#JEBSJWXISMDODNXOS

[ariiiloves]

I love this fic 😭💗

a safe haven l chapter six part I (j. miller)

series masterlist l previous chapter

summary: Joel opens up to you about a very traumatic loss; he makes a confession about his feelings towards you; you make a confession of your own and it leads to something more.

pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader, Ellie Williams x Platonic Female Reader

warnings/tags 🏷️ 18+ only, minors dni. fluff that turns into a heaping helping of angst; Joel talks about Sarah’s death and the aftermath; SMUT; oral sex (male receiving), unprotected p in v sex (wrap it up folks) size mention because I am convinced Joel is packing, reader somewhat discovers she’s into praise; honestly this part is like 50% smut so proceed with caution.

word count: 8.4k

a/n 📝 it’s midnight and I have to be at work tomorrow l o l but it’s cool. so this chapter ended up getting split into two parts, I posted a preview a week ago but turns out that preview is now considered a preview for part 2. I am shizzing bricks over this one, it’s my second time writing full on smut and we all know Vee is not good at smut so….yeah. okay enough rambling. 💀

PS: don’t @ me about the gif, I know that’s not Joel but I mean LOOK AT HIM.

Caught up in a web

I was gettin’  kind of used to stayin’ there

and out of the blue, I fell for you

now I remember what it feels like to fly

you give me butterflies

The next two and a half weeks that had passed on by had done so without major incident, but things had taken a somewhat complicated turn.

You and Joel had still managed to see one another a handful of times even with the insane amount of hours he was putting into his patrol duties, though it wasn’t nearly as often as either of you wanted or would have preferred; but it had to make do. After numerous sightings of a group of potential raiders earlier on in the month, Tommy had no choice but to assign every last competent, able bodied patrol person, including himself, to work double shifts to ensure the safety and security of Jackson. He and Joel had come across the remnants of a campsite just about fifteen miles west of the settlement and they worried the group was hiding out, planning a violent, ambush attack on the community when it was least expected. Tommy had done his absolute best to keep the word from spreading throughout the commune to avoid panic, but he found himself having to fess up when people went up to him and all but furiously demanded to know the truth—the real reason behind why their loved ones were now being asked to be on the other side of wall twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Joel, who you’d come to learn had been one of the sharpest and strongest shooters out of everybody in Jackson besides his brother, reluctantly took on the role of a lead patrolman. He had been given an absurd amount of double shifts to work, making it almost impossible for you to see each other; you’d understood he had no choice, but still, that hadn’t made the situation any easier to deal with. Both of you tried to make the very best with the little time you’d managed to get together, but it hadn’t been nearly enough. As if not being able to see him was not agonizing enough, the fact that he was out on the other side of the wall scared the hell out of you and the only way to keep yourself from losing your goddamned mind was to distract yourself. You did everything that you could to keep your mind of off Joel being out there—burying yourself deeply into your work had helped for the most part.

Besides that, Joel had asked you as a favor to him, if you could keep your watchful eye on Ellie during his absence. You’d spend most of the day with her in the stables, you had lunch with her in the dining hall along with Dina—in the evening, you would go home and make dinner early enough and fix up an extra plate of food for her so she had a homemade meal to enjoy instead of two decades old ravioli in a can; you would take it over to her place and drop it off before Luke came home from the clinic. Ellie waited until it was late in the evening to return the plate back to you, and the two of you would take a lengthy, late night walk through the town, keeping each other company for a while before heading off to bed. She hadn’t seemed to be all too concerned about Joel, but then again, Ellie had known better than you did that he could take care of himself out there just fine. If anything, you spending so much time with her had been more for your benefit than hers, and you started to suspect that just like Joel had asked you to keep an eye on Ellie, he had also asked her to keep an eye on you too. After all, you had made it abundantly clear to him that you were nervous about him being out on patrol while there was a possible threat looming in the shadows.

By the time the middle of August came around, no additional signs of the group had been found; they seemed to have vanished into thin air. Tommy and Maria decided to ease up and end the double shift assignments, allowing every single patrolman and woman to return to their normally scheduled work rotation. Joel went back to his usual early morning and afternoon patrol hours, which meant the both of you could resume your meetings out behind the barn underneath the stars.

 “I missed you,” You said, letting out a little sigh of content as you leaned your weight against him.

You and Joel were sitting out on the large patch of grassy field behind the barn, his soft green flannel blanket acting as a barrier between your body and the itchiness of the ground. You were nestled right in the spot between his long legs, back against his chest as the two of you shared the deliciously ripe peach that he’d brought along with him as well.

“Mm, probably not as much as I was missing you,” Joel replied with a hum before taking a bite of the fruit. Noticing that there were only just a couple of bites left, he reached his arm around you and held it out. “Here darlin’ I want you you have the rest.”

