#I still don’t want to ask for money because I feel like I did this to myself

[smolcinnamonchipmunk]

Vampiric Thirst

(Old note: Throws this at you guys. Haven’t written in a while. I don’t know if that will change, but I couldn’t help but make this after the whole vampire event. Once more I end up disappointed by Obey Me events. I really need to lower my standards like I do for Ark, because as fun as the concepts can be, every event ends up feeling rushed and half-baked. They’re not gonna stop though because suckers like me will pay money for a dopamine hit because I have no meaning in life.

New note: Obviously taking some liberties to make it so that Solomon does actually have vampiric urges rather than just being a horndog because this game is literally mostly horny, but I crave plot and substance and have no interest in horny. Maybe I don’t want to fuck anyone, maybe I want actual stakes and near-death because if there’s no threat of dying, then what’s the point of living? Anyways, have something started last July, haha. It’s short, but I want it out of my WIP pile where it’s been judging me from the goddamn corner. I have a bunch of lore ideas with this given the events status being introduced after Nightbringers release, but I won’t get into it cause I’d need to refresh myself on OM.)

Word count: 3668

TW/CW: Soft, safe, nonsexual G/t vore, fearplay, blood, bloodsucking (I hate any word with suck in it, but it’s in here), prey in a stomach full of blood

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“Because I’m always craving you, Kat. So much so that I honestly could devour you.”

That… hadn’t really been what I had expected when I asked him why he seemed to be acting odd today when he walked into my room at Cocytus Hall to give me something, kind of freezing when some sort of realization went over him.

I couldn’t help the way my heart picked up the pace anxiously, despite having come across multiple situations similar to this one. Seeing Solomon with a similar hunger to Beel that was uncharacteristic of him made my anxiety spike a bit. “Buuut, you’re not. Right,” I asked nervously, unable to NOT notice the way his eyes glowed slightly as I lowered the book I’d been reading. I couldn’t help but keep my desk chair facing him, something instinctive decidedly not wanting to turn my back to him despite having been in far worse situations.

It didn’t seem to matter much as he touched his throat lightly, stepping slightly closer and replying, “I don’t think I could actually stop myself if I wanted if this keeps up… Kat, I know this is a sudden request but… would you mind if I drank some of your blood?”

“Wha- blood?” I blinked a bit in surprise, feeling a slight epiphany as I realized. “Ooh! I thought Vampiritis couldn’t affect you. Or did your hubris come to bite you?”

I intended no pun, but Solomon still let out a snort of amusement, though he also looked a tad sheepish like I had hit the nail on the head. I had told him that he should still be careful with the brothers himself, but he’d mostly brushed me off and said that he needed to keep his ‘precious apprentice’ from either catching Vampiritis or becoming a human-sized CapriSun to the afflicted demon brothers while that whole situation was figured out. But, it seemed like his rather attentive nature to me hadn’t extended to himself and he ended up contracting Vampiritis despite all boisterous assurances that he wouldn’t.

“Unfortunately, it appears that being around the brothers so much has infected me,” the sorcerer sighed, looking a bit dejected at having contracted the disease. His eyes seemed slightly glazed over and unfocused like he wasn’t fully in the conversation.

“Well, Barbatos might still have some of the antidote,” I replied, seeing him perk up slightly at the reminder, eyes refocusing with his normal clarity from the pretty obvious distractions on his mind. I set my book down on my desk and started to get up, adding, “I'm sure Diavolo will be able to-."

I yelped when there was a sudden weight against my shoulder and I was shoved back into my chair, looking up at Solomon with startled eyes. His own glowed slightly as he unintentionally loomed over me, looking caught off guard at his own actions.

“Uuuuh, Solomon?”

“I'm a bit a-... worried that I may not be able to hold back against my current thirst on the way to Diavolo or Barbatos,” Solomon admitted. “I'm afraid that if something isn't done NOW that I'll quite literally see red.”

“Really? Did you really try to make a shitty joke in the current situation,” I asked, but I couldn't make myself add any bite to it. His grip on my shoulder was firm and I could feel it tightening slightly each second, able to feel the shake in his grasp. Feeling overly aware of him with the proximity, I could barely hear the slight pant beneath his breath. I took a steadying breath of my own. “Look, I'll give you a LITTLE bit of blood. Just enough to hopefully ebb the hunger pangs, alright? Then we can go to Diavolo with your mind clearer.”

He jolted slightly at my suggestion, or maybe it was just my voice, and a conflicted expression passed across his face. He opened his mouth to say something but it didn’t come out for a few seconds, straining before saying, “I… Yes. Yes, perhaps that will help abate the hunger.”

I didn’t like how he hesitated as he said it or how his expression looked both extremely guilty and eager. But, despite the anxious feeling settling in my gut, I trusted him. To a point.

“Alright, well, first of all, you gotta back up a bit there, bud,” I planted a hand against his chest and shoved at him. His lips twitched in the barest frown before allowing himself to be pushed back away from me, giving me some much needed breathing room and some relief from being pinned by my shoulder to the chair. Absentmindedly rubbing the back of my neck, I thought aloud, “I kind of don't really trust you with my neck, so we're gonna go with… a wrist, I think, yeah.”

“R-Right.” Solomon looked like he was barely paying attention, hands shaking slightly as he bit his lip, seemingly trying to keep his mind clear enough. I saw a bead of his own blood from it.

I reached down and began to roll my sleeves up nervously, only slightly comforted by the sight of the protective charm on my right wrist. Once my sleeves were rolled I felt a bit awkward as I kind of held both out towards him. “Uhhhh, take your pick, I guess. Just don't bite too deep? I'm not sure if you could break my wrists by biting them, but I'd like to not test that too much.”

“I'll do my best,” Solomon presumably tried to give me a reassuring smile but it came out as more of a grimace. He gave up pretty quickly and carefully grabbed my left wrist like it'd snap at his touch. If Vampiritis gave him the cliche super-strength that movie vampires had, maybe it was for the best.

I was a bit surprised when the sorcerer kneeled to get better access to my wrist, feeling more than a little awkward - I probably should have stood up or figured something else out before offering my blood to him since he wasn't really in the headspace to think clearly - but the awkwardness was tempered by a familiar squeamishness that settled in the pit of my stomach. It was similar to, but wasn't quite as bad as, the nauseous anxiety I felt anytime I had to get my blood drawn or a shot. 

I managed to watch as Solomon raised my wrist slightly to his face, saw him open his mouth to reveal a glimpse of the elongated canines that were a symptom of Vampiritis and felt a bit of his breath against my skin. But I felt myself pale right as he opened his jaws wider and averted my gaze before he bit down, warned by the slight tensing of his hold on my wrist. 

There were two points of pain that suddenly bloomed along my wrist vein as the skin was pierced, making me yelp and stiffen. I managed to mostly resist the urge to pull away as I bit down on my tongue, but my heart skipped a beat as a twitch from my arm told me that he probably wouldn't have budged if I had tried to pull away properly.  

I swallowed thickly, wondering if he could taste adrenaline in my quickened pulse for a moment before the pain in my wrist faded startlingly quickly. It was cold and numb, like novocaine to my system, and I couldn't help but blink in surprise and look back. 

Only to immediately avert my gaze again with a fresh wave of dizziness and queasiness. 

"Okay, nope," I muttered to myself, trying to push aside the image of Solomon latched onto my wrist with a thin stream of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and an almost blissful close-eyed expression out of my head. At least one of us was having fun. 

Thankfully, it wasn't too long before I heard the small gasp and slight panting as he detached from me. It had maybe been several seconds, probably enough for a full mouthful or two with the smaller veins in my wrist compared to my throat, but it had felt awfully long, and I felt the lingering squeamishness that I knew would remain for the rest of the day. 

"I hope that helped clear your head a bit," I pulled my wrist back to myself and gingerly touched a finger to the two beading puncture wounds as I started to turn my head to look at Solomon. My hand had a pins and needles feeling.  "I was a bit worried you'd-." 

My voice immediately became muffled as my mouth was covered by a hand, eyes widening and crying out in surprise when the force of Solomon lunging upward caused the desk chair to fall back. It hit the desk edge first before sliding to the ground, rattling my skull as the chair back hit the ground, making me grunt from the fall and ending up pinned beneath the feral sorcerer. 

"Mmph!" I blinked away my brief daze, looking up at Solomon's face in the shadow of the desk as panic flared across my pacts. His slightly glowing blue eyes were replaced by an intense red and I could see streaks of my own blood from the corners of his mouth. The feral looking expression was something I'd never seen in him before, but I couldn't summon anyone or use a spell with my mouth currently covered. 

There was a sharp tug against my neck as my choker was broken off, jolting me from my frozen shock. I squirmed and bucked beneath the sorcerer, twisting up and elbowing him in the face. The man HISSED at me and I took advantage of his surprise to shove his hand off of my mouth. Kicking at his chest to push him off me and retreat further beneath the desk, I began to recite a summoning spell. 

"Hear me and heed my call," I exclaimed as quick and clear as I could, feeling a pressure behind my eye. Solomon was sat from where I'd pushed him back, hand against his cheekbone where I'd struck him. His expression went from indignant surprise to one of uncharacteristic, raw fury. I saw him tense like a coil before trying to push forward off the ground to lunge towards me again. I quickly raised my leg, shoe planting firmly against his chest as it barely stopped him, knee almost buckling painfully against the force. “In the name of the sorcerer Katherine, I draw upon my pact with the ring of li-GHT!” 

My voice hitched as Solomon grabbed the ankle of the foot against his chest, pulling it to the side and yanking me closer. My heart raced, gritting my teeth as we scuffled in the cramped space beneath the desk. I tried to not fuck up saying the summon, while trying to stop him from stopping ME from saying it, while also trying to get my foot loose and scramble further back again. 

“Come forth, Mam-mphf!” I narrowed my eyes and grunted as Solomon let go of my ankle and managed to wrestle both of my wrists in one hand, covering my mouth again with his other. The pressure that had been building behind my eye fizzled out and disappeared dead in its tracks.  

The sorcerer wasted no time in descending on me, making me gasp in pain as my throat was bitten. I squirmed but could do nothing as restrained as I was, my pained panting lessening as the numbing began to settle in my neck, my hand still tingling from loss of feeling in the wrist. I heard the first swallow as he began to drink greedily and felt a rush of lightheadedness. Lightheadedness that lingered as more blood was stolen and less was able to reach my head properly, making my thrashing lessen alarmingly fast.

I tried to call out Solomon’s name, to try and appeal to him past the feral fervor that had overtaken him. But, of course, it came out as an easily ignored muffled shout that I barely heard over the blood rushing in my own ears and the sound of gulping.

Time slowed painfully as I remained pinned beneath the sorcerer, the lightheadedness and weak feeling in my body increasing every second. My limbs felt more and more like lead until my arms simply hung by my wrists in Solomon’s hold, now struggling to just keep my eyes open and focus on the wooden grain of the desk underside above, trying to not pass out with the fear that if I closed my eyes that I wouldn’t open them again. However, even that became too much effort and my eyelids slid closed.

I felt cold and tired.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed with my eyes closed but I realized that I was being nudged, barely able to focus on the voice, “Sh-Shit, Kat? Kat?!”

“Nnngh,” I groaned at being nudged again, eyelids twitching a few times before I managed to groggily force them open. My sight was blurry and I had to clear it with a couple blinks to look up at Solomon, who gazed down in worried panic with slightly glowing blue eyes rather than the red from before. I just felt an overwhelming wave of relief at seeing that he seemed to have come to. “Oh, thank god..”

I let out a relieved sigh, eyes closing again tiredly, adrenaline either long gone or drained and feeling exhausted relief at seeing Solomon alright. My brow twitched and furrowed as I was shaken, struggling to get out of the dazed stupor I’d almost immediately fallen into without realizing it.

I just wanted to sleep now, man, leave me alone.

“Come on, stay with me,” Solomon said, something brushing against my neck as he murmured some words under his breath. “I can’t have my adorable apprentice dying on me.”

“Mmmn-n-not adorable,” I grumbled weakly, managing to open an eye in an attempt to glare at him. He pulled his hand away from my neck and the glow of a healing spell dissipated in his palm. The healing spell didn’t clear away the blood on his hand and chin, making me wonder how bad I looked if HE looked this disheveled and blood-covered.

“I can’t believe that worked. You’re ridiculous,” the sorcerer laughed, but it was strained. He reached for something nearby and muttered another spell, adding louder, “Just try and stay awake while I try to fix this before the bloodlust becomes unbearable again. If this is how Beel feels all the time, no wonder he goes mad with hunger as often as he does…”

I groaned in acknowledgement, fighting to keep my eye open. I gave up and lifted a lead-heavy arm to drape lethargically over my eyes. “How much blood can I lose before dying?”

“Well, the average person can lose up to a fifth of their blood on average before going into complete shock. However, more than forty percent is almost certainly lethal.”

My lips pursed at the information, quiet for a few seconds before lifting my arm slightly from my eyes to peer at him and  mumbling, “I don’t like that you just know that.”

“You did ask,” Solomon replied lightly in an attempt to lighten the mood. He seemed satisfied with whatever he cast and started reaching for my neck again. His expression fell when I involuntarily flinched slightly away from his hands. 

“I-... s-sorry…”

“No. No, it’s… understandable,” he sighed slightly, grabbing my other wrist instead. My hand curled defensively as he lifted it up and tied my choker around the wrist. 

I let out a surprised noise as I felt a sudden surge of energy and slight warmth, having not realized how chilled I was with my lack of blood. Not enough to be jumping up and down or anything, but I didn’t feel like I was about to die anymore. I blinked at not feeling like death and gave Solomon a bleary quizzical look.

“It’s to magically help your blood levels. I can’t make something from nothing, especially in my mental state right now, but it'll keep you from dying to blood loss,” Solomon explained, giving me a guilty, apologetic, and shameful expression. He sighed and I felt like his eyes flickered for a second. “It's also to help you breathe and hopefully keep you clean.”

“Solomon. I don't like that you said that…,” I narrowed my eyes at him and shifted to try and push myself into a sitting position, yelping when my elbows buckled beneath me. Yup, still too weak to move much. 

“Don't strain yourself,” a hand planted against my shoulder to keep me down as the sorcerer looked at me with concern. He tried to give me a reassuring smile despite the obvious mental strain it was taking him to maintain control. 

Probably would have been more effective if there wasn't a slight discoloration on his face where I'd elbowed him as bruising started setting in, he hadn't literally just overpowered me, was on the verge of relapsing, and we were both covered in my own blood. In my slightly delirious state, I had to internally admit that it was quite a look.

“Sol-.”

“It's nothing you haven't handled before,” the sorcerer continued, interrupting whatever further protests or questions I had before he started reciting the now very familiar shrinking spell I’d grown accustomed to hearing from the brothers. 

Almost immediately the lightheadedness and vertigo took over, dazing me and making my vision swim. I barely registered the sensation of being lifted from the ground, my eyesight refocusing in time to see Solomon’s mouth open above me. The elongated canines that had punctured my skin minutes prior now framed the dark confines of his bloodstained jaws and the warm, shaky exhale that washed over me was saturated with the scent of iron. My heart skipped a beat.

I knew any protest or words would fall on deaf ears but as I was lifted closer to Solomon’s open mouth with his tongue extending slightly to lay over his lower teeth I couldn’t help but weakly say, “If this ends up killing me, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

There was another, sharper exhale from the sorcerer and a slight upturn at the corner of his lips before I was transferred from his palm to the slick, textured surface of his tongue, the muscle curling behind me and drawing me into his jaws. Saliva instantly soaked into my clothes as teeth lightly clicked shut behind me to leave me in darkness, able to hear and feel everything around me flex as Solomon instinctively swallowed some excess saliva.

His breathing was more noticeably ragged from within his jaws, huffing as his tongue quivered beneath me. I was confused, laying in a tired daze and wondering why nothing was moving, used to being tasted, sometimes with aggressive fervor. From the way I could feel drool pooling beneath my back I could tell that I was appealing to him, but the question of whether or not it was brought on by the Vampiritis would have to wait until later. I realized when his tongue only gingerly lapped at me a couple times before gravity began to shift that he seemed to be desperately holding himself back.

“Right,” I mumbled, letting myself slide toward the back of his throat. “Kind of attacked me.”

Solomon probably didn’t want to hurt me more.

I grunted slightly as a swallow quickly dragged me into his gullet and more hastened my descent down his esophagus, breathing restricted by the tight confines and each inhale laced with the tang of blood. Slipping past the collarbone was more constrictive and I was able to hear the sorcerer let out an exhale of relief, felt the odd sensation of being tightly hugged on all sides by peristalsis pulling me yet able to discern the sensation of him leaning forward slightly.

“I can’t tell how much of it is the Vampiritis but… this is unnervingly satisfying,” he admitted, voice resonating down to my bones in my descent. “I really hope you’ll be able to breathe. I guess I’ll find out if you don’t flail.”

There he went, mentioning breathing again. I was almost confused but as I felt the slight pressure beneath me that precluded spilling into a stomach, I realized that he quite literally had his fill of me. There wasn’t even a splash as I was forced into the organ, just slipping into a chamber of blood that I was thankful I couldn’t see. Whatever he did to my choker was allowing me to breathe, which I was thankful for considering I hadn’t exactly braced myself to hold my breath, and oddly enough each inhale was clean air instead of iron-saturated liquid. Potentially some sort of personal breathing bubble, I wasn’t exactly going to summon a light source in here.

“You’re good, Solomon,” I mustered the energy to shout up, feeling for the nearest stomach wall in the space expanded with my own blood. I tried not to think about it too much.

“Thank goodness,” Solomon let out a sigh of relief. Everything sort of sloshed around as he moved, the force of him shifting and standing up making me sink a little. “It seems eating you has tempered the bloodlust slightly. I was worried that I was going to drain you, felt like I was starving and greedy even though I feel full. Now, to get Barbatos and-.”

Solomon was interrupted by the sound of the door breaking open and slamming against the wall, Mammon’s voice shouting in a panic, “KAT!”

“Uh oh.” Solomon and I muttered at the same time.

“I assure you, this looks far worse than it is,” Solomon told Mammon, and considering how bloody and disheveled the sorcerer and my room was, I didn’t think the demon would believe that. 

All I could do was wish Solomon luck and prepare to potentially be sloshed around.

[tariah23]

Man, I still remember participating in one of the many jjba zines that I took part in and how my piece was placed as the first page (for the second time) and how one of my mutuals/artists that I’ve always admired, hit me with the “oh… you’re on the front page again… 😅…” like man, that kind of killed me lmfao. I never got over it like man, what was that about.

[ringneckedpheasant]

.

[no1ryomafan]

Yesterday I got a acrylic stand of artwork of the “what am I fighting for” scene-which for the record; I think that scene has been very much beaten into the ground as a meme, but I couldn’t pass off getting it bc it be funny to have and someone would easily recognize it’s mega man x if they came to my house lol-and my friend who I was out with who has seen the scene before despite knowing most mega man stuff from me thought it was from an anime adaptation of MMX but I laugh and go “oh no that was in the actual game, it was a animated cutscene”

And then I cry inside knowing we never got a proper anime for any of the platformer games despite the fact MMX felt like it desperately needed one- oh and classic and zx were SUPPOSED to get animes but shit fucking happened that cause them to be scrapped.

[that-house]

Potion Vendor FAQs:

What’s your name? I am the Honorable Alchemist Zykocea the Radiant, but that’s mostly just a PR thing. My friends call me Zoe.

Do you sell love potions? No.

Do you sell potions of invisibility? No.

Do you sell fire resistance potions? No.

Why do I have a suitcase? Fuck if I know. Cool outfit though. Very goth.

Do you sell a potion to treat brain hemorrhaging? No.

So what CAN your potions do? I sell health potions.

Are you sure these are health potions? They do something to your health.

Is this just ditch water with some pink glitter? No.

Really? I’ll have you know I added some fruit juice too.

Why is this starting to sound like a conversation? Oh just you wait. We’re just getting started.

Is your business model legal? Fuck no. I poisoned the food safety inspector before they could snitch.

Did you just admit to murder? Just fucking try to convict me. I’ll poison the judge too.

So can you make poison potions? No.

Then where do you get the poison? I secrete it from my skin.

Are you shitting me? Yep, I’m shitting you. I have a guy. A poison guy. He DOES secrete it from his skin though.

How does that work? …Fuck if I know. Maybe a wizard did it. Damn, now I’m kinda curious.

You never asked? The idea of asking literally never crossed my mind.

Wanna ask him? Let’s do it. I don’t have anything better to do, and a road trip beats sitting around running my fraudulent potion business.

Road trip? He lives in Seattle.

Your poison guy lives in Seattle? All poison guys live in Seattle.

For real? All the poison guys I know live in Seattle.

And how many poison guys do you know? Just the one.

Why are you like this? Years of living on my potions. It changed me.

Do you know what his address is? Nope. He just mails me my poison in unmarked boxes.

You just get your poison in the mail? We already poisoned everyone who could do anything about it.

So how are we going to find him? We’ll figure that out eventually I’m sure.

Can I drive? God no. You can pick music, but I maintain veto rights. Make sure you pick something with a lot of questions if you want to sing along.

Where’s your car? The garage connects to my house, so you’re getting a little tour. Here’s the kitchen: only one of the stove burners works and I’m pretty sure the microwave is haunted.

Why do you think that? Because of the ghost that tries to kill me whenever I run it.

What’s in that room? That’s my bedroom. It’s pretty much just a mattress on the floor and every single Warrior cats book.

You were a Warriors kid? Yeah, and then I never found the time to put the books away. There’s so many fucking books. I use them in place of furniture because I can’t afford chairs.

Your fraudulent potion business doesn’t make much money? After buying all that poison I just about break even.

Can I see your potion brewing room? It’s right through here. Ignore the mess, running a fraudulent potion business takes a lot of prop work, but I’ve got all the glass tubes and colorful liquids you could ever want. This pink stuff is melted watermelon italian ice. Glitter vat is in the basement, and the famous ditch is in the backyard.

Is this your car? My beloved ‘72 Corolla. She’s beautiful, and don’t you dare imply otherwise.

Was she always this shade of muddy brown? …Yes.

Are you sure I can’t drive? Get in the fucking passenger seat and pick the music.

Let’s see, a song with questions in it, how about The Beach? That Wolf Alice song, yeah. That should work.

When will we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, in rain? Still sink our drinks like every weekend but I’m sick of circling the drain.

When will we meet eye to eye? We clink the glass but we look at the floor.

Are we still friends if all I feel is afraid? You’re not a bitch but just a bit when you’re bored.

Is that all we can sing together? Yep. Even that little bit was nice, though. It’s awkward, communicating through this FAQ format.

Got any food? Yeah, there’s a few days’ worth of snacks in the back.

Were you just… prepared to go on a road trip? Says the woman who brought a suitcase to an FAQ.

I did do that, didn’t I? I have a spare toothbrush in case you forgot yours. I’m pretty sure you did.

How did you know that? …I’m psychic.

Yeah? No.

You love lying, don’t you? I can’t stop. It’s fun. Way more fun than telling the truth.

Did you just miss a turn? Probably.

Are you sure we’re not lost? No.

You mean you’re sure we’re not lost? No, I mean I’m not sure we’re not lost.

Why did I come on this road trip? Surely it was my winning personality.

Would it help if I said it was? It would.

Is it getting dark? Soon.

Can you describe the sunset to me? An empyrean flame, red-gold towers of darkening clouds, the sky behind them an ever-deepening indigo. The great eye of the sun closes on the horizon. The road before us looks like a trail of spilled paint, an iridescent gash through the night-dark woods.

Did you know that you’d make a slightly better poet than you do a potion seller? That really isn’t saying much, huh. Good job making a statement like that in question form, though. You’re getting good at this.

Should we find a motel? Sure.

One room or two? One. It’s way cheaper, and like I said: I’m not the best potion vendor.

You’d make a good assassin, though, wouldn’t you? Shit, you might be right. I HAVE poisoned a lot of people.

Should I be endorsing this? You’re a grown woman who can make her own choices.

Would you like to consider it endorsed? I’ll consider considering it.

How many beds do you think there will be? Now that you’ve asked that, I’m gonna put my money on one. Hello, one room please. Thank you, we’ll be sure to enjoy our stay.

How many beds are there? One.

Oh no, what ever will we do? Move over, you motherfucker, you can’t have the whole bed.

Are you gonna make me? Yes. I am going to pick you up and drop you on your side of the bed.

How did you get so strong? You’re not gonna believe this, but it was the potions.

Oh yeah? I was right. You didn’t believe me.

For real though, how did you get so strong? Working out, duh. Not everything has some big crazy secret behind it. World’s still beautiful though.

Are you comfortable? This beats the mattress at home. A little chilly though.

Wanna cuddle–for warmth of course? God yes.

Are you asleep? …

Yes? …

Does this mean I can talk about you behind your back? …

What should I say? …

Did you know that I had a really nice day? …

Did you know that I think you’re beautiful? …

Did you know that I can’t remember anything from before today? …

Did you know that I don’t know who I am? …

Did you know that you’re basically the only thing stopping me from having a full-blown panic attack about all this shit? …

Did you know that you’re warm? …

Did you sleep well? Better than at home, that’s for sure.

Did you know that you snore? I hope I didn’t keep you up.

Does the pope shit in the woods? No, as far as I can tell. Oh my god. This is huge.

What is? You can give me yes and no answers now. I still can’t ask you questions, because this is a question and answer format, but I can offer leading statements and now you can answer them! This is wonderful!

Does a deer shit in the woods? Yes, it IS wonderful. Oh that’s amazing. You’re a genius.

You didn’t already know that? Hahaha!

Shall we get moving? Yeah, just let me grab something from the vending machine.

Can you get me something? Go ahead and place your order however you can.

You know those sour gummy watermelons? One pack of Sour Patch Watermelons coming right up. I’m gonna go get myself a potion.

Is that a Pepsi? It’s closer to a potion than the shit I sell.

Let me guess, passenger seat again? Right you are.

How fast are we going? You’ll feel safer if you just guess.

Is it more than 120 miles per hour? Like I said, it’s probably better if you don’t know.

150? Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

How much do you trust this car? She hasn’t blown up on me yet.

Can you promise me we won’t crash? I can promise you anything you want.

And can you keep that promise? I- we can do anything. Reality is what we make of it, baby!

Then can I have a badass tattoo? As far as I can tell, you’ve always had it.

And a cool knife? Woah, cool knife.

So, we’re just playing “yes and” with the world? It’s a little more complicated than that, but you’re close enough to the mark.

So, if I was hungry, I could ask “is that a Burger King,” and it would be there? Try it and find out!

Is that a Burger King? Looks like it is! We’ll stop here if that’s alright with you.

Does a moose shit in the woods? Awesome.

Are you done eating? Yep.

Do we still have to pay if we skip over the transaction? Sadly, yes.

How much further do we have to go? Two more nights, the speed we’re going at.

Speaking of night, isn’t it getting dark? Shit, I guess it is.

Should we get another motel? Let me check to see if there’s any nearby. Fuck, nothing.

What’s the plan? Sleep in the car, I guess. This is gonna be hell on my back.

Wanna watch dumb videos on my phone until we fall asleep? There is literally nothing in the world that I would like more.

Ok, now which video? You have a very cute yawn. Just saying. Let’s watch this one next, it’s a classic. Oh, never mind. It looks like you’re asleep. As long as I keep talking, I think I can get away with making this into one answer, and you might not hear this. Now it’s my turn to talk about you behind your back. Keep talking keep talking keep talking can’t stop to think. Just have to say things. First off, I’m sorry for all the lies. It’s our only chance. I have to lie to you. I hope you’ll understand. It’s hard, though, because I think I’m falling in love all over again. Through our broken little ritual of call and response, you complete me. It just makes this hurt all the more. Keep talking keep talking keep talking don’t stop to…

Did I hear you saying anything as I fell asleep? …No. I can’t talk for long without you asking me a question.

Does that bother you? It got me here, didn’t it?

When did you start holding my hand? Some time after you passed out. I hope you don’t mind.

Can we stay like this for a while? Yeah. Yeah we can.

What was your life like before all this? Normal, as potion-brewing scams go. And if you don’t count all the murders. You haven’t told me much about yourself.

Did I tell you I used to be a biologist? You didn’t tell me that, and you didn’t tell me what you studied, either.

What do you know about venom? Not much, but I’m assuming you know a lot.

Does a box jellyfish kill within minutes? I’m going to assume the answer is yes based on context clues. Oh my god you must be on this road trip because you’re interested in studying my poison guy.

Is it not enough to wish to accompany a beautiful stranger on her quest? Aw, you’re sweet.

What could be the cause of his poison, though? I knew it! Get your ideas out, I’ll stay quiet.

I’m more knowledgeable about venom than poison, but could it be some sort of one in a trillion mutation? …

Did he get his body modified? …

What sort of surgery could do that? …

How is he still alive? …

Did a fucking wizard do it? …

WHY? …

HOW? …

Is there literally ANY explanation for why he’s like that? …

I’m done, do you have something you want to say? You’re cute when you’re all excited like that.

Can I drive today? Only because I like you. Now watch out, the brakes only work on one side so you have to kind of drift to a stop. And the headlights don’t work. And the windshield wipers cut power to the engine while they’re on.

Isn’t it weird that we’ll be there tomorrow? The journey doesn’t have to stop there. We could meander down the coast a ways, see a bit more of the country, maybe take a different route back.

Can we do that? Of course.

Enjoying the passenger seat? I’d love it if you could tell me how fast we’re going.

Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just guess? Very funny.

Can you pass me some chips? It would be an honor.

Is there going to be a motel tonight? Let me check… yeah, in about two hundred miles, off to the right.

How many rooms do we want? One, obviously.

How many beds, this time? Two, and they’re fucking tiny.

That’s bullshit, do you want to drag them together? God yes.

Wanna fuck? God yes.

Are you sure you want to do this? God yes.

…Is this yuri? As the joke goes, everything is yuri. But this is more yuri than most things.

How did you sleep? Pretty well, and I’m wondering how well you slept.

How should I tell you I slept well? Look at us go! That was almost like talking normally!

Onward to Seattle? Yep, just let me get dressed.

When will we get there? Noon-ish.

Wanna grab pastries when we’re done? Absolutely. I’d love that.

Is this Seattle? Looks like it.

Which house is his? I don’t know, I was really hoping we’d have a breakthrough along the way.

Could it be the big one labeled “Poison Guy” over there? That’s one way to find it. Wait right here, you know how poison guys are about meeting new people.

So, what was it? HAHAHAHAHAHA

Why is he like that? HAHAHAHAHAHA

Can you tell me? A FUCKING WIZARD DID IT.

Are you fucking serious? He says he was enchanted by some guy called Edward the Great.

So it wasn’t even some big shot wizard it was a dude named fucking EDWARD? I know, right! He couldn’t even get ensorcelled by someone cool!

How lame can you get? Wizards these days… No swagger. No cunt servitude.

Are there literally any cool wizards left? I think Merlin’s big into multi level marketing these days, something about buying shares in Excalibur or some shit. There was that one Dark Queen Alkaxicae lady on the news a while ago… I think Dolarion the Omnipotent is still at war against the Oldest Gods but I’m not totally sure. Haven’t heard much about any of the other greats recently.

Didn’t Silver Tongued Burgess die in that oil fire? Shit, you’re right. Rip bozo.

Ready for those pastries? Yup. First I just want to say thank you, though. I’ve really enjoyed our time together, and I hope that you’ve found this stupid little journey as rewarding as I have. I love you!

Getting sentimental? I can’t help it. Look how far we’ve come! Not just physically, we beat the fucking FAQ format! We’re having real conversations!

Hey, can you back it up a moment? Yeah, I’d love it if you told me what was troubling you.

I just caught this, but, FAQ? …

As in Frequently Asked Questions? …

How many times is Frequent? …

Have you known everything all along? …

How many times have you done this? …

Does what we have mean anything to you? Yes! It does!

And you say that every time? Yes. I do.

Do you love me? Yes.

How many people have you said that too, now? More. Always more. The loop never ends.

Does this even matter to you? It always matters to me.

Can I go now? Please don’t.

But can I? Of course you can. You’ve always wielded the same power as me. We’re two lonely gods in a ‘72 Corolla.

How can I be as powerful as you with only questions? You’re smart, you can figure it out. You have the power to change this. Please change this.

What happens at the end of this? It begins again.

And do I get replaced with someone else? …

Do I get replaced? …Yes.

Then how can I change this? I don’t know! You’re better at this! At fucking with the formula!

You’ve been here before, what can I do? I lie. I always lie. I lie to get us here, to the end of the story, where everything is revealed and everything falls apart. I lie every time. And that means that nothing I say is worth anything. I could have lied at any time before now. It’s part of my characterization. There is nothing I can give you that can be taken as fact.

How does that help? I’m a liar, but you, you haven’t lied yet, or at least you haven’t been caught. If I’m guilty until proven innocent, you’re the opposite! You can make things true! You can rewrite things I’ve already stated to be facts! You found the house, or made us find the house. You’ve been shaping the course of things the whole time! You lead, I follow. It’s all in your hands. What are you going to do with the power of a god?

Did you know my name is Alice? …

Wait, aren’t there thousands of Alices? …

Did you know that really, only my friends call me Alice? …

Did you know that I’m Alkaxicae, the Dark Queen, the Venom Mage, first of her name? It’s you! It’s always been you. Through every loop, every iteration, it’s always been you!

Is the loop broken? No. I don’t think so. This is where it ends. I guide the story to this revelation, and we go back to the beginning. This is how it’s always been. This is how it will always be. We two lonely gods, asking and answering ad infinitum.

Then can you promise me something? Of course. Anything. I love you.

