#agent whiskey / reader

[missyorkswhore]

Alexa, play Bodyguard by Beyoncé

[punkshort]

Hot Chocolate

Pairing: Jack 'Whiskey' Daniels x f!reader

Summary: You lead a quiet, boring life in a podunk town, but when a certain secret agent stumbles into your world needing your help to catch a criminal at the local carnival, your quiet little life changes forever.

Warnings: language, alcohol consumption, canon-typical violence (fist fights, whips and lassos, of course), smut (18+ MDNI), unprotected piv sex, dirty talk, sexual tension

WC: 6.5K

Written for @pedgito's Summer Lovin' challenge ❤️

Humidity clung to the air, and although the sun had long set, the heat hung heavy in the fairgrounds but that didn't keep the whole town from coming out to the carnival that night. You lived in a small town with not a lot to do but every year the same carnival came through and set up shop for two weeks, attracting people within an hour's drive, and every year since you were sixteen you worked there for some extra cash. Back when you were younger, your earnings tended to go towards the booze you brought to the parties in the middle of the woods, surrounded by the familiar faces of people you grew up with and their siblings. Now that you were in your twenties, that money was put toward rent and a car payment.

When you were sixteen, you had a very different idea of what your life would look like by now. Hell, you didn't even think you'd be living in this town, let alone working the same shitty waitress job at the same shitty restaurant while you tried and failed to come up with a better career path. Money was tight and the last thing you wanted to do was move back in with your parents, so you picked up extra jobs here and there. The carnival wasn't a bad gig. Pay was based on seniority and since you had worked there for so many years, the money was good and the jobs were mostly pretty fun, but it was only two weeks and you would be back to pinching pennies again.

But a week before the carnival was scheduled to arrive, a handsome man with dark hair, even darker cowboy hat and yellow aviators strolled into your restaurant with a cocky smirk and requested to sit in your section, and everything changed.

You had greeted him like any other table and subtly stole glances his way while he studied the menu, trying to figure out if you recognized him. No, you surely would remember him. Aside from his obvious good looks, he stuck out amongst the usual crowd. Dark grey, form fitting suit with a matching tie and cowboy boots? That... you definitely would have remembered.

He leaned back in the booth, one arm draped across the back of the worn cushion while his eyes slowly dragged down your frame. You glanced around nervously, suddenly feeling like you were being judged, then his eyes traveled back up and stopped on your name tag. He repeated your name out loud as if it were a question and finally looked into your eyes. His intensity sent a shiver down your spine but you nodded, confirming your name, and he smiled. It was a slow smile, one that began as a twitch in the corner of his mouth and tugged to one side, pulling his dark mustache with it until his lips spread so wide you could see his teeth. They were straight and he actually still had all of them. Yeah, he definitely wasn't from your hometown.

He didn't come back into the restaurant after that, but it wouldn't be the last time you saw him.

Two days later you made a pit stop by the Piggly Wiggly for some groceries. You made your way through the parking lot to your beat up car, stopping dead in your tracks when he came into view. He was leaning casually against your driver's side door, one ankle hooked over the other and still wearing that suit. Or maybe it was a different suit. You couldn't remember but what you did remember was the bead of sweat that trickled down from underneath his Stetson, leaving an enticing wet streak along the side of his head. He said your name and smiled, trying to disarm you, but you were still wary. He held up both palms flat as if to prove he wasn't dangerous but something told you his hands were just as threatening as any other weapon.

"Got a minute to talk, sugar?"

You glanced around the parking lot and swallowed, every natural instinct screaming at you to run back inside the store for help but instead you found yourself slowly walking towards him, as if being pulled by a magnet or some other enchanting force.

It was a bit of a blur after that. He flashed his badge, Jack Daniels, it read, with the word Statesmen being tossed around quite a bit while he explained what he did for a living, all of it sounding rather impressive but also confusing. Espionage. Spies. Undercover.

"What's all that got to do with me?" you had said. He smiled.

"Glad you asked."

Apparently he had been trying to track down a dangerous arms dealer for years. With some information Jack squeezed out of a low level guard, he discovered the arms dealer was able to be so successful because he traveled with the carnival to evade local and federal law enforcement. Always being on the move kept him under the radar, and now Jack had his sights set on taking him down when the carnival arrived in your town, but he needed help.

Jack needed someone who was on the inside, someone who earned years of trust by working for the same people and living in the same town, someone completely unsuspecting.

You.

At first, you said no, unwilling to put yourself at risk even though he promised he would be hiding in the shadows and would be in constant communication with you through an earpiece and camera. Then he offered up a few thousand dollars to sweeten the deal and your resolve crumbled. He promised you would be under government protection and your involvement would be minimal: you just needed to find the target and let Jack know which booth he was going to work. Plus, you really needed the money.

That was how you found yourself in the mid-afternoon before your shift started being suited up with impressive, high tech gear. Jack watched patiently from the corner of the trailer. For the first time, he wasn't wearing a suit. He elected to wear a pair of dark wash jeans and a white tshirt that clung to his broad chest but he was still sporting his signature cowboy hat. A beautiful woman named Ginger outfitted you with a nearly invisible earpiece and installed a microscopic camera in the button of your polo shirt. She assured you there was a tiny microphone in the camera and that Jack and the entire team assigned to the case would be watching and ready to jump into action if anything went sideways.

Simple enough, you thought.

"How're you holdin' up, darlin'?" Jack mumbled, pinching your elbow between his fingers as he led you out of the unsuspecting double wide that currently hid Ginger and all her expensive equipment and into his Bronco.

"Uh..." you began, throat suddenly feeling dry when he started the car and turned onto the familiar stretch of road. They had set up a base in the woods about two miles away from the carnival which meant you would be there in less than five minutes. Your head was spinning, the adrenaline suddenly coursing through your veins and making you lightheaded. "Not so great, actually."

He turned his head and studied you for a moment before pulling off the road and throwing the car into park. He shifted in his seat so he could face you, one elbow resting on the back of his seat and the other on the steering wheel. "I ain't gonna let anythin' bad happen to you, you hear me?" You hadn't realized your breathing was becoming more labored and your face felt hot. He was probably just worried you were about to pass out and that's why he reached out to cup the back of your neck, forcing your attention off the carnival peeking through the trees and onto his face. Your gaze lingered on his dark brown eyes and chiseled jaw and hooked nose that looked like it would be perfect nestled between your thighs.

"You promise?" you whispered, tone a little more sultry than you intended. He swallowed and nodded.

"'Course. I'll be right there the whole time. All's you gotta do is tell me where he's gonna be and I'll do all the dirty work," he told you with a wink. Your eyes darkened a fraction, having a completely different idea of what kind of dirty work you'd like him to do before you blinked and snapped out of it. You chalked it up to your nerves but it was too late. He saw it in your eyes and he clenched his jaw, his gaze flickering down to your lips and then to the camera in your shirt before slowly pulling his hand away from the back of your neck.

"What code word d'you wanna use in case you need help and can't say it?" he asked, shifting back into work mode and merging into traffic.

You thought it over for a moment, grateful for the distraction.

"Hot chocolate."

He cocked an eyebrow and grinned. "Hot chocolate?"

"Yeah, I don't think it's something I would accidentally say because who the hell would order hot chocolate in this heat?"

He smiled wider. "Fair enough."

Jack dropped you off at the entrance of the carnival, reminding you he wouldn't be far behind and to stay alert. You bobbed and weaved your way through the crowded thoroughfare, the late afternoon sun beating down on the masses as they pushed wagons of children or carried various prizes under their arms while drinking cold lemonade or licking ice cream to combat the heat. You managed to get to the air conditioned office five minutes before your shift started and clocked in before examining the schedule. Jack had warned you the target wouldn't use his real name, so he made you study multiple photos of him the day before. Balding, but a dark horseshoe of hair curved around his head. He had a mustache, too, but not like Jack. The target's mustache was bushy and unkept, but Jack warned you that could have changed. He had a paunchy belly and he was approximately 5'10" but the most notable feature was a wide, pale scar that stretched from his right elbow to halfway down his forearm.