“These will be out of season soon enough.” Giving a sad little pout to nobody in particular, you let out a small sigh before sinking your teeth into the fruit you loved so much. Through a small mouthful, you realized, “Who knows when we’ll ever get peaches around here again.”

Joel’s lips met the spot on your neck right behind your ear and you felt him grin. “That’s alright with me. I’ve got my sweet little Peach right here, and I got her all year round.”

You playfully elbowed him in the chest.

After polishing off the rest of the peach, you licked off the pit and the tossed it out into the distance.

“Didn’t think you’d be the type to litter,” he joked.

“It’s biodegradable,” You retorted with a tiny laugh as you leaned your head back against his shoulder and gazed up at the stars that sprinkled the velvet night skies. “Or at least, I think it is. Come to think of it, I never did pay attention in life science when I was in FEDRA school.”

You reached up and gathered your hair, bringing it over your shoulder so it wouldn’t be in Joel’s face.

“Mm,” he whispered, licking his lips as his eyes fell to the delicate flesh of your now exposed neck. He ghosted his mouth right over your pulse point and his warm breath fanned against your cool skin in a way that made your eyes flutter closed. “Temptin’ me on purpose now, aren’t you?”

“I would never do such a thing,” You replied in your most innocent, good girl tone although he clocked the smirk behind it. A comfortable silence fell over the both of you and while you’d normally welcome the peaceful, tranquil moment with him, tonight it felt impossible. You had gone so long without Joel over the last couple of weeks—at least, it certainly had felt long—and you realized one of things you’d missed most about him was the sound of his deep voice. “Ask me a question, Joel.”

“What kind of question can I ask?”

“You can ask me anything you want. No limits.”

Joel hummed curiously to himself for a second or two as he tried to think of a question he hadn’t yet asked you before. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Really?” You snorted, trying to hide your laughter as he rested his chin on your shoulder. “I just told you that you can ask me anything you want and that’s your question? What’s my favorite color?”

“Yeah. I wanna know what it is.”

He turned his head, lifting it slightly to press a soft kiss against your temple. Joel could not for the life of him even remember the last time he had shown this kind of physical tenderness with anybody, not in this way. Forehead kisses, holding your hand, all sorts of little tokens of affection he hadn’t thought he could still be capable of giving to someone had come to him so naturally—you had brought out an entirely different side of him that had been buried behind a rough exterior for well over two decades, and the part that Joel couldn’t quite wrap his own head around was that you had done it with such ease.

Hell, you’d done it without even really trying.

“So?” Joel prompted you. “What is it?”

“It’s brown,” You answered. 

“Why brown?”

“Because. It’s earthy, it’s warm—and your eyes are brown,” You stated, grinning to yourself as you felt his loud laugh rumble through his broad chest and against your back. “What about you? I mean that’s if Joel Miller even has a favorite color,” You giggled teasingly, placing a hand on one of his blue-denim clad legs as you then added, “Actually, I’m kind of curious now. Do you have a favorite color?”

Joel hesitated, hanging onto his answer.

“I do. It’s purple,” he finally responded after a brief bout of silence. “Purple’s my favorite color.”

“Purple?” You repeated after him, finding yourself unable to mask the surprise in your tone. “Really?”

Joel chuckled. “What? That weird or somethin’?”

“Uh, sort of. You just don’t strike me as the kind of guy who would have a favorite color—even if you’d told me you did I would have never guessed that it was purple,” You admitted, sheepishly. You traced a small circle around his knee with your finger and curiously asked him, “Why’s purple your favorite?”

“Because. That’s my daughter’s favorite color.”

You scoffed playfully. “Ellie’s favorite color sure as hell is not purple, Joel. Her favorite color is green.”

When he spoke, his voice was so quiet, you almost hadn’t heard him despite such close proximity.

“I ain’t talkin’ about Ellie.”

It hadn’t taken you too long, maybe just one single second, to allow what he’d just said to click in your mind—Joel had another daughter. The smile you’d had on your face just a minute before had been all but smacked right off by some invisible force. In a state of shock, you slowly turned around between his legs to face him, looking at him with your wide eyes.

“Her name was Sarah,” he told you, softly. 

Was.

You’d immediately noticed his use of past tense.

You opened your mouth to speak, then clamped it shut. You suddenly remembered the way that he’d tap dance his way around certain details about his first life in Texas; whenever he spoke about his life before the outbreak, he would be careful to watch himself and his words. You had instantly known he had been keeping something from you, that there was something Joel wasn’t ready to talk about with you, but never would you have imagined that him having a daughter would be it.

You turned your body around completely, kneeling in front of him and sitting back onto your heels. In an effort to show him that you didn’t want to push him too hard too fast, you simply waited in silence for him to continue whenever he was ready.