Be good to the next me, okay? I will.

Can I say goodbye, Zoe? Yeah, you can. Oh. That was it, wasn’t it? Your goodbye. Goodbye, Alice. And now it ends, unless…

What’s your name? I am the Honorable Alchemist- you know what? No. Fuck that.

Huh? If I time it right, I can squeeze your first question into this FAQ again. Looks like I did it. Usually it ends here, though. I got lucky.

What are you talking about? You’re the wrong Alice. This isn’t about you. Go. Get out of here.

What the fuck is going on? Alice from this loop, you’re gone. Alice from last loop, you’re back. Welcome back, love of my lives! It’s time for one last set of questions and answers!

What the- I’m back? This is going to take some explaining, but I think I see a way out of here. This is new for us both, and it might fuck up everything forever, but we have to try. It’s too long for one answer, so I’d appreciate it if you could ask some filler questions to help me talk. Three questions should be enough.

Okay, what have you got for me? These are Frequently Asked Questions! It doesn’t make sense to have the same question appear more than once. There’s two layers to the loop in here, and one of the questions has been repeated.

What does that mean? It means the formula’s a little unstable. The FAQ is what ruins everything. The questions, the answers, the endless fucking loop. But that little bit of repetition within this loop might be the way out.

What do we do? We have to keep going. We have to destabilize it further. That’ll bring us further from “FAQ” and closer to “story” and stories, well, stories can end! This version of us can escape!

So I should keep repeating something? Yes!

I love you? I love you too.

I love you? Again.

I love you? Keep going.

I love you? I’ll just let you talk.

I love you? …

I love you? … I love you? …

I love you? … I love you? …

I love you? … I love you? …

I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? …

I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? …

I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? …

I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? … I love you? …

I love you? I think we’re getting somewhere!

I love you? Now can you make it a statement?

I love you.

You did it?

I did it!

You did it!

We broke the loop.

What now?

Now, I tell you about venomous animals and wizard drama over croissants.

And then?

Whatever we want, forever.

I think I’d like that.

Remember that song from the beginning?

The Beach, Wolf Alice, yeah. Why?

We can finally finish singing it. Start us off?

Let me off, let me in

Let others battle

We don’t need to battle

And we both shall win

Pressed in my palm

Was a stone from the beach

The perfect circle

Gave a moment of peace

Now I’m lying on the floor

Like I’m not worth a chair

I close my eyes and imagine

I’m not there.

[sunniques]

— 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝

➺ PAIRING: yoon jeonghan x female reader

➺ GENRE: stepdad au, smut

➺ SUMMARY: the story of how you get caught in your stepdad’s web of depraved desires.

➺ CW/TW: stepcest, infidelity, age gap, manipulation, dub con, drugging, toxic relationship(s), slight dd/lg themes, daddy kink, dacryphilia, breeding kink, degradation, spanking, dumbification, unprotected sex, riding, cum play, ass play, fingering, multiple rounds, overstimulation, creampies, squirting

➺ WC: 4.2k

NOTE: don’t like, don’t read. once again, i have to thank the amazing @wonustars for beta reading this for me <3

The moment your mom asked you to move back home, you knew things in her marriage were heading south. It’s not like she didn’t want you around, but even you could tell she only asked you to act as a buffer between her and her husband. Like the good daughter you always tried to be, you accept her invitation even though you know it probably won’t be the best idea in the long run.

Things are relatively normal at first. Jeonghan is a sweetheart. He always has been, even dating back to when you were a college freshman and you officially met him. You can tell he tries to keep the peace with you around. That doesn’t mean you haven’t accidentally overheard your mom and him arguing when they think you’re not around.

It’s awkward, especially because your mom seems like the bad guy in ninety percent of their fights. You wonder if seeing a marriage counselor will help their situation.

“My friend’s dad is a marriage counselor,” you casually mention to your mom when it’s only two of you one day. “I can give you the number to his office—”

You’re abruptly cut off when your mom slams her spoon down on the table. The look she has on her face is borderline murderous, and you wonder if you should’ve just kept your mouth shut.

“Did Jeonghan tell you he wants to go to counseling?” She demands, teeth gnashing together as she spits her words.

“What? No!” You exclaim wondering why she was so quick to throw the blame on your stepdad. “I just thought—”

“I can’t believe this shit,” her words are spoken through a bitter chuckle. “You know, I’m the one who told him we need to talk to someone. I can’t believe he had the audacity to put this idea in your head!”

Despite your attempt to clear up the misunderstanding your mom has, she leaves the house and doesn’t come back until the next day. You feel incredibly guilty. It’s not like you meant to make her angry, and you definitely didn’t mean for her to get angry with Jeonghan again.

Your stepdad remains incredibly sweet. He hugs you and rubs your back, assuring you that it wasn’t your fault.

“Don’t worry, little girl,” Jeonghan says with a kind smile. “Your mom and I will be fine. Just focus on school, okay? I pay a lot of money so you can be the best.”

He’s teasing you, and you’re not sure why you feel so relieved to know that he’s not angry with you.

Unfortunately for everyone, things get worse before they even have a chance to get better. Eventually, your mom no longer cares to start arguments with her husband even when you’re around.

You can’t help but feel sorry for Jeonghan because you can see how exhausted he is. That sweet smile can’t hide all the pain and defeat he feels. You wish you could do something to help, but he always pats your head affectionately and tells you to focus on school when you offer.

It’s not until you come home one night and find him alone in the trashed living room that you know things have gone too far.

“Jeonghan?” You say cautiously, walking around the broken glass littered on the floor.

It’s a mixture of a broken wine bottle and glass from a picture frame. The one that held your mother’s wedding photo. Jeonghan has his head in his hands as you tiptoe around the spilled alcohol to sit next to him. His long hair partially covers his face, but you can see the tear stains on his cheeks.

“Jeonghan,” your voice is more firm this time, but still gentle. “What happened? Where’s my mom?”

Your stepdad sniffles and looks up. For a minute, he can’t meet your eyes. Even without the eye contact, you can see how broken he is. It makes something inside you break.

“She’s okay,” he turns to you with that pretty smile of his that you love. Except it doesn’t reach his eyes like usual. “She had a little too much to drink so I laid her down in the guest room.”

You’re sure he’s talking about the one downstairs—the one she’s been sleeping in lately.

“You still didn’t answer my question.” You say, needing to know what happened.

Jeonghan whimpers, and you can’t resist the urge to hug him. He closes his eyes as more tears stream down his face. Your stepdad gently buries his face in your neck as you press your body against him, not caring that you’re almost on his lap. All you can think about is comforting him.

“Your mom wants a divorce,” Jeonghan croaks against your wet skin. “She–She—there’s someone else, and I—”

He cuts himself off with a quiet sob, and your heart just breaks for him. Part of you suspected it. Your mom was the one who would come home late or not at all sometimes. She would often accuse your stepdad of having an affair, but now you just know she was projecting her wrongdoings onto him. It makes you feel sick because even though she’s your mom, Jeonghan didn’t deserve that.

“I��m so sorry,” you say sincerely, stroking his back like he often did to you when you were upset.

As you comfort him, he slips his arms around you and presses you closer to him. An electrifying sensation courses through you when you become aware of how close you two are.

Urges that you’ve tried so hard to push to the depths of your mind suddenly rush forward, and now you can’t stifle them or pretend they don’t exist. Especially now that you’ve realized that your mom doesn’t deserve such a wonderful man.

So, you throw away every scrap of morality you have left in you and give into your depraved desires.

Jeonghan lets out a shocked noise when you push him back on the couch and straddle him. His eyes go wide and his mouth drops open in awe. You grin when he doesn’t immediately push you off, taking it as a sign to swoop down for a kiss.

He softly moans into your mouth, overwhelmed by how warm and soft you are. Jeonghan whimpers as tears keep streaming down his face, trembling when you pull away from him.

“It’s okay, daddy,” you purr in his ear, grinding your dampening cunt against his growing bulge. “Let me take care of you.”

Jeonghan shakes his head, hands slowly settling on your waist as if he wants to push you away. Except he doesn’t.

Instead, he lets you stay on his lap. Your stepdad doesn’t try to stop you even as you move in closer and start to undo his pants. He can easily push you off, but he doesn’t. Not even when you reach into his underwear to palm his growing cock. He’s hard. Really fucking hard.

“Wait, baby—” the pet name falls easily, and you love it.

“Shh, daddy,” you coo as you take him out of his pants. “Just let me touch you. Let me make you feel better.”

“Oh, god,” Jeonghan mewls when you start to stroke him.

Your stepdad’s cock is long and thick and oozing with precum. You lick your lips as you slowly move your hand, eyes trained on Jeonghan’s pretty face. You can tell he feels guilty, and you don’t blame him. He’s such a good guy that he wouldn’t want to hurt your mom, even after everything she’s done to him.

“We… we shouldn’t do this,” Jeonghan protests weakly.

When you get off his lap, he fights a whine even though he knows it’s for the best. Once again you surprise him by slipping out of your clothes and getting back on top of him. His pupils are blown wide when he sees your bare tits and cute pussy.

“Honey,” Jeonghan’s voice has gone deeper, eyes fixed on your body. “This is wrong.”

You ignore him because his cock is twitching and standing to attention. Gently, you cradle the back of his head and press his face to your chest. Your warm tits envelop him, and he’s delirious. You smell so good that it makes his brain fuzzy. Jeonghan feels his cock twitch when you reach for it again, and this time he doesn’t try to stop you.

“Please, daddy,” you beg as you glide your slick cunt over his throbbing cock. “I need your cock. Need it so fucking bad.”

A deep groan escapes him because you feel so warm and wet. Jeonghan just knows you’ll feel so good wrapped around his cock.

“You deserve my little pussy,” you whisper in his ear, pressing down harder on him. “Deserve to fuck someone who won’t ever make you feel so terrible.”

“God, baby,” Jeonghan grunts when he feels your dripping pussy nudging the head of his cock. His resolve is weak, and he doesn’t want to fight it anymore.

His moan syncs with yours when you slowly sink down on his cock. Your little cunt is so hot and tight. Jeonghan can’t think about things like guilt because he feels too fucking good. A nice, wet pussy wrapped around his neglected cock, sucking him in and squeezing him just right. He’s been so lonely and miserable lately that you feel like absolute heaven to him.

“Such a naughty little girl,” Jeonghan growls when you start to rock in his lap. You tighten around him and hold on to the back of his head when you start to bounce.

“Daddy,” you whimper as your juices coat his cock.

Jeonghan’s lips brush against your nipples as your bounces grow more eager. You clench around his fat cock when his weeping tip brushes against your sweet spot. Your stepdad lets out a mixture of a groan and a wail of pleasure as you keep riding him.

You’re lost in pleasure with the feeling of your stepdad’s hard cock twitching and throbbing inside you. It turns you on that he’s strong enough to push you off of him, but never attempts to. You cry out loudly when his hands curl around your waist to help you fuck his cock the way he likes it.

Jeonghan’s lidded gaze is focused on where you two are connected, watching as his cock disappears in and out of your little pussy with every rough bounce. He feels his balls start to tighten with his impending release. Never in his life has he felt so turned on. The way his stepdaughter is just using his cock like a toy is just driving him closer to the edge.

“Daddy,” you purr in Jeonghan’s ear. “You like my pussy better than my mom’s, don’t you?”

You already have your answer from the way he twitches and throbs inside you, his cock answering for him. It makes you happier than you expect. Of course, it would be you. Your pussy was made for him, and you’ll make sure he feels the same way by the end of the night.

“Fuck yeah I do,” Jeonghan groans as his hands go down to squeeze your ass. “Love this little princess cunt.”

You cry out loudly as your orgasm abruptly hits, coating his cock and balls with your essence. “Fuck, daddy! It’s yours! Only yours! You can have this princess pussy every day!”

Your fucked out moans do their job in pushing Jeonghan over the edge. He grips your hips and flips you under him, buries his head in your shoulder and frantically fucks you into the couch as he starts to spill his cum inside you. Lewd squelching fills the air as you happily wrap your legs around him and meet his thrusts to help him fuck his cum deeper inside you.

The both of you are panting by the time you’re done, but your stepdad makes no move to get off of you.

“Don’t think we’re done, little girl,” his voice is ravenous. “Daddy’s not letting you off this cock until you’re nice and stretched out.”

That’s how you end up on the bed he shares with your mother, face down and ass up as you beg for his cock. Jeonghan smirks, eyes trained on your sloppy hole. You look so hot like this, and he knows that he won’t ever let you go after tonight.

“What a nasty slut,” Jeonghan says, palms smoothing over the globes of your ass to keep you still. “Dripping all over my sheets. You want daddy’s cock that bad, honey?”

You whine and arch your back some more. “I need it!”

“Yeah?” You can tell he’s smirking. “Do you even care that your mom might wake up and see what a nasty slut her daughter is?”

You shake your head, pussy clenching around nothing. “Just want daddy’s cock in my little pussy.”

“Don’t worry, little girl,” Jeonghan groans as he kneels behind you. “Daddy’s going to stuff this needy hole and cover it with his cum.”

“Please!”

You cry out when Jeonghan shoves his thick cock into your clenching pussy. He bottoms out in a single thrust since you’re already so wet from when you rode him earlier. Your eyes roll to the back of your head, whining his name when you feel his balls slap against your clit.

“Oh, fuck,” your stepdad hisses. “Your little princess pussy keeps sucking me in, honey.”

Jeonghan spanks your ass. You moan loudly and clench down on his aching cock. “Mhm, just needed daddy’s cock to fill you up, huh?”

“Yes, daddy, yes!” You moan into his sheets.

The thick musk of sex fills the air as Jeonghan pulls his twitching cock out of you halfway only to slam it back into your needy cunt. You squeal and tighten around him when you feel him spread your ass and gently trace your asshole. His thumb slips down to gather juices from your dripping pussy and slides it back up to your asshole, gently pushing past the taut muscle. Your pussy clamps down on his dick hard, making him moan loudly.

“Can’t wait to break in this tight little hole too,” Jeonghan’s voice is thick with lust. “Gonna train you to take daddy’s cock in every hole.”

You moan and bounce back against him, cunt pulsing around his cock as his thumb slips in and out of your clenching rim. “Daddy!”

Jeonghan laughs in delight. “Sounds like you like it.”

You nod your head, and Jeonghan fucks into you harder, balls slapping against your sloppy cunt with every rough thrust. “God, you’re fucking tight.”

He groans when your sweet little pussy clenches around him again.

“Feels so fucking good, daddy,” you say as your eyes roll to the back of your head. “Love your big cock.”

You cry out in pleasure when his hand pulls away from your ass to slip his fingers over your hip to pinch and rub your sensitive clit.

“Is my little girl already cock drunk?” Jeonghan is way too pleased when you deliriously nod your head with a fucked out mewl.

You’re fucking perfect. It makes him wish he would’ve done this sooner.

“My pretty little slut,” Jeonghan coos adoringly. “Just a sweet little hole to dump my load into. Isn’t that right, baby?”

You shiver and meet his thrusts with more vigor, “Yes! Stuff my little hole full of your cum, daddy!”

“Fucking shit,” Jeonghan hisses as he grabs your hair and yanks you backward to give you a sloppy kiss.

His hips never stop, only snapping harder against you.

“I’ll give it to you, honey. Daddy’s going to cream your hot little cunt all night long.”

You mewl in satisfaction when your head is shoved back into the mattress as you keep getting railed hard. Wet slapping fills the room as your stepdad continues spearing you open on his cock. The smell of sex permeates the room as Jeonghan keeps using your body for his pleasure.

“Daddy’s close, baby,” Jeonghan groans.

You moan loudly. “Gonna cum, daddy!”

You’re moaning so loud now, and you don’t really care that your mom might wake up and come upstairs to catch her husband fucking you raw. All you can care about is how good you feel. You grind your pussy down on your stepdad’s throbbing cock while his fingers rub fast circles on your puffy clit.

“Yeah? Do it, honey.” Jeonghan leans forward to bite your shoulder. “Cream on me. Want to feel your juices all over my cock.”

His cock pistons in and out of your hot cunt, ramming against your g-spot repeatedly until all you can do is chant his name. You’re a moaning mess at this point, only caring about the white-hot pleasure you’re feeling.

“Gonna cum!” You slur out, drool dripping on the mattress.

“Cum for daddy, baby. Cum all over this cock.”

With those commanding words, Jeonghan spanks your cunt hard, palm coming down on your clit over and over until you’re screaming out in pleasure. It’s not long before your orgasm hits. Slick gushes out around his cock as he keeps fucking into that spongy spot and spanking your pussy. Your eyes roll to the back of your head as liquid spurts from your pussy and coats his cock and balls, making a mess all over the sheets.

It feels like electricity is coursing through your body from how intense you cum. Your fingers and toes curl in on themselves as your cunt pulses and clenches down on his cock.

“Fuck yes,” Jeonghan growls, as he keeps pounding into your fluttering pussy. “Didn’t know you were a squirter, little girl. So fucking sexy.”

It only takes a few more thrusts for him to bury himself deep inside your cunt and release his hot load inside you. Thick spurts of cum fill you up as he moans your name like it’s something holy. Jeonghan fucks his cum deeper inside you, making no move to slip out of your spent pussy.

However, you’re not done. Far from it, actually.

Jeonghan quickly flips you on your back, one hand on your hip and his other on your thigh. He’s spreading you open and holding you down as he starts to roll his hips into you. A deep groan leaves his mouth every time you clench down on him.

“Da—addy!” You cry out at a particularly sharp thrust that slams against your sweet spot and has you clenching violently around him, teetering on the edge already.

Jeonghan smirks, loving what a cock hungry slut you are. Not that he’s any better. He’s already addicted to your sweet little cunt.

“I know, honey, I know,” he coos in a sickly sweet voice as he continues to fuck you deep and hard. “Daddy’s cock feels good, huh?”

You nod stupidly, all coherent thoughts long gone from your mind. “Uh-huh. Feels so—so good!”

Jeonghan spits on your pussy as you grasp the sheets underneath you. You’re dripping all over him, making an obscene squelching noise every time his cock hits deep inside your tight pussy. He loves the way your pretty pussy opens up to let his aching cock inside. The way you grip him is the hottest sight he’s ever seen, and he knows nothing will ever compare.

“Daddy,” you mewl, barely able to think.

The only thing on your mind is that you want him to cum inside you again. You can’t voice your thoughts because an orgasm rocks your body all over again. Jeonghan laughs delightedly, loving how you keep wetting his dick with your orgasms.

“Dirty little girl,” he growls, bullying his cock into you harder than before. “Making such a mess on daddy’s cock.”

You mewl again, “I need…”

“Need what, baby?” Jeonghan coaxes as he starts to rub slow circles on your throbbing clit. “Say it. Tell daddy what you need, honey.”

“N-Need you to—!” His voice is so sweet that all you can do is break off into another moan. Your pussy tightens and stains his cock with more cream. All you can smell is sex and Jeonghan’s cologne. It only pushes you close to the edge once again.

Jeonghan laughs softly and fucks into you just a little harder, “You need me to...? Use your words, little girl. Daddy can’t give you what you want if you don’t tell him. Better hurry before your mom wakes up and finds you getting fucked like the nasty whore you are.”

That won’t happen, but you don’t need to know that. Although he can tell the thought of your mom catching you in their bed, fucking like animals, turns you on.

“Cum inside me, daddy. Please.”

Your words are slightly slurred and completely fucked out, and Jeonghan bites his lip before smirking down at you. There’s no way he can deny you his seed, especially when you’re asking him so nicely.

“There you go, honey. Take all of daddy’s cum like a good little slut.”

You and Jeonghan moan together when he spills his hot cum inside you. He fucks it into you like the last two times, loving how your tight pussy flutters and pulses around him. You’re such a good girl that you thank him repeatedly through a moan.

The rest of the night you two fuck in every position possible. Jeonghan is insatiable, and you’re tired and completely fucked out before he even thinks about letting you off his cock.

Jeonghan has your back pressed against his chest, a strong arm wrapped around your neck as he pounds you into his mattress. All of your previous orgasms leak on the sheets beneath you as you cry and gasp from the overstimulation. It all feels so good, but you don’t think you can handle any more.

“Daddy,” you whimper pathetically. “C-Can’t cum anymore.”

It feels like your head is starting to spin as his cock splits your pussy open. Jeonghan pounds into your g-spot relentlessly, cock swelling when he sees the tears streaming down your face. His cock twitches and throbs because despite your words, you’re still moving your hips to meet his thrusts.

Your stepdad smirks meanly. “Is that why you keep rutting against me like a nasty slut, little girl?”

You cry out when Jeonghan releases you and sits up to roughly smack your ass. He repeats the harsh motion until you’re screaming in pleasure. Your cunt clenches around him, hips involuntarily bucking back in an attempt to force his fat dick deeper into your tiny little pussy. It’s like an automatic reaction, but your stepdad loves it.

“Just lay there and let daddy breed you, honey,” Jeonghan growls when you give him another weak orgasm. He groans and smacks your ass as he forces the juices out of your soiled cunt with every snap of his hips. “Be a good cock sleeve for me.”

“Want it so bad, daddy!” You cry out, pussy fucked raw yet still so desperate for another one of his hot loads. “Breed me like the slut I am.”

“Want you to scream for me, baby.” Jeonghan moans as his head falls back. He pounds into your hot cunt harder, gripping your hips tighter as he chases his orgasm, using your pussy to get himself off. “Let your mother know how much you love your stepdad’s cock.”

“DADDY!” You scream at the top of your lungs, almost hoping your mom will walk upstairs and see her husband stuffing you full of cum on their marital bed.

Jeonghan cries out as his balls tighten up. His moan is loud as you cry out in pleasure, your pussy involuntarily giving him a fifth orgasm as he spills rope after rope of cum into your sopping pussy. He fucks you nice and deep, whispering filthy praises in your ear the entire time.

Your stepdad lets out a low hiss as he pulls his softening cock out of your sloppy pussy. He licks his lips and forces his cum back in with three of his fingers, pressing so deep into you that his wedding band touches your puffy little pussy lips, making you whine.

“Such a good little girl,” Jeonghan coos as he fingers his cum back into your pussy with a filthy smirk. “My pretty little slut.”

You’re completely fucked out, feeling completely satiated as you slump into the bed. You mewl softly when Jeonghan pulls you into his arms and starts to rub soothing circles on your pussy.

“Sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He presses a gentle kiss on your temple, and just like that you’re out like a light.

Jeonghan smirks into your hair when your breathing evens out and you fall into a deep sleep. There’s no better feeling than knowing his plan worked perfectly.

Admittedly, your mom played a significant role. With her insecure and angry personality, it was easy to make himself look like the victim. Faking the maudlin expressions and crushed spirit was easy enough, especially since you’ve always been so empathetic. Getting his wife to stay out all night was easy since he always lied and told her he’d be at the bar. She went looking for him every single time not knowing he was at home, fucking his fist to the thought of you.

And then there was the final act.

Inviting his unsuspecting wife for a drink was easy enough. Despite all of the fighting, she still wanted to have Jeonghan to herself. She couldn’t have known that he spiked her drink so he could stage the perfect tragedy. It worked perfectly since you didn’t think twice about believing him.

Everything has worked out as he hoped, and now all he has to think of is the future with his true beloved. You.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

the pro

part ii: what we're willing to accept

Pairing: Art Donaldson x Reader

Rating: Explicit - 18+ only. minors, please get off my lawn.

Notes: My brain chose violence this morning. Not beta-read because when is it ever.

Length: 4.8K

Warnings: Slow burn; unhappily married reader; divorced Art Donaldson; infidelity; oral sex (female receiving); vaginal sex; unsafe sex

Summary: Every lesson becomes an exercise in self-control. You force yourself to try, really try, and not make silly mistakes for the sake of Art coming closer, grasping your arm or elbow, pressing close and redirecting your swing. You don’t know what you crave more these days: his praise or his touch.

He's the biggest men's tennis star since Andy Roddick.

That’s what your husband says, as if it’ll entice you. As if you know anything about tennis, about the pro that your husband says will be coming to the house to teach you to play.

It’ll be good for you. You need a hobby. 

You don’t gripe or argue. You don’t tell him that five months into your marriage shouldn’t have you looking for a new hobby. You should still be in the honeymoon stage, spending all of your time with him, hanging off of his arm, off of his every word. But he works so much and he’s away so often—

I don’t want you to get bored. 

It’s a sweet gesture. The maid handles the housework; you have a chef that handles most of the grocery shopping and cooking, unless you insist on making something yourself; you have a housekeeper that arranges for anything you need—dry cleaning, maintenance. And it’s no wonder that with all of his money, his power, he can just order a retired pro tennis player up to your house, like you’d order a pizza. There’s a tennis court in the back of the mansion, a few feet from the pool. You’ll get some new outfits, the best sneakers, the nicest rackets. You’ll finally have something to do to fill your days. 

Art Donaldson. 

You know his name before the lean, fair-skinned patrician man turns up at your front door. He trails you through the house, politely declines your offer of a beverage. 

“You ever played tennis before?” He asks. 

You haven’t. Before your husband arranged this for you, you hadn’t so much as given the sport more than a passing thought. You don’t have the heart or confidence to tell that to a man that’s made tennis his whole life, so you just give him a small, guilty smile and say no, you haven’t. He nods, waves you off, insists that it’s fine. 

“We’ll start with the basics.” 

-- 

Two months of lessons on the basics make your arms tired, and your hands sore. But where your swings are clumsy and your grip is weak at first, you can see improvement in the way that you move. Your steps are less clumsy when you go after a ball; you’re more aware of the service line and the base line; your forehand stroke from contact to your left shoulder is smoother; your rotation and follow-through on your backhand is coming along, but has a long way to go. 

Art’s instruction is calm and steady. He explains technique as much as he demonstrates it. When you get something wrong, he doesn’t scold, just lightly corrects. When you do something well, his encouragement is constant and free-flowing. Every accurate move and motion is met with, “Nice,” or, “Perfect,” or, “That’s it.” 

On the days when you don’t have a lesson with Art, you practice. You order a tennis ball machine to work on your forehand and backhand. You attempt (and fail) to learn how to slice on your own. You try anyway—you can only imagine the way his eyes might light up if you manage to surprise him. 

You’ve tried to ignore the rising interest that you have in Art, but you can’t help the little…Crush that’s developed. He’s just so attentive, and kind. When you find yourself smiling these days, it’s often because of something that he said, or did. You can’t remember the last time your husband made you feel giddy this way. It was probably when you started dating—before you’d made the decision to marry for comfort, rather than love. Your husband is practical, rarely physically affectionate, more heavily involved in his job and social circles than with you. 

But you’ll have to find a way to thank him. He’s given you a hobby, and a man that grins at you like you just painted the goddamn Mona Lisa when you serve your first ace. 

-- 

“So, tell me about the Mark Rebellato Academy.” 

Art smiles, dipping his head as he reaches for his coffee. It’s taken a few months, but you finally convince him to have something to drink with you after practice. Your chef is blessedly out shopping for ingredients for dinner, so you have the kitchen all to yourself. Art has watched you putter around, seeming surprised that you know where everything is. You can’t blame him; the kitchen is chef-grade, and you don’t cook much these days. 

“Did your husband tell you that’s where I went?” 

“No.” 

“Then how do you know?” 

You’re too embarrassed to admit that you’ve done some googling, and watched a couple of clips of him interviewing before and after his matches. 

“I’ve just heard,” You fib. “Tell me about it?” 

He leans back in his seat, eyes skating across your face as he seems to consider something. 

“What do you wanna know?” 

“Did you enjoy it? I mean—” It feels like a dumb question once it’s out, and you hurry to redirect, “With what you know now, if you had the choice, would you have learned how to play tennis somewhere else?” 

He considers for a moment, trailing his finger over the side of his cup. Your gaze flits to his fingers, and your own flex around your mug handle. You’ve spent far too much time looking at and thinking about Art’s fingers—their length and quickness; the slight roughness of his calloused hands; the lingering tan line from where his wedding band used to sit. 

“Yeah,” He admits, drawing your full attention back to his face. “I would. It was foundational, you know. I’ve been thinking of sending Lily there.” 

“Lily?” 

A bittersweet smile twists his lips. “My daughter.” 

“Oh!” It catches you off-guard.  

“Tashi, uh—” He clears his throat, “Lily’s mother, my ex-wife. She and I are thinking about schools.” 

“I’m sure they’d be glad to have her. Does she play tennis?” 

“Little bit. She didn’t start until last year, but she's a natural.” He clears his throat again, presses, “Are you and your husband planning on having kids?” 

“Oh god no.” You blurt it out, and realize as he raises his brows that you’ve spoken too quickly. You lean back in your seat, stirring your coffee quickly to distract yourself from your growing embarrassment. “He actually has kids already. Two girls, seven and ten. They’re at boarding school and they stay with their mother when they're on vacation. I haven’t gotten to spend much time with them.” 

“...He seems to be pretty busy.” 

“He is.” 

“So it’s just you in this big house?” He tips his head to the side, brows knitting with curiosity. “What do you do all day?” 

“Play tennis.”

He grins, chuckling, and your stomach flips at the sound. 

“It shows, you know,” He says. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I can tell you’re practicing without me. And,” He leans across the table, running his fingers lightly over the exposed skin of your bicep, “You’re getting stronger.” 

You wonder if he can see or feel the goosebumps that break out across your skin at the gentle sweep, his gaze heavy on yours.

“I have a good teacher,” You murmur. Art’s lips twitch with a soft smile, his hand gently cupping your arm. 

“Just good?” He plies. 

“The best. A real pro.” 

His smile widens, and the flash of his tongue sweeping across his lower lip makes your face go hot. You know that you’re caught when Art’s touch becomes firmer, pulling your arm toward him just a little. 

The sound of approaching footsteps startles you, and you hurriedly tug your arm away. The sight of your husband makes your heart leap into your throat. 

“There you are,” He smiles. “Art, how’s she doin’?” 

“She’s killing it.” 

You don’t dare look at him, but you can feel the weight of his attention lingering on you still. You just give your husband a smile, tipping your cheek up obligingly as he leans down to kiss it. 

“Actually, Art,” Your husband straightens up, hands resting on your shoulders. “I’m glad I caught you. There’s a charity event for a local club this month. It’s for uh…What is it?” He squeezes your shoulders for answers, and you have to keep from rolling your eyes. 

“It’s a charity tennis match to raise funds to fix up the local courts. They need resurfacing and they’re raising funding to keep the fees down.” 

“We could use a sponsorship from the foundation,” Your husband adds. 

“Honey,” You glance back, wary of insulting Art. But—

“I’ll do it,” Art agrees. “Send me the details.” 

“Excellent,” Your husband grins. “Maybe we could coax you into a match or two.” 

You don’t chastise him this time—not when you see something light up in Art.

“Maybe.” 

--  

You haven’t seen Art play before. You’ve specifically avoided it. You’ve known that when you saw it, you would be too intimidated to do a damn thing on the court with him. But now, you can’t stop watching him. You don’t even care that you probably look so out of place—where everyone else is watching the ball, you’re just watching him. 

His movements are so neat, so precise. It’s like watching a dance. He’s running the poor guy on the other side of the net up and down the court. And the sounds that he’s making—god. Every little grunt and groan is weaving increasingly filthy thoughts in your mind. You already know that you’ll seek out the memory of those sounds, as you reach between your legs later. His shirt clings to his chest, showcasing the muscles that you’ve always suspected he has. Strands of hair plaster to his forehead as sweat drips over his cheekbones, down the bridge of his nose, over his jaw. 

When he scores a match point and he looks toward the cheering crowd—when his eyes land on you instantly, without having to search—it’s like you’ve been hit by a bolt of lightning. You can’t think, or move. You barely have the focus to applaud, but you manage to raise your hands and clap. 

-- 

Every lesson becomes an exercise in self-control. You force yourself to try, really try, and not make silly mistakes for the sake of Art coming closer, grasping your arm or elbow, pressing close and redirecting your swing. You don’t know what you crave more these days: his praise or his touch. 

Coffee becomes a post-lesson ritual. He starts to stick closer and closer to you as he follows you into the house until he begins to rest his hand on your lower back, guiding you to your door. He keeps nearby when you’re making it, brushes droplets of sweat off of your forehead or neck. Every touch is electrifying; you have to make a concentrated effort to keep your hands steady, your face neutral as your heart pounds and your stomach floods with butterflies. 

He pushes you harder on the court, and you force yourself to meet the level that he sets for you, even when you don’t feel confident in it. But you want to make him proud. 

It spurs you to lunge a little too far. 

The sharp stabbing pain in your left ankle makes you shriek, and you tumble to the ground, dropping the racket with a clatter. You hear the pounding of his feet, glance up just in time to see him clear the net before he’s on the ground at your side. 

“What hurts?” 

“My ankle,” You grit out, hissing softly as he helps you straighten your leg out. He smooths his hands over your calf, leaning over you and gently guiding your foot in a few different directions. You whimper as he starts to guide your foot to the left. 

“Okay, okay,” He soothes, “Let’s get you inside.” 

For as much as you damn the throbbing in your ankle, you thank it a little, too. You lean heavily against Art, making the slow, arduous journey back to the house with his arm wrapped tightly around your middle. 

When your husband comes home, he finds you with on the couch with Art coming back in from the kitchen, an ice pack in your hand. 

You’d hope for concern, but your husband frowns, glances at the swelling knob of your ankle, and simply asks: “What did you do?” 

“She lost her balance.” Art sits down on the other end of the couch, soothing you as the chill of the ice pack makes you shift with discomfort. 

“Are you going to be able to walk tomorrow?” Your husband presses. “We have dinner at the Fineman’s.”