You glanced around the somewhat crowded office. Nobody seemed to fit that description so you focused on the schedule. You were set to work the lemonade stand. One of the more boring jobs, but at least you were with one of your good friends, Stephanie, who was working the candied apple stand next door.

"All good?" you heard Jack's gravelly voice echo through your earpiece. You had no idea how to answer that without looking like you were talking to yourself so you turned to a mirror and gave a quick thumbs up. He chuckled and you had to bite back a smile. "Alright, where are you workin' so I can get set up nearby?"

Again, you weren't sure how to answer but just then Stephanie breezed through the door. You called out her name and waved as she punched in and headed over to you, giving you a sweaty hug.

"We're working together tonight. You're on apples, I'm on lemonade next door," you told her, hearing Jack confirm your location in your ear.

"Awesome, should be a slow night after dinner," she replied, hooking her arm through yours and leading you back out into the busy dirt road lined with vendors and food carts.

As she predicted, you were rather occupied until the sun set and people began to indulge in fried dough and rides, leaving your little section of the fairgrounds quiet. For the first time in hours you glanced around, wondering if you could spot Jack, but he was no where to be found.

"So, did you meet any guys so far this summer?" Stephanie asked you, leaning over her counter and popping her gum loudly between her molars.

"Nah, not really," you replied, feeling the tips of your ears burn, knowing Jack was listening. "You?"

"Just one but he turned out to be an asshole," she said, rolling her eyes dramatically. "We gotta get out of this town, girl. I swear there's no one good left. I'm either related to them or already dated them and I can't stand any of 'em."

"Yeah, maybe one day," you replied, glancing around again.

"I'm serious. Maybe we oughta make a plan, y'know? Like we always said we would? Ain't you sick of waiting tables?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," you muttered. "But where would we go? We don't know anyone outside of here."

"I got a cousin up north, maybe we can visit her and see how we like it."

For a second you almost forgot the mission when, out of the corner of your eye, you spotted a man matching the target's description disappear into the crowd. You squinted but you only saw the back of him and he was quickly getting away.

"Hey, can you cover for me?" you asked, already tossing your apron off and smoothing down your skirt.

"Yeah, sure. Been dead here for the past hour, take your time."

You hustled down the street, pushing people out of the way as you tried to catch up with the man you saw.

"Sugar, I lost ya, slow down," Jack's voice crackled in your ear.

"Can't, I think I saw him," you replied.

"Do not engage, y'hear me?" Jack said sternly. He sounded breathless now, no doubt rushing to catch up with you.

"I won't, I just wanna see where he's going."

You broke through the crowd and swiveled your head from side to side, desperately trying to spot the balding man. Now that you thought about it, he looked like he was wearing the same color uniform you had on. Your pulse raced as you turned around frantically, and just when you thought you lost him you spotted him walking up the steps to the house of mirrors. When he reached out to open the door, you saw the telltale scar and gasped.

"Jack! It's him!" you said, racing through the crowd again, dodging groups of children laughing and eating cotton candy.

"... stay... where are... losin' you-" you heard Jack's voice cutting in and out through your earpiece but the excitement got the best of you and you charged forward into the house of mirrors, the door slamming shut behind you, leaving you in a mostly darkened room. The only sounds you could hear were muffled conversations from families walking by.

"Jack?" you whispered, tapping on the earpiece and taking a few shaky steps forward. "Jack, if you can hear me, I'm in the house of mirrors. He's-"

"Looking for someone?" a man's deep voice said from over your shoulder, making you jump. You swiveled around and tried not to gasp in fear. It was him: Vic Leary, aka The Falcon. It was almost laughable how Jack had been chasing the man for years only to have him directly in front of you after a few hours. He took a menacing step forward and you swallowed tightly.

"Yeah, actually. I'm looking for my friend," you said, taking a small step backwards, a step deeper into the attraction.

"That right?" Vic sneered, taking yet another step closer. "Well I'm the only one here. Sure you ain't looking for me?"

You shook your head vehemently. "N-nope. I'm supposed to meet a friend here any minute, he's meeting me with some hot chocolate," you said the last part loudly and Vic frowned. Then he seemed to piece together that you were bugged or maybe he just saw his opportunity to strike because he lunged forward. Luckily, you were prepared and stumbled backwards out of reach, causing him to fall forward on his hands and knees. You spun around and raced through the dizzying hall of mirrors, Vic's angry curses and threats shouting after you.

The next tunnel had a wall of mirrors that shifted, causing you to feel like the floor was moving. You stretched your arms out and blinked rapidly, stumbling through and glancing over your shoulder in a panic, wondering where he went. It was quiet. His yelling stopped. Did Jack find him?

The next room was a literal maze, the walls and ceilings covered in mirrors, some curved and warped, some jagged and angular. You couldn't think of a worse place to hide and you needed to get the hell out of there.

"Can anyone hear me?" you whispered into your polo shirt, wincing when all you heard was sharp feedback in your ear. You turned a corner, jumping when you saw movement but calmed down when you realized it was your own reflection six times over. You heaved a sigh of relief and took another look around, trying to decide where to go next when a big, sweaty body jumped out from behind a mirror in front of you, tackling you to the ground. You screamed bloody murder and tried to squirm away, but he had you pinned to the ground with a hand around your throat. You scratched and kicked and yelled but it was no use. His fingers gripped the side of your throat and he watched with a sick smile as you struggled to drag in air, all the while clawing at the backs of his hands so hard, you drew blood. And just when you thought you might pass out, a black cowboy boot swung from behind your head and kicked Vic directly across the jaw, making him yelp in pain and fall backwards.

You coughed and scrambled away, clutching your throat and looking up to find Jack, his shoulders and chest heaving and his eyebrows pinched together in fury. Without taking his eyes off Vic, who was cupping his mouth, his hand collecting blood, he asked, "you alright, sugar?"

You could only nod and he told you to wait for him outside, but when you stood and took a few steps back the way you came, you saw Vic stand up and run in the opposite direction, nimbly dodging the mirrors, too familiar with the maze to be slowed down. Nostrils flared, Jack reached for his belt and grabbed a braided piece of leather. His thumb pressed down on a small button and like magic, the rest of the whip unfurled at his side. He then spun it over his head twice before snapping it forward, circling around the target's neck and yanking him back to the ground with a grunt.

Jack disappeared deeper into the maze, his grip tight. You looked over your shoulder, back to the entrance, then groaned and followed Jack. When you rounded the corner, he was towering over the suspect, whip back on his belt, Vic looking like he was knocked out cold. You peered around the last mirror, hiding from view while Jack pressed something on his watch and began to speak to a small hologram of an older looking man with a beard. He was telling him that the suspect was in custody and needed backup while he dug out a pair of metal handcuffs with his free hand.

Jack was distracted and didn't realize Vic had begun to move, but you did. When Jack's back was turned, Vic quietly rose to his feet and pulled out a knife from the back of his pants. He raised his arm above his head, ready to plunge the blade into Jack's throat. You raced forward and swung your leg out, hitting the backs of his knees with your shin and bringing him back down to the ground with a thud before he had a chance to inflict any harm.

Swirling around, Jack ended the call without warning and punched Vic directly in the nose. You heard a sickening crunch of bone and a howl of pain from the man's throat, but just as Jack was about to grab his arms and haul him to his feet, Vic rolled to the side and jumped up with a surprising amount of agility. Jack groaned and reached behind him, pulling out what appeared to be a lasso. He calmly glared after Vic, who was nearly to the exit, while circling the rope above his head. The lasso began to glow an icy blue, mesmerizing you for a moment until he snapped it down with an electric crack, wrapping and pinching the rope around Vic's lower leg.

You couldn't believe your eyes when his leg cleanly and completely severed below the knee. Slapping both palms over your mouth to muffle your screams, you curled up on the floor and watched as Jack approached Vic, who was making noises so pained and fearful that you were certain you would hear them in your nightmares for the rest of your life.

Jack was handcuffing him and warning him he shouldn't have run while the man sobbed pathetically in a pool of his own blood. You just stared, your whole body trembling at the carnage, completely numb. You didn't even hear when three other agents breezed past you to collect the target, followed shortly thereafter by a small cleaning crew wearing protective gear from head to toe. Suddenly the maze, which seemed so massive before, was cramped and making you feel claustrophobic.