“Her favorite color was purple. She’d wear it all the damn time. When she was nine, she begged me to to paint the walls of her bedroom purple. One day, I took her to Home Depot after school to look at all the different shades, tellin’ her I’d think about it—I went back to the store the next mornin’ while she was at school, bought a couple cans of the shade I knew she’d liked the most and by the time she got home from school that afternoon, I had it painted for her,” Joel explained to you, a sadness mixing in his tone along with fondness of the memory. “She loved purple. It was the color of the t-shirt she had been wearing the last time we were together.”

Your heart sank. “Joel, you don’t have to tell me—”

“It’s okay, Peach. I want to tell you about her,” Joel assured you reaching out for your hand and taking it in his own. “I trust you more than enough to tell you about her, alright?”

You nodded, lacing your fingers together with his.

“I was never married,” he’d started to say knowing whether or not he had a wife before the world had ended would be a question on your mind—that’s if it wasn’t already. “I was never with Sarah’s mom. I met her in high school and we’d been friends, but we never dated. We tried to, but it was just never a good fit. Sarah, she just sort of happened and her mom and me, well we both made an agreement to coparent her as best as we could considerin’ that we weren’t together. Just a few months shy of our daughter’s first birthday, she realized she couldn’t handle raisin’ a child with a man she wasn’t with. I tried so hard to convince her to stick around, but I couldn’t. She bailed out on me, but the worst part of it was that she bailed out on Sarah.”

He stopped for a moment and you gave his hand a gentle but firm encouraging squeeze.

“As if bein’ a father to a little baby girl didn’t scare the shit of me, being a single father made it all feel so much scarier. I was young, in my early twenties. I was always workin’ so damn much, tryin’ to build my construction business with Tommy. Now I had this tiny little person to take care of, and I honestly didn’t know how the fuck I was gonna do it.” Joel’s sixth sense must have detected the way that your knees were uncomfortable in the position you had been in; he paused just long enough to switch his and yours positions, closing his legs together and bringing you to sit on his lap. “It wasn’t easy and I probably made a lot more mistakes than I’d like to admit. But somehow, I made it work and it turned out alright. Sarah was my best friend in the whole entire world. Hell, I loved her more than fuckin’ life itself. She could be a handful, but she was perfect. She was my sweet little butterfly, a ray of sunshine on even the most darkest of days.”

You swallowed harshly. “What happened to her?”

Joel sighed, resting a hand on your bare thigh; his fingers skimmed the scalloped hem of your yellow polyester shorts. “It happened on the first night of the outbreak. We were tryin’ to get out of Austin—me, Sarah and Tommy. We didn’t know where the hell we were gonna go or what we were gonna do, but we just needed to get far from the city. We got separated at one point when our truck got into an awful wreck. I had Sarah in my arms, she’d broken her ankle in the crash. Tommy told me to get her to the river where she’d be safer, said he’d find his way there to meet us.”

Your heart was pounding in your chest. Part of you almost didn’t even want to hear how his story was going to end. But if Joel was telling you this, it was for a reason. He was opening up to you, sharing an incredibly difficult and heartbreaking loss. And he was doing it because he trusted you.

Draping an arm around his shoulders, you started to toy with the curls at the nape of his neck as you anxiously waited for him to recount the event that followed next, the event that would surely shatter your heart into a million pieces.

“The street was full of the infected. One caught us in its sights and chased after us. I tried to dodge it through some building, but it followed us, runnin’ us out into a field just a mile from the river. I didn’t think we were gonna escape it. I thought we were gonna get killed by that thing. Then, a soldier from the Army came outta nowhere and shot it dead. It felt like a damn miracle. I thought we were lucky. I thought we were gonna get some help.” His voice grew hoarse, thickening with the emotions that he wasn’t all too sure he could hold back this time. “I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was given the order by his command to kill us both, even though we weren’t sick. I tried tellin’ him over and over we weren’t sick but it didn’t matter. He shot at us. He grazed me in my side, but Sarah—he got her. Got her multiple times. I was foolish enough to think it hadn’t been fatal. I tried gettin’ her up, begged her to let me help her, I begged Tommy—but it’d been useless. Sarah died in my arms. She took her very last breath in some field outside of Austin.”

“God,” You whispered out shakily, a sharp aching sensation radiating throughout your chest. “Joel, I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry.” Willing yourself to keep it together for his sake, you put a stop to your own incoming emotions and held the back of his neck in your palm, fingers coaxing him to look up and meet your gaze.

“After that, I didn’t see any point in carryin’ on. I’d lost the most important thing in the world to me. I couldn’t see in the darkness now that my little ray of light was gone. So I tried to end my own life,” he admitted. “I put the barrel of a gun to my temple. I told myself it was what I wanted to do and I pulled the trigger.”