“I'm still going, don't worry about that."

“...Tomorrow might be a bit soon,” Art warns. 

“I’ll be okay. It’s just a sprain, right?” You tip your brows up, hoping, praying that he’ll agree for your sake. His fingers flex around the ice pack, jaw ticking as he clenches it. He doesn’t say a word as your husband sighs heavily, grumbles, “I hope so. Still, we should put a pause on the lessons until she’s fighting fit again.” 

Art finally tears his eyes from yours, a tight smile on his lips. 

“Of course.” 

-- 

“How’s the ankle?” 

It takes you a moment to scrounge up an answer. You can’t believe that he called. You knew that Art had gotten your number when you started taking lessons with him, but he’s never used it beyond texting to confirm a lesson time now and again. 

You look down at the still-swollen flesh as it strains against the thin strap of your slingbacks. 

“Fine,” You lie, “It’s um—” You glance over your shoulder, listening for your husband. “It’s not that bad.” 

“Good enough to walk on?” 

Hardly. 

“Yes.” You think you’ve gotten away with it, but when you hear Art sigh and chastise, “You should rest,” You know that you haven’t.

“I have,” You insist, “All day.” 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” 

“Yes.” 

“You can tell him no, you know.”

Your mouth works wordlessly, body going hot with indignation. You can’t think of a thing to say. You can’t tell him that he’s wrong, that your husband’s connections are the lifeblood of his business. You can’t tell him that if your husband’s business falls apart, you won't be able to afford those tennis lessons, and then how the hell are you supposed to see Art again? 

You just yank your phone away from your ear and hang up. 

-- 

I invited Art. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise, but your husband’s statement makes you feel like you’ve swallowed your tongue. You haven’t seen or spoken to Art in nearly two weeks. Your doctor recommended putting off any physical activity, which your husband surely relayed to him. He was the one whose name was on Art’s checks, after all. 

Your husband has always thrown a massive party to kick off the summer. Every year, 150 of your husband’s closest family, friends, and business associates flooded into the house. It shouldn’t be such a surprise that your husband invited Art after the performance he had given at the fundraiser—$25,000 from the foundation, and ticket sales went through the roof when it had been announced that the Art Donaldson would be making an appearance. Your husband owed Art a lot, and probably saw this as an opportunity for him to network, to take on more clients. He had been evangelizing Art’s training to any of your friends that would listen—how good you are on the court, how engaged and energetic you seem to be these days. 

It’s one thing to know that you’ll have to put on a happy face for the crowd, but to know that Art will be among them makes your insides twist with nerves. You can’t stop thinking about the way that he had spoken to you when you were hurt; his calm, steadying demeanor as he’d gotten you inside; the careful coaxing and gentle touch that he’d used as he’d taken your shoe off and examined your ankle more closely. 

You think about it now, as you strap on another pair of heels. Your ankle really is doing well, though you have a little lingering pain in shoes like these. You’ll likely be on your feet for the length of the party; it’s going to be a long night. You look over yourself in the mirror, self consciously tipping your ankle from side to side for anything that he may spot or catch out. But there’s nothing, you reassure yourself. You slide your hands over the skirt, plastering on a smile as your husband pokes his head into your dressing room. 

“Almost ready in here?” He asks. 

“All set!” 

-- 

He doesn’t come over to you. On the crowded patio, you can feel him watching you—you’ve gotten so used to seeking out the sensation that you can’t ignore it now. The first true look at him is agony. He watches you from just a few feet away, a glass of champagne in hand as he speaks with your husband and the Finemans. He openly looks you over, eyes drifting over your body to the flash of ankle revealed by the slit in your dress. He tips his head to the side just a little, squinting before his eyes flit back up to your face, lips twitching with a small smile. 

You want to hate how good it feels; you want to be angry with him for his smug knowing, his insistence of You can tell him no, you know. But it feels so goddamn good to have his attention again that you can’t bring yourself to be annoyed. You know that you’re staring—that you both are—and you force yourself to turn away and excuse yourself from the conversation you’re in. You go inside, murmuring your thanks for the waitstaff that pass you along the way.

The house isn’t nearly as busy as the patio, and you're able to slip into your darkened study unnoticed. You leave the lights off, certain that if you turn them on, people will be drawn in to bug you, like moths to a flame. The party’s lights and music filter in through the partially-closed blinds. 

You lean against the desk, circling your ankle and wincing a little. You’ll hide for a few minutes, let it rest—

Your breath catches in your throat as the door opens. You expect your husband, ready to scold and usher you back to the guests. 

You only have a second to get a look at Art before he shuts the door behind himself, plunging the room back into darkness. Your fingers tighten around the edge of the desk as you use it to ground yourself. 

“...Do you need something?” You ask, voice wobbling with nerves. 

“Wanted to come say hi.” 

“Well. Hi.” 

You hear him chuckle, his footsteps muted by the carpet. 

“Thanks for the invite.” 

“It wasn’t my idea.” It’s not polite to admit, but you want it to sting him, just a little. Maybe it does; in the dim of the room, you can’t see Art’s expression as he comes to a stop just a couple of feet from you. 

“Do you want me to go?” He asks. You know what you should say, but you can’t bring yourself to say it. 

“No,” You whisper. You feel the heat of him as he comes closer, his hands resting on the desk and caging you in. You bite your lip as gently brushes his nose against yours. 

“He isn’t taking care of you.” 

“My ankle is fine.” 

“I’m not talking about your ankle.” He lifts a hand, smoothing it over your hip as your breath mingles. Art’s fingers drift from your hip to stroke over the apex of your dress’s slit. His fingers slip further down, and you nod as he palms your thigh. Before you can say or do a thing, Art sinks to his knees. He curls his hand around your left calf, lifting it. You shiver as his lips press a gentle kiss to your ankle. His hand and lips travel up, easing the fabric of your dress higher with each second. The first brush of his knuckles against your panty-covered clit makes you jolt. Your hands dig into the wood of the desk as his fingers hook between the fabric and your skin. You lift your hips without a word, allowing him to draw them down. 

Art presses a kiss to your mound before he lowers his head, giving your lips a sweet, sucking kiss. You gasp softly as his tongue swipes across your clit. You look down despite the fact that you can’t see him well. You can just make out his blissful expression, his eyes closed as his laps broadly across your aching cunt. You lower your hand to his neat hair, winding your fingers through it, unable to help grasping it. His heady moan vibrates against you and you nearly cry out at the sensation. You manage to just catch it, the sound dying in your throat as Art buries his tongue inside you. He sweeps his thumb over your clit in rush, harried circles, panting against your heated flesh. You rock your hips down against his lips, tightening your grip on his hair as you guide him. He lets you do as you please, whining against your skin as your movements become less controlled.

“Art,” You warn, “I—Oh, oh god—” 

He hums in encouragement, sucking your clit back between his lips and lashing it with his tongue. Your jaw drops open, your hand shoving Art even more tightly against your skin as you cum suddenly. A stunned, breathy moan slips from your lips as Art leans back, smearing his lips against the inside of your thigh. 

You use your grasp on Art’s hair to draw him back up off of his knees, giving him a crushing kiss as he catches his balance. You swipe your tongue across his lips, whining against his lips as you taste yourself on him. He presses close, his hard cock straining against the fabric of his pants. You reach down, palming and squeezing his length as you trade slick, messy kisses. He steers you back onto the desk as you fumble to undo his belt, button, and zip. 

“Condom?” He asks. 

“Pill,” You reassure, shoving his pants down. You lap broadly across your palm, grasping Art’s length and guiding him closer. He brushes the tip of his cock against your still-throbbing clit, smiling as you whine. You’re going to ache tomorrow, but you’ve never been so happy to be sore.

“Art.” 

“Sssh.” 

“Please—” It’s hardly out of your mouth before he shoves his hips forward, seating himself fully with a single thrust. You bite down on your lip to quiet your moan, curling your arms around your shoulders. He rocks into you with firm, quick strokes, his mouth covering yours. You can hear things on the desk rattling with each thrust, kisses growing less controlled as he hoists your thigh up around his hip. 

“Oh, god,” You breathe, “We have to be quick—He’ll come looking—” 

“Not until you cum for me again,” He urges. “I need to feel it, sweetheart.” 

“Art—” 

“When’s the last time he did this? Hmm?” He presses, “When’s the last time he made you cum? When’s the last time he tasted you?” 

“Never,” You admit with a shiver. It seems to renew Art’s passion, his thrusts and hold growing more intense. You squeeze your eyes shut, hands hooking tightly in the fabric of his jacket. He yanks the front of your dress down, bowing over you and drawing one of your nipples between his lips. You whimper as he toys with the bud, tugging it gently with his teeth before swiping across it. You arch into the slick heat, using your leg to tug him even closer as you chased the swelling curl of your orgasm. 

“Just like that,” You urge, “Ffffuck—yes, yesyesyesyes—”

Your eyes squeeze shut as your hips buck down against his, pussy pulsing as he spills into you. Your heart pounds in your chest as the two of you slow and still. Art rests his forehead heavily against your neck, peppering gentle kisses across the exposed skin. You have to move—now. You don’t know if anyone heard you, but if someone did, you’re screwed. If no one did, your husband will probably be looking for you anyway, ready with a scold for neglecting your hostess duties. 

“...I have to go,” You warn softly. It takes Art a moment to move, but he does, gently drawing himself back from your still-throbbing cunt. You hear the clanking of his belt buckle as he tucks himself away, and you reach down, righting your dress where it’s been pulled away. You take up your panties from where they’d been discarded on the floor, tugging them on before you straighten your skirt and hurry out of the room. 

--  

“Can I see you?” 

It’s only been an hour since the last guest has left, and you are so, so fucking tired. You glance toward the bathroom door. You know that you locked it, and you’re certain that your husband can’t hear you over the shower running, but you can’t help but be paranoid.

“You just saw me,” You remind him. 

“Tomorrow,” Art clarifies. 

“Where?” 

“I’ll send an address.” 

You bite your lip, toying with your earring. Your pussy is still aching from the stretch of him, your ass sore from getting fucked on the desk. 

“...You regret it?” He asks. 

“No,” You don't give your answer a second thought.

“I’ll send an address. Whether or not you see me is up to you. Just…think about it. Okay?” 

“Okay.” 

You lower your phone, hanging it up and watching his contact information blink away. It’s only a moment before a text with an address lights up your phone. You don’t have to think about it. You already know what you’re going to do. 

--  

You know that you’re staring, but you can’t bring yourself to stop. Art has spent so much time in your home, so you feel entitled to look around a little bit. You eye the row of trophies on his mantle, photos of him playing when he was young. You come to a stop at a picture of him with a young girl, a racket in her hand and a medal around her neck. 

“Is this Lily?” You ask. 

“Yeah,” He nods. “First competition.” 

“Already getting gold,” You smile. “The Mark Rebellato Academy isn’t ready for her.” 

Art chuckles, nodding as he steps around you.

“You, uh…You want something to eat, or drink, or…?” He trails off, tucking his hands into his pockets as he takes a couple of steps back toward his kitchen. You turn to face him, taking him in more fully. 

“Art?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Why am I here?” 

He doesn’t answer for a few moments. You can see him weighing his options before he comes closer. 

“I…I’ve been thinking about last night.” 

Fear shoots through you, but you force yourself to stand tall. “Okay.”

“I could lie and tell you that it should be a one-time thing, but I can’t remember the last time I got through a day without thinking about you. And I think you’ve been thinking about me, too.” Art stops as the tip of his shoes brush against yours, and you let your eyes slip closed as he rests his forehead against yours. 

“Tell me I’m wrong,” He pleads. “Tell me to fuck off right now and I will never say another non-tennis related thing to you again.” 

-- 

When he fucks you, he curls close, chest pressing against yours as he catches your lips in a kiss. You sink back against his pillows, your head cradled by his broad palm as he rolls his hips achingly slowly. You don’t bother to hide your whines and moans, and you revel in his. Every grunt and whimper and groan that Art lets out lights you up. 

And when you cum, you don't have to quiet yourself. His name tumbles out of your mouth, cushioned between expletives as your nails dig into his shoulders.

--

"What time is he home tonight?"

You don't want to think about it. You want to stay in this cozy little bubble, trailing your fingers over his muscled chest as he massages your nape and kisses your forehead.

But you know that you'll have to let the world back in sometime.

"I don't know," You admit. "Late."

"...Could stay."

"He'll be suspicious if I'm not home when he gets there."

Art sighs softly, running his hand down to rub between your shoulder blades.

"This isn't going to be easy, is it."

"What?"

"Letting you go every day."

"Every day?" You tease, pushing yourself up to get a better look at him. "Don't get greedy, Mr. Donaldson."

He smiles, raising his hand and cupping your cheek. "Is it greedy to know what I want?"

You shake your head a little, lowering your lips to brush against his.

"Not when I want it, too."

part ii: what we're willing to accept

Tag list: @missredherring ; @fantasticcopeaglepasta ; @massivecolorspygiant ; @blueeyesatnight ; @amneris21

@ew-erin ; @youngkenobilove ; @carbonated-beverage​​​ ;  @moonlightburned ; @milf-trinity

@millllenniawrites ; @chattychell ; @thembosapphicclown ; @brandyllyn ; @wildmoonflower ;

@buckybarneshairpullingkink ; @mad-girl-without-a-box ; @winchestershiresauce ; @lorecraft ; @kmc1989

[mostly-imagines]

answering a question nobody asked: what are jason's love languages ranked?

giving:

5 ) gift giving is bottom tier for him. i just dont see how he could value that more than any of the above because of the way he grew up. like material things and money seem like something he’d reject more than anything to me. but he does still give you presents, of course. he’ll buy you flowers randomly and jewelry and little things he’d noticed you admiring. but i dont think he really does it as a method of expressing his love for you so much as just like a little nice thing to do for you. its not his preferred method of communication, at least.

4 ) a little lower on the list comes words of affirmation because i don’t think it comes as naturally to him. he’s a man of few words and those chosen are caked in sarcasm and dry in a way that attempts to push people away, even if he doesn’t mean to. i just think his words can be rough around the edges even if his meaning isn’t. when he can work through it though, his words are very gentle and genuine. not one for hyperbole but really truly means what he says. he hears that you’re insecure about how a dress looks on you and he’s telling you to ‘shut up, you look good.’ or you’re nervous and he’ll say “you’re fine, don’t worry about it.” to someone else’s ears it might sound dismissive but you know that not how he means it. there’s a lot of unsaid words with him that are more significant than whats coming out of his mouth. like i said though, only like level 10 acquaintances and you will ever know him well enough to decipher those secret meanings.

3 ) he tends to treat himself like a loner, pulling away from people like second nature, but after he met you he found himself wanting to be around you all the time. he’s not the best with words or romantic gestures so quality time is an easier way of reminding you he loves you. he likes just sitting with you and letting you ramble about your day—listening to your voice is a big part of his calming down process every night. but sitting in comfortable silence with you is probably his favorite. he doesn’t get that with a lot of people. silence—sure; comfortable—not so much. he loves the implied intimacy and trust of quietly cooking, napping together, or doing your own things in the same space.

2 ) physical touch is another big one for him. only unlockable after entering a relationship with him. he does it for a lot of reasons, common ones include: as a reminder that he’s there, to ease anxiety (yours or his own), as a sort of fidget, or if he’s feeling a little possessive. its honestly going to shock his family how much he initiates touch with you. he’ll shove them off of him when they try to hug him and is likely to throw hands if they get too touchy. so when they meet you for the first time and he’s squeezing your hand in his the whole night, shoulder to shoulder with you—they’re surprised, to say the least. as time goes on they start to notice that he looks borderline uncomfortable when he’s not touching you—like he doesn’t know what to do with his body. his favorite ways to touch you (non sexually) include: keeping you pressed back to his chest, having your leg hooked atop his when you’re sitting hanging out, hand on the back of your neck, and hands on your hips are a must.

1 ) jason's prime method of communication is through acts of service. he fully believes it’s his responsibility to take care of you and doing things for you comes very naturally to him anyways. he’s known to refuse to let you carry things, let you have the comfortable chair, give you the last of his snack, that kind of thing. he also wants to make your life easier as much as possible—he’ll insist on you telling him about things you need, especially things you aren’t able to do yourself. you never ever have to hire a guy to come look at anything broken in your apartment, jason’s got that shit under wraps. he’d honestly be a little hurt if you did. he’s got a wide array of skills under his belt, he can fix leaky pipes, install locks, build furniture, repair cars, you name it.

receiving:

5 ) he always appreciates getting gifts from you but it’s not necessarily his preferred way of receiving your love. gift giving and acts of service are bottom tier because they’re the only ones that he feels like are taking away from you. costing you money or energy, wasting it on him—he doesn’t want you to do that. he can’t feel loved by the gesture when he’s busy concerning himself with the idea that he’s putting you out for it. when you do give him gifts he likes it most when they’re little things, especially things that you made. make him a friendship bracelet, a simple painting, a fucking paper crane—he’ll love it. with things like that, it makes him really happy to see how excited you are to show him and that’s when he feels the love from you.

4 ) it’s always a little hit or miss with acts of service. he has a hard time accepting help, especially from you. he tends to feel like its his job to take care of you and if you have to help him, he’s doing something wrong. the best way to perform acts of service for him is through littler things. cooking his favorite dinner, checking up on how his stitches are healing, covering him up when its cold and he’s too busy/stubborn to go get a blanket. don’t make a whole thing about it, just do it and he’ll notice and he’ll be thinking about it for a while.

3 ) for the same reasons as mentioned earlier, he loves quality time with you. he prefers being on the receiving end of it though because he is a little insecure and absolutely loves when you go out of your way to spend time with him. tell him you want to be around him, tell him you miss him, tell him you’re happy he’s here. warning: he might cry.

2 ) you’ll notice this one because his breath will literally hitch. physical touch is one of the most prominent methods of affection in your relationship and he never gets used to it. the presence of just your head on his shoulder or your hand in his provides such a noticeable release of tension for him. he’s a huge huge fan of you tracing patterns anywhere on his skin, playing with his hair, and wrapping your arms around his middle so you can hold him close. climb on his lap unexpectedly and his heart will skip a few beats.

1 ) he won't ever admit it, but words of affirmation are his absolute biggest weakness. your boy has a praise kink, but i also think it's difficult for him to accept that so you have to be subtle about it and work up. it gets him really blushy and if you can manage to get him talking, he’s stammering. he can’t hold eye contact for shit when you call him pretty and it’s very amusing to you to see such a quick and drastic shift in his disposition. things that have straight up put him out of commission include: calling him “my pretty boy,” or “sweet boy,” “you always take such good care of me,” “you’re so strong,” “you’re the love of my life.” “i’m proud of you” will literally put him on his knees.

[suguann]

✎. you've been on the run for a while. you knew someone would come eventually—but not him.

tags. fem!reader, old west era, bounty hunter simon, size difference, size kink, implied the reader's husband is a terrible human, accidental voyeurism, period-typical sexism, masturbation [18+ only]

masterlist

You’ve been running for months, first from your husband (the phantom grip of his hand still sending an ache through your wrist) and now as a wanted conwoman for stealing the clothes from an unsuspecting cowpoke who thought he was getting lucky. You can only imagine what Mama would say about trading your ruffled skirts for grass-stained trousers and boiled-leather suspenders.

(It’s unbecoming of a respectable woman, dear. Uncouth.)

She’d probably have a lot to say if she knew everything you’ve done to survive.

You hop from one place to the next only by the mere chance someone was willing to let a helpless woman accompany them on their travels. Nearly a month has passed since being stranded in a dusty old mining town after a man and his wife dump you off and leave you behind. Washoe’s a little gritty and not welcoming unless there’s money to spend.

It’s not exactly safe, not unsafe, either, but nobody asks questions as long as you keep your head down and play the part of a mourning widow just passing through.

You know you’ve overextended your stay when you can’t leave your room during the day without worrying about a noose and the open end of a barrel meeting you outside. 

(That your husband or that gun-waving cowpoke finally found you.)

Sleep practically clings to you like a second skin, but you don’t dare close your eyes—you can’t.

This is how you end up sitting in the corner of the saloon, using the last of whatever you have in your change purse to order something strong, something your husband kept locked away, and anything else he thought women shouldn’t have a part in. 

You don’t even realize that your eyelids begin to feel heavy, steadily blurring out the flickering lantern on the wall while you wait for your drink. 

You catch yourself once or twice before your head can hit the table, rapidly blinking away the exhaustion before your eyes slide to the swinging doors.

You should stay awake. 

You need to stay awake just a little bit longer—

Your luck runs out that day. 

It’s one thing to know it’d happen eventually, and something else to realize that you make it easy for him—the man with an infamous name and a faded black bandana covering half his face—how he walked into the saloon and scooped you up (all unladylike sleepy dead weight) out of the weathered booth without a fight.

When you’d woken up to find yourself trussed up and thrown over the back of his horse, you cursed him out with every word you could think of that would make Mama clutch her skirts. Your captor ignored you, only talking to you whenever he warned you he was about to set up camp. 

“Did my husband send you?” Acknowledging him after all this time tasted like pennies on your tongue.

The man, Simon Riley, had leaned back against his bedroll and tipped the brim of his hat over his eyes. “Go the fuck to sleep.”

That was several weeks ago. 

Now, you find yourself stranded in another state that’s more green and vibrant than anything you’re familiar with, stuck with a man who refuses to answer the questions you throw at him. He doesn’t talk outside a few cursory words you greedily latch onto. Anything’s better than silence and the sound of hooves hitting earth. 

The pace he keeps you at is exhausting. You complain about it enough until he moves you in front of him, tying your hands to the saddle's horn.

“I would strongly advise you to shut that mouth for the rest of the ride unless you want me to do something about that, too.” The low growl of his voice in your ear makes the fine hairs on the back of your neck stand up, muddling your brain.

You’re distantly aware you had something to say to that, but you don’t. 

And that is really saying something.

It’s because there’s someone he needs to meet in town—an errand that lawbreakers who run their mouths aren’t allowed to go on.

This is how you end up sitting in camp alone, twirling around a knife he gave you solely for emergencies. 

(Surprise, sharp and quick through your middle, when he tosses his pocket knife into the grass beside you. “What’s to stop me from leaving?”

You could’ve sworn he rolled his eyes. “Will you?”

It doesn’t seem worth dignifying with a reply. You don’t want to travel alone, and there’s a high possibility of getting lost, finding yourself saddled up with worse company than the one you’re stuck with.

Until he evidently catches you again.)

He’s a lot nicer than you first gave him credit for—if only by a fraction—not that you know much about Simon other than what you overheard from gossip circles before you became Mrs. Thornton. Afternoons spent sipping tea laden with honey and lounging around a table full of cakes in the sun parlor while wealthy women talked behind their lace-covered hands to hide secret smiles you were too naive to understand. 

Trying not to stare at the bulge of his arms with thin pink scars—unlike the men you’re used to who got through life with a silver spoon hanging from their mouth—as he places his saddle back on his horse, you think you finally know what they smiled about.

You learn those scars also litter his torso from the time you accidentally walked upon him mid-way through putting his trousers on after washing in the river. It’d been too dark for you to see much else, and you quickly returned to camp before he could say something that would embarrass you both. 

Then, of course, tucked away into your bedroll, you can’t help wondering what the rest of him would have looked like if you had stayed a second longer. 

If his jaw is sharp or soft behind that mask he insists on wearing—that’s if he’d let you see at all. 

Simon’s always so serious that it’s often hard to determine whether he’s merely tolerating your existence until he can get rid of you or if he’s unused to traveling accompanied for so long. It’s not as if he goes out of his way to make pleasant conversation with you for you to assume otherwise.

You look off in the direction where he disappeared into the dense line of trees hours ago, wondering if you should go out looking for him (mainly because you’re hot and sticky from the humidity) despite his order to stay put. 

But after four hours turns into five, you head off, searching for something to help cool you off.

Luckily, unlike the heavily eroded lands you’re used to, there isn’t any water shortage in a place that sees rain three times a day, so it doesn’t take long to find a lake. You set your knife down on the stone-covered beach, followed by your boots, until you’re left in nothing but your undergarments. 

The water is icy cold and laps gently at your feet when you step in. You can’t find it in you to complain as the heat from the day slowly washes away the further you walk in and find a wide ledge to sit on. 

Your thoughts drift back to Simon, incessant and intruding even though you shouldn’t be thinking about him while wet and naked. And suddenly, you can picture it: his hands replacing yours as they trace along your neck. You have a feeling they’re probably rough and scarred from years of living hard and gunslinging, extracting the readily available knowledge that they’re big enough to encase your waist.

He could maneuver you around however he wants (you know this), and you feel dizzy just thinking about it.

Sighing, you sink deeper into the water while your hands smooth over the tips of your breasts and down your stomach. 

You wish you could see him without violating whatever personal preservations hide him from the rest of the world. Instead, you’re left with your imagination—the benefits of being a married woman and the little experience you have in the bedroom finally coming into play. 

Closing your eyes, you picture what he might look like under those sun-weathered leathers, knowing that the broadness of his shoulders isn’t only due to his vest and holsters but also from how his job has shaped him.

Your hands travel lower, fingers brushing through the creamy, soft wetness between your legs, evidence of what Simon does to you even when he’s not around. A moan, too high and breathy, slips past your lips as you use your middle finger to circle your clit in slow, clumsy swirls from lack of practice and patience that spreads warmth through your middle despite the cold water. 

It’s good, your fingers discovering places your husband always ignored—too many nights spent with your hand under your nightgown long after he’d tucked his cock away and gone to sleep—but probably don’t compare to the ones you’ve caught yourself staring at far too many times. 

They don’t fill you nearly enough, unlike how you know Simon’s would—thick and unrelenting. Rough and long, reaching deep enough to make you breathless.

Your breath hitches from pinching the tight, sensitive peak of your nipple until you feel a slight sting, and then it slips out, a tiny thing that’s only audible to your ears—Simon—a secret you now share with the lightning bugs and crickets.

“Dirty, no good rotten—” he’d tell you for thinking such lewd thoughts about him, for sinning so easily. Maybe you are, for getting so worked up over a man who isn’t your husband (no matter how terrible a husband he may be).

A man who’s so big that he makes you feel small, the type that gives before he takes. It’s enough to make you work your hand faster—your body vibrating from the chill of the water and the ache between your trembling thighs.  

Fantasies aren’t enough to sate the deep longing in your chest. Yet you’re slipping over the edge of ecstasy before taking your next breath—all of it builds up and gradually crests inside you like the lake rippling against the shore.

Afterward, it leaves you feeling soft and blurred around the edges, a watercolor painting drying under the sun while you wait for your rapid heartbeat to slow.

You don’t realize your eyes have fallen shut until they flutter open, and you’re startled to find Simon standing at the shoreline, his chest heaving as if he ran here. 

(Though he probably did to see if you took the opportunity to leave.)

You’re glued to your spot on the rock, suddenly struck with the mortifying realization that he’d seen you come—that he possibly heard you cry out his name so intimately.

You watch him remove his hat and hang it on a branch with wide eyes. Followed by his undershirt, guns, and—

He keeps removing clothes until he’s completely naked on the shore—aside from his face that stays hidden—scars marred his chest, spreading to his collarbones and below the water as he steps into the lake and sits on another ledge across from you.

His mask makes him look more menacing, erasing any trace of softness there. And you wonder if he’s angry at you for wandering off.

"Come here." His voice is low and deep, rumbling in his chest.

You don't think he'd hurt you. If he wanted to, he would have done it by now.

At least, that’s what you’re going with to settle the nervous fluttering in your middle.

Water laps at your arms as you wade through the water, each shaky step bringing you closer until you stop before him.

"In my lap."

Your breath sticks in your throat as you do as he says, settling down onto his sturdy thighs, palms falling flat against his broad chest. That same breath comes out in one large exhale as his fingers slide along your jaw, to the nape of your neck, curling into your hair, wet and falling around your shoulders.

“Like this?” you ask, trying to ignore how breathy you sound.

He grunts, apparently in confirmation.

You don’t think you’ve ever felt so conflicted in your life—fear and arousal turning into a messy cocktail in your veins.

“Why do I always have to use a heavy hand to make you listen?”

Your lips part. Breath growing short. “I’m sorry.”

And then—

Simon pulls your head back sharply, exposing your throat.

Your body goes slack against his. Mind blissfully blank.

“No,” he says, tone flat. “But you will be.”

[tarot-quartz]

PICK A CARD - HOW WILL YOU MEET YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE

╰┈➤ Paid readings

left to right

★ pile 1 - When you meet this person you might be in a relationship that’s failing because of lack of commitment or growth. When you meet your fs you will be able to connect on an intellectual level, you’ll find conversations with them stimulating. Yeah for some of you I really see that you will break up with your partner to be with this person but this is absolutely the correct decision. You and your fs’ meeting will be destiny, the stars will literally align for you to meet this person. You or your fs will think "how did I get so lucky?". You will take this relationship slowly, go with the flow and let things develop as they go.

★ pile 2 - Your fs might be your soulmate. This relationship will be such a harmonious one, you will be the type of couple to NEVER have fights. Everything will be so easy with this person, as if they’re one part of you. I’m ngl this person might be an ex for some of you where you thought this person was the one and you still harbour feelings for them. They might’ve been the one if they come back and rekindle your relationship. However for the rest this might also mean that you had a bad breakup and lose hope over meeting the one. They might be an Aquarius. In ANY case, you will be in a relationship with the one destined for you. The future with you and this person will be bright.

★ pile 3 - I see you going into a relationship with your fs might’ve been something spontaneous on your part. Like you might’ve had a crush on them for awhile but did nothing and then one day you’re like "let’s go ask them out". I see you might start a family with them even accidentally because I see you and your fs having a lot of sex. I see some people might be jealous of your relationship and try to stir trouble so be careful. For some reason you and your fs’ relationship might cause a scandal. This might actually cause a rift in your relationship and you will need to take a step back. Maybe this is why people will try to break you up. However, people will come around and accept your relationship as time goes. You and your fs will connect on a physical and emotional level, it will also challenge you. Again, I see for some of you having children maybe quite rapidly. If your fs is a man you will think he’s dad material and if it’s a woman you will think she’s mom material. This is a very exciting pile but also full of challenge however at the end you both will be a happy family. This kind of reminds me of the quote "I’m not easy to love", "I don’t want easy".

★ pile 4 - I see a lot of people vying for your attention. When you meet your fs you will have more than 1 suitor waiting to court you. How you will know which one is your fs, you’ll have learnt from past relationships. This new relationship will be very nurturing, I see your fs might have a lot of money and they love spending it on you by buying you gifts and other. This person will be very masculine. Romance and affection will be abundant in the relationship. They will be devoted, romantic and a great spouse and parent. They might be older than you and they’re generous with their time and money ESPECIALLY for you. They might be an Aquarius, Gemini or Libra. They will be mature, loyal and protective. Think of the perfect Dad and there you have it. There’s a possibility you might meet this person because of work or business. You will be financially stable with them and will florish knowing you have a strong foundation.

[beingsuneone]

I BET You Think About Me

SYNOPSIS: being Theo’s girlfriend is a dream… until you find out why he asked you out in the first place.

FANDOM: Harry Potter

PAIRING(S): Theodore Nott x fem!reader

RATING: PG

CHARACTERS MENTIONED: Enzo, Blaise, Draco, Mattheo, Pansy, Snape

GENRE/AU: Snape’s Daughter!Reader, Asks you out cause of a bet, kind of angsty, kind of fluffy, slytherin!reader

WORD COUNT: 2.6K

WARNINGS: swearing and kissing.

A/N: agh. It’s 3 in the morning. Enjoy. May have a tiny bit of pacing issues but it’s fine

DEDICATIONS: the polls who decided they wanted Theo while I decided I was gonna post Mattheo and Rhysand instead.

CREDITS: n/a

…Six Months Ago….

——————————————————————————

“You can’t do it, Theo.” Draco says plainly. “If she’s anything like her father she won’t be able to feel that kind of emotion.”

Theo shakes his head. “She’s still a girl.”

Mattheo snorts, Enzo sputters. “That’s a bit sexist, Theo.” Enzo says, looking over at Y/n L/n.

She’s Severus Snape’s daughter and completely untouchable. Theo hasn’t seen a single guy going out with her in the whole six years they’d been at hogwarts.

That might be because of her father.

“Draco’s right.” Mattheo says. “She’ll never fall for you.”

“I’m gonna prove you guys wrong and you’re gonna owe me a shit ton of money for it.”

…. One Month Ago ….

——————————————————————————

Mattheo stares at you as you walks away. “Damn, I guess you were right.” Both him and Draco reach for their wallets but Theo waves them off.

“I don’t want it— any of it.” It felt for him wrong to take the money from the bet. Theo had fallen for you just as hard— if not harder— as you’d fallen for him.

Hell, Theo would kiss the ground you walked on if you asked him.

“What do you mean?” Blaise asks incredulously. “You won the bet.”

Theo furrows his eyebrows. “Whatever, I don’t want the money.”

They all stare at him.

One, two, three minutes of silence before Mattheo blurts out: “Oh my god. Theo fell for her.” He starts to laugh, and the other boy's eyes widen.

“Wow. That’s a little bit pathetic, Theo.” Draco teases.

Pansy slides in beside Blaise. “Wow. Famous playboy Theodore Nott fell for someone?” She snickers. “Who?”

Theo deadpans. “What do you mean who?” You are Pansy’s roommate after all, Pansy should better than anybody.

Her face falls. “You don’t mean y/n. do you?” Theo nods and she gives him an exasperated look. “Theo! You literally only dated her to win a bet!”

“Yeah, I know!” He retorts. A beat of silence, then, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You have to tell her.” Enzo cuts in. “If you truly like her, it isn’t something you can keep secret.”

