank his cock into the wet heat he needed, but only for the purpose of curving your tongue to his begging tip and bathing him in your spit, using your hand to work it down his shaft. Except, you got carried away. A few strokes in, and you put your lips tight around his head, and already there was a warning forming between his brows.

You backed off. His face went lax in relief.

“Feels too good, sweetheart,” he praised from the depths of his gravelly voice. “Gonna make me cum like that.”

Your pussy ached to be spoken to that way.

Moving your attention away from how pitifully empty you felt, you loosened your grip and twisted your wrist to massage the base of his slick cock; not exploring upwards, just giving him enough friction to keep him on edge without spilling over. A perfect amount of pleasure, you guessed, from his red face emerging from behind his hands, raising them to comb his bangs off the fine layer of sweat beading on his forehead, and blinking himself out of his haze just in time to see you lower your face between his thighs.

You tended to him first with a kiss. An opening, or introduction, to your lips finding the spot beneath your working thumb where the hardness ended and the velvety skin began. He tensed. His legs flexed around your shoulders, bringing his knees in all shy like, like he was self conscious to have you down there. And maybe it was one thing to have his balls cupped in your palm, but it was another to have you nosing around the opening of his boxers when he hadn’t gone through with his plan of trimming back the hedges.

All he could do was stare when you inhaled his scent after he spent the day cleaning his home, running errands, driving across town to pick you up, and sitting next to you during scene after scene of horrors playing on a screen directly across from the terrifying event of holding your hand while trying not to out-sweat his t-shirt.

His bewilderment was apparent, but so was your enjoyment.

You burrowed your nose at the narrow opening of his fly, and tilted his cock to the side, finding the thick thatch of curls growing around his base, and admiring his heavy musk breaking through the perfumed Dove soap. A heavy purr of pleasure rumbled in your throat, coming out as a nasally moan against the wrinkled skin you kissed. So enraptured by his body, you couldn’t hold back anymore. You had to part your lips, and run your tongue along the seam of his sack. It was with a dire urge you stopped at the bottom, and flaunted how big he was by snuggling your nose to the heft and lifting.

You draped his balls over your mouth.

It was silly to him, and you didn’t mind the tss of laughter, but to you, earning his baffled smile while your giggle was buried under his sack was vital to your design. Their ripe heat enveloped you. The stripe you licked was wet on the tip of your nose. His natural scent swaddled you. Both corners of your lips were encumbered by the wonderful weight hanging on either side, brushing your cheeks as you swallowed the taste of his tangy sweat. You kissed up into the excess skin stretched over your face, and they rolled to your chin when you changed the angle you were teasing his cock, disciplining him towards his stomach so you had more room to worship the pome.

Warming him to the idea, you flattened your tongue to one side and ran it along the fullness, curving up, and dragging down in a long caress. In a breath, he placed his hand on his stomach where his shirt gathered, and skimmed the other over his body until it laid on top of his jeans, in the crease between his hip and thigh. You could see his fingers work themselves into the loose denim out of the corner of your eye, and heard them relax when you traced the other side of his sack, ending with a murmur to the textured skin.

“Too much?” you asked—he shook his head before you could finish the question, still hanging onto a suggestion of his fascinated squint at what you were doing to him.

With his approval, you indulged.

The gentle licks evolved to sloppy circles, eager to prize and polish, ensuring there was no part of his balls gone neglected. Lapping at, kissing at, making out with another spot on his body out of a necessity to fawn over every inch of him. Willing to nuzzle your way between the plumpness and have your drool drag wetly across your cheeks in his name. Fully content with messier and messier affections, cozying your nose to the base of his curls until he understood how little it bothered you to be smothered by his nature.

Unable to resist satisfying him how he deserved, you dropped an open kiss to the squish of his sack, and suckled on a small section, checking his reaction.

Not an ounce of protest glimmered behind his lashes, eyes falling almost closed at the intimate gesture between two people who were never supposed to be more than coworkers.

You parted your lips, and accepted a mouthful. 

Eddie whimpered.

His toes curled into the carpet at the novel sensation. There was an incredible amount of trust required to fight the instinct to pull away. Even his fingers strained the denim when you drew your lips around one of his balls, and slackened your jaw. It was with great respect you brought him into your mouth, and cradled the weight on your tongue, cheeks stretched full and soft. You held him there for a long second. The rain was a steady noise of the roof, but your exhale was loud in the space between his thighs. Quiet suspense followed your hand climbing his shaft.