Your opposite hand reached up to his right temple and your fingertips brushed against his small scar. You’d wanted to ask him about it before on several different occasions, but had never found the guts to actually do it. Now that you knew he’d gotten it from his own hand, it just made the entire thing all that much more heart wrenching.

“I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but I missed. I flinched and I missed. For twenty fuckin’ years, all that I could do was wish I hadn’t missed. I spent a long time hatin’ myself for missin’ what should’ve been the easiest damn shot of my entire life. Then Ellie came along.” Joel moved a hand, taking your chin gingerly between his thumb and index finger. “And not long after, I met you. The two of you just came at me outta nowhere, outta left fuckin’ field, bringin’ out sides of me I thought had been dead and buried for years now. You and her mean much more to me than I can explain. You and Ellie? You two are the most important things in the world to me now.”

Your breath hitched in your throat at his words. It wasn’t like you hadn’t known Joel cared, of course you knew that he cared about you. But the extent to which he did had been something of a mystery, at least up until this very moment.

“I didn’t know I could feel this way about a woman again,” Joel confessed. He slid an arm around you, pulling you closer. “Openin’ up my heart to Ellie, it was one thing—but then openin’ it up to you? That was different. It’s been somethin’ else, Peach. And I don’t think you realize the hold you have over me and over my heart. What really gets me is that you don’t even gotta try all that hard. All that you gotta do is look at me with those eyes, and give me that smile of yours. You’ve got me wrapped all the way around your little finger and then back again. You need to know I’d do just about fuckin’ anythin’ for you. You understand me?”

You stared at him like a deer caught in headlights.

“Joel, you really need to stop talking like that,” You told him once you’d managed to find your voice.

“Why?”

The words escaped you before you could even try to think about stopping them.

“Because I think I’m falling in love with you.”

The tables turned, and now it was Joel who was at a complete loss for words.

You began to ramble, feeling embarrassed. “Look, I know it’s probably stupid and ridiculous and—”

Still holding your chin, Joel carefully brought your face towards his, silencing you by pressing his lips to yours. He moved to hold the side of your face in his palm, forgetting about any kind of softness; he had kissed you plenty of times before and you had thought you knew all of his kisses well enough but you’d been wrong. This one was different than the rest. His lips moved against yours in a possessive manner, but not the kind of possessive that you’d gotten used to with Luke. No, with Joel, the way in which he was kissing you was possessive, but not out of control and abuse—it was out of pure need, want, and desire. Even as his mouth went hungrily at yours, you could still detect some tenderness in the way he was ravaging you.

“Joel,” You whimpered against him. “I—”

You faltered, unable to say those three words, not quite yet as there was a fear holding you back.

It only prompted him to deepen the embrace.

I love you.

Joel might not have been ready to say it either but he felt it and he hoped the way he was holding you and the way he was swelling your lips with his kiss reassured you that you weren’t the only one who’d fallen.

You shifted yourself in his lap, moving to straddle him, your legs on either side of his as your mouths remained latched to one another. He reached and grabbed for every single part of you that he could; running his hands all over you from your shoulders down to your hips, until they came down, cupping the delicious curves of your ass. You whimpered in his mouth again, and the moment your lips parted his tongue took advantage, darting inside to start the heated, unhinged dance with your own.

You clutched at his shoulders, your fingers curling around tight fistfuls of his faded black t-shirt in an attempt, and a very desperate one at that, to keep yourself planted on the ground; you held on trying to keep yourself tethered to planet earth, but with the way that his searing hot mouth moved against yours in perfect unison and the way you could feel him growing harder, straining up against the dark blue denim of his jeans as you straddled his lap, it was impossible. You were free falling, and without a fucking safety net.

Joel still tasted like the sweet fruit you’d shared, a an odd mix with the mint from his toothpaste. But there was something else he tasted like, and you’d tasted it several times before, however you had an incredibly tough time figuring out what it could be even after all this time. It just tasted like Joel. That was the only way you could think of to describe it; it just taste like Joel, and it was fucking addicting, and you wanted it on your lips forever.

At one point, you and Joel forced yourselves apart for some desperately needed oxygen.

“Joel,” You choked his name out in between heavy pants for air.

“Baby—” He was just about as breathless as you if not more. “Baby, I have to have you. Please. I have to have you now before I lose my goddamn mind.”

“Barn,” You rasped out, releasing his shirt.

Joel’s eyebrows knit together, confused. “Barn?”

“Barn,” You repeated as you climbed off of him.

You weren’t all too sure how you’d managed to get up onto your feet without fucking falling over. Your knees were wobbling, your legs were trembling—it felt like they were seconds from giving out, and all that you could do was hope they didn’t. You held a hand out to Joel, releasing a tiny, labored grunt as you helped him up off the ground. You reached for the flannel blanket, giving it a shake before taking his hand in yours and leading him around the barn and back to the front of it. Dropping his hand for a moment, you slid one of the double doors open an inch or two and peeked inside, being sure that the coast was clear. You proceeded to slide the door a bit further, just wide enough for the both of you to slip inside.