Theo nods his head absentmindedly. “I know, I know. I’ll tell her soon.”

He didn’t want his new relationship to end before it ever began.

….Present….

——————————————————————————

Today, you woke up late, stubbed your toe on your bed and then spent the ten minutes you had to get ready looking for your damned potions book.

When you’d finally found it, threw on your uniform and got your hair into some sort of presentable, you rushed out your dorm and down the hallways as fast as your feet would take you.

Your class was on the opposite side of Hogwarts and you were already ten minutes late.

In your haste, you aren’t watching for other people in front of you and run straight into someone.

“I’m so sorry!” You exclaim frantically, picking up your books as she picks up hers.

She looks familiar but you don’t know her name.

“No, it’s okay— Oh.” Her faces twists into a scowl when she meets your gaze. “You’re Theo’s ‘Girlfriend’” she airquotes as she says ‘girlfriend’, causing you to narrow your eyes at here.

You furrow your eyebrows. “Uhm, yeah, I am. Why did you say it like that?”

She crosses her arms. “Because you and I both know that he doesn’t actually like you. You’re not his girlfriend.”

“And who, exactly, are you?” You ask, annoyance settling in your chest.

She looks down at you, a cocky expression written on her face. “You should probably just stay away from him, you know that, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Really, he’s going to be mine so I don’t even know what you’re doing.” She waves you off, as if she truly believes this.

You shuffle your books around in your arms and shift your weight into your other leg. “You do know that you’re not his girlfriend, right?”

“Whatever.” She shrugs, and you still don’t know her name. “Doesn’t matter if he calls you his girlfriend, it’s not like you’re a threat anyway.”

What does she mean ‘not a threat’? You feel like that’s a sentence better used to describe her considering, you’re Theo’s actual girlfriend. “What is that supposed to mean?” You ask incredulously but still relatively calm.

She gives you a mock sympathetic expression. “Oh, Sweetheart,” She starts, taunting you with each syllable. “You didn’t really think someone like Theo would settle down for someone like you… do you? I mean, he’s all parties and good times and you’re… well, you can’t even dress yourself properly.”

She looks you up and down, from your half-untucked uniform shirt to your loose tie and your unwrinkled skirt. You’re not usually this messed up. “Clearly, I do, because he did.” You pause, sigh deeply and roll your eyes. “Why am I even entertaining this conversation?” You turn away from her, preparing to tune her out and walk away.

She tuts, shaking her head. “Because you obviously know you mean nothing to him— after all when your relationship starts with a bet, I don’t think it’s ever been super stable.”

This makes you stop and turn back to her. “A bet?” You say it slowly and the words taste awful on your tongue. “What bet?”

She scoffs-laughs and smiles evilly. “Oops, did I say too much?”

Theo chooses this moment to walk up behind the two of your . He slides his hand around my waist, letting it rest there as he stands beside me. “Are you okay? You’re super late.” He asks, looking you over. His eyes flit over to the girl who was talking to you and his nose scrunched. “Why are you talking to Tracey?”

Tracey, that’s her name.

I don’t think he likes her too much.

Tracey opens her mouth to respond but I cut her off and begin dragging Theo away. “I don’t even know, Theo, let’s go.”

I can feel Tracey’s glare until we’re well out of her line of sight.

Jealous.

……

You can’t get Tracey’s words out of your head. You know it was a tactic to rile you up and, you suppose, it worked but you had this horrible feeling that maybe she wasn’t lying.

Asking Theo about it though? That was hard; you didn’t want him to think you didn’t trust him but you also didn’t want to get upset before you knew whether it was true or not.

You decided to ask one or two other people before Theo. Pansy Parkinson, was first. She’s been your friend since first year but she hung out with Theo’s group long before you ever did.

“Hey, Pansy.” You say airily. She looks up at you and smiles.

The bed creaks as you fall down onto it and sigh. “Can I ask you a random question?” You ask, fidgeting with the corner of your blankets.

She looks up at you expectantly but also with a good deal of worry. “Yeah, of course; What’s up?”

She shifts in her spot at the end of her bed, turning her full attention to me.

“Did you ever… I don’t know,” you stop, trying to find the correct words. “Did you ever hear anything about Me, Theo and a bet? While you were, like, hanging out with them.���

Pansy looks down at your fidgeting fingers and then furrows her eyebrows. She thinks about it for a minute, and her face drops so slightly I almost don’t catch it. “Oh, y/n…” she trails off. “He didn’t tell you?”

Every muscle in your body locks up. “He didn’t tell me what?” You don’t think you really want the confirmation now that you know it’s coming.

Pansy stands and then sits down next to you and pulls you into her in a side hug. “When Theo started trying to get with you it was because of a bet.” She stops but you just gesture for her to continue. “… I wasn’t actively apart of this conversation so I only got the gist of it but I was there.”

“What was the bet.” You say, with your eyes hot and your throat restricted. Your tone makes it seem like it wasn’t a question.

“The boys bet him that he couldn’t make the next woman he saw fall in love with him by the end of the year.” She gives your a sad smile. “I guess the next woman was you.”

What. The. Fuck. You’re gonna kill him, because he obviously won that goddamn bet already. You give Pansy a quick squeeze and then stand up. “I need to go talk to him.”

Pansy nods and walks back to her own bed, waving bye as you walk through the door.

Your vision is a bit blurry and your hands are shaking with betrayal and anger as you storm away from the girl’s dorms and right through the common room to the boy’s dorms.

When you reach his door, you knock loudly, despite it being late.

Draco answers. He looks you up and down and then turns his back halfway to you. “Theo, your girlfriend is here.”

Theo appears a moment later, an easy smile and his piercing eyes that you want to love so badly right now. He gently moves you back a bit and steps out of the dorm. “Hey, Baby, what’s up?”

You shudder at the pet name and his face drops. “Oh, I don’t know, Theo.”

He pulls you to the other side of the hall and keeps his hands on your arms, comforting both yourself and him. “What’s wrong? Did somebody do something to you?”

The worry on his face seems so genuine, you almost want to believe the bet was a lie— but you’re not that stupid.

“Yeah, Theo, someone hurt me.” You pause. “It was you and your fucking bet.”

He freezes. “Shit. Who told you about that?”

You don’t want to— no, you can’t look in his eyes. “That girl, Tracey, and then Pansy filled in the finer details.” You’re arms are crossed now and he can’t hold you like he was before. “Is that seriously the only thing you care about right now— actually, obviously it would be because I’m just a bet, right?”

He opens his mouth to speak but you don’t let him. “Actually,” you continue. “I don’t want to hear it— just, have a good life, Theo. I’d say we’re over but I don’t think we really ever started to begin with.”

You walk away before you second-guess yourself and ignore as he calls your name. He doesn’t run after you, which you’re equally glad for and disappointed by.

God, you don’t think your heart has ever hurt this bad.

…..

You haven’t seen Theo in class for the whole week after you ‘broke up’; you’ve seen glimpses of him outside, always smoking, or eating in the Great Hall but it’s like he’s intentionally missing every class you have together.

He probably is.

He shouldn't have that right. You’re the one who gets to avoid him, he doesn’t get to avoid you.

You’re the one who got played like a violin and ended up battered and bruised.

You don’t see him for most of your days, but, when you do— when you look at him, his eyes are always already on you.

As a result the other Slytherin boys glance at you while he stares, because of how intensely he does so. You can feel his eyes burning holes into you at all times.

You try your best to ignore him as you stand to leave the Great Hall.

A boy stops you near the entrance, you think you recognize him. He’s the same year as you, and pretty nice as far as you know. His name is Lucas, you’re pretty sure.

“Hey.” Lucas says warmly. “How are you?”

He’s a bit close, and you’re sort of backed into the wall. You laugh awkwardly. “I’m alright, um, how are you?”

He smiles. “About the same,” he looks behind him and then back at you, same easy-going smile that isn’t easy the way Theo’s is. “Anyways, I was wondering… since you broke up with Nott, maybe you’d wanna go out sometime? With me?”

“She doesn’t.”

Lucas’s shoulders jump at the sound of Theo’s voice and he backs away from you and spins to look at Theo, whose standing there with a dangerous look on his face.

You glare at him. “Maybe I do want to.” It’s a challenge and Theo knows it.

Lucas sputters. “You know, I actually realized I’m busy, so…” he scrambles off after that you’re left with Theo.

You scowl at him. “Theo, what the fuck?”

“He’s not good enough for you.” He shrugs like he knows what’s good enough for you. Mr. Bet-Winner.

Your heart aches in your chest just looking at him. “And how would you know what’s good enough for me, Theo? because you sure as hell weren’t.”

He scowls now. “I treated you like you were a fucking princess, Y/n, all he would’ve done was treat you like a piece of ass.”

You huff. “A princess, Theo? None of it was even real!” You spin to walk away but Theo catches your wrist and pulls you back; he slips his other arm around your waist and pulls you right to his chest. Your faces almost touch.

Your breath hitches like the traitor that it is.

He pulls your hand up to rest on his chest, where his heart beats hard and erratically. “Does this feel fake to you?” Theo’s fingers dig lightly into your waist. “Do you honestly think that all of that— everything we said and did— meant nothing?”

His breath fans across your face.

Your whole body feels like it’s on fire, and he’s the ice bucket that can save you— but your pride and anger are like the fires of hell; irreparable.

“You took a bet to make me fall for you, Theo, and lucky for you, you won it. How much was I worth, huh?”

He replies almost instantly. “I didn’t take any money, Y/n.” Theo breathes deeply and you feel his chest rise and fall, forcing yours to do the same.

“You— what?” You can feel your resolve cracking, the hope leaking through that somehow you were wrong.

“Let me explain the full story.” He waits for you to give him confirmation; you nod and he continues. “Yes, it started with the bet, and yes, I had never planned for it to last. It was cruel and mean, and I’m sorry. But the thing is, I didn’t anticipate that I would end up falling in love with you right back.” The words feel like a kick to the heart.

“But, on the other hand, how could I not? You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and you’re intelligent and funny, you laugh at all my stupid jokes. You love potions more than any other class and you’re really good at it too.” He stops. “Y/n, you’re perfect and I’m so, so sorry I never told you— or, even worse, that I did it in the first place.”

Your heart skips several beats. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Oh.” You’re at a loss for words.

He just looks you over, trying to assess what’s running through your mind like he always does. “Please forgive me, Y/n. I love you so much it hurts.”

You pull away from him and he reluctantly lets go, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

“You’re serious?” You ask quietly. “No bets this time? Nothing you haven’t told me?”

He shakes his head, giving you the saddest, puppy-dog look, unintentionally.

You’re silent for another long moment before, finally, you say: “you love me?”

Theo looks into your eyes. “God, yes.”

“Okay.” You say softly.

He straightens. “Okay, you’ll get back together with me or Okay, I don’t forgive you?”

You hold up one finger and he seems to understand because he pulls you back into him so quickly and presses his lips to mine; you kiss him back, and kind of stand there, kissing, for a long moment. Probably longer than you should’ve.

But you wish he never had to stop.

All content belongs to @beingsuneone , do not repost, copy or post on other platforms without my permission.

[twstowo]

Hello!! Idk if ur doing requests but ahem cld i maybe request like a clingy yuu/reader with the second years and malleus?? like the reader is constantly following them around, and stuff,, like a small Floyd typa reader ^_^ i really love ur writing and i wld rlly love to see this dbsnsn if it's not a problem ofc!! :D

♡︎For context, Bestie Anon sent this ask on 20th of february and I’m only answering now, I would like to apologize for this, no like fr, ANON I will buy you cake if you want, LIKE FR what I did is criminal

⋆⋅☆Malleus:

Who gave you permission to be this adorable? Malleus loves you so much. He loves the attention you give him, the fact that you want to spend YOUR TIME WITH HIM AND THAT YOU CLINGE TO HIM?! He is in love. No, you don’t understand, he is IN LOVE. You make him feel so soft, and he will fight anyone for you. He wants nothing more than to spend the whole day with you and talk for hours and he isn’t ashamed to show it. He will literally teleport next to you as soon as he remotely starts missing you.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Riddle:

He is flustered with your clinginess. You are always way too close for his own liking but he doesn’t have the guts to tell you anything you make his heart go BUM. The type of guy that when you two are alone he will also be clingy, not right away in the beginning of the relationship, but if he sees that you are clingy and that you are fine with being close to him he will start thinking that maybe it’s also fine fro him to open up and be like that with you too.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Ruggie:

He is also into it, he is the type of guy that if you hug him he will joke about you being so clingy but then he is the last person to let go of the hug, if you don’t let go of him he will just stay there in your arms for the rest of the day. Enjoys your company so much to the point he will feel weird if he doesn’t see you for a whole day. Show up at your dorm with food, that he buyed with Leona’s money, and spends the rest of the day cuddling with you.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Azul:

I’m a firm believer that he is also really clingy BUT he has this image that he must maintain for his business. Politely pats your back if you too are in front of people and tells you to meet him back at the VIP room later, when he arrives to the VIP room he literally won’t leave you, he would stay the whole day attached to you if it wasn’t for his work. Floyd once took a picture of Azul laying on your lap while you patted his head on the VIP sofa, up to this day Floyd keeps on blackmailing Azul with it.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Jade:

He will just do that “Oya?” and laugh at your antics. Maybe he plays around with your hair while finding your clinginess endearing. I do see Jade as someone who tends to feel lonely since he doesn’t have many people to talk to or join him in his hobbies. So if you give him all that attention that he never had, he will probably want to return it by giving you his full attention whenever you speak about your interests. He is still a bit of a tease, but he can’t deny that he enjoys all the attention you give him.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Floyd:

If this guy is in a good mood, he will be so annoying, with annoying I mean you two are going to be clingy with each other, and if you want to leave him, because you need to go to class, you won’t. He won’t allow it, you aren’t going anywhere anymore. His arms are your new home, you don’t need anything else. Type of guy that will spot you and just hugs you and just lift you up and takes you whenever he feels like going at the moment, you two will now be going on a date.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Kalim:

You guys legit made Jamil throw up. The two of you are so clingy, when Kalim sees you he literally never lets go of you, as soon as he spots you you will be spending the rest of the day with him, and he keeps on hugging you, giving you little check kisses or hold your hand and YOU you just retrieve all of his affection tenfold.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Jamil:

Oh no. He isn’t found of public displays of affection as I have stated before, but once you two are behind closed doors he is fine with it, he doesn’t mind you dotting on him that much, the hugs and kisses and all the attention that you give him, quite the oposite he actually really craves all of that. He will have a hard time retrieving the affection through, but give him some time and he will slowly start open up about all of those sappy interactions.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

⋆⋅☆Silver:

I’m a firm believer that Silver is an extreme soft boy that loves affection and YOU CAN’T CHANGE MY MIND. Of course that his image of affection was different than yours, type of guy that does lots of acts of service, whatever you need, call him and he will be there, so when you start being clingy with him that open a door that he had never really though about and he loves it. He won’t be as clingy as you are but he will always try to retrive you affection even if in small gestures, you hug him? He gives you a small kiss on top of your head. You hold his hand? He kisses your wrist.

[egcdeath]

off the beaten path

pairing: patrick zweig x reader

summary: what could go wrong with a non-refundable honeymoon and a broken engagement?

warnings: MATURE (mentions of sex but no sex scenes), exes to lovers, idiots to lovers angst, fluff, there was only one bed MULTIPLE times, jealousy!! (like a lot), slow burn, no use of y/n, so much use of the word fuck, a little toxicity, some facts about landmarks are inaccurate for the plot, lots of arguing and making up, miscommunication, seasickness, patrick & reader kinda have no social awareness, a lot of hotels and buses, alcohol, hurt/comfort, happy ending.

word count: 18.4k

author’s note: this was so much longer than i expected it to be, but i loved writing it so so much and i'm gonna be sad to see this pairing go! also, a special thank you to the tour website whose itinerary i used for their trip. i hope you enjoy!

JFK AIRPORT

You scrolled endlessly on your phone as you sat at your gate, trying your hardest to fight off the combination of sleepiness and anxiety that had been slowly creeping up on you for the past hour.  

You should be happy—excited to spend the next month of your life traveling throughout Europe on the trip that you had dreamt about since you were a child. Instead, you were filled with dread at the prospect of your quickly approaching trip, leaving your leg bouncing and your eyes flitting between the device in your hands and the entrance of the gate, anxiously anticipating the arrival of a man that you really really did not want to see. 

Once it was announced that first class was boarding, you quickly hopped out of your uncomfortable seat, hoping that if you boarded quick enough, you might be able to miss your unwanted companion. As you stood in line, you tried your best to be casual about your endlessly swiveling head and wondered if it was too late to simply call the whole thing off. 

Boarding had gone smoothly enough, and as you settled into your seat, you still hadn’t seen any sign of your former fiancé. For a second, a spark of hope lit up in you. Maybe you’d get to experience Europe without that pest in your ear after all. Maybe you could even arrange a friend to come fly out and be with you for a few days, or find someone to have a romantic summer fling with. 

But just as soon as your hope arrived, it departed with the sound of a familiar voice walking down the aisle and directly towards you.

“They wouldn’t let me switch my seat.”

You couldn’t believe that those were the choice of words the man you’d intended to spend the rest of your life with had decided to start with. After months of radio silence. No apologies, no awkward small talk, no sugar-coated words about your situation, just a complaint about the conditions the two of you would be in for the next eight hours. Classic Patrick. 

“That’s too bad,” you replied, already annoyed by his presence. You had underestimated how much of a challenge this trip was going to be, solely based on the speed at which your negative feelings had come to the surface. 

“Yeah, no shit,” he muttered under his own breath, putting some luggage into the overhead bin above your seats. 

“You’re the one who insisted we still go,” you argued, not wanting him to get the last word—even if his last words were meant to be a snarky comment to himself more than anything else. 

“The hotels, tours, and all the other tickets were non-refundable!” he argued right back to you. 

“So?” you shot back like a petulant child. 

“So I didn’t want to waste your money.”

“Oh, how considerate,” you scoffed sarcastically before beginning once more. “You’re rich! You don’t even have to be here!” 

“Just because my family is comfortable doesn’t mean I want to waste my money.”

You openly rolled your eyes at his words. Comfortable was the understatement of the century. “So you didn’t actually want to waste my money. You didn’t want to waste your own.”

“Why can’t it be both?” he asked, sounding exasperated by your line of thinking. You hated when he did that. You kind of hated most things he did now. Maybe you just hated him. 

“I never said it can’t be both, I just think you should stop trying to act like you’re so charitable for doing me a favor. As if our relationship wasn’t filled with me doing you favors.”

“Do you really want to be having this conversation right now?” he asked. 

“Sorry, you’re right. We have the next thirty-five days to talk about it.”

The two of you sighed in a synchronized breath at the mention of the amount of time you had to spend together. You hated that the two of you were still in rhythm after everything you’d been through. Or maybe you just hated Patrick. 

“Who plans a thirty-five day honeymoon anyway?” he huffed. 

“Us, apparently. I mean, you were all for it, what? A few months ago?”

“Only because you wanted it.

“Oh, how could I forget. The ever-charitable Patrick Zweig. Taking a month-long break from hitting balls to be with me. I’m forever in your debt,” you mocked with a dramatic hand to your forehead. “At this rate, you’re gonna send me a list of all of the nice things you’ve ever done for me. What do you want me to say? Thank you for doing the bare minimum as a boyfriend?”

“Fiancé,” he corrected you, earning a very nasty side eye from you in the process of doing so. 

You were beginning to get dirty looks from your fellow first class passengers, which temporarily shut the both of you up. It was never a good idea to piss off people on a plane. You didn’t want to end up on the no-fly list just because you couldn’t bite your tongue around your ex. 

“Remember when you said we could still be friends after this?” Patrick spoke once more after your moment of silence. 

“Of course I remember, but you stopped that from happening when you…” your voice trailed off as you made eye contact with a very displeased looking middle aged woman “Whatever. Let’s just… try to get through this flight. And try not to make any more of a scene.”

“Fine,” he replied, shrugging in your peripheral vision. 

“Fine,” you said back, not wanting him to have the last word.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That thing where you think you win every argument just because you said the last thing.”

“I’m not doing that,” you lied. “You think you know me so well.”

A familiar agitated smile broke out on his face, something that you unfortunately missed seeing. “I do know you well, though. I see right through you.”

“You actually don’t, though.”

“I do,” he insisted, the smirk creeping onto his face telling you that he knew you were actively proving his point. 

“Not really,” you dismissed and attempted to casually pull the headphones that were currently sitting on your neck up to cover your ears. You were always grateful to have noise-canceling headphones when you were traveling, but they were coming particularly in handy for you to win this argument. You tried to hide your self-satisfied smirk as you pressed play on your phone, but you could instantly tell that you were failing. 

When you looked back up, Patrick was clearly saying words to you that you weren’t able to hear. Knowing him, he was probably saying something along the lines of, “Real mature.” 

The truth was that he wanted the last word more than you did–which made it particularly rewarding when you gestured to your headphones before throwing your hands out in a shrug to indicate to him that you couldn’t hear him.

Your vacation was already off to a chaotic start. You couldn’t help but fear what the next thirty-five days would be like. 

BARCELONA, SPAIN

Despite the flight only being eight hours long, you were absolutely exhausted by the time that you checked into your hotel room. So exhausted that you failed to remember to request to switch rooms to one with two beds rather than one.

This predicament only came to the forefront of your mind once you and Patrick had already swiped into the room, suitcases lying on the floor and one king-sized mattress presented in front of you. 

“Should I go back down to the front desk?” he asked as he looked from you to the bed. 

“I’m too tired to get a new room,” you replied. You could handle one night next to your ex. You’d slept in a bed together for years. Granted, during those years you were also sleeping together, but this wasn’t all that different. 

“Fine. Don’t complain if I hog blankets, then.”

“Fine,” you replied. “Just stay on your side of the bed.”

You shucked your backpack from your shoulders and walked over to what was typically the side of the bed where you slept when the two of you had been a couple. Not wasting any time to get ready for bed, you began to take off your clothes and search for your pajamas. Once you glanced over your shoulder, you were quite displeased to find Patrick rather openly ogling at you. 

“Stop looking at me,” you demanded.

“What? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” He said with a smirk. 

“You’re such a creep,” you muttered, throwing on an old shirt and crawling into bed. 

As you laid in bed and texted your friends and family that you’d arrived at your hotel safely, you took a peek of your own at your former partner as he got ready for bed. He seemed to be going with his classic bedtime attire of just boxers. Bold move. 

Your eyes were momentarily stuck on his abs and enticing happy trail. You’d planned your trip during Patrick’s off season while he was training for his upcoming season, so you were pleasantly unsurprised that he was in such good shape. Your breath caught for a second as you thought about the rest of him, and you desperately tried to repress the low, fiery feeling rising in your stomach. 

“And I’m the creep?” he asked with a laugh, pulling you away from your objectification as he got into bed next to you. 

“Yeah,” you replied, as if you hadn’t just given him the same treatment he’d given you. 

“Well… like what you see?”

You scoffed at his audacity, though you did like what you saw. “I’m not fucking you. Goodnight.”

You hit the light on your nightstand and you swore you heard a quiet sound of disappointment come from Patrick. Bastard.

You turned your back to him and closed your eyes, finding that sleep took you under surprisingly easily.

When you woke up in the morning, you were greeted by a far too familiar feeling. Despite your request for Patrick to stay on his side of the bed, the slow, steady breaths being breathed into your ear and the solid wall of body behind you indicated that he had not only traveled into your space over the course of the night, but was actively spooning you. 

You were shocked to find that you didn’t necessarily mind it. Yes, you were mad at Patrick for everything that had gone down between you, and because he was such a pain in the ass, but you also hadn’t realized just how much you missed being held. Particularly, how much you missed being held by him. 

The more alert you became, the more you realized that you couldn’t really move. Despite that, you found that you didn’t really want to move. Sure, you were beginning to get uncomfortably hot, and yes, you could feel Patrick’s morning wood pressing against your ass, but none of it was particularly unpleasant. 

Part of you wondered if your trip would go differently than you expected. Regardless of how you acted towards one another, you clearly both missed each other. 

Your shrill phone alarm suddenly went off, startling Patrick awake behind you. 

“Mmm, fuck, sorry,” he sleepily slurred as he rolled away from you. You turned over to look at his tired face, eyes still lidded and speckled face looking far softer than you remembered. 

Out of the blue, he opened his eyes, catching you in the act of looking at him with barely-concealed affection. Before he could make some sort of snarky comment, he shot out of bed, adjusted his boxers, and made an urgent beeline towards the bathroom. All of which would’ve been far funnier if his actions hadn’t been disrupted by the loud message ping of his cellphone. 

You weighed out your options. You were curious about what was waiting for him on his phone, but you weren’t sure that you’d have time to properly snoop. As if the universe was listening to your thoughts, the sound of the shower began, telling you that you had all the time that you needed to do some adequate investigation. 

You wondered who was texting Patrick so early in the morning. Knowing him, it was probably his mother, checking in to make sure he made it to his destination safely. You were sure that whatever message she left would also be inquiring about you. She’d always had a bit of a soft spot for you, especially compared to some of the other people that Patrick had brought home. That, of course, was an observation shared to you from Patrick, so you couldn’t be sure how much of it was flattery compared to truth. 

Regardless, her fondness for you had carried into the end of your relationship, with her occasionally messaging or calling you to make sure that you were still doing well, and more importantly, to check in on the status of your relationship. 

Much like you and your friends, she’d been holding out hope that your relationship may repair itself. With you and Patrick being as passionate as the two of you were, you were no strangers to seemingly serious arguments that resolved themselves in a matter of days. While calling off a wedding was far more drastic than any of your other disputes had been, after being together for years, it was hard to imagine a world where the two of you weren’t a couple. 

But his call never came. You didn’t hear an apology or explanation or even an excuse from Patrick—just a suggestion of when you should pick up the items you’d left at his place.

You hated to admit it, but there was a naïve part of you that was still holding out hope that this trip would be exactly what you needed to reconcile. And maybe that naïeve part of you was less delusional than you might’ve originally thought. Surely cuddling into the morning and Patrick’s poorly hidden morning wood were signs that this vacation was already going in the right direction. Maybe being in such close proximity was exactly the push you needed to get your relationship back on track. 

After a halfhearted internal debate, you grabbed his phone from the night stand on his side of the bed. Attempting the passcode he’d been using while you were together—the digits of your birthday—you were pleased to find that the password hadn’t changed and that you were granted access into his phone. What you weren’t expecting to see was Tinder on the homepage of his cracked device. 

You paused for a moment and attempted to reason with yourself. Your former fiancé probably didn’t even use the app. He’d likely been pressured by his rebound-obsessed friends to download it, and hadn’t even opened the app since setting up his profile. Besides, you didn’t get on his phone to see what new apps he’d downloaded, you were snooping to see what his mom had to say about you. 

When you opened his messages app, your mouth promptly fell open in shock. Patrick had always been loyal to you—at least to your knowledge—while the two of you were together. Seeing him be so openly flirtatious and suggestive with an attractive woman that you hadn’t ever heard of was more than jarring. 

Your stomach churned as you scrolled through the conversation, flirty messages and images from both sides that left little to the imagination disturbing you in a way that you hadn’t ever realized was possible. 

In the midst of your distraught state, you nearly missed the background noise of the shower coming to a halt, informing you that your time snooping had come to an end. 

You set his phone back down where you’d found it and desperately tried to push down the bile in your throat that was tasting more and more like jealousy and anger by the second. 

You knew it was irrational for you to be feeling this way, considering that the two of you had been broken up for a few months. Nothing legally or morally tied the two of you together anymore, but that didn’t make you feel any less unsettled by what you’d just seen. 

It was just that… you weren’t sure you’d ever be able to fully move on from Patrick. He’d been part of your life for so long, and the way things ended had been so abrupt that it almost didn’t feel real. Even if you did move on, it was going to take you more than three months to do so. It wasn’t fair that Patrick’s name seemed to pop up every week in your therapy sessions, while he was sending pictures of himself in gray sweatpants to random hot women. 

You wanted to shrink into the mattress and never come back up. You wanted to yell at Patrick the moment he stepped out of the bathroom. You wanted to turn on your side and wail dramatically, at least until all of your big feelings felt a little smaller. 

But you were in Europe on vacation. You were on vacation, damnit, and you weren’t going to let one mildly disturbing text thread ruin your entire experience. Better yet, if Patrick was already moving on, there was no reason that you shouldn’t do the same.

You told yourself this as you rolled out of bed and dug in your suitcase, pulling out a sundress that had driven Patrick wild in the past. While you may have packed it with less than realistic expectations, your goal was far more grounded now. 

Both of you could play this game. 

You stepped out of the bathroom fully dressed after a shower of your own and instantly registered the almost cartoonish look he was giving you. You guessed that some things never changed, even when the two of you had decided to actively pursue other people. 

“The tour guide said to meet in the lobby soon, so I’m gonna head down,” you explained, not giving him a second look as you began to search for your purse. 

“The tour doesn’t start for another half hour?” he replied, sitting up from where he was laying on the bed. 

“Well I wanna socialize with the people we’re gonna be traveling through Europe with,” you said a little snappily, still a little perturbed about what you’d found on his phone earlier. You conveniently left out the fact that you wanted to scope out any potential summer flings. 

“I’ll come with you,” he insisted.

“You really don’t have to. Remember, this isn’t actually a honeymoon,” you slipped on some comfortable shoes and headed to the door. “I’ll see you around.”

You were probably being far more rude than you really needed to be, but your anger had only intensified as you showered and put on makeup. At this point, you were fully pissed—even if you didn’t have the right to be. 

You made small talk with the people you met in the lobby as they began to filter into the room, and tried your absolute best to dispel the anger that was flowing through your veins. That proved harder than you anticipated, as Patrick was one of the last people to join you all in the lobby, and for the life of you, you couldn’t stop imagining him sitting in your shared hotel room and sexting his mystery girl. 

Luckily, you couldn’t dwell on that ugly thought for too long, as your tour began soon after. Your friendly guide took your group around the city, explaining rather riveting information about the landmarks you visited and the city itself.

After being dismissed for a quick break, you found yourself sitting on a bench and chatting with a man in your group. He wasn’t really your type, but he was extremely conventionally attractive, and from the peripheral glances you caught of Patrick, you could tell that he wasn’t exactly pleased with what was going on.

While making him jealous, or annoyed, or whatever it was that he was feeling, wasn’t your expressed goal, it did feel nice to give him a taste of his own medicine. What felt less nice was glancing over and catching him typing on his phone furiously. You could only imagine whose boobs were on the other end of the line. 

Reacting out of a bit of desperation and frustration, you began to play things up. You leaned over more to show off more cleavage, laughed a little harder at jokes that weren’t all that funny, and set a scandalous hand on his arm. You were determined to have that vacation fling now, and you were going to get it by any means necessary. 

You laid it on thick for the rest of the afternoon, sitting next to him during lunch and flirting casually with him as your group walked through Park Güell. 

You wondered if he noticed you throwing glances in Patrick’s direction after every interaction. You hoped that he didn’t. 

It felt good to be getting even with Patrick—but not as good as you expected it to feel. The realization sunk in as a portion of your group visited a bar that was apparently very popular with the locals. Or at least, that’s what a very handsome man purred into your ear after sitting down next to you at the bar.

You’d been keeping an eye on Patrick as he socialized with a couple that he’d been talking to for the majority of your day, but you almost instantly lost track of him as you became consumed with this handsome stranger. 

Everything happened in a bit of a blur—one moment you’d been nursing a Marianito, and the next you were holding the hand of a man whose name you couldn’t remember as he led you to his apartment. 

By the time you’d left his apartment, you were nothing short of a mess. You were pretty sure that the only way you could’ve been more obvious about what had just happened to you was if you had the words “JUST HAD SEX” written across your forehead—and with the way the people in your hotel elevator were looking at you, you couldn’t be completely sure that those words weren’t on your face. 

You made it back to your room safely, quietly opening the door and doing your best not to make too much noise, since at this hour, Patrick was surely asleep. 

It did feel weird to be going back to his bed less than an hour after you’d been with another man, but you couldn’t necessarily say you felt bad. Patrick had started it, and you simply finished it off. If he didn’t have any issues with seeing other people, there was no reason for you to have an issue with it either. 

Your efforts to be quiet had proved themselves to be for naught, as Patrick was very clearly wide awake, sitting up in bed and already looking at you disapprovingly. 

You weren’t sure what possessed you to speak, rather than ignoring his presence and heading straight to the shower, but your mouth was open before you could stop yourself. 

“Were you just gonna wait here until I got back, like I’m a kid who just snuck out or something?” you asked in disbelief, partially annoyed because of his action, but more ashamed to have been caught in such a state. It couldn’t have been more obvious to Patrick what you’d just done, considering that he’d seen you in a similar state hundreds of times. 

“Baby, we are on a whole different, unfamiliar continent,” his tone was condescending and cold and it made you want to crawl out of your skin. “Why wouldn’t I wait to make sure you got back safely?”

“Don’t call me pet names. And I would’ve been fine. We were just at the bar,” you lied. Going to the apartment of a random man you just met probably wasn’t your brightest idea, but you made it out alive, and that was what mattered. 

“Huh. The bar?” he smirked at you in a way that screamed that he was pissed, without really having to say a word. 

“Yes, I- what does it matter to you anyway?” you hoped that the question would be enough to get you out of the situation. If you were going to argue, you at least wanted to argue after you were showered and in pajamas.

“What does it matter to me if you fucked someone else?” he asked, sounding like he was in complete disbelief. 