You wrapped your fingers around his hopeful tip, and fitted your thumb to the valley on the underside. In perfect sync, and with your eyes steady on his face, you hollowed your cheeks and squeezed each of your fingers at the same gentle pace.

“Fuck, baby—”

At once, Eddie’s unabashed groan inspired you, and his balls jerked in response to the direct touch in the places he needed it. From pinky to index, you massaged his fat head in a smooth pulse—matching the strokes of your thumb—and though your grip was light, he was already kneading his hand along his inner thigh and clamping it down close to your face. You soothed him on your tongue as best you could, and eased him into having more pressure from your lips, sucking harder on the most sensitive part of him.

Concentration stressed a shadow between his brows; chest braced on a held breath.

The telltale sign of his skin tightening in your mouth, along with his clenched stomach and abnormal silence, had you testing his limits. But it was too fun feeling his legs squirm at the effortless flow your fingers performed, coaxing him closer to coming undone and still daring to smear the swells of precum over the pleading edge of his tip, again and again, but slower. Slower. Memorizing the metallic slink of his guitar pick running along the ball chain necklace when you released him, and his chest sank with a sigh.

His voice cracked a notch higher, “Jesus, you’re really into this, huh, sweetheart?” he asked, but you couldn’t answer.

Before committing to his other ball, you spat into your cupped fingers, and put them to his cock, adjusting how you held him until you could look past and see the handsome glint of respect in his eyes, and he could gaze into wealth of adoration in yours.

“Love being on my knees for you,” you mumbled sweetly, kissing your way to the other side of his sack. “Love your cock, Eddie.”

His name, spoken where it was on his body, brought out a smugger twist to his already prideful grin. “Yeah? You like it?”

Rushing at the chance to compliment your man, you straightened your spine, and punctuated your words along the thick vein leading up to the drips of seed. “Love it,” you promised in a syrupy yearn, swallowing the bitter salt. “Love your cock; love it so much. It’s my favorite.”

“Is it the best?”

The question was tonally rich with confidence, but just in case there was any doubt woven into the wording itself, you regarded the man who went to work early on a day he had off for the purpose of leaving flowers on your desk, and smiled.

“Yeah,” you confessed, recalling a memory from the earlier months, after your first failed date, when he shared his can of Coke with you at lunch because the vending machine was out, and two sets of chapsticked lip prints were left around the metal rim. “It’s the best.”

You hugged his cock to your cheek, and nuzzled the warmth as you would any other part of him, humming a sunshiny hum, and parted ways to return to your true calling further down.

This time, Eddie groaned in relief when you settled his other ball in your mouth—”That’s it.”

With your newly slick hand, you slipped your palm over his desperately purple tip with ease. His thighs jumped into a flex, and his stomach fluttered with tension—almost like he was going to lose himself right there—but he exhaled hard through his nose, and became better at existing in the mutual pleasure. This was as much for you as it was for him.

There was a scrunch of determination above his nose, and a strong edge to his jaw, but otherwise, his fingers were gentle on your temple. 

“You always know how to make me feel good,” he said, tracing his knuckles downward, lacing multitudes of meanings behind the sentence. Physical, and emotional.

He prodded his thumb into the hollow of your cheek, feeling how full you were of him; how his calloused fingerpad rocked in the same rhythm of your lips sealing around him and sucking; and you leaned into the tender gesture of his open palm, to which he cupped your jaw with a sentiment tantamount to what you were baring.

A sweet man through and through, even as he trembled in your fist.

You curved your tongue around the tight skin in your mouth, and moaned prettily for him. Frequent moans, ardent moans, moans appealing to his ego, moans you’d hear on a tape rented from the backroom of a competing video store with a black curtain separating it from the wholesome movies up front. Performing for him, finding what he liked. Which lick, which whine, which speed had his cock leaking over your fingers. Which trick made the creases between his brows mature, and his mouth fall open: the answer was two fast pumps over his throbbing head, and back down to his base for a respite, prolonging his release with a thank you on his heavy eyelids.

Prolonging, at least, until two fast pumps became a naughty blur of more—Oh, fuck, baby—and his brushes along your cheek went rare, and he licked his dry lips in the fog of his ramping high, and he hung his head back to the dense cushions, and his question escaped his throat in a hoarse huff, “You wanna—?” and it wasn’t a question at all.