“Wait, how’d you know it would be unlocked?” He chuckled as he watched you slide the door closed.

“I didn’t know it would be unlocked. I was praying we’d get lucky,” You admitted to him, gesturing for him to follow you. “Come on.”

Through various cracks, gaps, and open windows, enough moonlight filtered into the barn, shining a decent amount of silver light into the structure so it wasn’t pitch black inside, leaving the two of you to stumble around in complete darkness. It would have made things a bit more complicated and less enjoyable if that had been the case. But thankfully the bright night sky stepped in to do you a favor.

Joel looked around. The last time he’d been inside the barn was in June for the summer party he and Ellie had joined you at. He remembered how clean and clear it had been, and now, about two months later, it was packed with countless bales of hay; in retrospect, he shouldn’t have been surprised. But as loose piles of the dried grass and herbs started to crunch under his boots, he remarked, “There is fuckin’ hay everywhere, baby.”

“Um, yeah. What else do you keep in a barn?” You kidded lightly. “Hey, at least they don’t keep goats and other livestock in here, Joel. Besides, beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

Joel snorted, masking his laughter at the thought of walking into a barn full of animals instead of an absurd amount of hay. “Yeah, that’s a good point.”

You led him over towards one of the corners of the barn, your eyes falling to a large, almost bed sized, pile of loose hay. You draped the blanket right over it and then suddenly froze for a minute, your body flooding with nerves once you’d realized what was inevitably about to happen between you and Joel.

You hadn’t done anything with him since the night he pleasured you out on his front porch. Of course you wanted more with him, but that didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking. You weren’t experienced, you had only ever been with one person, and even then, you didn’t want to count that because it had been such a long time since you’d found sex to be something you wanted, something you enjoyed. It made your skin crawl when Luke touched you, but when Joel Miller touched you?

It set you ablaze in the most incredible way.

And you feared your touch wouldn’t make him feel the same way.

You exhaled a shaky breath of air as his arms went around your waist from behind.

“What’s the matter, darlin’?” Joel murmured softly into your hair, sensing your pensiveness.

“I’m nervous,” You blurted out.

“I’m nervous too,” he confessed, quietly.

“What are you nervous about?”

Joel rested his chin on your shoulder. “We’ve both crossed a lot of lines already, Peach. But this one? It’s gonna be the one we can’t come back from. It might be what seals the deal with us, you know?”

Slowly, you turn around, your heart in your throat.

“Yeah, I know,” You responded, peeking up at him through the thickness of your eyelashes. “I know I should care, but I really don’t. It’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“It’s wrong,” he agreed. “But I don’t care either.”

Before you could even utter another word about it, Joel crashed his mouth to yours once again. He’d snaked one of his arms around you, while he lifted his other and cupped the back of your neck, tilting your head slightly up to his to give him even more access to better explore your mouth with his. Your mind became hopelessly lost in the thick, clouded haze—every single damn thing about the way Joel was kissing you, the way he was touching you and holding you, it was all so greedy and you allowed it without any kind of protest. His hands fell down to the hem of your white camisole and his mouth left yours, abandoning it so he could pull the thin shirt over your arms. He discarded it, tossing it over his shoulder somewhere behind him. He then pushed your shorts down your legs along with your cotton underwear, and you quickly kicked them off. You’d probably regret it when you had to search for your clothes later on, but right at this moment, you just couldn’t care less about anything but Joel.

Desperate to feel some skin too, you reached your hands down and grabbed the hem of his shirt. You pulled it over his head and discarded it, your eager hands meeting his warm chest. You bit down onto your bottom lip as your trembling fingers raked all over his upper body; even though you couldn’t see them, your fingertips brushed over several bumps, rough, raised patches of skin that you knew had to be scars. He had so many, and all you wanted was to kiss each and every single one of them but Joel had other ideas. He pulled you into his arms, flush against his chest and just held you tightly.

There had been numerous instances during which Joel would feel as if you weren’t even fucking real; sometimes he’d wonder if you were just a perfect, flawless figment of his own imagination. He didn’t know whether or not you had caught onto what he had been doing, but he’d often steal moments like these, little moments where he would stand there, take you into his arms, and hold you tightly. It was his own strange way of reminding himself that not only were you real, but you were real and you were his. Joel couldn’t give any less of a fuck about that ring on your finger, not even if he’d tried. He didn’t care that he could only hold you in secret, that he couldn’t take your hand while walking next to you down the streets of Jackson in broad daylight. He didn’t share a roof or a bed with you, and he didn’t join you for dinner at the table every night—maybe it wasn’t how he preferred for things to be, but he just didn’t care. It didn’t fucking matter.

Nothing mattered except for one thing.