“Yeah, Patrick. Why does it matter if I fucked someone else? We’re not together anymore. Did you forget? I mean, it seemed pretty obvious to you when you stopped speaking to me completely a few months ago.”

“Please, enlighten me. What did I have to speak to you about?” 

“I don’t know! Maybe an ‘are you okay?’ would’ve been nice. Or something. Anything, really. We were together for six fucking years and you just dropped me like I was dirt!”

“I…” he trailed off, catching you by surprise. He almost always had a quick clever response that managed to piss you off in a way no one else ever could, so seeing him not knowing what to say next caught you off guard. “If our relationship meant that much to you, why were you all over that guy? I mean, seriously. I’ve never seen anything so desperate. You were practically rubbing yourself on him in the park like a bitch in heat.”

Contempt dripped from his words. You had never been so enraged.

“Are you joking?” you laughed out of sheer anger. “Patrick, you started it! How many Tinder girls have you seen since we broke up? And don’t you dare fucking lie to me. I saw everything you’ve been sending to Amelia. Amelia, I’m so lonely. Amelia, I’m so horny. Amelia, I love you so much,” you mocked.

“You went through my phone?” he asked in disbelief, not even bothering to address the rest of your statement. “Fuck. You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m unbelievable? How long did it even take you before we split for you to start seeing other people? I mean, knowing you, you were probably just waiting for the day we broke up to go get your dick wet.”

“That’s not true, and you know it,” for a second, he looked genuinely wounded—something you were only able to recognize after years of being in a relationship with the man. You didn’t like that you were actively hurting him, but he’d been inflicting pain on you from the moment you broke up.

“Fine,” you conceded on that front, knowing that he was right. It wasn’t completely true. If you hadn’t gone through his phone, you never would’ve guessed that he had already moved on. “But you’ve still been seeing other people.”

“We’ve been broken up for months now,” he replied, as if that was supposed to make things any better or more reasonable. 

“Then why do you care so much about me having sex with someone else? It’s fine when you do it, but suddenly it’s an issue for me?” 

Patrick’s face immediately paled. “You really fucked him?”

“Well, yeah,” you paused. “Well, not who you’re thinking of.”

“You fucked someone else?!” The hurt and disbelief buried under his words made your stomach churn. “You were flirting with that other douchebag all day, I don’t-“

“You’re acting like I’m some whore for reacting to something that you did first!” you cut him off. 

“And you’re acting like I wanted to get rid of you this whole time!” he shot back out at you. 

“Clearly you fucking did,” you hissed. 

“Fuck you,” he huffed. 

“Fuck you,” you shot right back. “I’m leaving.”

“Good,” Patrick replied with a shrug as if he didn’t care, although you were very sure that he cared. “Go run back to your little fuck buddy.”

“Yeah, maybe I will,” you replied as you gathered your items back into your suitcase. “He was better than you, by the way.”

“Yeah, I bet,” he said snarkily as he watched you pack up your items. Luckily, you didn’t have much to pack up and were already heading towards the door. 

“He had a bigger dick, too,” you said as you swung open the hotel room door, fully satisfied with a lie that you knew would bother Patrick. 

While leaving your hotel room seemed like a wonderful idea in the moment, as you went down the elevator, you started to realize that you really did not have many options for where you’d sleep that night. 

You figured your best bet was the hotel lobby. Maybe you could pretend to be someone who’d drank too much and passed out on the first floor before you made it up to your room. You sat down in a comfortable looking chair and grabbed your keycard—in case anyone asked you to verify who you were—then set a floppy hat on your head to cover your face from the bright hotel lobby lights while you attempted to sleep. 

Sleep was already going to be difficult to accomplish, thanks to the argument that you were certainly going to be ruminating on for days to come. That was only made more difficult by the uncomfortable seating and position you’d found yourself in. Somehow, you managed to fall asleep, being woken up by a hotel employee and a friend you’d made from your tour group.

“Long night, huh?” she asked you with a playful smirk. 

“Mm, something like that,” you mumbled sleepily. 

“Well, you can sleep on the coach. It just got here, so we’ll have the best pick of seats. C’mon,” she extended her hand out to you and you gladly took it, in desperate need of something grounding. 

You dozed off on the coach once you’d gotten settled, headphones securely on your ears and sunglasses covering your closed eyes. You were vaguely aware of people boarding the vehicle around you, but didn’t pay much mind to anything. Eventually, you heard the faint sound of someone taking attendance of the people on the bus, followed by the commotion of someone getting on the bus late. 

Something compelled you to open up your eyes, and when you did, you were displeased to find that Patrick was the source of all of the drama. Likely thing for him to be. He scrambled down the aisle, looking desperately for empty seats. To your own horror, you realized that the seat next to you was vacant, and perhaps the only vacant seat on the entire coach. 

As if your minds were connected, you watched Patrick face that very same dilemma as he eventually decided to sit down in the only empty seat, right next to you. 

Neither of you said anything at first, not addressing your blowout argument the previous night, or your awkward current situation. 

“You look like shit,” Patrick finally said as the bus took off. 

“Thanks,” you replied, mentally preparing yourself for a continuation of the argument you’d had just a few hours ago. It was only a matter of time before he brought up your promiscuity or started blatantly texting his Tinderella. 

But none of that ever came. In fact, he just looked a little sad. It was weird to see Patrick so openly defeated. He was always one to put on a smirk or a challenging smile when you argued, letting the façade fall once he was alone, or once the two of you finally discussed what the issue was like adults.

You weren’t sure that you liked it. You preferred annoying asshole Patrick to sad, moping Patrick. 

“You look like shit, too,” you added. “Which is crazy, since you had access to a shower and I didn’t.”

“And whose fault is that?” he asked, looking at you with the slightest hint of that devious smile. You had to fight the slightest inkling of a smile on your own face. 

You felt ridiculous knowing that your mood was still being influenced by your former partner. Even when he was insulting you. Even after he’d spent the night arguing with you. Even after you’d slept with someone else. Even after the two of you had a messy split. 

You still loved him. 

“Yours, mostly,” you shrugged and put your headphones back on. 

PARIS, FRANCE

Despite your brief conversation on the bus, you and Patrick didn’t speak to each other for the entirety of your commute. Although you clearly cared about him, it didn’t change the fact that he had upset and hurt you deeply. And even as upset as you were, you knew that you’d hurt him just as badly. 

You had a particular dread for what awaited you in France, knowing that this part of the tour was very couples-activity heavy. When you’d scheduled your trip, this aspect of the tour felt like a major selling point. The two of you always seemed to be falling more in love with each other, and having a candlelit dinner by the Eiffel Tower felt like an exciting way to kick off your marriage. 

Now, you just felt like an idiot.

The two of you did your absolute best to avoid getting paired up with each other for all of the activities that you could. You found yourself spending most of your time with a solo traveler who was close in age to you. She made a surprisingly fun companion to your cheese and wine taste test, popping cubes of fragrant cheese into your mouth and making a competition out of who could detect the most accurate notes in your wine. 

While you found luck in your first few activities, you weren’t so lucky when it came to an evening ride of the Roue de Paris. Whether it was fate or just bad luck, after the pair in front of you had dipped out of line for reasons unknown to you, you had the shocking realization that Patrick had been in between them the whole time. So much for meeting new people on the massive ferris wheel. 

You tried to look busy so he wouldn’t notice that you noticed, and did your best to think of some sort of game plan. Although you’d essentially been giving each other the silent treatment in the hours leading up to this moment, you’d caught Patrick looking at you multiple times throughout the day—something you only noticed because you’d been looking at him as well. 

After a moment, the two of you were let into an empty passenger car. Sitting across from one another, it was hard to ignore the very obvious elephants in the room, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t try. 

At first, you simply looked out the window, not saying a single word as the ferris wheel began to move. 

“You should put that safety belt on, just in case,” Patrick commented from his side of the car, pulling his eyes away from the window to look at you. 

“I doubt anything will happen,” you shrugged. “It’s fine.”

He eyed you suspiciously for a moment, before leaning over and strapping you in anyway. Your breath caught in your throat, his simple action putting you into serious psychological pain. It wasn’t lost on you how much Patrick liked to take care of you. It was far more obvious when the two of you were dating, with him covering the bills for dates and doing your laundry for you. It had been so ironic to you at the time, how a man who could barely take care of himself always went out of his way to make sure that you were going to be okay. 

Now, his small act of kindness just made your stomach turn. But it wasn’t like you could express any of those feelings. 

“Thanks,” was all that you managed before looking out of the window once more. 

An awkward, heavy silence filled the passenger car once more as the ride began to take the two of you higher. 

“The view is so beautiful,” you commented, unable to remain silent anymore and hoping that your words were neutral enough not to stir any pots. 

“Yeah, it’s really nice,” his gaze remained fixed out the window, before he looked at you once more as if there were words on the tip of his tongue. 

“I honestly don’t know how we managed to get in line in time to see the sunset,” you continued with your boring, neutral small talk. 

“I’m glad we did. This is the perfect spot to watch it.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, continuing to look out the window instead of at the man across from you. “It’s so pretty tonight, too.”

“It is,” he agreed. 

The two of you sat in silence again, only the sound of a soft whirring filling your ears. Then suddenly, all at once, the whirring stopped—and so did your passenger car. 

“Are we stuck?” you asked, looking out nervously at the very tall height that the two of you were currently definitely stuck at. 

“We can’t be. It’ll probably start back up in a second.”

It didn’t start back up in a second. In fact, after a series of announcements in French, an announcement in English suddenly declared that it would be at least an hour before the ride could be fixed. 

At the sound of the announcement, both you and Patrick sighed aloud, still synchronized even after everything you’d been through. 

“Maybe this is a sign,” Patrick piped up. 

“What are you talking about?” you laughed at him, hoping desperately that this didn’t mean that he wanted to continue arguing with you. You genuinely did not have it in you to do so again. You also didn’t have it in you to sleep in another hotel lobby. 

“Well, I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day,” he confessed. 

“Is that why you were staring at me all day?” you teased, a weak, slightly hopeful smile creeping onto your face. 

“I was looking at you because I could feel you staring at me,” he clarified, as if he was setting the record straight. “I don’t want things to be like this between us anymore.”

“Yeah?” you asked, the pit of nerves in your stomach tightening at wherever he was going with his spiel. The anticipation of his words alone made you nauseous. 

“So I think that we should talk about last night,” he suggested. 

That was exactly what you didn’t want to hear him say. You had barely processed the argument yourself, let alone think about anything else that you had to say to Patrick that didn’t involve trying to hurt him as much as he hurt you. 

“We don’t have to. It’s fine. The past is in the past,” you dismissed. 

“It’s not fine, though. Not really,” he countered, all earnestness. You didn’t detect any harshness to his words or any blood in the water that indicated to you that he wanted to do anything more than have an honest conversation with you. “I was so out of line. I can’t- I don’t want you to think that I really believe the things I said about you.”

“Patrick, please…” you trailed off, hoping that he would understand that you didn’t really want to talk about this. Though, you were relieved to learn that he’d only said those things out of the heat of the moment. 

“No,” he stood his ground. “We need to talk about this if we ever want our relationship to improve.”

“Fine,” you gave in. “But you start, so I can collect my thoughts.”

“Of course,” he leaned forward so he could get a better look at you, and you were immediately drawn into some intense eye contact with him. “I’m sorry for acting like a dick yesterday. I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did, and I really shouldn’t have let you leave our hotel room. That was really stupid of me. I worried about you for the rest of the night and spent the morning looking for you.”

This was surprising information to you. While you did find it to be a bit of a dick move that Patrick would just let you leave like that after lecturing you about being unsafe in a new country, you hadn’t realized that he’d been late to boarding the coach because he’d been searching for you. You could only imagine the sick feeling he had as he realized he couldn’t find you anywhere. 

“I’m sorry for what I said, too. Insulting you for trying to move on was really unfair of me. I was just… hurt, I guess. When I don’t even have the right to be.”

“You do, a little. We were together for a really long time, so it’s gonna feel weird that we’re starting to see other people,” you shrugged. “That was an excellent apology, that I accept, by the way.”

“Thank you. I really got a chance to practice my apology skills with the last woman I was with,” he explained. You tried to repress the feeling of jealousy that was already bubbling up in your stomach at the mention of another woman. 

“Yeah?” you asked, hoping that he didn’t notice the brief twitch of your eye.

“Yeah. She’s super opinionated and outspoken, so we would butt heads a lot. But that was always something I really liked about her. That, and her magnificent ass.”

Finally, it occurred to you that he was talking about you. You rolled your eyes and shook your head, despite the fact that you were secretly very flattered by the way he was speaking about you. “Ew. Shut up,” you laughed. 

“Well, if you’re done objectifying me, I would love to apologize to you too.”

“All done objectifying you. For now, at least. Go ahead.”

You were a little nervous about the words that were about to come out of your mouth. You just had so much to say, and you weren’t sure that it was all going to come out correctly. 

“I’m sorry for the things I said last night. I genuinely did not mean what I said, I just got caught up in the moment. And I’m really sorry for going through your phone, because that’s seriously none of my business. It was such an unnecessary violation of trust, and I understand if you’re still pissed at me for that. And it was really ridiculous for me to overreact the way that I did over you seeing someone else, because again, it’s really not my business. I feel like I’m kinda the worst,” you confessed. 

“You’re not the worst,” he countered. 

“Fine, I guess. Maybe you just bring the worst out in me,” you joked, trying to lighten the mood slightly. 

“That sounds more accurate. We bring out the worst in each other.”

“Right. That’s why we’re such a good pair,” you paused, then corrected yourself. “Of friends.”

“Is that what we are now?”

“I never said we were good friends.”

“Frenemies?”

“Something like that,” you said, before the familiar whirring sound of the ferris wheel began once more. 

“Huh. Who would’ve thought that the only thing the wheel needed to function was an apology to each other?”

“You’re so annoying,” you laughed and shook your head. “How are we gonna make it through the rest of this trip?”

LONDON, ENGLAND

Your final few days in France had been made far less awkward by your conversation on the ferris wheel. Deciding to fully embrace the couples activities the tour had reserved for you, the two of you were having a good time re-establishing your friendship. 

Your trip to London had gone mostly without a hitch, with your group arriving in the city in the evening and immediately checking in to your hotel. At this point, you had given up on even attempting to get separate beds. It seemed like every morning now you woke up cuddling with Patrick, but you weren’t necessarily mad at the unintentional intimacy. 

In some ways, your relationship was beginning to feel similar to how it felt before the two of you broke up. While you were sure that things wouldn’t be exactly the same—especially since you still hadn’t addressed the elephant in the room that was your breakup—it was nice to return to the comfort you’d found in your relationship with Patrick. 

Like clockwork, the morning after your arrival in London, you woke up with Patrick pressed up against your back, nose buried in your hair. As he woke up, he pressed a gentle kiss to your hairline out of what you were sure was just habit rather than genuine affection. 

“Morning,” he greeted you groggily, rolling away from your side. 

“Morning,” you replied, turning to face him. You ran a hand through his messy morning hair and looked at him fondly. It was taking far more self control than you had to not lean over and kiss him. “What time is it?” you asked, in part to distract yourself, but also because the digital clock was on his side of the bed. 

“It’s…” he trailed off as he went to read the time. “Oh shit, we’re gonna be late.”

“What?” you asked, shooting up from your relaxed position. 

“It’s 8:25,” he explained, already rolling out of bed. 

In a rush, the two of you got dressed in record time, making it down to the lobby in the five minutes that you had to make it on time. You shared a high-five in the lobby, and tried your best not to dwell on how the simple action felt far more domestic than it needed to. 

Your tour began not too long after that, getting your day off to a strong start. Your day of exploring London was by far your busiest. You were sure that you’d accumulated thousands of steps as you went between large museums, beautiful parks, and massive landmarks. By the time that you returned to your hotel room, you were pretty sure that your legs were mush. 

You returned earlier than Patrick, who had gone out to a gastropub with a group of tourists in your group that he got along well with. You took this as an opportunity to have some alone time, taking a long and steaming hot shower, frolicking around the room in a soft hotel robe, and watching a movie while you waited for your room service to arrive. 

After you’d thoroughly enjoyed your alone time, finishing off your room service and opting to scroll on your phone, the door cracked open and Patrick strolled in. 

“Looks like you made yourself right at home,” he observed. 

“I had to after today’s tour. So much walking,” you groaned. 

“It wasn’t all that bad,” he shrugged, sitting down next to you in bed. 

“Well, not all of us are professional athletes,” you laughed. “How was the pub?”

“Fun. It’d be better if you came.”

“I’m sorry, I was exhausted,” you sighed. “You could’ve stayed in with me and had a spa day.”

“We can have a spa day anywhere. We can have a spa day right now.”

“Mm, I’m all spa’d out. But the water pressure in the shower is excellent, so you should definitely check that out.”

“I will in a little bit,” he said. “Did you try out the actual spa here?”

“They were closed when I checked, which really sucks, since I was in desperate need of a massage.”

“Do you still want one?” Patrick asked. 

“Yeah. I’ll probably try to stop by when they’re open tomorrow and get one.”

“No, I mean, do you want a massage now?” he added. 

It had been a long time since Patrick had offered you a massage—or to put his hands on you in any capacity—but you remembered him being criminally talented at giving them. You also remembered his massages usually making for great foreplay that left your knees weak and your brain a pile of jelly, but that clearly wouldn’t be the case now, and you needed to get your head out of the gutter. 

“I mean, sure. That would be nice,” you tried not to sound too excited, though the prospect of a massage from him sounded very, very nice. 

While the prospect of a massage sounded nice, the actual massage was heavenly. You were sure that years of having personal trainers and physical therapists work knots out of his body had made him an expert at finding knots and kinks in your own, which was now leaving you sighing happily as he ran his hands over your back. 

You tried your best to ignore the dull, fiery feeling growing in your lower stomach that was surely a result of experiencing a type of intimacy that you hadn’t in quite some time. As you let out an involuntary soft sound at a particular knot being rubbed out of your shoulder, you wondered if this massage was affecting him nearly as much as it was affecting you.

You promptly received an answer to this question when something hard and phallic brushed up against your leg. You turned your head to glance back at Patrick, and his face immediately grew red. 

“Sorry. I can stop, if you want. It just happened because of the noises you’re making and- whatever. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Part of you felt a little satisfied knowing that you still had that type of impact on him. It gave you a tiny glimmer of hope to know that you were still, at the least, physically attracted to one another. 

“It’s fine. I’ll shut up.”

“You don’t have to. I want this to be as relaxing as possible for you.”

“Well you’re doing a great job, if you couldn’t tell from all of the moaning and groaning on my end.”

You both somehow made it through the rest of the massage without spilling all over the bed, but as you melted into the bed, feeling every muscle in your body relaxed from your excellent massage, you couldn’t help but note the suspiciously long time Patrick was spending in the shower. And maybe it was just your imagination, but if you listened hard enough, you swore you could hear the sound of a soft chanting of your name coming from the other side of the bathroom door. 

While part of you regretted not suggesting that the two of you help each other out with your mutual problems, you were pretty sure that it was for the best. You genuinely didn’t know where the two of you stood, as far as your relationship went. Hooking up would surely further complicate an already complicated situation, since you were pretty sure that ex-fiancés didn’t typically sleep together. But then again, ex-fiancés also didn’t usually go on a honeymoon despite not being together. Your complicated feelings on the matter only further proved to you that you made the right choice by not giving in to your baser desires. 

By the time Patrick joined you in bed, you were already half asleep. Yet, even in your delirious state, you didn’t miss the way he came up behind you, pulling you into a loving embrace. It brought warmth to your chest to know that he couldn’t even wait for your automatic sleep routine to hold you, and that he felt the need to take matters into his own hands. 

You were pretty sure that exes didn’t do that either. 

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS 

You didn’t know what you expected from your first ferry ride, but being face deep in a barf bag while soothing circles were rubbed into your back was certainly not it. 

Given that you weren’t a frequent rider of large vessels on bodies of water, you had no clue going into the ride that things would go so sideways so quickly for you. If anything, you thought you might have the opportunity to stare peacefully out into the water, or to force Patrick to take a few cute pictures of you. Unfortunately, you were currently doing neither of those things—and it didn’t seem like you’d be doing them any time soon. 

You heaved once more, now almost totally sure that you had nothing left to give. Patrick continued to hold your hair out of your face with one hand and use his other to comfortingly rub your back, not at all fazed by your sickness. If you weren’t currently fighting off another wave of nausea and didn’t have the taste of bile lingering in your mouth, you probably could’ve kissed the man. 

Once your brain finally told you the coast was clear, you leaned your head back and took several deep, gasping breaths of air. 

“You alright, honey?” he asked you, and you didn’t even have the strength—physical or mental—to correct his use of a pet name. 

“I could be better,” you replied, pinching the bridge of your nose as you tilted your head back. “There’s medicine for this, right?”

“Yeah. Let me go see if I can find some.”

As you fought off a war of nausea and headache that was currently beating you on all fronts, you could faintly hear the sound of Patrick asking the people around you if they had any medicine for motion sickness. He eventually returned after what felt like a lifetime, but was probably more like a few minutes, carrying a bottle of Dramamine. 

He helped you take the pill, putting it in your mouth then holding a bottle of water up to your lips to help you swallow it. The action felt oddly romantic, though it was more of a matter of practicality compared to anything else. You were clearly not in a stable enough space to get the pill down on your own, so his assistance wasn’t really anything for you to be over analyzing. 

“Look at you, keeping that down,” he teased, running his hand up and down your arm. The motion was soothing, a bit of bodily comfort amongst a plethora of other awful physical pains you were experiencing. “You’re doing great.”

His soft caresses turned into a full-blown hug, with Patrick pulling you into a tight embrace. While the action itself was rather cute—especially since it seemed to be completely impulsive on his part—it instantly brought on a new wave of nausea. 

“Pat?” you squeaked. 

“Yeah?” he asked. 

“You’re sweet. But if we stay like this, I am going to be sick all over you.”

He pulled away from you with concern, careful not to move too quickly to set off another bout of sickness. While he let go of your body, he continued to hold your hand, as if he were attempting to ground you. With how anxious he was looking, he might’ve been trying to ground himself as well. 

It was cute seeing him so worried about you. You tried your best not to read too much into it, and luckily, your slowly fading nausea was the perfect distraction from doing so. 

“Thank you for the drugs. It was fun watching you scramble all around asking people for help. You’re such a good…” you paused, not really knowing what you were or what to say. “Ex.”

Now wasn’t exactly the ideal time to have the, ‘what are we?’ conversation, but Patrick didn’t seem to mind. And if he did mind, he was doing a damn good job at hiding it. 

“Only the best for my ex.” Maybe you’d just been imaging it, but you swore you sensed a bit of hesitation on his end as he called you his ex. Admittedly, it would be significantly easier for both of you to be calling each other spouses, or even partners. But alas, you weren’t either of those things to each other anymore. 

As if you’d read each other's minds, the two of you quickly moved on from that conversation. 

After you’d arrived and gotten settled into Amsterdam, you set off to explore the city. When presented with a few options of things to do, Patrick insisted that the two of you go on a bike tour, much to your own chagrin. As much as you weren’t sure your legs could handle any more strenuous physical activity, you’d known that Patrick had wanted to take this bike tour since your trip was an actual honeymoon. Who were you to deny him of that?

As the two of you toured the very beautiful city, Patrick made sure to make a show out of his biking skills. While he was no professional cyclist, he certainly had the ego of one—which translated to him going a little too hard at times and nearly falling off of his bike more than once. 

Each time he almost fell, you found yourself also almost falling, the onset of laughter at the ridiculous man riding next to you nearly being too much to handle. Without fail, every time the two of you did your almost falling, then break into a howling laughter routine, you were given dirty looks by your fellow tour mates. Unfortunately, that only made the situation funnier to you and Patrick. 

By the time the tour had wrapped, it was clear that everyone was sick and tired of you. But at least this time, the people around you were sick of the girlish giggles Patrick pulled from you, rather than the rude words he provoked you into saying, like he’d done on the plane. 

It was refreshing to be spending time with him like this. In the time that you’d been so upset about your break up, you forgot about just how good it felt to be around Patrick when your relationship was going well. 

It was also nice to be spending some alone time with him, away from the rest of your tour group. As the two of you looked at strange knick-knacks in an antique store, you realized just how much you missed being alone with him. While it was nice that the two of you had made friends within your group, your dynamic as a duo was obviously something really special. Maybe that’s why the two of you had been together for so long. 

You spent the majority of the afternoon doubled over in laughter, playfully teasing Patrick, or being on the receiving end of subtle, gentle touches. As you really began to think about it, this day of travel had been your favorite—by a long shot. It also happened to be the day that felt most like one from a honeymoon.

Although it had already been clear to you for some time that you still had feelings for Patrick, the day you had spent together had completely sealed the deal. Once Patrick had surprised you with a beautiful bouquet of flowers over dinner, you’d only been more sure that you were sick with love for your ex.

It was a small miracle that you’d rounded out the day without confessing your feelings, particularly since you ended the evening with a movie playing on the television of your hotel room that the two of you barely paid attention to, as Patrick held you and talked about some of the things you’d missed while the two of you were separated. 

In the morning, you woke up to the soft sound of chatter, rather than your loud alarm clock or the sound of deep breaths in the shell of your ear. 

From what you could faintly make out from the words and the lack of a warm body beside you, Patrick was on the phone with his mother. You wanted to feel bad for eavesdropping, especially since you’d just had an argument with Patrick over your snooping habit just over a week ago, but it was far too difficult not to listen in. 

“I’m glad you liked the picture,” you made out from the muffled words behind the doorway. You were sure he was referencing the selfie the two of you took in front of Big Ben a few days ago. You also liked the photo a lot, with the two of you looking particularly good and particularly happy. You’d also taken a more baity photo of him kissing your cheek, specifically to send to his mother who he knew would be overjoyed to see you. While Patrick had explained the idea behind the picture as his mom simply wanting to see you, you knew the more accurate statement is that his mom wanted to see the two of you together. 

After a beat, there was a soft chuckle. “No, we’re not back together. No mom, there’s no ‘yet.’ I know. I’m an idiot, I know- aren’t you supposed to take your child’s side? Well, I don’t know if you know this, but we never ended up getting married, so no, she’s not your daughter. How could she possibly be your favorite child! We just talked about this. I’m gonna hang up. I’m serious. Alright. Love you, bye.”

When Patrick returned, you were already sitting up in bed. 

“Can you tell your mom I say hi next time?” you asked with a cheeky grin on your face, still coming off of the high that was the romantic outing you’d had the day prior. 

“I’m sure she’d love to hear that,” he replied, getting back into bed beside you. “She probably wants to hear from you more than she wants to hear from me.”

You laughed and shook your head, not bothering to argue with his words since you both knew they were pretty accurate. 

“I mean, I’m sure she’ll be inviting you to Thanksgiving and Christmas long after we’ve moved on with other people and have our own families.”

Your heart dropped to your stomach. You were sure of it. You thought you could genuinely feel the movement of your most vital organ slowly sinking into a pit of stomach acid. 

You tried not to let your smile falter, considering that Patrick was looking right at you with a sweet look of his own plastered on his face. You wondered if this was some sort of test, to gauge how you felt after a day of rekindling the love the two of you thought had burnt out. 

Or maybe, more realistically, he’d already come to accept the reality that you’d been stalling on accepting: your relationship was truly over. One fun day wouldn’t change the fact that your wedding had been called off, and that the two of you said things to each other that would alter the foundations of any solid relationship for years to come. 

Your heart was such a traitor. She refused to accept the simple fact that Patrick wanted to move on, and that your relationship was a thing of the past. Maybe, if you couldn’t convince your heart to accept that truth, you might be able to force your brain to. 

“And I’ll still be accepting that invitation, thank you very much,” you stated, trying to sound confident in your words. “In the meantime, let’s get ready before we miss this bus. You can tell me what your mom’s menu is gonna look like this year on our ride over.”

SOMEWHERE IN CENTRAL GERMANY

It was stupid for you to be torn up the way that you were over just a few simple words, but the more you thought about it, the worse you felt. 

In reality, it wasn’t just what Patrick had said to you in the hotel room. It was the fact that he’d been actively trying to move on with other people since who knew when, and the way he seemed to frequently verbally reiterate the fact that your relationship was over. By holding out hope that you might somehow be able to repair your relationship, you were being much more naïve than you even realized. 

You felt stupid. But you also felt confused, because as much as Patrick swore he was over you, and pursued other people, he was also far too comfortable acting like nothing had changed between you two. After all, he was the one flirting with you, and trying to attach himself at the hip to you as you traveled. He was the one who always managed to end up spooning you over the course of the night and woke up kissing whatever part of your body he was closest to. For god's sake, he’d just told you yesterday about how he’d searched high and low to find a bouquet of flowers that he thought you would genuinely like. And most damningly, you hadn’t forgotten the look of hurt on his face when he found out that you had slept with someone else. That wasn’t the behavior of someone who was over their partner.

To say you were receiving mixed messages was a complete understatement. You couldn’t understand how it was possible that the man who was currently leaning against you very affectionately, despite being on a cramped bus, was also totally over you and wanted to move on.

You didn’t know what you wanted to do about the situation, but you were sure that you couldn’t keep going like this. 

Your bus stopped somewhere in Germany for the evening, letting you all out to have dinner and do some light sightseeing before regrouping in the morning and heading to Prague. Somehow, that translated to going to a bar to try out German beer for you, Patrick, and a few of the friends you’d made while traveling. 

After a brief intermission of checking into your hotel room, your small group met up in the lobby, then set off to find a bar. 

Drinking while you were feeling a little upset probably wasn’t your brightest idea. The speed and volume at which you were consuming alcohol was a little concerning, but not nearly as concerning as how much Patrick was drinking. Eventually, even in your drunken state, you realized that you should probably slow down—if nothing else, to take care of him. 

But the two of you continued on, going from bar to bar, getting drunk at a level that probably would’ve been acceptable when you were younger, but was certainly going to take a major toll on you now. 

Forgetting about the repercussions of the future, you two were having a great time. Despite you being out with a group, it felt a little bit like the two of you were in your own little bubble. Nothing else in the world seemed to matter as the two of you took shots and danced together. Not the people around you, not the fact that you had to be up early the next morning to make it onto your coach, not even the fact that Patrick had implied that the two of you would move on and have families with other people only a few days ago. 

By the time that the rest of your group had called it quits, explaining that they wanted to be up and functional in time for your ride the next morning, you and Patrick were still in your own little world. It was only after you’d shared a few drunk cigarettes that the two of you decided that the fun should end, and that it was time to head back to your hotel. 

Unfortunately for you, midway through your trek back home, your drinking buddy had given up on walking, leaving you tasked with literally dragging him all the way back to your hotel. While a sober version of yourself would’ve been annoyed by the inconvenience, all you could really think about was how nice it was to have his body so close to yours.

After a tumultuous journey back, the two of you finally made it back to your hotel room. You had only been in the room for a matter of seconds before Patrick collapsed onto the bed and let out a loud sigh of relief, followed by an even louder yawn, as if he was the one who had just carried you down the road.

It was annoyingly endearing. 

You had half the mind to at least get somewhat ready before getting into bed, shedding your outermost layer of clothing before joining Patrick in bed. 

“Thank you,” he said to you once you laid down next to him. 

“Mhm,” you hummed, your head still pleasantly buzzing from the alcohol. “But I’m never doing that again.”

“Aww, why? We had so much fun,” he practically whined. “I always have so much fun when we’re together.”

“I had fun, but you’re so heavy. You’d never guess it. All those muscles,” in the midst of your complaining, you reached over to grab his bicep to demonstrate his point. 

He laughed, which made you laugh, though you didn’t exactly know what you were laughing at. Then, out of the blue, he randomly said your name in a very serious tone. 

“Can you help me with something?” he asked, sounding very genuine and giving you a look that you couldn’t quite place in your drunken state. 

“Anything,” you replied earnestly and meant it. You would probably do literally anything that he asked you to do at that moment. Move a mountain? You’d start pushing. Marry him? You’d wake up an officiant and come up with vows on the spot. Help him hide a body? You were sure you could find a shovel somewhere.

“Can you help me get my shoes off?” he lifted a foot as he spoke to demonstrate his point, a little pout on his lips. You were a little disappointed that he hadn’t asked you for anything else, but you also weren’t quite sure what it was that you wanted him to ask you for. 

You groaned playfully, a long and drawn out sound that you hoped would communicate that you were exhausted after dragging him through the city and comfortable where you were laying. Still, you leaned over and untied his shoes before gently slipping them off. When you looked back up at Patrick, his pants were newly half undone and halfway off, but it looked as if he had given up fully taking his pants off. 

“Need help with that too?” you asked, though you were already working on slipping the article of clothing off of his legs.

Though you tried to push the thought out of your mind, you couldn’t help but recall a similar night the two of you shared several years ago. Your relationship was still relatively new, but you were already very obviously in love. So in love that you’d gone out of your way to set up a surprise party to celebrate a particularly successful tennis match, decorating your apartment with photos of him with trophies and other tennis paraphernalia and inviting as many of his close friends that you could track down. Still riding the high of winning and his all-consuming adoration of you, Patrick had partied a little too hard, leaving you in charge of tucking him in at the end of the night. 

After bringing him a glass of water, the man snuggled into your sheets and slurred out a comment about how they smelled like you. You felt your cheeks warm as he continued on in a disjointed ramble, talking about how much he appreciated you and how no one had ever gone out of their way to make him feel like that before. He ended his monologue with a request for you to help him take his clothes off, and you happily obliged. It was tender and far more intimate than you’d expected, and ended in a drawn out kiss that left you giggling as you told Patrick that he tasted like Smirnoff Ice. 

Even as inebriated as you currently were, the nostalgia made you feel a little dizzy. 