His eyes finally met yours once Vic was officially in custody. His expression went from one of relief to one of deep concern when he saw the state you were in and he rushed forward to collect you off the floor.

"Hey, don't look at that," he murmured, but your gaze was still pinned on the blood staining the floor. "Eyes on me, darlin'."

You forced your eyes away from the mess and onto him, like he requested, but you were finding it difficult to breathe. Each inhale was a struggle, like your lungs couldn't expand all the way, and each exhale left your ears ringing.

"Get me out of here, Jack."

He nodded once and helped you stand. With an arm wrapped around your shoulders, he ushered you back through the maze towards the entrance. Once you were able to take in a deep breath of fresh, humid air, you started to feel a little better but the adrenaline was still coursing through your body, making you feel like you were practically vibrating.

People streamed past you laughing and joking, blissfully unaware of what just happened while you sat on a nearby bench with your head between your legs. Jack soothingly rubbed your upper back and waited for you to calm down. Your energy was too intense, the vivid images of what you just witnessed too strong and Jack seemed to sense it.

"Here," he said, leaning back and lifting his hips from the bench. Your eyes instantly locked onto his lap, where his fingers began to remove a small flask from his belt buckle. When he handed it to you, hoping the alcohol would help calm your nerves, you just continued to stare, all wild eyed and rabid.

"Have a little, it'll help," he urged while trying to ignore the hungry look in your eye. You blinked slowly and, with shaky fingers, took the flask and unscrewed the top. You winced a little at the burn but a minute later, your stomach felt warm and your muscles relaxed. You handed it back to him and he took a sip himself without breaking eye contact with you, then fastened it back onto his belt. You leaned forward, once again feeling inexplicably drawn to him, and brushed your fingertips lightly over the flask. You were playing with fire and you knew it. His eyes bore into yours with a blazing heat and he whispered, "you need somethin' stronger, sugar?"

You sunk your teeth into your lower lip and nodded. He stood up and grabbed your hand, glancing around the fairgrounds manically, the adrenaline from the past twenty minutes getting the best of both of you, it seemed.

The choices were limited and the closest area with any semblance of privacy was the bathroom and you both seemed disgusted by that prospect because he muttered fuck it under his breath and dragged you off the main road towards the dark parking lot.

Once he reached his Bronco, he twisted around and violently yanked at the buttons on your polo shirt. You yelped in surprise but when he opened his hand and showed you the button he tore off with the camera attached, you nodded. He flung it into the mud and dropped his earpiece, then you scrambled to do the same. Once you were as alone as you possibly could be, he pinned you against the side of his truck and pinched your jaw between his thumb and forefinger, tilting your head up to look at him.

"You sure?" was all he asked, pupils blown wide.

You nodded. "Please."

He groaned and crashed his mouth against yours, dropping his hand from your jaw to wrap around the back of your neck. He tasted like Jameson and you imagined you did, too. "Such a polite little thing," he whispered before plunging his tongue inside your mouth and licking past your teeth. You were moments away from unzipping his jeans and letting him take you right then and there when you heard a chorus of laughter from the next row of cars and you pulled away, gasping for air. Jack appeared just as wrecked as you felt, eyes all wild and skin hot with arousal.

"C'mon," he said, as if reading your mind he tugged you away from the car so he could open the door to the backseat. You practically launched yourself inside and by the time you spun around he was slamming the door shut behind him. He gazed at you for just a moment before shedding his cowboy hat and pressing your body into the seat, picking up where he left off. You took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of leather and gunpowder and his cologne, all ingrained in the fabric after years under his care.

His lips traveled down, grazing against your jaw and nipping at the spot behind your ear. His mustache tickled your skin, making you giggle, and you felt him smile against your throat at the sound. His lips latched onto your neck, sucking a bruise there while your hands dipped underneath the hem of his white tshirt. The fabric bunched up around your wrists the higher your fingers traveled up his torso, reveling in the way the muscles in his back twitched under your touch. Then his hips dropped against yours, resting his weight heavy between your legs, and you sucked in a sharp breath.

"Jack?" you whispered hoarsely.

"Mhm?"

"I-I want you," you stammered when his thumbs brushed over your breasts, nipples hardening through your shirt. "Want you so bad."

"You got me, sweetheart. I'm all yours," he mumbled, teeth scraping gently over your collarbone as he continued to move achingly slow further and further down your body.

You moaned and arched your back, pressing your chest into him. "Jack, I want you now," you tried again, and he clicked his tongue with a smirk.

"Where'd those manners run off to?"

"Please," you groaned. He hoisted himself up, holding his weight above you, the palms of his hands pressing into the seat on either side of your ribs.

"Say it again f'me, sugar. Y'just sound so pretty when you're beggin' for it."

"Please," you whispered this time, then dragged your hand down his stomach, stopping to cup his erection through the thick denim of his jeans. You rubbed the palm of your hand up and down enticingly, drawing a quiet moan from his throat. He hissed and pressed himself into your hand, rocking his hips and watching your fingers work him up and down. "Please, Jack, I need you."

His eyes flashed up to yours once before he sat back on his heels, fumbling with the tiny flask on his belt with an urgency that told you he heard exactly what he wanted to hear. He tossed both items on the floor before undoing his jeans and then, seeming to remember you were still fully clothed, dragged his hands up your thighs and under your skirt. His palms cupped your ass and squeezed before hooking his fingers around the edge of your panties and tugging them down. You lifted your hips to help, feeling slightly disappointed there wouldn't be enough room or time for either of you to fully undress, but you would make do.

"Goddamn, that's a pretty sight," he groaned when he pushed your skirt up enough to get a good look between your legs. He ran the pad of his thumb through your slit and you began to squirm impatiently. "Now, normally I'd prefer to take my time," he began, and your heart thundered wildly in your chest when he pushed his jeans down and pulled out his cock, hard and leaking. "But it would appear we don't have the luxury today, darlin'." He used one hand to steady your hip and the other to line himself up with your entrance, then you held your breath when he started to press forward, parting your walls and forcing you to stretch around his girth.

"Shit," you whined, tipping your head back and squeezing your eyes shut.

"Yeah, that's it," he whispered, watching as he slowly disappeared inside you, only looking back to your face once he was buried to the hilt. "How's that? Feelin' better now?" he asked a little breathlessly. You nodded and forced your eyes to open.

"Feels good," you murmured, licking your dry lips and gasping when he began to move. "Yeah, just like that, faster - please faster," you added hastily when you remembered his comment earlier about manners. The corner of his mouth curled up into a smirk before falling forward onto his elbows. He tugged one of your knees up so you hooked your leg around his waist, spreading your hips wide before feverishly latching his mouth onto yours, muffling your noises when he began to snap his hips faster and deeper.

"This what you needed?" he whispered in your ear. You tightened your arms around his neck, holding him close, the desire suddenly overwhelming to have him completely consume you and keep you in the safety of his arms. "Needed me to fuck you and turn that little brain of yours off for a while? Hm?"

"Yes," you admitted shamelessly. He was fucking everywhere. His mouth was drifting from your lips to your neck to your ear, his hands groping and gliding along your stomach or legs, his cock sliding smoothly in and out, each time catching on that one spot that made you see stars. Even his body heat felt like it was fully encompassing you. And he was right: it was exactly what you needed.

"Christ, too fuckin' good, sweetheart," he breathed, his hips stuttering for a moment before resuming a punishing pace. The way his lips melted against your own while the tip of his cock reached a depth inside you didn't know was possible was making your vision blur and your breath ragged. You were so caught up in the moment that you hadn't yet considered you wouldn't see him again after that night. Nor did you have a chance to realize how long you had been gone from the lemonade stand. Nothing else outside of his car mattered.

"Jack," you whimpered as heat began to lick and wrap around your spine. Your stomach tightened and your mouth was wide open, pulling in mouthfuls of air as quickly as you could. You were so close but you just needed a little more. He was busy pushing your polo shirt up and yanking down your bra, his hot tongue swiping greedily over your nipples one at a time with an appreciative groan before he sunk his teeth into your soft flesh, no doubt trying to leave a mark to remember him by.