You pushed your lips in soft goodbye to his sack, and his fingers under your jaw communicated his wish, aiding your chin up with a light pressure until your mouth was tasting the result of his aching lust. Slow and steady, you lavished his head in tame licks, building into a long sweep over the top. Warming yourself up to the painful stretch your lips were about to endure while his kind fingertips coasted over your hair, and found themselves at the back of your neck. Drawing out the seconds he tucked his thumb behind your ear, and rubbed circles. Sitting in the moment of something delicate, before things changed, and the platonic line became a horizon.

You drove his tip past your lips, and channeled all your appreciation into sucking Eddie’s cock.

He whimpered in surprise. A different whimper than before; not a drowsy noise he may make when rolling over in bed, but a sputtered note expelled in bursts of heavy breaths, singing a hymn to your blood.

The pace was not shy.

You descended to meet your fingers wrapped around his shaft, and reached your temporary depth where his hardness caressed the back of your mouth, and your throat clenched. Pulling back, you focused on his head, wetting his length with the sudden drool, and busying your other hand with his balls, cupping and stroking them in gentle passes.

“Ri–Right there, yeah, God, right there, sweet girl.” The syllables were mashed and dropped and disconnected on his whine.

Flicking your gaze up, you thrived on his fixated stare, bobbing your head on his tip only. Sliding your lips back and forth over the luscious ridge which had his tongue pressed against his bottom teeth. Massaging your wet heat around the center of his pleasure; encouraging a pinch in his expression as if he were in pain when he was in anything but.

Being higher on your knees meant your tits could be seen, and what a delicious sight it was for him to covet. Braced by your bra, your cleavage bounced as you pumped your fist along his cock, grazing your nipples above the opaque floral applique, cresting them beyond the sheer lace. It was enough to make his stomach squeeze, and his fingers tremble in the baby hairs at your nape.

His cock twitched twice in your mouth, conveying a message.

You welcomed him to the back of your throat, gladly this time, accepting the overfulness making it hard to breathe and the soreness surely to come, using your hand for the rest you could not take. No amount of uncomfortableness would make you shy from showing him the recognition he earned. For years he didn’t see the value in himself, and knowing the person who saved a Laffy Taffy wrapper to tell you the joke on the back didn’t prioritize his own happiness compelled you to take him deeper, faster. You shaped your tongue to the outline of his cock, and chased your lips with your fist, hollowing your cheeks at the top, teetering him on the cusp, rousing him until your skin buzzed from the friction and his hips pitched. Bringing him so close to the edge that when you broke away to catch your breath, his muscles shivered, and the shadows between his brows lessened as they arched higher from the mounting pleasure, where every touch on his body felt better and better and better than the last.

In the brief seconds you wrapped both your hands around his length, he made a pleading noise with the added weight of his warm palm at the back of your head—an urgency in his disheveled state, but not without the option of choice.

At once, he was at home in your throat.

In a union, your fingers wrenched his waistband into your damp palm, and he laid his hand across your knuckles. The control was yours, but the pace was his. He fucked himself into your pliant mouth in short, quick thrusts; ever attentive to keep his thumb strokes on your cheek unquestionably loving.

“Gonna make me—” He found the angle to cant his hips so you could watch him unravel; eyes falling closed and face tipped to the ceiling. “—Make me cum, baby,” he finished, voice light as air.

Throat flushed bright pink, cheeks dark red. Eddie panted into a shaky moan of true relief, and your core craved to be the one to take care of his needs, but there was something special about proving your attraction to him in every way you could.

The ridges of his greedy tip found where they were best brushed, and his hips lost their tempo. His stomach sank and stuttered in pulses. A dear emotion clutched your chest, letting loose when he crashed into his climax.

His knees closed you in, crowding you to his lap. “I’m gonna—” he gasped, rough and breathless; presented as a warning for the shot of bitter taste at the back of your throat, filling your mouth and spilling over your tongue with each throb of the thick vein pumping over your swollen bottom lip.

Something undeniable feathered the vulnerability of the position.

You swallowed.

And when more remained after it slid down your throat, you steadied his twitching cock over the offering of your tongue and jerked him off, stealing more drips to satiate you, swallowing with your lips pressed in a kiss to his overstimulated tip. “Baby,” he begged with his head thrown back, legs shifting restlessly around you. He sucked in breaths. Squirmed. Bit his tongue. Tugs of laughter played at his screwed up mouth, so desperate to resist giving in to a true grin when you rode out his high until he was beginning to soften, and the euphoria wore off to a dozy tingles, and the tingles dissipated into you giving him mercy, and mercy gave way to the aftermath.