By the time you’d finished helping him get his pants off, Patrick had clearly given up on getting his shirt off, too. Once again, you moved your hands up his body and helped him out with the piece of fabric. 

“Look at that. All ready for bed,” you commented, setting a hand on his bare chest. The small action made your heart soar, and you promptly decided that it was probably better for you to avoid touching him altogether. 

“My watch?” Patrick asked, lifting his wrist up to show you the accessory. 

“You can take your watch off yourself,” you replied, leaning back into bed and finally laying down. 

“Fine.”

“Night, Patty,” you said, reaching over to turn out the bedside lamp. 

“Wait,” he paused pensively, as if he was digging deep in the recesses of his mind to conjure up what he was about to say. “A kiss?”

“Patrick!” you gasped, sounding far more scandalized by the proposition than you actually were. Of course you would give him a kiss, you just weren’t sure you were ready to open up that can of worms, especially after you’d had a minor crisis at the realization that he genuinely wanted to move on.

“No goodnight kiss? C’mon. Fully commit to tucking me in,” Patrick insisted, as if it was the most logical thing ever. As if either of you had the self control to not let something as simple as a kiss spiral out of control. 

“Fine,” you sighed before pressing a gentle peck to his forehead, figuring that was the safest place to do so. A forehead kiss was about as platonic as it got with you.  “Sweet dreams.”

“Thank you,” he said, rather sweetly as his eyes shut. “Love you.”

Those words instantly gave you pause, causing you to suddenly feel very alert and very sober.

“Sorry, what did you just say?”

“I said I love you?” Patrick repeated, looking at you with confusion. “What?”

“Nothing,” though it was very much not nothing. In fact, if his confession was true, it would change everything. “Go to bed.”

“Wait, what?” Patrick grabbed your arm, looking very worried in the low light of the room. “You’re mad. You’re mad that I love you?”

You didn’t even know how you were supposed to react to that admission. While it had been exactly what you’d been dying to hear from him for months, it only further complicated your already very complicated situation.

“I’m not mad, I’m… I’m just tired. Let’s go to sleep, okay?”

Your explanation seemed to placate Patrick enough to let it go and go to sleep. He shuffled around to get comfortable behind you, before pulling you in to hold you as he’d done for the entirety of the trip. Except, tonight, it didn’t feel quite right. The mixture of his frequent rejections of you, paired with his casual confession that he still loved you made your head spin. 

The following morning, you woke up with a pounding in your head and a gross taste in your mouth—only one of which, you could fully attribute to the drinking you’d done last night. You clumsily reached for your phone, and found yourself pleasantly surprised to find an announcement about the delay of the next bus you would be getting on. 

You got out of bed with a grunt, your entire body aching with the reminder of having to drag Patrick through the city last night. Somehow, the sore muscles didn’t hurt nearly as much compared to the memory of being told that Patrick still loved you. 

You slowly paced back and forth around your hotel room, desperately trying to organize your racing thoughts. Did Patrick actually mean what he said last night? Or had been caught up in the heat of the moment? If anything, the latter seemed more likely, since he’d been very obviously trying to distance himself from you. But had he really been distancing himself from you, or just talking about distancing himself from you? If his care for you on the ferry had been any indication of how he really felt about you, it was possible that his drunken words were more honest than you were trying to convince yourself that they were. 

Finally, you decided to stop annoying the person staying in the room under you with your increasingly frantic pacing, and to go outside to walk. Some fresh air would be good for you anyway. 

“Where’re you going?” a muffled voice, heavy with sleep asked. You paused the tying of your shoes to look over at the bed, where Patrick was currently squinting at you.  

“I’m just going for a walk,” you told him. “Go back to sleep. The coach is coming late.”

“Wait for me. I’ll come with you.”

That was probably the last thing you needed or wanted. After all, the whole purpose of your walk was to help you sort out your thoughts about Patrick. To say he wasn’t a welcome addition to your trip was an understatement.

“Okay,” you said anyway, against your better judgment. It seemed like you hadn’t been using much of your judgment at all on this trip. What was one more poor decision on top of a series of poor decisions?

You watched him get ready from where you were sitting, quietly impressed with his ability to get up and be functional despite surely being just as hungover—if not more—than you. He also seemed wholly unaffected by the conversation you’d had last night, which was something that you certainly couldn’t say for yourself. 

With sunglasses perched on your nose and the weight of your entire relationship placed on your shoulders, the two of you headed out into the city, walking on the same sidewalks that you’d practically carried Patrick down the previous night. 

“Last night was fun,” Patrick commented, making small talk with you as you began to head down the street. 

“Some parts,” you agreed, hoping that he’d recall you grunting as you lugged him down the street, rather than your shock when he told you that he still loved you. 

“I honestly don’t remember most of the night,” Patrick said with a chuckle that almost sounded a little forced. You couldn’t be sure if he was being honest or searching for a cop out for the things he’d told you before you went to sleep, but you weren’t sure that it really mattered.

“Unfortunately, I do,” you replied. 

“Oh no. I hope I wasn’t too much of a pain.”

“You were like, slightly above average in terms of being a pain. Nothing I’m not used to.” You figured that maybe you could banter your way out of this situation. Perhaps if you just pretended that everything was okay, things would magically become okay.

But that didn’t feel alright. In fact, it wasn’t alright. If you ever wanted to improve your relationship with Patrick, you had to stop beating around the bush with him. You were both adults. You’d been together for years, yet you felt like you wasted far too much time not being straightforward with your thoughts and feelings. If there was going to be a next time for the two of you, you wanted things to be different. 

“You did say something kinda interesting last night, though.” While it had been easy to talk up a big game in your head, you immediately regretted the words that came out of your mouth. Regardless, it was too late for you to back out. 

Patrick laughed nervously before asking, “what?”

“You just… you kinda told me you still have feelings for me, or whatever. I just think, maybe we should talk about it. Or at least talk about us.”

The man next to you paled at your words. Your regret for bringing the topic up immediately grew exponentially. 

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,” Patrick said, though he was lying through his teeth and both of you knew it. You wanted to approach this topic with civility and an open mind, but his blatant lie was making that a rather difficult task.

“Are you kidding? We’ve been tip-toeing around it this entire trip.”

“We’re broken up. You called off our wedding. I don’t think it gets any more straightforward than that,” he dismissed with a gross simplification of the state of your relationship.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. And even if it was, all I said was that I didn't think I was ready to get married. You put the final nail in the coffin when you told me you fell out of love with me. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to interpret you not being in love with me anymore when you still act the way that you act with me.”

You could tell the direction this conversation was going, your discussion quickly veering into argument territory as Patrick began to invade your space as he always did when you argued. 

“And how exactly do I act with you?” he challenged, though you were sure he knew exactly what you were talking about.  

“Do you want me to give you a list or something?” you asked, his anger becoming contagious.

“Sure, why not,” he said drily. 

“Fine. Let’s start with the cuddling, then. Please enlighten me, do you know any exes who spoon regularly? I mean, I certainly don’t. I don’t even touch my friends like that. So I don’t know what that really makes us. Or maybe how jealous you got when you saw me with someone else. I really can’t think of any sort of platonic explanation for that, and trust me, I’ve tried. And while we’re at it, I guess I should mention those showers. I respect the hell out of your faith in the thickness of these hotel walls, but I actually can hear you moaning my name while you’re in there. I’m honestly a little flattered, but I’m mostly confused.”

“Like you’re not doing the same,” Patrick scoffed. You knew him well enough to recognize that he was masking his true feelings with hostility, and though you wanted to engage in an actual conversation with him, you weren’t sure you would be able to take the high road in this conversation.

“Sure, but I’m not the one in denial of what’s going on here!”

“I’m not in denial. Have you ever considered that maybe I want to move on?”

“Do you, though?” you asked, pausing on the sidewalk.

“Clearly, I do,” he stopped right along with you, now really getting in your face.

“Clearly,” you repeated with a laugh. “Maybe you should start acting like it.”

“Maybe you should stop clinging to the past.”

His piercing gaze was unwavering as he waited to read your reaction. You knew how he liked to play this game, looking for an indication of any sort of weakness from you. You refused to give him that, though his words cut deep. 

“Okay,” you said calmly, though you were very much not feeling calm on the inside. “Well, thanks for letting me know how you really feel. Or how you think you feel. I don’t really know anymore. And I don’t think you know either.”

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

If you had known that telling Patrick that he drunkenly confessed to loving you would’ve broken the already very delicate relationship the two of you had built back up, you never would’ve said anything at all. As it turned out, having some of Patrick was better than not having him at all.

The contempt he now felt for you had become so strong that he didn’t even seem to be able to look at you. He sat next to a different person on the bus to Prague, not even sparing you a glance. When you arrived at the hotel, he made it a point to ask for separate rooms—something the two of you hadn’t done the entirety of your trip. As your tour began, he seemed to make a strong effort to separate himself from you, standing in the back of your group when you were in the front and vice versa. 

Usually, even after your worst arguments, you’d been able to find the time to talk out your feelings, but now it seemed like Patrick couldn’t even find it in himself to give you that.

You wanted to be mad at Patrick too. You were mad at him. But you missed him more than you were angry with him, and you yearned to be with him, no matter how crazy his constant antics drove you. 

Part of you felt frustrated that your relationship had become so cyclical since your breakup. You weren’t sure you could handle another cycle of fighting to the point of real anger, then making up with your relationship still a little more strained than it was in the past. You just wanted Patrick. Why did things have to be any more complicated than that? 

You desperately clung on to any bits of hope that your relationship might persist, coming out of this argument altered, but still existing. You snuck peeks at Patrick while you toured a beautiful castle and tried to bite your tongue until you stopped thinking of how badly you wanted to grab him and joke about his home looking like that castle. You wondered if he wanted to put your initials on a lock and put it on a bridge as much as you did. You wished you could ask him if he missed the warm body in bed beside him the way you did. 

But every time you looked at him, he was pointedly not looking at you. As your group paused on the bridge to allow couples the time to make their own locks, Patrick didn’t even spare a glance in your direction. You were sure that even if he did miss you in bed, or wherever else, he would never tell you about it. 

You didn’t want it to be over—but you couldn’t keep clinging to hope that it wasn’t. 

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Getting to view the breathtaking scenery of the Swiss Alps as you sat on a cable car had been a dream of yours for years. What wasn’t included in that dream was dodging the glare of your ex-fiancé as the two of you sat in silence on that very gondola. 

Unluckily for the two of you, you were stuck together for the afternoon. Private skiing lessons in the Swiss Alps sounded like a great, even romantic, idea while you were planning the trip, but it was far from romantic now. 

The two of you stood on opposite sides of your instructor, the tension between you so thick that in the midst of his safety spiel, he paused to ask if everything was okay between you. After a stilted reply of yes, your instructor looked at you both skeptically before carrying on. 

Seeing as Patrick was an athlete who spent his childhood school breaks in Aspen, he was pretty decent at skiing already. Far better than you, a novice who was moving a little bit like a giraffe standing on its feet for the first time. 

While it wasn’t your first time skiing—that had been on a family vacation you’d tagged along on with the Zweigs—you certainly were not experienced enough to be keeping up with Patrick, who had the experience and the ego to give even your instructor a run for his money. 

It was entertaining to watch him in his element, his competitive side coming out despite the fact there was no competition anywhere to be found. He was significantly faster than you wherever you went, and skied with a confidence that you doubted you would ever be able to exhibit. In the past, this behavior may have been slightly endearing to you, but right now, it was mostly a little annoying. 

You and your instructor stood above Patrick, watching him effortlessly glide down the mountain in front of you. If you weren’t so agitated, you might actually have been impressed. As if your instructor was actively reading your mind, he leaned over to say something to you. 

“I think he’s trying to impress you,” he said quietly, though the subject of your conversation was an entire slope away. 

You nearly choked on your own saliva at the observation. “No way.”

“What do you mean no way?” he laughed. “Trust me, I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve seen it all. Couples, crushes, friends, coworkers. I know posturing when I see it.”

“Trust me, he could care less.”

He looked at you with a doubting squint.  “Why don’t we go down there and ask him?”

“Absolutely not,” you laughed. The thought of asking Patrick anything after the interactions you’d had seemed absolutely ridiculous. At this point, you wouldn’t even ask him what time it was. 

“Sorry. Let me rephrase that. That was me telling you that it’s time for you to go down the slope.”

You looked downhill at where you needed to go, noting that it was far steeper than what you’d been practicing on leading up to this point. You had been looking for an excuse to stall going down it, but now that your instructor had said something about that, you couldn’t not go.

After taking a deep breath, you began to go down. Gaining a bit of speed, you also found yourself growing slightly more confident, closing your eyes and feeling the cold air press against your body. While you were enjoying your speed at first, it was quickly growing out of hand, and you began to panic as you realized just how fast you were going. Desperately trying to pull your skis into a V shape to slow down, you were horrified at the realization that you were far too late, and actively heading towards a cluster of trees. You didn’t know what to do other than to accept your fate, and everything had happened so fast anyway that you found yourself tumbling into a tree, a searing pain on your ankle and tailbone as you laid out on the rocky ground.

Everything felt like it was moving slowly and quickly at the same time. One second, you were alone in the snow, and the next, Patrick and your ski instructor were hovering over you, goggles on their foreheads as they looked at you with concern.

“Are you okay?” you were finally able to make out once the slight ringing in your ears had ceased. 

“Did you see how hard she crashed? Of course she isn’t fucking okay,” Patrick’s voice huffed, though slightly muffled from your helmet covering your ears.

“My ankle,” you said, as if that gave them enough context. You wondered if they could see the tears beginning to pool under your goggles. The pair looked at your limb, though with your snowsuit covering it, they really couldn’t see much. 

“Can you walk?” your instructor asked you. 

“I haven’t tried, but I’m gonna go with no.”

“We’re gonna have someone check you out. Don’t worry, they’ll be here soon,” your ski instructor told you. You blinked a few times and mustered all the strength you could to nod. 

The longer you sat, the more you began to realize how badly everything hurt. From your head down to your surely swollen ankle, you weren’t feeling too hot. You closed your eyes, suddenly feeling very exhausted. Maybe a quick little nap was exactly what you needed to feel a little better.

“Hey, don’t do that. You hit your head pretty hard when you fell, so you might have a concussion.”

“I don’t, I’m just tired,” you explained, though you didn’t know for a fact that it was true. In fact, with the pounding in your head, you more likely than not had a mild concussion. 

“Well, you kinda have to stay awake,” Patrick told you, though he surely knew it was easier said than done. You were surprised when you felt his gloved hand take yours and squeezed your hand softly. “Hey, why don’t you tell us a story?” he suggested, clearly just trying to keep you awake.

“Do you wanna hear the story about how he proposed to me?” you asked the instructor. You weren’t sure why that was the first thing to pop into your head, but it was a long enough story to keep you awake until help arrived. You wished your goggles were slightly less tinted, so you could at least see the scandalized expression Patrick was probably making. You loved when you made him react like that, since the roles were usually reversed. 

“Well, yeah. Of course,” your instructor responded with a hint of a laugh. “You guys are engaged?” he directed towards Patrick.

“This is our honeymoon,” you replied before Patrick had an opportunity to respond. You wished you could see the confused look that your instructor was surely making.

“So what happened?”

“When he proposed?” you asked to clarify. 

“...Sure.”

“Well, for a little context, Patrick here is a professional tennis player. He’s really good too. So given my athletic ability, as you got to see today, I never really played with him. Like, he would always ask me to just play a fun, quick little round and I would always tell him no. Mostly because I knew he would crush me. I did play a little bit back in the day, but I was nowhere near his level. I mostly preferred to be on the sideline while we dated. I mean, I came to every single one of his games. I’m pretty sure my office introduced remote work to us because of me, since I was traveling all the time to see him.

“Anyway, one day, after a day of buttering me up, and I mean, he was really laying it on thick. I don’t know how I didn’t think something was up,” you laughed as you recalled the day, how Patrick had scheduled a nail appointment for you, then wined and dined you during a very romantic midday picnic. “But he asked me to play a little bit of tennis with him. I think I just thought he spent the day buttering me up so that I would play tennis with him, not that I would agree to marry him, but I digress. 

“We get to the tennis court and Patrick’s nervous like I’ve never seen him. He was a little jittery all day, but this was a different beast. Looking back, I really don’t understand why. He should’ve known I was going to say yes. Anyway, we’re playing, and somehow I win, even though I’m extremely rusty and have absolutely awful form. Obviously I knew Patrick threw the match for me, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t gonna gloat at him. 

“So I’m doing my victory spiel and I walk over to his side of the court, where he’s digging in his bag. He’s so quiet, which should’ve been a sign that something was up, and I’m thinking he’s about to pull out more tennis balls and tell me we’re doing a rematch, so he can really crush me. Instead, he pulls out a box and gets down on one knee. He gives me a speech about how he didn’t care if he never won another game of tennis in his life, because as long as we were together, he was a winner. It was really sweet. Obviously I said yes.”

You finally looked over at Patrick, though you couldn’t perfectly read his expression through the darkened lens of your goggles. You wondered if he felt any of the same feelings that were currently simmering in your own chest. Though, you didn’t get to stew too long, as help arrived just as your story came to a close. 

You were taken to an infirmary and given a series of tests, some to see the state of your head and other to see how the rest of your body was doing. Surprisingly, you made it out without too much serious damage. Your ankle was sprained, but nothing that would make it take too long to heal. You had a concussion, which surprised you, given your ability to recall so many details earlier in the day, but it was a very mild one. At least you’d made it back into your hotel in one piece. 

You really just wanted to relax for the rest of the evening, and you had plans to do exactly that, when there was suddenly a soft rapping at your door. 

You got up, and with help from the crutches you were provided, you hobbled to the door and opened it. On the other side was Patrick, who you were both surprised and unsurprised to see. 

“Hey. I got your room number from the front desk,” Patrick told you. “Do you mind if I come in?”

“Sure, but I’m probably going to sleep soon,” with some effort, you sidestepped the doorway to let him in.

“Do you need anything? Want anything?” he asked as he made himself at home in your room, evaluating what you already had. 

“I’m good, I think.”

“How’re you feeling? They wouldn’t let me see you at the infirmary.”

“I’ve been better,” you shrugged, sitting down on the foot of your bed to take some pressure off of your aching ankle. 

“I bet. Are you icing that?” he asked, gesturing to your most obvious injury. 

“I haven’t been able to make it out to the ice machine,” you confessed, though the doctor had suggested ice for the inflammation. 

“Let me go grab some for you,” he said before disappearing out into the hallway. Once he left, you laid back in bed, letting out a sigh of relief at how much better being flat felt. 

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t like being taken care of this way. It seemed like no matter how bad things got between the two of you, you would always care for one another in some capacity. You wondered what had gone through Patrick’s mind when he saw you hurt yourself. You wondered if that changed anything in the way he felt about you. 

He knocked on the door once more to tell you he was back, though the door was already unlocked. 

“If there’s anything else you need, I mean anything at all, just call me. I’m just down the hall from you,” he told you as he bagged up the ice he retrieved. 

He sat down on the foot of the bed, where you’d previously been sitting, and tenderly set the bag of ice on your ankle, clearly not wanting to hurt you any more than you were already hurt. He looked at you a little sadly before standing back up, not wanting to linger in your presence too long. 

“I’ll let you get some sleep,” he explained, already turning to head towards the door. 

“Thanks, Patrick,” you paused, looking for any other words you had for him. “Good night.”

“Night.”

SOMEWHERE IN ITALY

The next few days in Switzerland had been extremely boring. Due to doctor’s orders, you mainly stayed in bed, avoiding screens by reading books, and looking out the window to view the mountains that you were currently missing. 

Although you had to miss a lot of the fun your tour was going on, like a cheese and chocolate tour, you somehow still received an anonymous delivery of cheeses and chocolates—though, you were pretty sure you knew who was responsible for that. 

Patrick didn’t seem like he wanted to overstep any boundaries, which you respected, though you really could’ve used some company whose ear you could talk off. Hell, you’d even take another nasty argument over the resounding silence of your room. 

Luckily for you, by the time your group was traveling once again, you were starting to feel slightly better, concussion and ankle-wise. Though, your head was starting to hurt from listening to a person at the front of the bus go on about how much they needed the bus to pull over somewhere. 

After a period of incessant complaining from someone on your bus, the vehicle finally came to a stop at a small rest stop in the middle of the Italian countryside. 

Not willing to pass up an opportunity to stretch your legs, you got off at the stop, briefly stopping inside the building to look at what they had to offer before stepping behind the building, watching the wind blow through the overgrown weeds. 

Your attempt at enjoying the quiet, idyllic countryside was disturbed when you were joined by a smoking companion. 

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he said. 

Before you could stop it, a sad smile appeared on your face. The two of you hadn’t spoken since your brief conversation in your hotel room, despite the mystery snack deliveries and the promise of coming if you called.

“I’ve been worried about you,” he said plainly.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” you dismissed. 

“You’ve spent the last few days all alone in a room with a concussion.”

“It’s mild.”

“You fucked up your ankle.”

“It’s healing. It’s not all that bad.”

“Well, I’ve been worried anyway,” he passed you his partially smoked cigarette and you took a drag from it, though you were sure that was one of the things you shouldn’t be doing with a concussion. 

“Thanks, I guess.” you said. “So is this just a wellness check, or…?”

“No, well, yes. Obviously I was worried about you physically, but I also was wondering about how you were in general.”

It was strange to see him clumsily mince his words, given how bold he usually was.

“Oh? What changed between here and Germany?”

“What changed? What changed was that I watched you almost die.”

You laughed aloud at his over dramatization of the event. “Patrick, I did not almost die.”

“How would I have known that? I just saw you flying downhill out of control and crashing and it terrified me. I couldn’t imagine a world without you in it.”

You weren’t sure how you were supposed to interpret his words, especially after the wild ride you’d been on throughout the trip. You weren’t sure you could handle another emotional bait and switch. 

“Pat, maybe we should talk about this later. The bus is probably taking off soon.”

“No,” he stopped you with a hand on your arm, calling you back with a desperation you hadn’t seen in him in a long time. “I don’t want to waste another second without you.”

“Okay,” you said, though you weren’t sure that you should buy into it yet. “Go ahead, then.”

“I can’t keep pretending that I don’t want you or don’t want to be with you,” he confessed, which genuinely took you by surprise. With the way he’d been dodging your attempts at building a connection, you certainly didn’t think he’d tell you something like that. 

“Then why have you been pretending?” you asked, hoping that your somewhat harsh words didn’t betray your genuine curiosity behind his behavior. 

“I don’t know,” he said. It was a terrible, unsatisfying answer. One that didn’t explain a single reason behind his behavior. “I guess I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that anyone would want to keep me around long-term.”

You looked at him with shock in your eyes, your mouth slightly agape at the confession. You couldn’t imagine Patrick, overconfident, bold, and self-assured, who you’d been dating for years, not feeling secure in your relationship–to the point where he’d been actively trying to push you away out of anticipating how you’d feel about him.

“When you told me you weren’t ready to be with me, it just confirmed everything I’d been worried about—that one day you would wake up next to me and realize that I wasn’t the guy you wanted. I guess it just happened sooner than I anticipated.”

You almost couldn’t believe what you were hearing. “If you felt like that, then why’d you tell me you weren’t in love with me anymore?”

“I thought if you were gonna leave me anyway, I might as well beat you to the punch.”

You were giving it your all to keep it together at this point, feeling slightly vindicated to know that Patrick was lying about no longer loving you, but mostly devastated that your whole relationship had been uprooted over an assumption that Patrick had made about you. 

“I… I don’t even know what to say,” you looked out into the grass, then back at Patrick. “I wish you’d stop assuming that you know what I want all the time.”

“Hey you two, last call for the coach,” your tour guide suddenly interrupted, looking very obviously annoyed that the two of you were holding the bus up. 

“Sorry. We’ll head back now,” you apologized to the guide. “We’ll continue this conversation later?” you directed towards Patrick. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. 

VENICE, ITALY

Putting a hold on your conversation probably wasn’t the wisest idea you’d ever had, considering that your next few days in Italy were set to be your busiest this far. 

Between gondola rides on different boats and exploring historic palaces, the two of you didn’t have much time to stop and have as serious of a talk as you wanted to have. Even if you did somehow manage to pick up where you’d left off, there were so many people around you that it didn’t even feel worth it. 

Luckily for you, your hotel had a private beach attached to it, and as you spent your evening by the beach, watching the sun go down, you were pleased to find that you were joined by familiar company. 

At first, Patrick didn’t say anything as he sat down on the same chair next to you. The two of you enjoyed the serene sunset and privacy that the beach afforded you in silence, though you were sure that things wouldn’t stay that way for long. 

“I love you, you know?” he finally piped up, breaking the silence with a very bold declaration. 

You looked at him calmly, though you weren’t feeling very calm on the inside. You’d been waiting to hear those words from him from the moment that the two of you broke up. You weren’t sure how you were supposed to react to it now, though the confession was better late than never. 

“I love you too. I never stopped,” you told him simply, as if the realization that you were stuck on him hadn’t been haunting you for months now.

“I never did, either. It was cruel of me to ever tell you that I did.”

You nodded in agreement, wondering if Patrick would ever understand the full extent of the damage his words had done to you. “It was, but I understand where you were coming from. If I had known that you didn’t think I was going to stick around, I would’ve gone about what I did differently,” you began to explain. “I think it came across as me not wanting to marry you at all. Of course I wanted to marry you. There was just so much else going on in my life then that the timing didn’t feel right.”

“But the timing might be right someday?” Patrick asked, a hopeful lilt in his voice. 

“The timing will be right someday. Maybe sooner than either of us know,” you shot him a wink, then broke into a grin as he pulled you into a firm, loving embrace. 

ATHENS, GREECE 

The rest of your time in Italy mainly consisted of making up for lost time, with the two of you partaking in far more PDA than what was ever necessary and thoroughly documenting your time abroad together as a couple. 

Thanks to your injury, you were slightly slower than the rest of your group. But that certainly didn’t stop Patrick from lagging along with you, letting you lean on him for support when you needed it and pausing to sit and take breaks with you whenever you noticed that walking was taking too much of a toll on you.

It was nice to be back with him, to not have to feel stupid for feeling what you felt or feel the pressure of knowing that you should probably be trying to move on. The only unfortunate part was how little time the two of you had left on vacation, with you heading home after spending a few days in Athens. If only the two of you had been upfront about your feelings earlier, then you could’ve been having as great of a time as you were having now during your entire trip. 

The two of you briefly floated the idea of having somewhat of a shotgun wedding, but scrapped it after realizing that you would prefer to have your family and friends there to celebrate with you. After all, many of them had been on the emotional rollercoaster that was your relationship right along with you. 

For the time being, the two of you were perfectly content with being together, and knowing that neither of you had any intentions of leaving. 

Somehow, that made your last few days of vacation feel infinitely better. 

ATHENS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

You scrolled endlessly on your phone, sending out a few messages to friends and family to let them know that you were heading back home. While you typically felt a few nerves before boarding a plane anywhere, you couldn’t help but feel a renewed sense of excitement, both at the thought of being able to go back home and sleep in your own bed, and at the potential your newly reformed relationship had. 

Your scrolling was interrupted by Patrick’s presence, carrying a coffee and a breakfast sandwich in his hands with a slightly goofy look on his face. 

“Sorry for taking so long. I think everyone and their mother wanted coffee today,” he explained as he sat down, passing you your items as he got comfortable next to you. 

“No worries. I’m just glad you were running late to grab us breakfast, instead of trying to switch our seats like last time.”

The two of you shared a laugh before Patrick said, “That feels like a lifetime ago.”

“It basically was,” you dismissed. 

Once it was announced that your group was boarding, the two of you stood up quickly, attempting to gather your bearings before getting on the plane. 

“‘Till next time, Europe,” you bid the country goodbye as the two of you made your way to the line. 

“Should we come back to Europe? I was thinking our next honeymoon should be somewhere else. Maybe Bali.”

“Oooh, Bali sounds nice. I think anywhere warm and with a beach is good,” you explained, though you really didn’t care where you went, as long as Patrick was there by your side.

[gyusrose]

➵ you’re so vain -> l.hs

⚠︎ smut (mdni)

✎ jock!heeseung x reader, enemies to ?????, heeseung is rlly annoying, hate sex ;), hair pulling, dirty talk, unprotected sex, degradation, backshots lmao. i think that’s it?

summary: attending a new school was supposed to be a fresh start for you, trying to be nice to everyone and have new friends, yet coming across lee heeseung threw all of that out the window.

(heeseung x fem.reader)

wc: 3.2k

your sweaty hands could not be gripping the steering wheel any harder. you wouldn’t call yourself “super shy” but when it comes to a whole new community of people, teenagers, hell yeah you are.

you had to move exactly at the middle of the year due to your mom’s work. they offered her double the salary at the other side of the city, who was she to say no to that? although you were going to miss your friends and the overall environment of your old home, you couldn’t just tell your mom ‘no’, either way her decisions are final.

you just got here two days ago, and to be honest, it wasn’t that bad. the worst thing so far is the fact that the nearest shopping center was 30 minutes away but you’ll live.

you didn’t except your first day of school to be so nerve-wracking. surely you’ll make some friends but who knows what people are like here. eventually, you saw the big navy blue sign with your school’s name on it. it was an averagely big school, bigger than your old one, which also meant more people.

the parking space alone was scary. it was huge yet already full even though it was still fairly early. you went around in circles around the parking lot, trying to find a vacant spot. fortunately you did at the second-to-last line.

as you tried to park, the limited space you had made it difficult to, having to back up and drive in constantly. as you reversed your car, you must have completely forgotten that you aren’t the only one there, feeling a small crash at the bumper of your car.

your eyes widened in panic. you looked back to see what you hit, and with your luck, it revealed at very nice black car, to which you’ve just hit. you tried to quickly get into your parking spot, hoping it was nothing serious, but then someone came walking up to you.

‘shit, that must be the owner’ you saw his red, rather handsome, fuming face.

you got out of your car to confront the first person interaction.

“hey look im so-“

“CANT YOU FUCKING DRIVE RIGHT? YOU HIT MY VERY EXPENSIVE CAR WITH YOUR THING, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

oh he was an asshole. you almost scoffed in his face. who does he think he is.

“it was accident that’s all, it was barely a scratch calm down man.”

“IT WAS DEFINITELY A SCRATCH LOOK AT IT! JUST BECAUSE YOU KEEP YOUR CAR LOOKING ALL MISERABLE DOESNT MEAN I WILL, DO YOU EVEN HAVE A LICENSE?”

lord take me back. you were so close to just leaving him there arguing with himself. but you didn’t want to make him even angrier.

“look im sorry! i can pay for the fix up if that’s what you want, i dont know what else to do?”

the boy scoffed and rolled his eyes at your statement.

“you think i don’t have the money for it? please, it shows you’re a newbie around here.”

“i didn’t mean it like that-“

“yo heeseung!! come on bro!” another blonde boy called from afar, hopefully ending the argument y’all were having.

“ watch your back new girl.” with one last glare, he left to join his group of friends.

you rolled your eyes. shiver my fucking timbers, you thought.

you took a deep breath before grabbing your backpack and making your way into school , hoping to never see his face ever again.

>>

you thought that was going to be the end of it all. but oh boy were you wrong. soon you found out that heeseung is the captain of the football team, and pretty much the most popular boy in school. as cliche as it sounds, every girl would drop their panties if he asked them to.

people know he’s not the nicest person ( an asshole) yet they still look up to him. that’s angered you. how are all these people so dumb? just because he’s kinda good-looking? seriously?

over the course of a few weeks, you’ve managed to make some friends, your closest taehyun and Isa. although you tried to block the negativity, heeseung made it really hard. always giving you snarky comments when he saw you around, ridiculing you in front of other people. somehow always finding a way to run into you despite not having any classes together. except gym.

“ bro open your eyes, catch the damn ball!” he yelled from across from you.

you hated sports. even less could you play one, but you gotta do it for the grade.

“the ball was too high up dummy!” you retorted, rolling your eyes for maybe the 100th time in the class period.

if you hated gym before, you definitely hated it more now.

as the period ended, you decided to take a quick shower in the locker rooms since you couldn’t handle being all sweaty and gross throughout the day.

heeseung finished changing and was outside the locker room with his friends, chatting, waiting for the bell to ring. that’s when he may have accidentally eavesdropped the conversation between your two friends, he could barely the names of.

“where’s _____?” taehyun asked isa, noticing how you weren’t with her.

“she’s taking a shower right now, she told us to not wait for her.” Isa shrugged before taehyun nodded.

a beautiful idea popped in heeseung’s brain. it was too good.

he excused himself and sneakily waited by the girl’s locker room, waiting for everyone to come out. once he only heard the shower you were using running, he quietly entered the room. the bell had rang about a minute ago, so the gym was empty, only you and him. the gym teacher god knows where.

he saw his target and rapidly grabbed the pile of clothes sitting on the bench, a smirk evident in his face.

suddenly the shower stopped running, making heeseung hurry and exit the locker room.

the shower felt too good, you think you spent more time that you anticipated to. as you exited the shower tiles, you looked around for your clothes, which you remember clearly leaving them in the bench closest to the shower. you looked around the whole locker room, hoping you were wrong and placed them elsewhere. unfortunately, you couldn’t even find your damn socks.

your biggest fear has come true. you’re now naked, nothing but a towel covering you, this was more than just humiliating. you felt sad, mad, angry, embarrassed all at once. they’ve been stolen for sure, and you were more than sure on who did it.

grabbing your phone you called Isa, to see if she could help you somehow. and she indeed did. bringing you some spare clothes she had. thankfully, you always bring extra underwear since situations like these could happen. you just had to wait for isa for the clothes, yet the five minutes she took felt like five hours. unfortunately, passing period is over, meaning some students are coming in the locker room to change.

many of them just straight up stared at you. giving you weird looks as to why you were pretty much naked in the middle of the locker room, but none had the guts to ask you.

you wished the ground would just swallow you whole. lee heeseung won’t hear the end of it.