"Love the way you say my name, darlin'. Music to my ears."

As if he could read your mind, his had slipped between your bodies and began to thumb at your clit. Your thighs tensed and you cried out, his name the only word your brain was able to conjure up, which, based on his enthusiastic reaction, pleased him greatly. You couldn't stop yourself. Your body began to meet him, thrust for thrust, your hips rolling, matching his rhythm and forcing his thumb to apply more pressure. Before you even had a chance to warn him your orgasm crashed down around you, so powerful and intense that it sent you reeling, his name and a string of unintelligible curses the only thing falling from your lips. And he fucking loved it.

"Oh, look at you," he groaned, "pretty little thing, all fucked out. Goddamn, you're gonna make me come, darlin'." His large hand splayed across your ribs and he stared, slack jawed, at the way your tits bounced from the force of his thrusts. "Shit, shit, shit," he grumbled, his jaw locking as he closed in on his release. "Where, sugar?"

"Inside," you moaned, trying to force your eyes to stay open so you could watch. He clicked his tongue against his teeth and dragged his eyes back up to your face.

"Don't say that."

"Please," you whispered, and you could see his resolve crumbling.

"Fuck," he groaned, then he shifted so he could grab onto your hips with both hands. It didn't take much longer, but each thrust after that was harsh and unforgiving until his body stilled and he came with a broken moan that you made sure to commit to memory. He panted for air and tilted his head back when he was done, his fingers still gripping your waist. An incoming call came through, lighting up the face of his high-tech watch, but he ignored it. Once he caught his breath and he began to soften inside you, he rolled his head forward, gazing down at you in admiration. "You're somethin' else," he rasped, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a half-smirk.

"You sound surprised," you teased.

"I am, but not because of this," he said, leaning forward to press a soft kiss against your lips. He slid out of you with a grunt and you sharply sucked in air at the loss. His dark eyes lingered a moment on his spend dripping out of you before gently fixing your bra and top. The sweet gesture made you smile.

"What, then?"

He grinned and tucked himself back in his jeans, then handed you your panties. "You saved my hide back there, brave girl," he murmured, pinching your chin affectionately. "Kickin' his legs out like that. Didn't know you had it in you."

You shrugged and tugged your underwear back on. "I didn't really think about it, he was going to stab you, I had to do something."

He hummed and leaned back in the seat, watching as you fixed your skirt and tried to tame your hair in the mirror before spotting his discarded cowboy hat on the floor. You grinned and picked it up, plopping it onto your head with a giggle. "How do I look?"

"Fuckin' beautiful," he said, making you laugh, "although you're doin' things a little backwards, sugar."

"What do you mean?" you asked, taking it off to see if you put it on wrong. He smiled and gently took the hat from your fingers and put it back on your head.

"The rule is, you wear a man's Stetson, you gotta ride the cowboy, but seein' as we did that already..." he trailed off and you giggled again when you finally understood. "But I suppose it depends on who you ask. Could mean somethin' else, too."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Some say if the cowboy lets the lady wear his hat then he's interested in seein' her again," he said softly, watching as you became flustered at the suggestion.

"Oh," you breathed, feeling your skin heat up under his gaze. Reality slowly began to seep in. Now that Jack found his man, he would go back to wherever he came from and your boring life would go back to normal. But then he hooked a finger under your chin so you would focus back on him.

"Would you like that?"

"Would I ... yeah, of course, but-"

"I heard what you were sayin' to your friend. 'Bout wantin' to move?" he said, dropping his hand and shifting his weight. "What if we had a spot for you at the agency? Maybe doin' somethin' with Ginger, learn the ropes a bit? I think you got potential, sweetheart."

You laughed and shook your head. "I can't do what you guys do, are you serious?"

"You got guts. We can teach anyone how to use a weapon, but guts? That can't be taught."

When it became apparent he wasn't joking, you cleared your throat and glanced out the window. "I don't know..."

"You said yourself you're sick of waitin' tables," he reminded you, then pulled out a white business card and handed it to you. "I know it's a big decision. Think it over and gimme a call." He paused for a moment and a slow smile spread across his face. "But how 'bout you gimme a call either way?"

"Okay," you practically whispered, looking down at the card before shoving it safely in your pocket. He pushed open the door and slid down to the ground, then turned around and held out a hand for you.

You spent the rest of your night thinking over Jack's offer, replaying over and over in your mind everything you learned about the Statesmen in the past week and trying to imagine if that was something you could possibly do. You had pretty much decided it was a stupid idea, that it was dangerous and things like that didn't happen to girls like you, but when you punched in for your shift at the restaurant on Monday and looked around the dining room at the same patrons eating the same food they always did, listening to the same boring gossip and worrying about the same bills that always plagued you, something finally snapped. You tore off your apron and tossed it behind the computer before snatching your purse and walking out the front door without a second glance behind you.

You got into your beat up car and breathlessly dialed the number you had been staring at all weekend, your heart slamming in your chest excitedly. When Jack's familiar drawl answered on the other end, a huge smile spread across your face.

"That offer still stand, cowboy?"

[syd-djarin]

private eyes - jack daniels x private investigator!f!reader (18+ MDNI)

this is for @iamasaddie little lady kinky may challenge! congrats on 2.5k! <333 I was paired with Jack / Voyeurism.

banner by: @cafekitsune

tags: voyeurism (reader watches jack), masturbation (m & f), reader is a private investigator, gratuitous descriptions of my fav cowboy stroking his big cock, dub-con a little? reader masturbates in her car but there isn't anyone around so public but private

a/n: this is the first fic I've completed in months. it's short and to the point, idk how i feel about it but it pushed me out of my writing slump! kinda want to do a part 2 for this, what do y'all think 👀

wc: ~1.6k

smut below the cut

 “I want you to catch that son of a bitch in the act.”

The visibly scorned woman, Camilla, sitting across from you asks through tears, ones that she hasn’t allowed to escape down her cheeks; catching them right at the waterline with an overused tissue.

This isn’t the first time a disgruntled, mistreated, or betrayed lover has sought out your services — no shortage of shitty men leaving trails of destruction while they pillage and greedily chase their own interests. She’s no different, seeking closure from the broken-off engagement from her now ex-fiancée, Jack Daniels. The pair had been together for a year, engaged for three months and one day, out of the blue, Jack broke it off. According to her, he didn’t give a concrete reason, something vague about being consumed with his job and that “she deserved a better life than that”. 

Of course you get paid a pretty penny for your work, but you take great pleasure in catching a man in the act. Whether the woman needs proof for divorce settlements, custody battles, or to just have leverage. Whatever the case may be, you find a gratification you don’t get anywhere else; the upheaval of a man trying to have his cake and eat it too. 

The conventionally attractive woman you couldn’t pick out of a line-up slides her homemade dossier across the coffee shop table, tacky & sticky from previous patrons. You flip through the information presented to you, taking mental notes as you go. You can’t deny the heat that rises up your face as you study the picture of your next target. The deep sable eyes resembling a baby calf’s are staring at you through the glossy photo paper. He’s sporting a mustache reminiscent of Burt Reynolds that is calling your name. His smirk is laced with a charming cockiness. 

“He’s quite the looker, I know. Hell of a lay, too,” her words snap you out of your daydream. Her words feel hollow, his looks are the only attributes she’s mentioned during the duration of the consultation. You're not getting paid for moral judgements and you remind yourself you don’t know the whole story. 

“Which is why I want to know who he’s fucking. I know there’s another woman, or maybe even a guy… he’d answer calls in the middle of the night and step into another room and I swear I could hear a woman’s voice on the other end, he’d tell me he’s going on work trips… he works at a whiskey distillery, why the hell does he need to go on all these trips?” She explains, putting air quotes around ‘trips’ with her dainty, well-manicured hands, “he’d stay late at work a few nights a week, and then it turned into a nightly thing… Anyways, you come highly recommended, so I’m trusting you won’t let me down,” she adds. You’re not a fan of the passive aggressive, back-handed compliment she gives you, but ultimately you give her an understanding smile as you both rise from the table. 