Your heart belonged to him.

You were his. You were all fucking his, and only his in all the ways that truly mattered.

And he was yours.

Joel choked out a strained groan when he felt you press your lips softly against his neck, your tongue swiping across his pulse point. You suckled lightly, eliciting another noise from him before you began trailing your lips downwards. You brought them to his collarbone, then moved them down the length of his chest; you’d slowly started lowering yourself down to your knees as you continued on down his stomach, being sure to give extra affection to any and all of his scars that you ran into along the way.

Your fingers skimmed the waist band of his jeans.

Joel tried to stop you. “Baby, you don’t gotta—you don’t need to do that for me—”

“I already told you that I want to,” You assured him in just about the sexiest voice he’d ever heard. You made yourself comfortable, a challenging feat due to the fact that you’d overshot the flannel blanket and were now kneeling on the itchy, dried grass. It didn’t matter though—you could deal with a bit of discomfort. You placed a hand on his hip, peering up at him; your eyes meet his in a beam of shining milky white light. “You made me feel good. Please just let me do the same for you?”

The nod he gave you had been so subtle, so quick, that you’d almost missed it.

He’d grown tense under your touch, and you tried, but failed, to hold back a small laugh.

You patted his hip.

“Baby, relax,” You encouraged him, feeling kind of surprised at how the pet name had rolled right off of your tongue with such a natural ease.

Your hands reached for the button of his jeans and you swiftly undid it, along with his zipper. You then started pulling the blue denim down his legs; Joel helped you, kicking off his worn out, black leather boots before stepping out of his jeans, kicking the article of clothing to join yours somewhere behind him. You slid his dark boxer briefs down his legs in something of an eager fashion, but stopped short, your breath catching in the back of your throat the second you laid your eyes on him for the first time; he was already incredibly hard for you. You felt the warm arousal pooling between your thighs at just the mere thought of his thick length filling you up, stretching you completely.

You’d read your fair share of ridiculously shitty and borderline pornographic Harlequin romances—it’d always been such a riot for you when it came time for the hero of the novel to fuck his little damsel in distress. It never failed to make you laugh how she would voice her concern about him not fitting her because he looked to be too big. You would pretty much lose your mind over the absurdity, and now, here you were on your knees in front of Joel Miller wondering if he was going to fit inside of you.

Joel drew in a sharp inhale of air as soon as he felt your small hand wrap around his base. Just as fast as he had breathed it in, it was knocked right back out of him when your other hand joined in; you ran your fingers right along a thick, prominent vein on the underside of his length, causing him to twitch in your hands.

You’d hardly touched him yet, and already you had him standing right there on the edge.

“Christ, you’re gonna be the fuckin’ death of me, I hope you know that,” Joel told you, tilting his back to look up at the rafters as he willed himself not to explode there on the spot. His hips jerked when he felt your lips wrap around his tip. Another loud but strangled groan tore from the back of his throat as you took him inch by inch, further into your warm, wet mouth. Your own moaning around him caused the most incredible vibrating sensation, making it even more difficult for Joel to keep his composure and keep from spilling into your mouth already.

“Fuck Peach,” he cursed out, feeling his tip hit the back of your throat. He was more than a mouthful for you, but you certainly seemed to be accepting the challenge with eagerness.

You, the same woman who’d said she was nervous about being intimate with him—hell, whoever that woman had been, she was long fucking gone.

Joel glanced down, his teeth sinking hard into his lower lip. He could see your silhouette as you went at it, working him with your pretty little mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut when the intense pressure began building up in his lower abdomen. If Joel so much as even looked at you again, he would come down your throat—and that’s not exactly where he planned on finishing tonight.

You bobbed your head, moving it back and forth, your cheeks hollowing as you sucked him greedily; you alternated between that and stroking his long, thick shaft, your tongue swirling around his tip.

Without looking, Joel reached down with his hand and cradled the back of your head in his palm. The sounds that were filling up the barn were nothing short of obscene—his grunts and groans mixed in together with the sounds of the moans that you’d release in between hungry, sloppy slurping noises. He forced his eyes open and took another glimpse at you, his heart slamming against his sternum as you moved your head even faster. He wasn’t going to be able to hang on for much longer at this rate.

“Fuck, baby. Wait, I need you to stop.” Joel’s hand left the back of your head and he cupped your jaw, gently forcing you to release him from your mouth with a little popping sound. “I ain’t gonna last, not if you keep on like that.”

“Isn’t that the whole point?” You asked, unable to help yourself from shooting a tiny smirk up at him as you wiped the mixture of his precome and your saliva away from your chin with your forearm.