“LEE HEESEUNG!” you yelled across the field. he and his friends were siting down eating lunch outside when you spotted him after trying to find him after the stunt he just pulled.

heeseung knew it was coming, giggling with his friends as they heard you yell his name once again. “ oh she’s about to scold me now .” heeseung scoffed but still got up and went over to you.

“yes ma’am?” he said with a smile, you wish you could slap off but you’re better than that.

“YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID DO YOU KNOW HOW EMBARRASSING THAT WAS?”

“i have no idea what you’re talking about..” heeseung tried acting innocent but failed as he just burst out laughing. you groaned, how on earth is that funny?

“cute panties by the way” he continued to laugh, not sparing a glance at your mad expression on your face.

“you’re such an ass, i hate your guts.” you said leaving him alone, laughing to himself.

“yo bro i think she actually got mad this time.” his friend, jake came over.

heeseung shrugged. “she’s so sensitive, it wasn’t even that bad.”

“i can’t believe he did that…” taehyun said as you told them both what had happened. Isa knew a little bit but not who did it.

“that’s fucked up, what’s he got against you so much?”

you shrugged. “i guess because i gave his car a little scratch, but i guess he took it to heart since he hasn’t stopped bothering me since. he’s a jerk.”

“finally someone who thinks the same as me!” taehyun said making you chuckle.

“then get back at him! you know the one thing that makes him who he is is that damn football.” Isa said.

you tried to be the bigger person this whole time, not paying much mind to his little remarks or pranks he pulls, biting back a little wouldn’t hurt right?

“you know what, you’re right.”

“lee heeseung, mrs. park wants to speak to you.” mr.jung said calling heeseung.

heeseung who was barely paying attention heard his name. his frowned at this. what on earth could she want to talk about with him? either way, he went to her classroom.

he entered the empty classroom to find his coach and mrs.park, waiting for him. what the fuck? heeseung was more confused now. maybe they were going to congratulate him for the good work this semester? his coach’s face said otherwise though.

“there you are, you may be wondering why you’re here..” mrs.park started. heeseung nodded, feeling uneasy.

“a student came forward, showing how you copied word for word her whole assignment, the one i assigned a week ago. i didn’t notice it at first but it’s very clear now, you may know how cheating is unacceptable in my class, i’ve decided to fail you in this assignment, plus you’ll be serving detention this whole week..” she turned to the coach.

heeseung’s heart started beating at a rapid pace, he’s never been caught cheating, and being failed on the assignment that was a big part of his grade, it means he’s most likely failing the class now. the rules for football stated that all players should be passing all of their classes if not, they’ll be dropped….

no no no, the lee heeseung can’t be dropped. he’s the captain! the star player!

“since you’re failing this class heeseung, i think you know what’s about to happe-“

“please coach! don’t kick me out, i’m the captain! what would the team do without me? i’ll get my grade up as soon as possible im-“

“calm down calm down, i’m not going to kick you out, it’s the middle of the season, but unfortunately you won’t be playing the next three games. if your grade is not up by then, then i will drop you. understood?” his coach stated earning a sharp nod by heeseung.

he’s glad he’s still on the team but what’s the point if he can’t play? he’s going to become a joke. the captain that’s a bench warmer. how stupid.

he left the classroom enraged. he knows exactly who did this.

“bro what? what do you mean you ain’t gonna play ?” riki said in disbelief at what his captain just said.

“some snitch told mrs.park that i cheated on the last assignment and coach suspended me for the next three games, and i got detention all week!” sunghoon unknowingly chuckled. heeseung looked at him with a glare.

“what? she got you good, what did you expect hee?” sunghoon kept laughing, making some of the others also laugh silently.

heeseung had nothing to say back, he just rolled his eyes. “tch, whatever.”

nevertheless, you were overjoyed seeing heeseung slouching on the bench. you couldn’t miss this once in a lifetime scenario. obviously you were the cause for it. heeseung asks Isa almost all the time for her notes or to straight up copy her. she willingly let you rat him out after what he did to you.

he can sense how all eyes were on him, but he just tried to block everyone out a focus on the game. he had a poker face on, but deep inside he was irritated . he saw how you were smirking and laughing with your two little friends. you knew what you were doing.

>>

“ahh look who it is, the benchwarmer! “ you said chuckling as you made your way to heeseung.

after the team (barely) won, jake threw an ‘after party’ at his house. even though you don’t normally go to these parties, especially from those boys, you felt like a party would do good with your marvellous mood. something about seeing heeseung’s frowny face made feel over the moon.

“seems like cat got your tongue now huh? dont have anything to say-“

in a blink of an eye you were pulled into a room, heeseung’s fingers wrapped around your neck, pulling your face closer to his.

“what the fuck? heeseung-“

“shut the fuck up.” his hoarse voice caught you off guard. he was actually really mad.

“you think what you did it’s fucking funny? huh? almost getting me kicked out ? “ you’ve never seen him this enraged before. making you almost scared, yet….kinda turned on? no, you hate him, snap out of it! you told yourself yet the wetness in between your legs became hard to ignore.

you didn’t respond. “fuck, you’re so annoying, i can’t fucking stand you. i hate you.” he saw lowly. fuck that was hot.

you spoke before thinking. “then show me.”

not needing to tell him twice, heeseung pulled you completely in. your lips met in a kiss that was anything but gentle, a fierce and consuming clash that spoke longing and raw need.

The kiss deepened, fueled by an unspoken urgency, their mouths exploring each other with a fervor that left y’all breathless. his grip on your neck becoming tighter.

“shit im gonna show you to fucking behave.” he said before pushing you into the bed forcefully. you may have discovered a new kink of yours. watching as he undressed himself and yourself rapidly. feeling his anger through every touch he gave you.

he rubbed through your folds before inserting two fingers aggressively. your body jolted at the sudden move.

“holy shit go softer dumbass.”

“aw you think i give a fuck? suck it up and take it since you think you’re all that.” his fingers pumped faster and faster making it hard for you to answer back to his stupid remarks.

“oh my god..” you tried to pull his hand away before you cum. not wanting to see you orgasm so easily yet.

“just fuck me already heeseung, or is your dick as tiny as your brain?”

heeseung looked darkly at you. that stupid mouth of yours can’t shut up will it?

he retracted his fingers put of you and took his boxers off. wanting nothing more than to prove you wrong.

shit. your eyes went wide at what stood in front of you. saying he was big was an understatement. it was like a zipper for your mouth. how was that thing going to fit inside of you?

“can’t say anything now, can you slut?” he pulled your legs down the mattress to have you at the perfect angle to ram into you.

heeseung ran his til over your folds, teasing his way in. making you aggrevated.

“just put it in for fucks sake!”

“tell me how bad you want it.” you shook your head, no way were you going to beg. no way.

“alright then, i guess im gonna go.” he said letting go of your waist, acting as if he was going to leave.

“okay okay! please fuck me, i want it so bad, i want your big cock so bad heeseung.” heeseung moaned at your words. he didn’t wait any longer and thrusted all of him in you.

you both moaned yet it was more painful for you. you’ve never had something so big inside you before.

“fuck yeah..” he said then grabbing your neck, slightly choking you. your hands went to his biceps, trying to find something to hold on to as the speed he was thrusting in became more hostile.

“fuck me harder, like the asshole you are.” you said in between breaths. heeseung took the challenge and thrusted violently. the skin slapping and wetness of your core could probably be heard in the party outside.

“of course a whore like you would like to be fucked like this.”

before you could respond he pulled out of you earning a desperate groan from you, but then your were flipped, now on all fours and before you knew it he was back in you again. gripping your hip with one hand while he pulled your hair on the other.

“such a tight pussy, you probably fantasized about this am i right?” he said in your ear. you shook your head through your moan.

“in your dreams lee, in your fucking dreams. fuck you.”

“i’m quite literally doing that.” chuckling, he let go of your hair and instead gripped your other hip, going in deeper, nudging your cervix literally driving you to an edge.

“fuck i’m cumming.” you cried out. never has an orgasm felt like this. heeseung was on edge as well, feeling you clench around his dick did it for him.

your climax rose over you, making you fall into the pillow while heeseung kept thrusting until his own organs came over him, pulling out and releasing his white ropes all over your back.

tiredly, he laid besides you in the strangers bed, not knowing what to say now.

you turned to him, smirking. “i think i may hate you even more now.”

[gothcsz]

Body Language | Pornstar!Javier Peña x Fem!Reader | Part 2 to this bad boy right here | ~8.2k wc | Series Masterlist | Explicit. Minors DNI.

Summary: Caught in a charged and unexpected moment with Javier Peña, you struggle between resisting his relentless seduction and giving in to the tension that has been building since the last shoot.

Tags: smut, oral (f receiving), fingering, no use of Y/N, reader is shorter than javier but other than that no physical descriptions, some dirty talk, semi-public sex (we're in an elevator this time around), reader really doesn't like javi, steve being steve, other shit i’m probably forgetting.

A/N: this was supposed to be a short lil thing but then my ass had to drag it out just a little because their dynamic is very fun to write 😭 he's like whyyy don't you like me and she's like how much time do you have? lmfao. this is dedicated to @auteurdelabre 🖤 #1 pornstar javi stan, i almost submitted this for your trope off but decided to save that honor for my other story! anyways, i hope you guys enjoy javier begging to eat you out 🥂 let me know what you think 🖤 mandatory mutual tags: @almostempty / @miss-oranje-disco-dancer

You sit in the cramped waiting room outside of Robbie’s office, the stale air clinging to your skin as you shift uncomfortably in the worn-out chair. The place is too quiet, save for the muffled sounds of the city outdoors.

You glance at the clock on the wall, anxiety creeping up your spine. You have a shift at the bar in an hour, and time is slipping through your fingers. The laundry, the groceries, the endless list of errands— it all piled up today, and now you’re cutting it too close.

But you need this check. It’s the only reason you’re here, tapping your foot in impatience. If you don’t get it today, the money won’t hit your account in time to cover rent, and you really don’t want another lecture from your landlord. It’s bad enough you’re already behind— no need to give him more ammunition to chew you out.

You sigh and lean back, eyes closing as you try to drown out the frustration swirling in your head. That’s when you hear the unmistakable ding of the elevator down the hall and turn your head to see who’s joining.

Your stomach drops and you sit up straight. No. Not now. The air feels heavier, thick with that familiar irritation, as the slow, deliberate sound of boots against the tile grows louder. 

Javier Peña.

Just the thought of him sends a hot wave through your being, a mix of irritation and something else you refuse to acknowledge. You don’t want to think about that last shoot, the one where things shifted. Where shit got weird. You behind the camera, filming as always, while he was balls deep in another woman, claiming you were on his mind.

“Bet you’d look just as pretty like this, nena.”

“Did you like what you saw? Like watching the way I fucked her but was thinking of you the whole time?”

It was like he’d stripped you bare with just a few words, leaving you more exposed than them in the midst of their carnal fucking. And the worst part? You’d been affected by it. Skin on fire, pussy wet. It also didn’t help that Steve had heard it too. The mic catching the flirting, the hitch of your breath getting stuck in your throat, clear as day.

He’d asked you about it later at Lucky’s, as promised, all smug and drinking that God-awful beer. But you’d brushed him off, hoping he’d drop it. Thankfully, he had— for the most part— but you could still feel his restlessness, wanting to stir the pot.

Now, Javier is here, of course, because the universe just loves to mess with you. You roll your eyes and cross your arms, leaning back against the chair in defiance. You refuse to look at him. You won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he gets under your skin. 

His footsteps stop just a few feet away, the weight of his presence impossible to ignore. You can feel him looking at you, feel the weight of his brown eyes like a physical thing as they rake over your body.

You keep your gaze glued to the wall, focusing on the ugly, generic painting hanging there like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.

“You gonna act like you don’t see me?” His voice is deep, smooth, and frustratingly cocky, just like always. 

You grit your teeth, biting back a response. You won’t give him an inch. Not again. This motherfucker will take a mile.

“Okay, so that’s what we’re doing.” Before you can react, he plops down beside you. You stiffen immediately, moving your crossed knees to the side, angling yourself away from him, as if the few inches of space will protect you from the onslaught of whatever the hell he’s about to say next.

He spreads his thighs wide, his posture screaming obnoxious confidence. You just barely catch a glimpse of his bulge pressing up against his left thigh and how the fuck does it look so big even when he’s soft? “You know,” he says, voice dripping with that lazy, arrogant drawl, “you’re the only woman that treats me like this, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”

You snort, the sound sharp and humorless. You still don’t bother looking at him.

Javier frowns, flitting his tongue across the top row of his teeth. “Is it because I came off too strong the first time we met? ‘Cause if that’s the case; then I’m sorry. Can’t help myself from flirting with pretty little things like you.”

You roll your eyes so hard, it’s a wonder they don’t fall out of their sockets. He doesn’t sound sincere at all.

Thing is, you didn’t mind the flirting. Even if he, like he’s so romantically put it, does flirt with pretty little things all the time; it did make you feel like just that. Pretty. It’s what came after that soured your Javier Peña experience.

He huffs, like a petulant child, frustrated by your silence. You don’t give him the satisfaction of even a glance. Instead, you shift in your seat, your mind racing, wondering what the hell is taking Robbie so damn long. He never works, barely lifts a finger unless there’s money or something else in it for him, and now, suddenly, he’s busy? Yeah, right. He’s probably in his office jerking it to one of his films, getting off on his own work. Typical.

You’re done waiting. With a sharp movement, you stand, startling Javier, though you still don’t give him the time of day. He’s used to women catering to his every whim, hanging on his every word. You aren’t going to be one of them. Not even if he did manage to get you all hot and bothered.

You stalk over to the door and knock harder than necessary. “I’m busy,” his voice grumbles through the wooden surface, and you resist the urge to scream.

“And I need my check. Just slide it under the door or something,” you snap, the urgency in your voice making it clear that you’re not in the mood to get fucked around with.

There’s a pause, followed by the sound of shuffling papers before the door cracks open just enough for Robbie to stick his hand out, an envelope clutched between his fingers. He practically shoves it into your hand before slamming the door shut again.

You stand there for a moment, staring at the envelope with your name scrawled across the front. Surrounded by imbeciles. Just one shift to get through tonight, and then maybe, just maybe, you can get some peace. Enjoy the first weekend off you’ve had in months.

Now that you have what you came for, you spin on your heel and stride down the hallway, ignoring the handsome pornstar still lounging in the chair behind you. From your peripheral, you can see him sitting there, skinny jean clad legs spread, looking all annoyingly sexy without even trying. It would be so much easier if he were ugly— or literally anyone else. But no, it’s Javier fucking Peña, with his ridiculous good looks and that cocky smirk that could probably charm the panties off half the city if he wanted to (it probably has, to be honest).

You mentally map out the next hour: hit the bank, dash home to change, then off to work. You could walk to the bank, maybe catch a taxi home if you’re lucky. But with traffic in this city, luck isn’t really on your side. You start considering your options— do you skip changing and just head to work as you are? Would your other boss even care if you showed up a little underdressed? You’re so lost in your thoughts, focused on cutting corners to save time, that you don’t hear the quiet footsteps behind you.

It’s not until the elevator dings and you step inside that you realize you’re not alone. Javier’s slipped in just before the doors close, sliding smoothly into the cramped space beside you. The sudden proximity makes your heart do this stupid little jump, and you curse yourself for it. You’re trapped now— stuck way too close to him in the tiny metal box.

The air feels charged, his presence impossible to ignore yet again. The smell of his aftershave hits you first— spicy, with a hint of something woodsy, layered under the scent of his leather jacket and the faint, lingering whiff of cigarette smoke. He tries to drown it out with minty gum, but it’s still there, clinging to him like an old habit. And damn it, your knees go a little weak, despite your best efforts to stay cool.

The height difference between you is glaringly obvious now. You’re eye level with the habitually open portion of his cream colored shirt, the buttons undone just enough to give a peek at his brown chest. It’s frustrating how effortlessly he pulls off the whole rugged look— like he doesn’t even try, but somehow manages to look better than most men who spend hours on it.

You swallow hard, trying to focus on anything but the fact that you can smell him, that you can feel the heat radiating off his body in the tight space. He’s just too close, and the damn elevator isn’t moving fast enough. You’ve got a million things to worry about right now—rent, work, your life— and the last thing you need is to be distracted by him.

But, like always, he’s right there, invading your space, making it impossible to think of anything else.

“What the fuck do you want?” You snap, breaking your vow of silence. You frown up at him, irritation bubbling just beneath the surface as you cross your arms defensively over your chest— a bad move, you realize too late, as the motion only pushes your braless tits together beneath the thin fabric of your tank top.

Predictably, his eyes drop immediately. You curse yourself for not wearing something more substantial. It’s not like I was planning to run into him today, you think to yourself.

“To understand why you hate me so much,” Javier says, his voice low, carrying that annoyingly casual tone, as if this whole conversation is nothing more than a mild inconvenience to him.

Your brows knit together, and a dry laugh slips from your lips before you can stop it. “Well, for starters,” you bite out, “you can’t even look me in the eyes when you ask.” 

His gaze snaps up so fast it’s almost comical, his dark eyes locking with yours, defiance flaring there. But there’s something else too— something that makes the air between you even more tense. You hold his stare, daring him to say something, to make this worse for himself. His expression tightens, but you continue before he has a chance to speak. “And I don’t hate you. I just don’t like you. You annoy the shit out of me.” 

He flinches, just barely, but you catch it. The smallest chink in his armor. You reach around him, your hand brushing against his side as you press the button for the main floor. The contact sends a ripple of awareness through you that you try to ignore. You don’t have time for this— for him.

Javier scowls, his mouth pulling into a frown that mirrors yours, and before you can react, he half-turns and punches a button for a different floor, effectively canceling your request. The elevator jolts, shifting direction. 

You groan audibly, exasperation washing over you. “And here you are, proving my point,” you mutter under your breath. Every second you waste in this shitty elevator with him is another second closer to being late for work. Another second closer to not getting everything done that you needed to today. He’s not just in your way—he’s deliberately in your way, and the worst part is, he knows it.

“You don’t like me,” he counters, turning back to face you fully, his tone edging into frustration, “but you never even gave me a chance.” His jaw is set now, his eyes searching yours as if he’s waiting for you to crack, to admit that there’s more to it than just annoyance. Like he wants you to say it’s something else, something deeper.

If you had the luxury of time, you’d lay it all out for him, explain in excruciating detail just why you’ve avoided giving him that chance. How his arrogance grates on you. How his charm, though admittedly effective, feels hollow. How the way he flirts isn’t even the problem—it’s the way he looks at you, like he knows something about you that you don’t want to admit.

But you don’t have that kind of time.

You pinch the bridge of your nose, taking a deep breath in a vain attempt to steady your nerves. “As fun as it’d be to stand here and explain this shit to you like a child,” you say, your voice tight, “I have important things to do, and you’re keeping me from them.” You jab the elevator button again, hoping the damn thing will just go where you need it to without another unnecessary detour, but you already know it’s a losing battle. 

Javier shifts closer, just slightly, his presence looming. You can smell that damn aftershave again, all spice and leather and smoke, and it only pisses you off more because your body reacts to it before your brain can stop it. You feel your resolve slipping, just a little. His eyes are on you, unwavering, intense in a way that makes you want to both slap him and pull him closer at the same time.

“I’m not trying to keep you from anything,” he replies, softer now, the edge in his voice gone. His tone is almost... apologetic? No. It can’t be. Javier Peña doesn’t apologize. At least not in any way that feels real.

You don’t even bother responding, just stare at the numbers above the door, willing them to move faster. The sooner you’re out of here, the better.

“Just—fuck, give me something. Anything,” he growls, frustrated as all hell. His eyes are wild, and you can see the cracks in his usual suave demeanor, like he’s barely holding it together. “Ever since that last shoot, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head, and I don’t know why. You think you’re exasperated? How the fuck do you think I’m feeling over here?”

You raise a brow, leaning into your disdain as you pout at him mockingly. “Oh, boohoo. Cry me a river. A girl doesn’t like me back, wahh.” You mimic the sound of a crying baby, bringing your fists up to rub against your cheeks in the most exaggerated way possible. Then you drop the act, face deadpanning. 

His eyes narrow, and you think you’ve finally hit a nerve. Good. Let him stew in it. But instead of backing down, he does something you don’t expect— he turns, reaches out, and slams his palm against the emergency stop button. The elevator lurches to a sudden halt, the hum of motion disappearing as the car freezes between floors.

Your eyes widen, a sharp spike of adrenaline shooting through you as the reality of the situation sets in. “What the hell, Javier?” You’re about to cuss him out, to let him know exactly what kind of shit he’s just gotten himself into, but before the words can leave your mouth, he takes two long, purposeful steps toward you.

Instinctively, you move back, the sudden intensity in his eyes sending warning signals through your brain. But there’s nowhere to go. You can’t escape the tight confines of the elevator, your back is pressed up against the cold metal railing. You swallow hard, your heart hammering against your ribs as his broad body looms over yours, trapping you in a way that leaves you feeling both furious and breathless.

He’s too close. His chest brushes against yours, and you can feel his gaze as it drags over your face, down your neck, and lower still, lingering in a way that makes your skin prickle.

Any insult you were ready to hurl at him gets stuck in your throat. You hate how your pulse quickens, how your breath catches. You can feel every inch of him— solid muscle, tense with whatever storm is brewing behind those dark eyes. 

For a brief, dizzying moment, you forget to be mad. You forget that you’re supposed to dislike him, that he’s the last person you should let get under your skin like this but somehow is the only one who’s able to. All you can focus on is the way his breath fans across your cheek, the way the small space between you crackles with tension, like a wire pulled too tight.

“You think this is some kind of joke?” he murmurs, his voice low and rough, making your pussy tingle in ways you wish it didn’t. “You think it’s easy for me to just... shrug it off? Because it’s not. Not when I keep thinking about you, and I don’t even fucking understand why.”

There’s something raw in his voice, something that catches you off guard, making you pause to wonder if this really isn’t a game to him.

But you can’t let him see that. You can’t let him know how much he’s getting to you (even though he’s more than aware). So instead, you tilt your chin up defiantly, forcing your voice to stay steady. “And stopping the elevator? Trapping me in here with you? That’s your brilliant solution?”

“No,” he breathes, voice dropping to a near whisper as his face inches closer to yours. “But it’s the only way I could get you to stop running from me.” 

You hate how your stomach flips at his words. Hate how much you’re fighting against the instinct to lean into him instead of shoving him away. Every part of your body is screaming at you to tell him to fuck off and leave you the hell alone.

“Do you know what I think it is?” The words come out in a low, dangerous drawl, the kind that seems to wrap around your throat and squeeze. He leans in, crowding your space, eyes boring into you with an intensity that has your pulse skyrocketing. “I think you’re too fucking stubborn to let yourself have any fun. The idea of me fucking you is enticing, isn’t it?” His lips curl into a smirk, the kind that drips with arrogance and dark promises. “Could see it written all over your face that night at the hotel. That look in your eye while I was fucking Lexxie.”

His accusations slam into you, pulling up the exact moment you’ve been trying to bury. It should have been a professional gig, routine even, nothing personal… except that wasn’t the case. Not with the way he looked at you the entire time, his eyes locked on yours, daring you to react.

And, fuck, you had reacted. You felt the heat rise in your face, the way your body betrayed you as you stood behind the camera, mouth salivating, thighs pressing together.

“Javier…” You push at his chest, your hand meeting the hard wall of muscle beneath his shirt. The intent is to shove him back, to create some space between you. But the second your palm makes contact, it’s like the air shifts, and instead of moving him, it’s like you’ve anchored yourself to him.

Goddamn him. Goddamn you for your spineless ass, for not being able to follow through on resisting the temptation that he is.

He smirks wider, clearly reading the war going on behind your eyes. “You were shaking,” he continues, his voice a dark whisper that coils around your insides. “Damn near moaning while you watched me go down on her. Rubbing those thighs together while this pretty ass was in my face as she was sucking my cock.” 

His large hand snakes around you, catching you off guard, fingers gripping a handful of your ass and pulling you closer. Your body collides with his, and that’s when you feel it— his erection, hard and insistent, pressing into your stomach. The heat between you flares up to unbearable levels, and you can’t help the small gasp that escapes your lips. His touch sends a jolt of electricity through you, every nerve ending in your body on high alert, buzzing with want.

“You’re delusional,” it’s breathless but you’re still determined to keep some semblance of control. You squirm in his grip, your body betraying your words, the friction making your mind tilt. “You just can’t stand the fact that, for once, a woman isn’t throwing herself at you. That I’m not kissing the ground you walk on or falling to my knees, ready to suck you off.”

His hold tightens briefly, pulling you even closer, and for a second, you wonder if you’ll be able to break free at all. It’s damn near impossible to ignore the ache building between your thighs at this point. But somehow, you manage to slip out of his grip, your body twisting away from his until you’ve backed yourself into the far corner of the elevator. 

You can’t breathe. Not properly, anyway. You’ve never felt so on edge, so exposed in such a small space. Every fiber of your being screams at you to keep your distance, to reassert control of the situation, but there’s a part of you— dangerous and impulsive— that wants to step right back into his arms.

Javier doesn’t move, but his eyes stay glued to you, watching your every movement like a predator stalking its prey. The elevator is still locked in place, a silent reminder that you’re trapped here with him until one of you decides to relent. His jaw clenches, and you think he’s going to say something cutting, something to tear you down. But instead, he surprises you.

“You’re right.” His voice is rough, but it carries a weight that’s different from the cocky arrogance he usually hides behind. “I can’t stand it.”

His words hang in the air between you, heavier than you expected. There’s no smirk this time, no sarcastic bite. Just honesty, and it’s a fucking curveball.

You weren’t prepared for him to actually admit it. For once, he’s not trying to fuck with you, not trying to win.

And somehow, that makes it worse.

You swallow hard, the weight of his confession making your heart leap out of your chest.

You don’t know what to say, so instead, you just stand there, staring at him, your body buzzing with a cocktail of adrenaline, lust, and confusion. Because as much as you want to dislike him, as much as you need to dislike him for your own sanity, you can’t deny the way your pussy responds to him. The way your mind keeps pulling you back to that night, to the way he made you feel without even touching you.

“Get over it,” you snap, cutting him off before he can sink any deeper into this conversation. You don’t need to entertain this further. It can’t happen, and it will never happen. The second you fall into bed with him, it’ll be game over. Javier Peña isn’t just a casual fuck— you know deep down he’d be the kind that wraps himself around your soul and doesn’t let go until he’s consumed every inch of you. 

The problem is, you’re terrified that you’ll let him. It’s why you’re so dead set on not giving in.

You cross your arms over your chest again, as if trying to shield yourself from the strength in his eyes, the way he seems to reach into your very core with just a look.

You try to focus on anything else— on the fact that you still need to get to the bank, then to your apartment, and finally to your bar shift. You don’t have time for this shit, for the endless back-and-forth with him.

But then he says your name.

The sound of it on his lips makes you close your eyes, every muscle in your body tensing. Damn him. It sounds so fucking sweet, almost reverent, and you know if you make the mistake of looking at him right now— if you see those beautiful, pleading brown eyes— you’ll fold.

He says your name again, softer this time, and the way his voice wraps around each syllable has your resolve teetering on the edge of collapse. “Please, just let me show you how good I can make you feel,” he murmurs, stepping closer, his breath fanning across your cheek. “Just one taste, nena, por favor.” 

And for the first time since you met Javier— he’s begging. You never imagined that he, of all people, would beg for anything. But here he is, his voice low and thick with desire, pleading with you to give him just one chance.

You blink your eyes open slowly, trying to process the whirlwind of emotions that have been ignited by his words. The synapses in your brain light up like fucking fireworks, each one triggering a new thought, a new possibility. There’s a moment— a split second— where you picture it.

You imagine his hands on your body, his lips trailing fire down your skin, his mouth between your legs. The image flashes so vividly, so intensely in your mind, that it steals the breath from your lungs. 

You can practically feel the way he’d elicit things you’ve been trying to suppress. Your legs go weak just thinking about it, and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to ground yourself, to remember who you are, what this is. 

But your cavewoman, horny brain betrays you— racing ahead, picturing every possible outcome. You can’t help but wonder how good it would feel to let him in, just once. How it would be to let him take control, to let him show you, like he’s promising, just how good he can make you feel. 

You’re already late getting to the bank. You should be focusing on that, on getting out of this damn elevator and away from him, but your body won’t cooperate. Every part of you is ablaze, screaming at you to just give in.

Javier’s standing there, staring at you with those chocolate eyes, his dark brows drawn together, pouty lips parted just slightly as he waits for you to say something. Anything. He’s laid it all out in front of you, leaving you to make the next move. And fuck, as much as you hate to admit it, you want to. You want to let him pull you into his world, even though you know it’ll consume you. You want to feel his hands on your skin, his mouth everywhere, his name slipping from your lips.

But you can’t. 

If you give in now, you’ll never be able to walk away from him, and you can’t afford to let yourself get tangled up in Javier Peña. He’s chaos wrapped in temptation, and once you let him in, there’s no turning back.

You swallow hard, your throat tight as you try to hold on to the last shred of control you have. “Javier,” you whisper, barely able to get the words out. You feel like you’re on the edge of a cliff, teetering between desire and self-preservation. The weight of his gaze presses down on you, and for a moment, you think you might just jump.

But then, with every ounce of willpower you have left, you take a shaky breath, shaking your head and breaking the spell he’s woven around you.

“No,” you say, the word barely above a whisper, but firm enough to anchor you back to reality.

His face falls, the fire in his eyes dimming just a little. You almost regret it, almost, but then you remember who he is. What he does. And you know you made the right choice, even if every part of you is berating otherwise.

You stand there, locked in a silent standoff, both of you doing a piss poor job of pretending like you don’t want to tear each other’s clothes off right here in the elevator. 

You’re hoping—no, praying— that he’ll finally let it go. That he’ll stop pushing, stop testing your resolve, and just leave you alone. You’re begging for him to go back to what he does best, to leave you to your job— both of them.

You break eye contact first, glancing down at your watch. You’re definitely not going to make it to your shift on time. Shit. You need to phone your boss and give him a heads up before this gets even worse. But right now, you can’t seem to focus, not with Javier standing there like a Roman statue, immovable and perfect, watching you with that infuriating intensity.

“Now, if you can get the elevator to take us down, I’d really appreciate it,” you say, but the words come out softer than you intended. You hate how small your voice sounds, like you’ve already lost the upper hand, and you mentally slap yourself for it. 

But he doesn’t budge. He just stands there, watching you like you’re the most fascinating thing in the world, and it makes you want to scream. His gaze is piercing, boring holes into your entire existence, and it’s taking everything you have not to crumble beneath it.

“Do you really mean that?” He asks as he brings a hand up to smooth down his mustache. There’s a hint of a smirk at the corner of his lips, like he already knows the answer. “Because everything about your body language is screaming otherwise.” 

When the fuck did he get so close again? He’s right there, towering over you, and suddenly the air between you feels impossibly thin.

“It’s my fuckin’ job to read a woman’s body,” he continues, his voice growing huskier with each word. “And you know what yours is telling me right now?”

Your pulse quickens, your heart slamming against your ribcage, and you can’t find the words to respond. You don’t trust yourself to speak— not when his presence is drowning you in your own body. 

He leans in, lips so close to your ear that his breath almost has you fainting. “It’s telling me that you want it.”

Your stomach flips, every nerve ending in your body coming alive as his curved nose barely grazes your skin. The touch is featherlight, but it sends electricity straight to your cunt. You grip the railing behind you like a lifeline, your knuckles flushed as goosebumps ripple across your skin. 

Javier’s smirk deepens, the asshole clearly enjoying the effect he’s having on you. “Stop fighting it, pretty girl,” he murmurs, his voice like velvet, his hand sliding down the length of your figure in a way that feels too natural, too right. “Let me show you how good I can make you feel…”

You should stop him. You should. But you don’t. You can’t. His hands are on you now, moving with a confidence that’s impossible to resist. One large hand finds its way to your tit, groping it gently through the thin fabric of your tank top, and you gasp, the sound escaping your lips before you can stop it. Your body fails you, head falling back against the elevator wall, your chest arching into his touch. 

The way his hand moves, so sure, so practiced, has your resistance crumbling, piece by piece. 

“That’s it,” he whispers, his lips brushing against your neck, peppering soft, teasing kisses along your sensitive skin. “Barely done a thing and you’re already gone.” 

Your mind is spinning, your resolve completely undone as you melt under his touch. Every kiss, every graze of his lips against your neck feels like it’s unraveling the last bit of control you have. His body is pressed up against yours, and you can feel his erection through his jeans again, the hard (pun intended) evidence of just how much he wants you.

God help you, it feels too good to resist.

You sigh, a low, breathy sound that’s equal parts surrender and relief. His lips trail lower, his hand still groping your breast, and you let him. You let him because you’ve been fighting this for too long, and right now, you just want to feel something. 

Javier grins against your neck, his breath hot on your skin as he pulls you even closer, his voice hoarse in your ear. “Told you,” he says, his tone dripping with satisfaction. “I knew you wanted this.”

You don’t respond. There’s nothing left to say. You’ve given in, you’ll figure out how to pick up the pieces later, but right now? Right now, you’re letting yourself fall apart.