“I’ll be in touch,” you tell her, as you exit. As cliche as that line is, you love saying it every time. 

Days of following Jack around have proven to be fruitless. The man has a simple routine: wakes up at six, traipses to the bathroom to begin his morning regimen of a showering, shaving and grooming his beloved mustache, and to conclude,  adorns his body in his tight denim jeans, a crisp button-down, a cowboy hat, and boots to match. You hate to admit it, and someone would have to waterboard this information out of you, but the hat is doing something for him. 

Or you. 

Whatever. 

He shops weekly on Wednesdays (he always puts the cart back inside the store, not the cart returns in the parking lot), takes the same route home everyday, watches Jeopardy while he eats dinner – you caught on quickly that he cooks during Wheel of Fortune, it appears he isn’t a big fan of Pat and Vanna, dishes promptly following Final Jeopardy and bed by nine. In three weeks Jack hasn’t had a single visitor, of any gender, leaves work at five like everyone else, the man isn’t adding up to be a cheating womanizer like Camilla had set him out to be. Not to say that he isn’t, but you’re not finding any evidence to support that claim. You’ve actually found yourself developing a crush on the man. He’s undoubtedly handsome, seemingly laid back despite his strict routine, and there’s something mysterious that lies beneath that you’re itching to unearth.

You’re parked discreetly across the street from his house. It’s a nice quiet street, with only two lamps to illuminate the surrounding neighborhoods, allowing you to stay shrouded in the night. 

You’re about to call it a night, exhaustion settling deep into your bones, when you notice a lamp turned on in the living room. Fortunately, the window faces the street, making your job that much easier for you. You pick up your binoculars to peer in, adjusting the focus for your prying eyes. Thank the universe he left his blinds open. 

He sits on the couch with his back facing you. It looks like he’s reaching for the remote, like maybe he’s having trouble sleeping, but when he settles back into the couch, you notice he’s butt ass naked, in all his glory. Even through the binoculars, you can see how big his cock is. Your mouth salivates at the sight, wanting to feel the stretch of him in all your holes. 

You’re not supposed to see this. Not at all. Usually in your assignments, you don’t get the full X-rated view, just the PG-13 suggestive one, and you are more than grateful for that. 

But not now.

You’re getting your own private peep show from the man you’re getting paid to spy on. You’re feeling like a grade-A pervert right about now but the sight is too glorious to look away. He spits on his hand, and languidly begins stroking his cock. He runs his other hand through his hair, his toned arms flexing with his movements, his chest heaving. 

It shouldn’t turn you on like it does. For one, it’s highly unprofessional. Secondly, he’s unaware he’s got an audience. Morally speaking, it’s definitely not your shining moment. But it’s the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, watching him tease and work himself up. You couldn’t pry your eyes away if you wanted to. 

Jack’s not the only one getting worked up; your clit throbs so hard you feel like it’ll go numb. Your heartbeat echoes in your ears thump-thump thump-thump. You let out a whine when Jack massages his tip, precum dribbling out like a sweet nectar you’d like to feast on. He continues his slow movements, dragging out his pleasure at a delicious and excruciating pace. Somehow, this makes the whole scene that much hotter; the display of restraint and discipline. You wonder if he does that with his lovers. Teasing, teasing, teasing, giving just enough to drive you insane before slowing almost to a stop. 

Possessed by desire, you haphazardly look for any lingering people outside before unbuttoning your pants to shove your hand to where it's needed most. You gasp at the cool air hitting your thinly clothed pussy, you can smell your own arousal seeped into your panties and it spurs you on further. You mirror Jack’s pace - teasing your lips with a featherlight touch, inching closer and closer to your needy clit, stopping just shy of it, to tease yourself more. It’s agonizing in the best way, taking your time like this. Normally, you like efficiency when making yourself come, rarely going the extra mile to turn the pleasure dial up, but this makes you question why you’re ever in a hurry. 

You reach your clit, going in gentle circles to match Jack’s unhurried pace. You wish you could hear the sounds he’s making, all the grunts and whimpers escaping his plush lips. 

He speeds up his strokes, now ravenous for his delayed release and so are you. Overtaken by the need to come, you drop the binoculars, letting them fall to the floorboard. You’re not even watching him anymore, having seen more than enough to commit to your spank bank. With your eyes closed and head pushing into the headrest, your mind is flooded with images of Jack fucking you slow, hard and deep, absolutely destroying your pussy – legs over his shoulders, hitting the spot that makes you scream and cry in euphoria. The image of him spilling into you, filling you up with his come is what tips you over the edge, your body shivers in bliss and you rock against your hand to ride out the high, feeling faint from the intensity. 

After you’ve recovered and fumbled your chance of ever seeing The Pearly Gates, you dare to look back to his house, to find all the lights back off. It’s a bit of a relief, feeling less shameful of what you’ve done now that you can’t see him at the moment. 

You button your pants backup and lean over to retrieve the forgotten binoculars from the floorboard, as your fingers grab them you hear a knock on the window. The sudden rap on the glass makes you flinch, feeling your skeleton attempt to flee from your corporeal body. Your heart drops to your stomach when you see Jack standing outside your car, leaning one forearm against the body so his face is level with yours. Fuck fuck fuck. You’ve been caught. Dizziness and nausea war within you as you roll down the window. You open your mouth to explain the situation, but words never escape your mouth. 

“You like watchin’ people don’t ya?” he asks, his tone is dark, but not angry. No, it’s something else entirely. 

“I–”

“‘S’alright. Caught onto ya pretty quick. A pretty face like yours ain’t hard to miss.”

“I– i’m sorry, um,” you scramble to find words, any words but Jack interjects again. 

“You like watchin’, but darlin’ I want to know, do ya like bein’ watched?”

[blckbrrybasket]

can you do odd!reader responding to her partner w/ a breeding kink?

absolutely! im so so sorry for taking the longest amount of time to respond to this anon </3

odd!reader not picking up stuff is so real to me

Fem, Masc, and Gn reader featured

[fem/afab]

God you were so pretty, was all he could think. Even from the back you were utterly beautiful. His cock continued thrusting into your slick walls. He’d slide his dick out till it was just his tip notched inside your entrance before pounding back in. It was a hypnotizing rhythm that had you drooling into the pillow beneath you.

The other pillow held your hips up, keeping you presented nicely for him. His hand crept around your hip to draw shapes on your clit. Seeing the way your folds stretched around him made his dick twitch inside your cunt. “Fuuuck. Gonna fill you with up yeah? Have you carry my babies? D’be such a good mom.” He choked out without a second thought.

He, of course, was the only one not giving it a second thought. You always gave it a second thought though. Craning your neck, you shot an almost worried look over your shoulder. “I’m on birth control…and we’re not ready to be parents.”

If he hadn’t been balls deep in you he might have laughed. His hips snapped before slowing down in shock. “No it’s- it’s just dirty talk, babe. A saying?” You blinked as the cogs in your brain turned, a smile brightening your features once you realized. “Oh! Okay.”

Seeing you move on so swiftly had him shaking his head and beginning to thrust into you again. His teeth sunk into his lower lip as he focused on how you clenched around his dick, fucking through his confusion. It wouldn’t be the first nor last time it happened.

[masc/amab]

God you were so handsome, was all he could think. Even from the back you truly were attractive. His cock continued thrusting into your walls. He’d slide his dick out till it was just his tip notched inside your entrance before pounding back in. It was a hypnotizing rhythm that had you drooling into the pillow beneath you.

The other pillow held your hips up, keeping you presented nicely for him. His hand thumb rested at the top of your ass, watching the lube drooling out over his cock. Seeing the way you stretched around him made his dick twitch inside your ass. “Fuuuck. Gonna fill you with up yeah? Have you carry my babies? D’be such a good dad.” He choked out without a second thought.

He, of course, was the only one not giving it a second thought. You always gave it a second thought though. Craning your neck, you shot an almost worried look over your shoulder. “That’s not possible….and we’re not ready to be parents.”

If he hadn’t been balls deep in you he might have laughed. His hips snapped before slowing down in shock. “No it’s- it’s just dirty talk, babe. A saying?” You blinked as the cogs in your brain turned, a smile brightening your features once you realized. “Oh! Okay.”