Joel reached down for you and effortlessly yanked you up to your feet, his hand diving down between your thighs to get a feel and see whether you were ready to take him or not; Christ, he fucking hoped that you were, because he needed you. He slipped two fingers between your soaked folds without so much as a warning, causing you to gasp out. Joel then withdrew them, almost admiring the way his digits were coated with your slick. His eyes locked firmly with yours as he lifted his hand to his mouth and licked his fingers completely clean.

“Joel,” You choked out his name, unable to believe how that alone had just about caused you to come undone and fall apart into a whimpering mess.

He stepped towards you, his fingers lightly curling around your wrist. “What is it, Peach?”

“I want you,” You said. You then corrected yourself when you realized, “I need you. I fucking need you. I need you more than the air I fucking breathe.”

Joel leaned down, skimming the tip of his nose on your cheek before bringing it down along your jaw. “Where, darlin’?” he whispered huskily, sending an insurmountable number of shivers up your spine.

Your mouth fell open slightly, unable to say it. You had no idea why you’d suddenly become flustered as if you hadn’t just been down on your knees for him doing something so incredibly lewd.

“Tell me, baby,” he coaxed you gently with another low whisper. “Tell me where you need me.”

“Inside of me,” You finally replied, feeling the heat flood your face. “I need you inside of me. Please.”

“And so polite ‘bout it too. What a good girl.”

Although he’d said it in more of a teasing manner, his praise just about made you collapse.

Joel wrapped an arm around your back and gently lowered you down onto the soft blanket before he followed in suit. You both let out breathy laughs at the way your naked bodies sunk down into the pile of hay. Joel propped himself up on one of his arms and looked down at you, his smile fading a bit as a more serious expression crossed his features. He reached up, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear.

“You sure ‘bout this, Peach? Ain’t too late to stop.”

“I’ve never been so sure about anything, Joel. Not once in my entire fucking life have I ever been sure about anything the way I’m sure about this. Swear on my life.” You smiled and lifted your hand to his jawline, your fingers grazing his graying beard. “If you could take a peek into my mind, you could see how bad I want this—how bad I need you, Joel.”

That was all he’d needed to hear from you.

Joel reached down between your bodies, gripping his base and fisting his hard length before lining it up against your entrance. You were throbbing, and every single last nerve ending in your body was on fucking fire; you opened your legs wider for him in hopes that he’d understand the nonverbal cue. He began to ease himself into you, and you hooked a leg around Joel’s waist, encouraging him to go on and go deeper. The barn had filled with the sound of his grunt and your loud cry at the initial stretch; he sank in further and further, and the moment he bottomed out inside of you, you cried out again at the burning sensation between your thighs.

“Need you to relax a little, sweetheart,” he told you gently, ceasing his moments to give your body the chance to adjust to him and his size. Joel decided to take some advantage of having you underneath him with your head thrown back, and his lips went to your neck, hungrily. He fervently kissed his way down to your collarbone, nipping at your flesh, but he did so gently, being careful not to leave a mark behind. He would give just about anything to have the freedom to leave evidence of his loving all over you. Maybe it was the heat of the moment and the way he was buried inside of you that was bringing out the primal in him, but Joel would fucking love to have you walk around the community with your neck covered in his love bites, signaling to anyone who had their eye on you that you were all his and those marks had come from his kisses. Joel lifted his head from the crook of your neck and nibbled at your chin lightly before finally asking you, “You alright, baby?”

You forced your eyes open and brought yourself to move your head back into a normal position. You’d been in discomfort, but as the seconds continued to tick on by and your body relaxed around him, it subsided and the pain was replaced with this fiery and burning desire to feel more of him. You looked up at Joel, the pretty glow coming from outside of the barn illuminating his face and causing a gleam in his dark brown eyes. “I’m better than alright. I’m perfect,” You assured him, already addicted to the way it felt to have him cradled right between your thighs. You placed a hand delicately on his chest; his heart thumped hard against your fingertips.

Joel brushed a light kiss onto the tip of you nose. He slid out slightly and then right back into you in an experimental thrust, causing you to arch up off the blanket. It was such a deliciously tight fit, and he almost couldn’t even believe how fucking good it felt to be sheathed in your taut, blazing heat. He dropped his head, taking one of your breasts into his mouth, his tongue swirling around a hardened nipple as he tested the waters with another thrust.

“Joel—I need you to move,” You gasped. You slid a hand down his chest and over his stomach, letting your fingernails rake lightly over his flushed skin. It was warm to the touch, covered in a thin sheen of perspiration. “Joel, please. Move.”

Your wish was his fucking command.

Joel released your breast from his mouth with the hottest, most lewd sounding pop you’d ever heard in your whole life. He slid himself all the way out of your dripping center, slamming back into you with such a powerful force that he found himself lifting a hand, placing it on the crown of your head so he could keep you in place under him on the blanket. You wrapped your other leg around him, locking it with the other, lifting your hips upwards just as he rolled his own right into them. The new angle gave Joel the opportunity to fuck you even deeper than before and he’d started hitting the spot inside you that had you seeing stars. You wrapped your arms around his neck, holding onto him as if you’d been holding onto dear life itself. Moans you had never heard come out of your own mouth before rang in your ears and his, causing him to pick up his pace.