In all the awkwardness of reality, you unceremoniously wiped your hands on his jeans, and right as he properly tucked himself back into his boxers, he beckoned you with open arms, gripping at your hips and bringing you onto the couch in a clumsy tumble; straddling his lap with his eager kisses seeking your jaw, your neck, your mouth which worked so hard for him. “Fucking amazing, baby,” he mumbled at the corner of your lips. You didn’t need the words—you’d heard them all before—but the reassurance of his arms locked tight around your middle, and the golden rays of honey shining so bright in his eyes allayed the tiny ball of worry at the pit of your stomach telling you he’d next follow it up with an excuse to send you home, as did every man before him.

“‘Mazing, ‘mazing, ‘mazing,” he mushed together on his way to your slack lips, bringing you out of your thoughts and into a kiss. “And dare I say, ‘amazing?’”

His ability to make you giggle when your bare stomachs were pressed together was the sort of tenderness you sought, and he provided.

You rubbed the tip of your nose along his, so very aware of his broad grin, and sweet nature. “You’re silly.”

“That I am!” he stated proudly.

Dipping to complete your gentle smile with his, you sank into the acceptance of him wanting to take your bottom lip between his, and flatter himself with the knowledge of where it’s been, what parts of him it became intimate with, instead of avoiding what was only human. He noticed your cold skin beneath his hands, and ran them along your back and upper arms. There was a motive behind his fingers slipping under the hem of your skirt, and palming you forward—where your heartbeats hammered together, and heat stirred in the lack of layers separating you—but still, there was one more affection you thought he deserved before the night moved on to your own.

Shivers chased his thumb braving the roundness of your breast, edging closer to the sensation of due pleasure yearning to be released. He spoke straight to your needs by putting the suggestion in your hips, “It’s your turn now.”

You stopped yourself from toppling to the cushions, and upheld your decent balance through your grip on his shoulders. “Wait,” you complained without malice, forgiving him for not reading your mind, “I’m not through with you yet.”

The word choice sparked intrigue across his face, then it cautioned to curiosity at the ominous roll of thunder rumbling through the trailer, clanking the mugs on the wall behind him.