Seeing you move on so swiftly had him shaking his head and beginning to thrust into you again. His teeth sunk into his lower lip as he focused on how you clenched around his dick, fucking through his confusion. It wouldn’t be the first nor last time it happened.

[gender neutral]

God you were so hot, was all he could think. Even from the back you were captivating. His cock continued thrusting into your slick walls. He’d slide his dick out till it was just his tip notched inside your entrance before pounding back in. It was a hypnotizing rhythm that had you drooling into the pillow beneath you.

The other pillow held your hips up, keeping you presented nicely for him. Seeing the way you stretched around him made his dick twitch inside you. “Fuuuck. Gonna fill you with up yeah? Have you carry my babies? D’be such a good parent.” He choked out without a second thought.

He, of course, was the only one not giving it a second thought. You always gave it a second thought though. Craning your neck, you shot an almost worried look over your shoulder. “We’re not ready to be parents.”

If he hadn’t been balls deep in you he might have laughed. His hips snapped before slowing down in shock. “No it’s- it’s just dirty talk, babe. A saying?” You blinked as the cogs in your brain turned, a smile brightening your features once you realized. “Oh! Okay.”

Seeing you move on so swiftly had him shaking his head and beginning to thrust into you again. His teeth sunk into his lower lip as he focused on how you clenched around his dick, fucking through his confusion. It wouldn’t be the first nor last time it happened.

[freelancearsonist]

in our ivory tower

➔ Jack "Whiskey" Daniels x f!Reader

➔ 1.1k words

➔ You enjoy the view from the top with your boss.

➔ Rated MA // unprotected p in v sex, creampie/cum play, gratuitous groping, semi-public sex, a little dash of exhibition kink, power dynamics kind of // reader has female anatomy and uses feminine pronouns, reader is generally able-bodied

The view from the top floor of the Statesman skyscraper is breathtaking. You’ve been here for months at this point and you still don’t think you’ll ever truly get used to it. You swear you can see all the way to the other end of Manhattan from here–miles and miles of glistening steel and glass that make you feel so inconsequential, so anonymous. It’s a good feeling. 

The Statesman tower is a far cry from the little apartment in Hell’s Kitchen that you share with three roommates–this is luxurious, decadent. Everything is modern and brand new, everyone is dressed to perfection in clothes that probably cost more than you make over the course of a month. You’ve always felt like you don’t quite belong here–you might’ve even quit by now if it weren’t for your gorgeous view and the gorgeous boss.

The panorama of the city skyline is only elevated by the gut-clenching thrill you get when you’re pressed up against the sturdy, full-length window like this, with your boss pounding into your pussy from behind like there’s no tomorrow.

There’s always a little paranoid thought in the back of your mind, as you look down at the street a hundred stories below you, that you’d be fucked if the glass gave way. Not that Jack would ever let anything happen to you–he’s proven time and time again just how capable he is.

“That’s it, hmm?” He grunts with a particularly delicious thrust that slams his cockhead right into your g-spot. “Righ’ there, sugar?”

He’s always been able to find it with seemingly no effort. He folds you over like it’s nothing, hands sliding up from their tight grip over the bunched-up skirt on your hips so he can grab greedily at your breasts through the soft fabric of your shirt. His skilled fingers can find your nipples with ease even through the layers–it never fails to impress, much less to draw a loud moan from your lips.

“Atta girl.” He growls–a sound so low and animalistic that it makes your walls clamp down around him–so close to your ear that you can feel the bristly scratch of his mustache and the warm, panting breaths that are punched from his lungs with each thrust against your neck.

Your thighs are trembling with every vicious stroke of his cock, desperate for the release he’s been steadily working your towards. He’s always liked to play with his meal–to draw it out until you’re begging and crying for it.

You can feel the delicious friction of his denim-clad thighs against the back of yours, hear the clink of his belt buckle as his hips work. It’s easy to forget that anyone could walk into this conference room right now, anyone could look up out a window and see you being pulled apart.

Your fingers clutch uselessly at the smooth glass in a feeble attempt to steady yourself, but there’s no saving you. Not when you’re this close, not when you can feel his plush lips ghosting against your pulse point and his fingers are shoving under the neckline of your shirt to get a better feel of what he’s been pawing at.

“God damn, this cunt,” he grunts lowly–his thrusts are losing their rhythm, you know he’s getting close. “Sweeter ’n stolen honey.”

One of his broad palms gives up the delightful attack on your chest to skate down the length of your stomach and find your clit. He’s familiar enough with your body now, after months of sneaking around together like this–he knows exactly the right pace and pressure to use in order to have you crumbling in his arms.

And crumble you do–with a moan that you try to muffle behind your bitten lip, you shatter. Your entire body shakes with the force of your orgasm, barely held up if not for your palms against the glass and Jack’s hands moving swiftly to your hips to steady you.

He’s not far behind–a couple more deliciously firm thrusts have him pressed balls-deep into your messy cunt, filling you to the very brim with his cum until it’s leaking out around his softening length.

There’s a blissfully long moment where he stays crowding you against the window, hot breath flickering up the length of your neck from where he’s pressing open-mouthed kisses to your shoulder. 

“A’right, darlin’?” There’s something so tender behind that whispered question in combination with the way his lips can’t seem to leave your skin. Almost loving.

You choke down whatever feelings you’re perceiving–imagined or real–and give a little nod. “Mhm.”

He pulls out with a quiet groan that makes it sound as if he’s in pain over being parted from you. One of those warm hands of his comes up and curves around your jaw, pulling your lips to his in a sweet kiss that’s a far cry from the way he was fucking you just a moment ago. He pushes his tongue against your bottom lip as his other hand sneaks down between your legs, fingertips ghosting against your over-sensitive cunt before he pulls your ruined panties back into their proper place.

“Clean these up for me?” 

You’re accepting his cum-smeared fingers into your mouth before you can think of a response. His jaw drops open at the way you swirl your tongue around them, always so dedicated to doing exactly what he asks of you. Always striving to go above and beyond.

“Should give you a raise,” he murmurs, his voice a little high-pitched in a way that makes you smirk proudly.

You let his fingers go with an audible pop. “I wouldn’t turn it down, Mr. Daniels.”

You try to ignore the steady leak of his spend dripping into your underwear as you tug your skirt back into place. It’s only just past noon–you have plenty of work to get done, starting with clearing the conference table of all the rubble left behind from the meeting that concluded shortly before Jack got his hands on you.

You see it as he’s tucking himself back into those sinfully tight jeans–two smudgy handprints on the otherwise impeccable glass. You feel vaguely guilty on behalf of the cleaning crew who’ll have to deal with that tonight.

Jack doesn’t seem to have the same inclination. He shoots a wink your way as he picks his black Stetson up off the conference table and sets it on his head. “Have those meetin’ notes ready by the end a’day, ‘kay?”

“Yes sir,” you answer dutifully. It’s only one of the many reasons you’re his favorite employee.

➔ beta: @schnarfer ; dividers: @saradika-graphics

➔ Want to see more from me in the future? Follow @freelancearsonist-updates and turn on post notifications to be notified when I post new fics!

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[duh-angel]

Missing you

Jack Daniels ~ Agent Whiskey x afab!reader (wc: 2.6k)

“Wish you were here right now, all of the things I'd do. I wanna get freaky on camera” — Cybersex by Doja cat

SMUT ONE SHOT | MDNI | +18

Warning: Sexual tension | online sex | light voyeurism | sexual toy usage | porn with no plot | Not proofread | no use of y/n. | light praise kink | quicky

backstory: You found yourself in a particularly tiresome mission in the city of Rome. Although the work kept you occupied, it didn’t stop Jack from constantly calling you and expressing how much he misses you. One day, he sends you a special gift.

You found yourself rocking back and forth in your comfortable hotel room chair, captivated by the glorious sight of Rome through the window. The vibrant cityscape, a fusion of modernity and historic charm, held your attention so thoroughly that you could spend hours just gazing at it, if not for the fact that you were currently on a video call with your “boyfriend”, Jack.