“Baby—” he breathed out.

“Don’t stop, Joel. God, please don’t fucking stop,” You pleaded him, your fingers burying themselves into the curls at the nape of his neck. “Keep going, just like that, baby—fuck, you feel so good—”

You bit down on your bottom lip, adoring how Joel would squeeze his dark eyes shut tightly each and every single time he would hit that one particularly deep spot inside of your center. Knowing that you and your body had this kind of an effect on him, it gave you a boost of confidence. You had spent the last couple of years allowing a pathetic excuse of a man pick at you and your body, making you feel as if your inability to conceive a child somehow made you defective, worthless even. And here was a real man, one who made you feel so beautiful with the way he kissed you and touched you—even the way Joel reacted to you while he fucked you made you feel like you were the most gorgeous woman ever to walk the goddamn planet. He didn’t give a fuck that you weren’t the perfect woman; Joel treated you like you were perfect anyway.

The barn filled with a combination of moaning and panting, along with the sounds of slick skin hitting skin.

Joel glanced down at you, shaking his head as he warned you, “I ain’t gonna last much longer, baby, I’m so goddamn close.”

A very unexpected wave of newfound courage had washed over you and you planted a hand firmly on Joel’s chest. You took him by complete surprise, a small grunt escaping him as you pushed him back and slid out from underneath his body. You let out a small giggle, amused by the shocked expression that crossed his face as you pushed him back with both of your hands until he was laying down on his back on the blanket. You kept your gaze locked on his and straddled his lap; you reached one of your hands down, gripping the base of his hard length and slowly sank down onto him.

Joel’s lips parted and for a moment, he worried he would actually lose what little sanity he had left. It had to be the most stunning sight he’d ever seen.

You, completely naked and on top of him, your lips pouty and swollen from his earlier kisses. Your soft and supple skin was glowing in the moonlight that was coming in through a larger open window right behind you. Your eyes glimmered, the sexiest little smirk tugging at the corners of your mouth.

All of this while every inch of Joel had been buried inside of you. It left him fucking speechless.

You grabbed his two hands in yours, guiding them over to your hips. Joel’s fingers dug into the pillow soft flesh, holding on as you started rocking back and forth. You threw your head back, hair spilling over your shoulder; the friction of your clit against his pelvis took your pleasure to another level.

Joel had thought that he’d be the one who would go over the edge first, but he’d been wrong.

You felt the tension that had been building itself in your core coil back tightly, ready to snap forward.

“Fuck Joel, I’m going to—”

“Come for me baby,” Joel encouraged you, fingers digging even harder into your hips. He noticed the way you tossed your head back as you neared that sweet release you were chasing. Chuckling lightly, he allowed one his hands to abandon your side; he reached up, gently taking your jaw in his palm. He tilted your face down towards him. “I want you to look at me, Peach,” he instructed you, slipping his thumb between your lips. “Let me see that pretty face of yours when you come, darlin’.”

His words alone had done it. You cried out, feeling yourself unravel all over him as you came.

It didn’t take Joel that much longer to follow. He let out a loud, guttural moan, choking out a string of profanities before finally spilling into you. Your velvet walls squeezed him tightly, draining him of everything he had in him.

You collapsed onto him in a whimpering mess and his arms found their way around your back. You let yourselves lay there, still connected to each other, both of you trying to catch your breath as the high slowly but surely started to wear off.

Joel shifted your bodies, moving you so you were now at his side. He tucked you against him and an arm slid around your shoulders, pulling you closer. His other hand found one of your own and he took it, bringing them both to rest on his chest.

“You alright?” he asked you, lacing his fingers with yours.

“I’m just great,” You answered him tiredly, causing him to chuckle. “What about you?”

Joel’s other hand began stroking your hair. “Never been better.”

You groaned. “Joel, don’t that,” You mumbled into his shoulder. “You’re going to put me to sleep.”

He laughed again. “We’ve still got a bit more time, you know. If you’re tired, you can take a quick nap. I can wake you up in ‘bout an hour.”

“No, that’s alright,” You declined the offer, worried he would accidentally fall asleep too. “I really wish we could fall asleep together. In an actual bed. Not having to worry about anything. Just how normal couples do.”

“We ain’t exactly a normal couple, darlin’.”

“No, we’re definitely not.”You murmured, not even realizing how sad you’d sounded until you felt Joel give your shoulders a comforting squeeze.

Neither of you had said anything else about about it as you spent the next hour laying there, tangled up in each others embrace until it sunrise arrived and it was time to go your separate ways.

;series taglist

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*will continue in a reblog!