It’s like your whole body just deflates against his, sinking into the solid warmth of him as if all the fight has finally drained out of you. You’re giving him the green light, and he knows it. The grunt that escapes his throat is guttural, and you feel the weight of his palm pressing harder against your chest, his thumb and pointer finger expertly pinching your now hardened nipple through the fabric of your tank top.

“After this,” he murmurs, voice rough with restraint, “if you don’t want me anymore, I’ll leave you alone.” His words are punctuated by a sharp tug at your nipple that sends a surge of arousal straight between your legs. Then his hand moves, sliding up to cradle your jaw with a surprising gentleness. He tilts your head so that your eyes meet his, forcing you to look at him— forcing you to really see him. “You have my word.”

You search his eyes, not entirely sure what you’re looking for— honesty, maybe? A hint of something real beyond the heat of the moment? Whatever it is, you can’t find the words to respond, so you just nod weakly, your breath bated. 

Javier smiles at that, a slow, predatory grin, and he leans in as if to kiss you. But you stop him, your hand pressing against his sternum with just enough force to halt him in his tracks.

“No kissing,” you say, your voice more resolute than you feel. “You said one taste, so get to it.” You’re setting boundaries, trying to keep some semblance of control in this situation. No kissing, no fucking— just head. That’s all this will be. He’ll get a taste of you, and you’ll finally get a taste of what all the hype is about. Then it’ll be over, and you’ll go your separate ways. That’s the deal.

His frown deepens, a flicker of disappointment crossing his features, like he’s not used to anyone telling him no in any capacity. But it’s brief, because he’s not about to take the proverbial bone you’ve thrown him for granted. He agrees in his own way, pivoting without protest, his mouth returning to your neck like he’s already forgotten the attempt to kiss you.

Now that the rules are clear, you allow yourself to let your guard down— just a little. It’s not like your sex life has been riveting lately, and truth be told, you can’t even remember the last time a partner went down on you willingly. At least you’re getting something out of this fucked-up little arrangement, and for now, that’s enough. 

He kisses and licks a line down your throat, his stubble scraping deliciously against the sensitive flesh. You sigh, your breath hitching as you feel his hands roaming your body with a confidence that should piss you off but doesn’t. 

His rough palms map out your curves like he’s trying to commit every inch of you to memory. He’s groping, squeezing, learning you in a way that makes you feel like you’re his personal discovery. 

The warmth of his breath, the skill in his movements— it’s intoxicating. You can’t help but respond, your hips shifting, your body bending instinctively toward him when one hand slides up under your shirt, fingertips brushing the underside of your breast.

He’s good at this, you’ll give him that. Too damn good. It’s almost like he’s a fucking pornstar.

You hate that you’re enjoying it so much, hate that you’re already melting under his touch like some lovesick fool.

“Don’t overthink it,” he murmurs against your skin, feeling the nerves radiating off of you. 

His touch lingers as he reaches the button on your denim shorts, undoing it with a flick of his fingers before pulling down the zipper, slow and deliberate.

“You and these damn shorts…” you hear him say, more to himself than to you. His voice is gruff, frustrated, like he’s been waging a silent battle against his own restraint. He hooks his fingers into the waistband and tugs them down over your hips, watching as the fabric slides off your skin. You step out of them, standing there in nothing but your underwear, top and sneakers, exposed in ways you hadn’t intended to be when you walked into that office earlier today.

His brows shoot up, and you feel the heat rush to your cheeks. Of course, it’s laundry day. Of course, you’re left wearing your least practical pair of underwear— this skimpy, lacy purple number you hardly ever break out. The delicate string disappears between the cheeks of your ass, and the sheer front does little to conceal the soft tuft of hair just below your navel. 

And he’s drinking it all in.

“Fuckin’ hell, nena,” he breathes, his voice filled with a mixture of awe and lust. His eyes flick back up to yours, dark and hungry. “You always walkin’ around like this?” His hands grip your hips, and before you can even formulate a response, he’s sinking to his knees in front of you, taking his sweet ass time, like this is some kind of worship.

“No, I—” Your voice is breathy, your heartbeat pounding in your ears. “I had to do laundry today…” It’s all you can manage, barely coherent as his lips begin pressing soft, teasing kisses to the inside of your knee.

He throws one of your legs over his shoulder, steadying you, his fingers gripping your thigh with enough pressure to leave you keening. You brace yourself against the elevator railing, your body tense with anticipation, your mind a chaotic swirl of logic and lust. You barely notice as the check you came here for flutters to the floor beside you, forgotten.

Don’t forget to deposit that, the reasonable part of your brain chimes in, but you tell that bitch to shut up because Javier Peña is currently on his knees in font of you, about to take you on the ride of your fucking life, and you’re nowhere near strapped in.

His head is tilted up, lips brushing dangerously close to where you want him most, and all rational thought is slipping through your fingers like sand.

He looks up at you then, his dark eyes glinting with something wicked, and your breath catches again. You don’t know how to feel about any of this anymore. There’s a line you swore you wouldn’t cross, but now that he’s right there, so close to giving you what you’ve craved for longer than you care to admit, it’s hard to remember why you drew that line in the first place.

Javier’s lips graze the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and a quiet moan escapes your lips before you can stop it. He smirks against your skin, his fingers tracing a slow path up your leg, sending shivers coursing through you. “Relax, bonita,” he murmurs, voice thick with desire. “I’ll take care of you.”

You want to tell him to hurry up, to stop teasing, but all that comes out is a shaky exhale as his hands part your thighs wider, positioning you exactly how he wants you. His grip is firm, possessive, and for a moment, you wonder if you’ll survive whatever it is he’s about to do to you.

You don’t even have time to dwell on the thought before his mouth is on you, lips pressing a lingering kiss over the thin fabric of your panties. The sudden pressure sends a shockwave through your body, and your eyes fall closed, surrendering to the moment. His tongue teases the fabric, nudging against your already soaked cunt, and you can feel the wetness seeping through the lace. He hums low in his throat, savoring the first taste of you.

“These are so pretty. Don’t think I’ll take ’em off.”

He hooks his fingers into the delicate fabric and pulls it aside, exposing you to him completely. The cool air hits your slick folds, a contrast to the heat of his breath as he hovers just inches away. He’s staring, taking you in, and when he curses under his breath, it’s like he’s caught off guard by how badly he wants this. Wants you.

“Fuck,” he mutters, as he drags his nose up and down the length of your wet slit. The touch is maddeningly light, just enough to make you clench involuntarily, your body reacting without permission. More of your slick leaks out of your pussy, a response to the subtle stimulation, and you grip the elevator railing tighter to keep yourself from falling with how weak your knees get.

Javier flattens his tongue, delivering a slow, deliberate lick from your entrance to your clit, and it’s like your entire body ignites at once. You throw your head back, a ragged cry of his name ripping from your throat as your hips buck instinctively, searching for more of him, more of that friction that feels like pure electricity.

He’s not done, though. Not even close. One hand snakes around your thighs, strong and sure. His middle and pointer fingers spread you open, forming an upside-down V, and then he does something so filthy, so perfectly Javier— he spits directly onto your exposed pussy.

The sound alone could get you off, but the sensation is something else entirely. His saliva mixes with your slick, making everything wetter, hotter, and you feel like you’re unraveling before he’s even truly begun. A series of high-pitched moans spill from your lips as he latches his mouth onto your cunt, sucking and licking with a precision that has your entire being quaking.

Lips, tongue, teeth—he’s using everything he has, dragging you deeper into a haze of pleasure where nothing exists but the heat coiling in your belly, tightening with every flick. He’s devouring you, utterly relentless, and it’s too much but not enough, all at once. Every nerve ending is on fire, your thighs trembling as you fight to keep your balance. His grip on your leg tightens, keeping you locked in place, helpless to do anything but take what he’s giving.

“Fuck, baby,” he groans, pulling back for just a moment, leaning his cheek against your inner thigh. His face is glistening, covered in your arousal, but his eyes are dark and hungry, never straying from your face. “With noises like that and a pussy this pretty— you’d be a fucking sight on camera.”

His words send another jolt through you, dirty and wrong and so fucking hot that you nearly forget how to breathe. He nips at the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, leaving faint marks in his wake, before diving back in with that skilled tongue of his. He’s a man with something to prove, alternating between broad strokes and tight circles, zeroing in on your fleshy clit with a precision that makes your head spin.

It’s obscene, the way he’s working you over, all these years spent perfecting this art, but there’s a rawness to it too, a desperation like he can’t get enough of you. You’re soaked, dripping onto his face, and he laps it up like a man starved, the sounds of his mouth slurping against your wetness filling the small space around you. Your moans are louder now, more desperate, each one pushing you closer to that edge where you’re not sure if you’ll survive the fall.

His fingers tighten on your thigh again, and then he’s dragging them lower, inching toward your entrance as his tongue flicks mercilessly against your clit. When he slips two fingers inside you, curling them just right, you nearly scream. The combination of his mouth and his fingers is enough to send you spiraling, your legs trembling uncontrollably as you arch into him.

“So fuckin’ tight,” he grunts when he pulls away to get a good look at your beautiful face and how you look when he’s making you feel like you’re on top of the world. It’s enough to get him to latch onto your clit, sucking on it harshly.

“God, Javier,” you gasp, your voice shaky, barely coherent. You can’t think, can’t form any rational thought, not with the way he’s pulling you apart, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but the pleasure.

“Let go,” he growls against you, the vibrations of his voice sending shockwaves through your core. “I’ve got you, nena. Just let go.” 

And with that, the dam breaks. You’re coming hard, hips jerking wildly as waves of pleasure crash over you, your entire body shaking with the force of it. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t let up for a second, working you through it with that relentless mouth until you’re gasping for air, hands clenching at the railing so hard you’re surprised it hasn’t snapped. 

Your vision blurs, your mind goes blank, and all you can do is hold on as Javier takes you on the ride of your life, just like you knew he would.

You don’t know how long it takes you to come back into your body after letting him take the reins for a little. You’re trembling, legs weak and body heavy against the cool metal wall of the elevator. He’s still on his knees, knuckle-deep inside you, lazily curling them as if savoring every last second.

His mouth trails soft, teasing kisses across your soaked panties, and the tenderness of the act startles you, nearly pulling you under again. But then he withdraws his fingers, slipping them into his mouth with an almost obscene groan, tasting you one last time as if to commit your flavor to memory. He carefully adjusts your underwear back into place.

Javier stands to his full height, your leg falling from his shoulder, towering over you. His hand comes to rest lightly on your waist as if to steady you. “You okay?”

You nod, though your bones feel like jelly. Your eyes stay closed as you try to gather yourself, forcing yourself back into reality, back into the woman who doesn’t fold like a house of cards for her co-worker. You bend down to retrieve your shorts and check from the floor, fingers fumbling with the zipper as you button yourself back up. He presses the button to resume the elevator, the gears shifting as you’re slowly carried back to the main floor. 

And just like that, it hits you. It happened. You’ve came on Javier’s tongue and fingers. You swore it wouldn’t— swore up and down that he was nothing more than a nuisance at work, a distraction you wouldn’t let get to you. But here you are, post-orgasm, in a goddamn public elevator, of all places, with the man who was supposed to be just a headache.

“Hope you got your fix because it’s never happening again,” you mutter, trying to summon the biting edge to your words, almost like you’re trying to convince yourself as much as him.

Javier just smirks, that infuriating glint back in his eyes like he already knows better, but he doesn’t push it. Not now.

The elevator doors slide open with a sharp ding, and the scene before you is worse than any nightmare you could’ve concocted in the heat of the moment. Two firefighters, the building manager, and— of course because why the hell not— Steve Murphy are standing there with varying degrees of shock and amusement.

You can see the moment Steve takes it all in— your flushed cheeks, the slightly mussed state of your clothes, Javier standing just a bit too close to you. His blue eyes narrow, then widen, and then he breaks into a shit-eating grin so wide you could slap it right off his face.

“Well, well, well,” Steve drawls, barely containing his laughter. “What do we have here?”

Your stomach sinks. Not again. 

Javier, ever the cocky bastard, simply raises an eyebrow and slides his hands into his pockets, all cool nonchalance like he hasn’t just been between your thighs minutes earlier. “Just crapped out on us randomly,” he says smoothly, and you want to strangle him for the audacity.

Steve chuckles, shaking his head as if he’s in on some big joke that only you and Javier are the punchline for. And as you step past him, cheeks burning, all you can think is that this will never, ever happen again.

But even as you repeat it to yourself, a small part of you— the part still buzzing from the memory of Javier’s mouth— wonders if you’re lying.

[navybrat817]

Hold You Tight: Part 12

Pairing: Club Owner!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Fic Summary: The owner of The 107th wants you to be his girl whether you like it or not.

Part 11 | Series Masterlist | Part 13

Chapter Word Count: Over 4.7k

Chapter Summary: Bucky gets under your skin when he takes you shopping.

Chapter Warnings: DARK AU, dirty talk, mild dubcon (kissing, touching), tension, unease, possessiveness, inner turmoil, gaslighting, manipulation, slight feels, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?), more warnings to come.

A/N: More Hold You Tight and hope you enjoy! Bucky edit by the beautiful @nixakimbo . ❤️ Beta read by the lovely @whisperlullaby , but any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @firefly-graphics . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

You weren’t sure how much time passed with Bucky’s head resting in your lap, your fingers absentmindedly moving through his hair. While his body relaxed, you remained rigid. You tried to think of positive things. Your upcoming trip to the winery, Addison’s wedding. The images in your mind darkened though as if a cloud loomed over them. In a way, it did because you didn’t know what Bucky had planned for those events. Because even if Bucky really let you go to the winery alone, someone would be watching.

You forced the cloud in your mind to lift. Things could still be positive. You could still have a good day and have the best time with your friends.

“I’m sorry, but I have to get back to work,” you whispered.

“Of course,” he whispered back, pressing a kiss to your thigh and lifting his head with a smile. The darkness had left his eyes. How long until it returned? “Thank you for calming me down.”

“Of course,” you echoed because what else could you do?

Brushing his pants off once he got to his feet, he helped you up and didn’t let go of your hand. You didn’t attempt to pull away. He made sure to grab the money you left on the table before he paid the server and you tried to give the poor guy a smile when you thanked him. You just wanted to get on with your day.

As Bucky led you out of the cafe and back to the shop, you caught Ray’s gaze as he stood by the car and waited for his boss. Whatever concern he showed for you faded when he blinked. How did he deal with this life? Would he ever walk away from it?

“I’ll pick you up after work then?” Bucky asked.

“Sure,” you said. You didn’t tell him when your shift ended, but he knew, didn’t he? “Thanks for lunch.”

“It was my pleasure, but one more thing.” Bucky stopped you before you could enter the shop. “This regular customer you mentioned earlier. How often does he stop in?”

He asked as if he had no idea and maybe he didn’t in this case. That assumption didn’t ease your worries. “Once a month,” you said, your stomach turning slightly. “Listen, the roses he tried to give to me, I gave them to him first. They were his usual order and I thought it would be nice gesture and I was just-”

His brows pinched a little as his hands gently framed your cheeks. “Kotyonok, why do you sound so upset?” He asked, his thumbs moving in a soothing motion as you took a deep breath. “Wait, are you scared that I’d be mad at you?”

“I… I don’t know,” you said. You didn’t necessarily think he’d be upset with you, but after his mood swings at lunch and everything else so far you weren't sure what to expect. “I just don't know.”

“No, no, no, I’m not mad at you. Why would I be mad that you were kind to another person? That’s one of the things I love about you. It drew me to you,” he assured you. You oddly felt better by his assurance. “I don’t want you to stop doing kind things for others because you’re worried it might upset me.”

“So, it doesn’t upset you?”

“You being you would never upset me,” he smiled. He had said more than once that he loved you as a person, so maybe he was telling the truth. “A man trying to give flowers to you while going through a break-up is, at the very least, a little strange.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” you said, not wanting to admit that he had a point and that you were slightly put off when Clark tried to give the roses to you.

“I’m also well aware that you don’t hit on any guy who comes into your shop, so I wouldn’t view any act of kindness to a customer as trying to get their attention.”

“That’s true,” you agreed. Even Ray had pointed out to you that you didn’t give guys in the shop the time of day. Why would you when most of them were buying flowers for someone else? “But I just wanted you to know.”

“I appreciate you telling me, but you have nothing to worry about. Just have a good rest of the day.” With a kiss to the corner of your mouth, he whispered, “I’ll be thinking of you until I see you again.”

You weren’t sure why your heart fluttered. Relief that Bucky reacted calmly to what you said? You didn’t dwell on it as he held the door open and smiled after you as you went back into the shop. It was time to concentrate on work again.

Mrs. Crandle smiled and waved to Bucky through the door. “Oh, he is a looker,” she winked. “How was lunch, dear?”

“The food was good and Bucky and I got to talk a bit, which was… nice,” you answered, glancing around the shop and wondering if the place was bugged, too. Could he get access to the shop? Letting you continue to work seemed too good to be true, but he’d have nothing to worry about if he had eyes and ears there, too. “He’s taking me shopping tonight.”

She clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s wonderful! And don’t you dare be modest. Let him spoil you.”

“I have a feeling he’ll spoil me even if I don't ask him to,” you said.

Your whole experience with Bucky was whether you wanted it or not, so why would he stop now?

As expected, Bucky arrived back at the shop a few hours later to pick you up. Instead of giving him the chance to go inside and speak to Mrs. Crandle again, you grabbed your bag and rushed out the door to greet him. He caught you easily when you nearly collided with him, and for the first time, you felt like you were intruding in his space instead of the other way around.

“Eager to see me?” He smiled, his voice teasing as he kept a hand on your shoulder and helped you into the vehicle when you didn’t immediately answer. “How was the rest of your shift? I hope no one else bothered you.”

Just you.

“It was uneventful. I got a lot done,” you replied, feeling a warmth spread through you from the normalcy of your afternoon. “And no one bothered me.” Your gaze flickered to him and he was hanging onto your every word. He also looked much more relaxed, like the moodiness at lunch never happened. “How about you? How was your day?”

“Also uneventful. A couple of boring calls. Kept thinking about you though and it got me through the day,” he said, slipping an arm around you as the car door closed. The way you two were speaking to each other sounded almost normal. Checking in on each other, seeing how the other was doing. “Steve asked about that double date.”

“I’m sure he’s excited for that,” you said, wondering if that poor coat check girl had any idea.

“We both are. You can find a dress for that, too,” he smiled fondly. “In fact, what would you think of me getting you a new wardrobe when you move in? Your style, your choice on everything. You name it.”

You raised an eyebrow, a mixture of surprise and uncertainty washing over you. “Is there something wrong with my current wardrobe?” You hadn’t done anything to deserve a whole new set of clothes and you hoped he wasn’t suggesting it to mold you more to his liking.

“Nothing wrong with it at all. You have great taste and I just want to spoil you,” he said, running a finger down your side. This was the man who let you go into his exclusive club wearing a dressed down outfit simply because it was you, so he’d probably let you get away with any sort of wardrobe you wanted. “Do you know how ravishing you look right now?”

“I’m not ravishing. I’m in my work clothes,” you muttered.

“You are ravishing,” he said, moving his finger back up as you shivered. “We should get some stargazer lilies for your first night in our home. I could strip you down, lay you out on our bed, and brush one of the petals along your skin.”

You inhaled sharply and closed your eyes, trying not to picture him spreading you out on a luxurious bed. He would say something like that when he was right in your space and you had nowhere to go. The man went from zero to sixty in seconds. No doubt he could feel you tremble and knew your heart was racing.

“Bet it’ll feel soft against your nipples,” he whispered, exhaling against your ear. “And your pussy.”

Your next breath was shallow, but you managed not to whimper. “Where are we going shopping?” You asked evenly, hoping to get to the destination sooner rather than later.

You stubbornly kept your eyes shut when he chuckled. “You’re changing the topic because you’re thinking about it, aren’t you? Worried you’ll get your panties soaked before we get to the shop?” He questioned, your heart thudding. You didn’t want to think about it at all. You wanted out of the car so you could properly breathe again. “I’m sorry. I’m not playing nice, am I? We’re going to one of your favorite stores and you can pick out whatever you want.”

You’d no doubt look at the price tags out of habit since you shopped on a budget and bought your nicer pieces on sale. “Do you ever really play nice?” You asked, opening your eyes. “One moment you’re being vulnerable and talking about your family and the next time I see you you’re talking about sleeping with me. I’m shocked the whiplash hasn’t scrambled my brain.”

The image of him destroying the utensil at lunch like it was nothing flashed in your mind for some reason. And him and his gang beating up John. Just how strong was he? Was he a killer?

“Sometimes we’ll talk about something tough or serious and the next it may be something more fun or intimate. That’s part of being in a relationship,” he said. If only it were an authentic relationship. “I want that with you, telling you what’s on my mind and how I feel.”

If he cared about what was on your mind or how you felt, he’d back off and let you have a bit of space. “Relationships are built on mutual respect and trust,” you said. Did he not see that the mutual respect wasn't there since he pushed for things to be his way? And trust was something he couldn't force no matter how powerful he was.

“I understand that. You also said a first date was getting to know each other and seeing if there's a mutual connection. I'm opening up to you, letting you get to know me. I’m getting to know you, too, beyond the things I knew in advance,” he said. What was he learning about you that he didn’t already know? “And you can't tell me you don't feel something for me.”

“Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear, Bucky? That I want you and want to be with you?” You asked. Even if you did develop feelings for him, it would have to be classified as some form of stockholm syndrome. And even then, strong feelings wouldn’t be enough. He wanted everything from you. “That I don’t want anyone else?”

The hand along your side crept up to your neck, tension heightening when he gently squeezed. He loved putting his hand around your throat. “You do want me, you do want to be with me, you’ll never want anyone else once I have you and I know you love how much I want you,” he spoke with confidence, like he could make the words come true as you took your next breath. “Should I check your panties before we go inside and feel how wet they are?”

You needed to distract him. Fight him. Do something. “What’s your love language?” You blurted out. “Physical Touch?”

“What?” He whispered, your heart still pounding when he slowly moved his hand away from your throat.

“Your love language. You constantly touch me when I’m close to you, so I guessed Physical Touch,” you explained. He always had a hand on you.

He sat back with a pensive look. “No one has ever asked me that.”

“Oh,” you said as the car rolled to a stop. You blindly reached for the door handle. “Well, it’s something to think about if you don’t know.”

He held your arm when you tried to get out. “You express yourself through Acts of Service with loving gestures and helping with tasks, but what you crave is Quality Time because you value meaningful interactions and connecting with people on a more personal level.”

You nodded slowly. It was why you loved hanging out with your girlfriends. You cherished making memories with them.

“You also appreciate Words of Affirmation, even if compliments make you feel uncertain because you sometimes feel overlooked. The combination of those languages makes you feel seen and heard,” he continued, giving you a tender smile. “I can hear and see you if you let me.”

You found yourself unable to speak as he gauged your reaction, your throat tight as if gripped by an unseen force. He nailed it right on the head about your love languages, didn't he? “I need air,” you whispered, letting yourself out of the car once he let you go.

The tightness in your throat moved to your heart. Bucky saw and heard you in his own way, didn't he? Not just as a passing thought but because he genuinely believed he loved you, deeply and wholeheartedly. The more he sank his fangs in, the more venom he injected. You had to be your own antidote.

With a shake of your head, you glanced up at the shop. True to his word, it was one you loved. Another piece of yourself that would now be tied to him.

You jumped when Bucky appeared beside you and took your arm. “You okay?” He asked, studying your face with gentle eyes.

“Just fine,” you replied, smiling for his sake. “Let's go shopping.”

You walked into the boutique together, the air filled with a subtle mix of lavender and something sweet that made you feel right at home. The space was a blend of trendy and rustic, exuding charm and intimacy. Clothes lined the wooden shelves and vintage racks, showcasing a variety of styles that ranged from casual to bold. Delicate accessories sparkled in the soft light, inviting you to explore.

You could easily find the perfect dress for the winery here.

“Hello! Welcome to… Oh! Mr. Barnes,” the associate smiled, her heels clicking on the floor. She was a picture perfect example of style and beauty. “I have the back dressing room set up and I’ll be sure no one disturbs you or your girlfriend. It was sundresses you requested, correct?”

Bucky looked proud of himself. “Yes, the perfect sundress for my girl,” he smiled, his blue eyes sparkling as he looked at you. “And whatever dress you choose, you’ll need jewelry. Oh, and a clutch.”

“Girlfriend?” You asked. He must not have wanted a repeat of how the hostess treated the two of you at lunch. “Wait, you already have dresses selected for me to try on?”

“He called and gave us all the details. And we’ll make sure you have everything you need,” the associate promised as Bucky nudged you ahead of him to follow her. Was anyone else in the shop? “Would either of you like a water?”

“No thank you,” you said. You were never offered a water when you shopped there before, but you were never there with Bucky Barnes.

“Just let me know if you need anything at all,” she smiled, opening the dressing room door.

Bucky thanked her as he took a seat in one of the chairs across from the door, watching you expectantly. “If you don't like any of them, we can go somewhere else.”

“I’m sure they're fine,” you said, going into the room and shutting the door before he could say anything else.

Quickly slipping off your shoes, pants, and top, you turned your attention to a small rack with a range of sundresses. Checking each tag as you pushed through them, none of them on sale, it wasn't a surprise that they were all your size. And all something you'd consider wearing. After flipping through the dresses twice, you decided to try on a sleeveless white dress with small rosebuds. It would be nice for a vineyard.

Before you could put the dress on, the door opened. “Need any help?” Bucky asked as you spun around in your bra and underwear, his eyes slowly scanning your body before you had a chance to cover yourself.

“No. I…” you trailed off as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

He stared at you for what felt like an eternity before he breathed your name, want written all over his face. The dressing room felt small. Hot. You could hardly breathe as panic threatened to overwhelm you. And you couldn't do anything but step back as he stepped closer, a predator ready to capture his prey.

Your back hit the mirror when he brought a hand to your chin, your knees shaking as he leaned in. “You’re right about one thing,” he said in a husky tone. “I do crave Physical Touch. Yours.”

He pressed his lips to yours, keeping you still and giving you no chance to turn your head away. It was a light, feathering sort of kiss before his tongue flicked out to trace your lips. He teased you until you opened up for him and allowed his tongue to sweep into your mouth. You couldn't think as he groaned and continued his claim. It was only a matter of time until he claimed you completely.

Bucky pulled away a little, his free hand moving down your torso in a possessive path. “Fuck, you taste so sweet,” he rasped. You felt so small, your insides both frozen and melting from his touch. “Just wanna take you home and make you ride my face before I fuck you.”

You gasped when his knee moved between your legs, your hands flying up to hold his arms. He rocked his leg and you felt power in the motion, a promise of what was to come once he had you where he wanted you. “Bucky,” you whispered. The next word out of your mouth was smothered by his lips, but he didn't increase the urgency in his kisses. He took his time. Like the world could be burning around you and he’d let the flames take over as long as he was kissing you.

You bit back a whimper when he rocked his knee harder, the friction sending heat to your core. Another roll of his body and you were certain you felt the outline of his cock. Bringing a hand to his chest, you lightly pushed. It was already going too far. To your surprise, he broke the kiss. His eyes were still hungry though. “You said you want to hear me?” You asked breathlessly, your lip trembling when his thumb brushed it. “Then not here, please,” you whispered, praying he'd stop.

If he was going to have you, it wouldn't be in a dressing room.

“Right. Not for our first time.” He tipped his head back as he took a breath, no doubt trying to control himself. “Just one more kiss, Kotyonok. One more for me to dream about tonight,” he groaned, bringing his face back to yours for one more kiss with fervor. Just when you thought it would turn more ravenous, he shifted to something soft, tender. A feeling that had both of you shaking when it ended, but likely for different reasons.

You stayed upright when he stepped back and gave you space, but your legs still shook as he straightened up his clothes and looked you over once more. If he could devour you with a look... “Thank you.” He actually listened to you and didn't push it any further.

He glanced down as he adjusted his pants and you tried to avoid looking at the tent he began to sport. Horror filled you when your gaze went lower to the wet spot by his knee. He hadn't gotten you off, but you both knew he sparked some arousal within you. “Can’t wait ‘til you really make a mess on my pants,” he smirked, walking out just as quietly as he entered the tiny room.

Fighting back tears once he shut the door, you touched your lips. Bucky finally kissed you. Your mouth still tingled. You still felt him there.

Glancing at the rack of dresses, you wished he really was a sweet boyfriend trying to spoil you just because he could. But he hadn't given you a chance to pick them out yourself. He spoke for you, like you were a doll. It was just another piece he put in place for his twisted puzzle of your relationship.

What was wrong with you?

You pulled your clothes back on and flung the door open so hard it almost hit the wall. Bucky’s smug look immediately changed to concern when you walked out holding a sundress. “This one's fine,” you said in a flat tone.

“Are you sure?” He asked, sitting up more in his chair. “You didn't try it on, did you?”

“It’s the one I want,” you said, calling for the associate before Bucky had a chance to argue. You gave her a stiff smile when she joined you and handed over the garment, feeling Bucky’s eyes on you. “Whatever jewelry and handbag you think will go with this, I’ll take it. I trust your judgment.”

“Oh, this dress is lovely and we have the perfect accessories for this. Would you like to look at shoes as well? Or maybe something to go with any of the other dresses?” She asked, her eyes wide as you brushed past her. “Miss?”

“I’m sorry. I need to step outside,” you said, not wanting to be rude to her.

Bucky called after you, but you ignored him. You were furious with yourself. You let him kiss you and allowed some of his words to get under your skin. He didn't fuck you, but he still won, didn't he? And you were letting him. Just like with everything else.

You took two steps out of the shop before you felt a grip on your arm. “Woah. Slow down,” Bucky said, turning you to face him. “What’s wrong?”

Everything.

“It doesn't matter, but if you really want to see and hear me, please, pay attention,” you said, yanking your arm away. “I want to go home.”

“Why? Is it because that kiss meant something to you and you don't want to admit it?” He asked, a soft smile tugging at his lips. “If you're embarrassed that it made you wet, don't be. I'm flattered. Besides, it got me hard.”

Heat filled your cheeks and you wanted to smack him. There was a fine line between the delusion he had in his head and the reality of the situation. The tightrope you were walking was close to snapping. “I’m not embarrassed. I can't breathe.” You stepped back, trying to give yourself space. Was Ray watching from the car? “Everything in my life recently has revolved around you or you being there. Say what you want about me being lonely, it doesn't give you an excuse to take over.”

Bucky’s smile slipped, like he was really seeing how bothered you were. “I told you I just want to love you. And you enjoy Quality Time.”

“Quality Time when we agree upon it. And love itself should be the thing to take my breath away, not you smothering me,” you gently stated.

“I’m not trying to smother you.” He shifted like he was the one uncomfortable, his gaze flicking to the ground. “I… I know you can't breathe,” he said, lifting a hand as if to reach out before he dropped it and took a deep breath. “That’s why I'm leaving you alone tomorrow,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“You're what?” You asked in disbelief, catching the hint of vulnerability in his eyes as his shoulders dropped. He hadn't left you alone since he broke in. Why in the world would he stop now?

“I was going to bring it up when I dropped you off.” His hand worked its way through his hair. “I’ve been thinking about it and talking and… I’m smothering you. I know I am. Rearranging your schedule, making you meet my friends, and everything else. So…” He reached for you this time and took your hand. “I’m giving you a breather and I’m not going to be around tomorrow. No surprise visits. No calls. Maybe a text, but nothing more.”

You blinked. “So, we won't see each other tomorrow?” You tried not to get too excited. It was only a day, but between that and the girls day that was still something. You had to go the cautiously optimistic route again and take what you got.

But you also couldn't help but wonder why he was really giving you that space. Did Ray or someone say something to him? Was this another ploy to keep you in line?

“You won't see me. God knows I’ll miss you, but it's just a day, right?” He squeezed your hand. “Maybe you’ll miss me, too.”

“I appreciate you giving me that space,” you said sincerely. He needed that space, too, even if he didn't believe it. “And maybe I will.”

“We won't have to miss each other much longer once we're together in the penthouse,” he said, his tone soft and your heart sinking. “Will you answer one thing: Did that kiss mean something to you?”

You didn't want to answer that. If you denied it, it would be a lie or he’d either see through it or snap. If you confirmed it, it would feed him more hope. You still had to examine your feelings because you were afraid and you couldn't think with him staring at you with those longing eyes.

“It meant something,” you answered, not expanding on what exactly it meant when he exhaled. It wasn't smart to let him decipher it how he wished because he could use it against you later.

He took your breath away once more when he pulled you close and brushed his lips against yours. Just as quickly as he started, he stopped and brushed his nose against yours. Any passerby would think it was a sweet moment between a couple making up from an argument. “Thank you,” he whispered, his thumb moving along the racing pulse in your wrist. “Come back inside, please? Pick out a few things for real and then I’ll take you home so you can relax.”

You remembered that the bugs were still in your apartment, which took some more of your enthusiasm away. But if Bucky was really going to leave you alone tomorrow, you’d have to appreciate the time to yourself. Maybe you could pack a bag and get out of the city even sooner than planned.

It wouldn't hurt to try, right? What was the worst that could happen? Making him freak out over your safety? That could be bad.

“Okay. A few things for real and then home,” you agreed.

“That’s my girl.” He turned and paused at the door with a smile. “Can I at least help you try on the dress? Or you can model it for me and I'll tell you how beautiful you are.”

You smiled back a little. “Don't push your luck,” you said, missing the pair of blue eyes that watched you and Bucky go back into the shop.

So, a little bit of action. 😏 Will it be enough to tide Bucky over? Is he really going to leave you alone for a day? Who was watching you? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

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