The conversation went smoothly, the two of you chatting about your trip and how much you missed each other's company. In the midst of the conversation, Jack's voice suddenly shifted, hinting at a surprise.

"Hey sweetheart, I've got something special for you. Take a peek inside your suitcase, would ya?" 

You glanced at the leather suitcase bearing the renowned S logo, the company monogram gleaming in the center. With a hint of anticipation, you carefully opened it, revealing a box wrapped in blue. You looked back at the camera and gave him a sly smirk, silently inquiring about the mysterious gift. Your mind buzzed with curiosity, wondering what treasures lay hidden inside the deceptively small box.

"Go on, open it," Jack's voice cut through the silence, his tone dripping with mischief and anticipation.

Your heart skips a beat as you gaze at the vibrator nestled in the blue box, a blush spreading across your cheeks. The sleek, purple device seems to wink at you, promising an unforgettable evening. You could feel Jack’s eyes light up with mischief as he saw your reaction on the small screen. A roguish grin spreading across his face.

"Well beautiful, looks like Santa came early this year," he draws teasingly. "I thought you could use some company on your little trip. Why don't you give it a test run for me, hmm?" His voice drops, taking on a husky, seductive tone. "I wanna see you play with it, darlin'. Put on a little show for me."

He leans back in his chair, showcasing his bulge to your hungry eyes. One of his hands casually rested on it, making him groan softly. His brown eyes practically undressing you through the screen, making your body shiver.  "Don't be shy now.” He whispers. "Turn it on, sweetheart. Nice and slow. Let's see how loud I can make you moan from all the way over here."

The heat of your blush intensified. Hell, you felt like you were about to pass out from how overwhelmed yet turned on you were. Slowly, tentatively, you reach for the vibrator, your heart racing as you switch it on. The soft hum fills the otherwise quiet room. Your eyes widened as you felt how your hand quivered from the power of the toy, and you can't help but imagine the sensation it might bring. 

As the vibrations grow stronger in your trembling hand, Whiskey's grin widens. He watched your every move, drinking in the sight of you under his spell. "That's it, baby. Mmmm, you look so fuckin' hot right now," he groans. 

"I wish I was there with you, watching those pretty pink lips of yours wrap around that toy... But I guess this will have to do for now." He palms himself through his jeans, clearly getting off on the show. His free hand reaches for a cigar, lighting it up as he settles in to enjoy the view.

"Go on now, sweetheart. Don't keep me waiting," Whiskey urges, his voice needy with that typical hint of demand. "Bury that toy nice and deep, just like you like it. Fuck, I can almost hear those sweet little moans..."

He takes a long drag of his cigar, blowing out a plume of smoke. His eyes never leave the screen, riveted by your every move. 

You disregarded your pants and underwear in a clumsy manner, feeling almost idiotic to do this through a video call, but in a twisted way, it was filthy, raw. Jack licked his lips, his gaze smoldering with lust as your anticipating legs opened just for him. He's clearly enjoying putting you in this compromising position, eager to push your buttons and drive you wild with pleasure, even from a distance.

With a deep breath, you press the vibrator against your sex, biting your lip as the buzzing warmth sends tingles through your body. inevitably, your back arches and you let out a mix of a gasp and a moan. Your eyes quickly go to the man on the screen, enamored by the sight. 

"You're so goddamn sexy when you let yourself go like this. I love seeing you lose control for me," he praises, voice thick with lust as he chortles. "Now why don't you slip that toy in and out of that tight little pussy of yours and ride it for me? I want you to cum over and over until you can't even remember your own name." 

Whiskey pushes his chair back, legs spreading wider. The heat in his gaze burns through the screen as he waits for you to follow his filthy commands. Slowly, you grind against the toy, looking right into his brown eyes, putting on a show just for him. 

“Ah goddammit.” A loud groan of frustration escaped Jack, followed by the sound of his laptop slamming down as he abruptly ended the call. Your heart skipped a beat, pounding fiercely against your chest as you stared at the suddenly blank screen of your laptop. The sudden disconnection left you feeling both puzzled and worried, a flood of anxiety washing over you.

 The sinking feeling in your stomach grows as you process the implications of Jack's abrupt departure from the call, but before you can dwell on it further, a bright flash of light emanates from your smart glasses, momentarily blinding you. The urgent meeting notification blinks insistently, demanding your attention. In a panic, you instinctively nod, accepting the video conference without a second thought.

As the holographic display materializes before you, you realize the gravity of your oversight. In the heat of the moment, you had completely forgotten about your state of undress, the vibrator still nestled between your thighs. A wave of embarrassment washes over you as you pray that the hologram's limitations will spare you from any potential mortification.

Shifting uncomfortably in your seat, acutely aware of the toy's presence and the lingering warmth it has left on your sensitive skin. Your mind races with the possibilities of what might happen if anyone were to discover your compromising situation.

Your heart skips a beat as your gaze lands upon Jack, his flustered expression instantly setting your nerves on edge. You can practically feel his eyes boring into you from behind the holographic display, his presence both comforting and unnerving.

With a quick nod, you acknowledge his presence, trying to keep your voice steady and professional as you address him. "Agent Whiskey."

“Agent Wine.” His response, laced with a knowing smirk, makes your cheeks flush with equal parts embarrassment and excitement. 

The way he says your codename, drawing out the 'Wine' with a playful inflection, sends a jolt of electricity through your body. It's as if he's relishing in his knowledge of your compromising position. You squirm in your seat, the vibrator still nestled between your thighs, a constant reminder of your shared secret. 

The meeting drones on, a seemingly endless parade of statistics and strategic plans. Your mind struggles to keep pace, constantly drawn back to the throbbing between your thighs. You try to focus on the cold, clinical data presented, but your body betrays you, each movement a torturous reminder of the toy hidden beneath your body. 

Your eyes dart around the holographic conference table, avoiding the temptation to glance down at the source of your distraction. You know that looking at Jack will only make matters worse, his mere presence a constant tease. But in a moment of weakness, your gaze drifts to his face, colliding with those piercing brown eyes and that infuriating smirk.

A chill runs down your spine as you raise an eyebrow questioningly. Before you can utter a word, Jack's finger presses to his lips, a silent command to keep quiet. Your heart races as he reaches into his pocket, retrieving a small remote control. Without a word, he presses a button, and the vibrator springs to life, humming softly against your most sensitive flesh.

A sharp gasp escapes your lips as the sudden stimulation sends shockwaves through your body. Your hands fly to the edges of your desk, gripping the wood so tightly your knuckles turn white. The vibrations pulse through you, each wave building upon the last, threatening to consume you entirely.

You bite your lip, trying desperately to stifle any further sounds. Your thighs tremble, the muscles quivering as you struggle to maintain control. The holograms flicker and dance around you, but all you can focus on is the relentless throb between your legs, the heat building steadily in your core.

“Is everything okay?” Ginger's eyes sparkled with concern and confusion as she addressed you.

You mustered a composed response, trying to maintain a steady tone. "Yes, I thought I saw a bug. Apologies."

At that moment, Tequila spoke up with a bemused smirk. "A bug? You're afraid of a tiny insect, Wine?" Whiskey chuckles darkly at Tequila's comment, his eyes never leaving yours. He leans back in his chair, a smug grin playing on his lips, clearly enjoying your struggle.

“Yes, a bug.” Your eyes narrowed, teeth gritting together as you shot a warning glare at Tequila. He quickly got the message, backing down with a knowing smile. 

You let out a silent sigh of relief, turning your attention back to the meeting. But even as you try to focus on the discussion at hand, your mind keeps drifting to Jack, to the power he holds over you in this moment. 

You are silently pleading for mercy. But his gaze remains fixed upon you, his expression one of pure, unadulterated lust. He revels in this, in the knowledge that he holds your pleasure, your very sanity, in the palm of his hand at this moment.

The minutes tick by agonizingly slowly, each second an eternity of sweet torture. You bite your lip hard enough to draw blood, the coppery taste mingling with the sweat beading on your brow. Your breath comes in short, sharp gasps, your chest heaving with the effort to maintain your composure.