He turned his head to the side, eyeing you. “What does that mean?”

~~~

“God, that feels so good.”

“Yeah, right there.. A little to the left—Oh fuck, right there.”

“So fucking good, sweetheart, keep going.”

Perturbed, you asked him, “Do you ever shut up?” and kneaded your knuckles harder into the knot of muscle between his shoulder blades, earning a louder groan than when you had his dick in your mouth.

One of the horror movies played on the TV, volume turned high for the alien’s gargled dialogue to be heard over the storm. Eddie’s lanky body was limp with sleepiness, melting under the smooth strokes of your palms starting at the base of his neck and gliding downward over his shirt, dragging another grunt out of him when his voice was hoarse from shameless use, not tempering it for a late night where he’d employ his range outside of singing for Corroded Coffin. He mumbled another praise, but his face was smashed to his pillow, rendering what he said unintelligible. His strong back rose with a shallow breath, and you moved with it. The couch was crowded, but you insisted he get comfortable, even if you had to straddle the curve of his ass with one knee fallen to the alarm of crayons and crumbs stuck between the cushions, and your other leg hung off the edge. This worked for him, though. It gave his hand a place to hold you, fingers clasped to your calf and thumb tending to you in little sweeps of truth. I need to touch you. The room was smothered in darkness, save for the brighter scenes highlighting the glossy line of his eye fighting a losing battle one massage of your thumbs into the pockets of soreness at a time.

You worked at the tense muscles with his comforter draped around your shoulders. It slipped down to greet the chafing air, rushing goosebumps over your skin. After the fourth time adjusting it, you left it gathered at your waist. Making sure Eddie was taken care of was more important. And the college girl turning into goo occupied what was left of your attention.

Though, soon, your tendons ached from effort, and staying-up-late stole the water you yawned from your eyes, and the comfort of being with someone who appreciated you wore heavy on your bones.

You grabbed the blanket, and leaned forward.

Brushing back the mess of curls covering the side of his face, you combed through the strands of hair stuck to his stubble, and found his chubby cheek smushed to his shoulder. You kissed him. “I adore you.”

He put a weak squeeze in his palm behind your knee, and spoke through the grog, “I adore you too, baby.”

Adore. Using the endearment in place of another word, and still, the weight was understood by the both of you.

Housed in the cozy heat of his body, sheltered from the rain lashing the windows in sheets, and the howling wind whistling past the corrugated metal roof in gusts, you sighed. Thunder vibrated from the floor, to the couch, to him, to you.

“You’re too sweet to me,” he said, sounding more awake.

“I’m exactly as sweet as you deserve.”

Instead of using his words to express he wanted to turn over, he just started rolling beneath you, forcing you to rip yourself from his divine warmth, and settle upright on his lap.

You were reminded of the reason you were cold when his eyes trailed over your naked skin, not afraid to show their appetite for your chest. The hunger in his hands returned, scaling the plush expanse of your thighs, and feasting his thumbs higher on the sensitive inner haven he’d yet to pay tribute to.

A smirk cut across his mouth. With a slow breath, he rocked his hips, grinding his half-hard cock against your neglected need, now attuned with the perfect tilt to achieve that pretty noise from your mouth which riled him like nothing else.

Oh, he was very awake.

Eddie exhaled with a pitying sound with attentive eyebrows, almost like he was mocking your moan. “You look so good up there, sweetheart,” he admired through his teasing. “Could get used to it..”

“Yeah?” you questioned. Reaching between your joined bodies, you held no qualms about circling your fingers over his cock, and honoring just under his head, ending your stroke just before he could reap the benefit.

He tipped his head back to gain his wits, finding his answer in the darkness behind his eyelids. “But you keep forgetting this night was about you, and thanking you for everything you’ve done for me. And then you go and add that on top of it.” Private fantasies took hold of him, influencing his heavy moan and thumbs climbing higher, higher. “Gotta thank you for so many things, sweetheart. So many.. However many you want,” he said, alluding to his way of showing gratitude. Fresh lust rushed to your soaked heat hugging his length. “Gotta get you out of these, though.” He scratched a nail over your pantyhose.

You snorted, accidentally ushering humor into what was a sexy exchange. “Why bother? You already ripped them.”

“I what?” Plain confusion marked his face.

Treating it like an ordinary thing, you bunched your skirt up to your waist, and drew his gaze to your mismatched black panties. You gandered at them as well, second guessing if you should’ve taken the extra time to find the lavender pair somewhere at the bottom of your drawer.

“Yeah,” he groaned; as his chest fell, his cock swelled. “I’m gonna show you just how thankful I am, again, and again, and again,” he trailed off, each word fluttering the heartbeat at your core—

Lightning struck, and the phone rang.

Jolting, Eddie stared at it from a long moment, breath held as if that alone would will it into submission from ringing a second time. Spikes of prickly anxiety stabbed at your chest, frightened out of the moment worse than any jumpscare.

It rang a second time.

He took the initiative and sat up, consoling you with his hand on your back and a kiss on your cheek. “I’m sure it’s nothing, just stay put and make yourself comfortable, sweet girl. I’ll be right back.”

Use your pet names all he wanted, his voice didn’t instill confidence when it went flat and wavered.

He got up from the couch and you were left feeling exposed, nestling into the blanket as the rain picked up, and the buzzy feeling he left imprinted on your skin faded.

“Hello?” he answered, rubbing his stomach above the open fly of his jeans.

As he listened to the man’s voice on the other end, he dropped his hand, and his shoulders sagged at the information.

Turning away, he huddled the receiver to his ear, and asked, “Is she okay?”

His question didn’t have the direness a parent should have if someone were hurt, so you stood up and padded softly to the kitchen, straining your ears, listening intently and discerning a few sniffles. But one little girl’s cry rang above them all. A shrill call for her Daddy to save her from her greatest fear.

Thunder rocked the trailer.

“Yeah.. Yeah, I’ll come get her.”

The phone clicked into its holder on the wall, and like that, the illusion was shattered. It was no longer just you and him spending a night together, carefree. Responsibility took precedence, and when Eddie faced you, his mood was tainted by all the things he explained about being exhausted from just existing his thankless life, judged by all.

He stared into your optimistic gaze knowing this is when you’d get a dose of his reality as a single father.

Fatigue and dread haunted his expression: this date is over.