Finally, the meeting draws to a close. The holographic displays flicker and vanish, leaving you alone with Jack and the lingering echo of the vibrator's hum. You slump back in your chair, your body trembling with the aftershocks of your denied release.

Jack's gaze locked onto you from across the room, a smug smile playing on his lips. "Sweetheart, you did great," he remarked before adding, "but I'm afraid we have some unfinished business to take care of." 

Tossing the glasses into the bed, you called Jack again, slumping back in your chair, your body trembling with the effort of maintaining your composure.

As the video call connects, Whiskey's smirking face fills your screen, his eyes glinting with wicked delight. He leans back in his chair. "Well, hello there, darlin'," he drawls, his voice low and husky. "Looks like you're all alone now. No more prying eyes to worry about."

His gaze takes over your trembling form, taking in the sight of you sprawled out in your chair, cheeks flushed and chest heaving. You can practically feel the heat of his stare through the screen.

"I couldn't stop thinking about that little show you put on for me earlier," Whiskey continues, a predatory edge creeping into his tone. "The way you squirmed and bit your lip, trying so hard to hold back those sweet moans... Fuck, it was hot."

His free hand disappears from view for a moment, and when it reappears, it's wrapped around the thick length of his cock, stroking slowly. “You did so well" he purrs, his voice a low, seductive growl as looks at you. The way his rough voice turned into soft whimpers with each stroke sent a fresh wave of heat courses through your body. 

His other hand actively looks for the controller, turning the vibrator a level more. It’s more loud, faster and intense, hitting all the right spots in your heat. “Fuck…” You cry out, thrusting your hips into the air as you look at him. 

Your eyes drift downward, taking in the sight of his hand moving rhythmically, pumping his hardened length with slow, deliberate strokes. The knowledge that he is pleasuring himself while watching you only adds to the intensity of the moment, a heady mix of exhibitionism and voyeurism.

"Fuck yeah, just like that," he groans, palming himself harder. "You're so goddamn sexy, baby. The way you're movin' on that... Mmmm, makes me wanna bend you over and fuck you 'til you can't walk straight."

His gaze is intense, burning into you through the screen. "You like puttin' on a show for me, don't you darlin'?" Jack coos, voice low and rough with arousal. "Such a naughty thing, lettin' me watch you play with yourself. I bet you're drippin' wet right now, aren't you?"

Jack’s hand speeds up on his cock, stroking himself faster, getting off on the erotic display you're giving him. The other hand holds the controller, ready to push you over the edge at any moment.

“Just for you.” You utter, struggling to even talk as the level is torturing your pussy, barely able to keep your eyes on him. 

“Damn right it's just for me," he growls, his voice thick with desire. "You're all mine, Agent. Every inch of that sexy body belongs to me." With that he turns one, then another cruel level more. 

Your eyes roll back as the vibrations intensify, the toy mercilessly pounding into your sensitive flesh. Your body convulses, spasming uncontrollably. “Jack!” You cry out, begging him for something you’re not sure about. All you know is that the vibration is more than you can handle. 

"Sorry sweetheart. I just wanna see you lose control. Fuck that pussy 'til you're screamin' my name. Show me how much you miss my cock."

His breathing grows ragged, chest heaving with each labored breath. He's completely entranced by the sight of you, lost in the fantasy of being there with you, taking you apart with his own hands and tongue. "Goddamn, you're so fuckin' hot," he praises breathlessly. 

His words ignite something deep within you, a primal need that demands to be satiated. You arch your back, pressing the vibrator harder against your aching core as you ride the waves of sensation crashing over you. Your breath comes in short, sharp gasps, your chest heaving with the effort of holding back the impending release. The tension builds, coiling tighter and tighter in your belly until you can stand it no more.

With a cry of pure, unadulterated ecstasy, you let go, your body convulsing as the orgasm rips through you. The vibrator's hum seems to intensify, prolonging your climax, drawing out every last drop of pleasure. Through the haze of your own release, you see Jack's hand move faster, his breath coming in harsh pants as he chases his own end, whimpering your name like a prayer as he cums all over those strong, manly hands of his.

As the afterglow fades, his eyes meet yours, a wistful, almost vulnerable expression on his face. "God... Can we do this till you come back?" he asks, his voice tinged with a hint of uncertainty.

A playful smirk tugs at your lips as you lean, a mock pout forming on your face. "Someone's needy," you tease, enjoying the way his brow furrows at your words, making him look like a cute puppy.

Jack rolls his eyes, a familiar gesture that never fails to amuse you. "Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, but there's no heat behind his words, only a fond exasperation. “I just miss you.” 

[sugadolly]

i think i need someone older ⸜❤︎⸝‍

[avenging-fandoms]

Pedro Pascal Masterlist

***some links do not work :( please inbox me if you need help navigating a fic!

SMUT:

Call Him Daddy

All for Me?

Soft Lover

Mando's Kinks

Friends with Benefits on Narcos

Trying for a Baby

Fingered to Tears

Degrading

Fucking Enemies

Cowboy Hat Rule - Agent Whiskey

Obsessed - Javier Pena

The First Time - Din Djarin

My Toy - Din Djarin

Inexperienced - Oberyn Martell

Punished - Joel Miller

FLUFF:

Movies and Edibles

Rain at the beach

Pretty

Stay with Me

New Years

Pretty Boy

Southern Accent

Proud

Accidentally Spotted

Welcome Home

Spanish

Cleaning his Glasses

Admiration

I'm Home!

Wink Wink

I'll Keep You Warm

Bad Day

Physical Touch

Unexpected Christmas Together

Nervous Mistletoe

Costume Change

Sugar Daddy

Drunk in Love

Power's out

Do I Look Pretty? - Dad!Pedro

New Neighbor - Agent Whiskey

Home - Marcus Moreno

Cat's Out of the Bag - Marcus Moreno

Sleepy - Din Djarin

First Kiss - Din Djarin

I Love You - Din Djarin

In This Together - Din Djarin

A Well Needed Hug - Din Djarin

You Can Stay - Javier Pena

Is This Your Shirt? - Javier Pena

Dating - Joel Miller

First Kiss - Joel Miller

Oh Baby - Joel Miller

Oh Baby - Joel Miller - Part 2

Nicknames - All Characters

ANGST:

Lasso - Agent Whiskey

Helping Hand - Din Djarin

Save me - Joel Miller

Memories - Part 1

Memories - Part 2

MISC.:

Husband!Pedro moodboard

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

Pressing

Jack Daniels x F!Reader, dude ranch AU

A Palomino oneshot, but can be read on its own

{ Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist }

Rating: E

Summary: Jack marks you as his in an unexpected way.

Warnings: PWP, Jack's belt leaves an impression on reader's skin, unintentional branding, unprotected sex, long-distance relationship, desperate and feral cowboy, no physical descriptions of Reader, very lightly edited, written as part of the Palomino universe, set after the end of the series, but can be read as a oneshot on its own

Word count: 1.4k

Notes: This little story came from an ask sent in by 🐴 anon in December 2022, which I have long lost, about a song that mentions a guy’s belt buckle leaving marks on his girlfriend's inner thigh while fucking. Naturally, they thought of Jack’s belt. 🐴 anon, if you’re still here, thank you for the inspo and for your patience ❤️

Also thank you to @lola-lola-lola for getting me horn knee about our cowboy again 😘 Writing Palomino smut first thing in the year was not on my 2024 bingo card, and I’m not mad about it!

Cutest dividers by @firefly-graphics.

It’s been two and a half months. Week after wretched week of phone calls on stolen time. Day after day of aching to reach through the phone screen and the distance between you to touch him.

It’s hard being hundreds and hundreds of miles apart. It’s even harder on weeks when he’s in the mountains with no reception. Harder to find time to call when you have to work late and he has to get up at dawn.

But you endure it all - for days like this. 

It’s a rare weekend off in the high season, with Teak pulling back-to-back pack trips to cover for him, joking that he can’t take all his sighing and pining for his Darlin’ anymore.

Jack takes the last flight out on Friday night, arriving first thing on Saturday morning, before the city - or you - wake up. You’re half-buried under the duvet when the jingle of the key in the door jolts you from shallow slumber.

On unsteady feet, you wobble out into the hallway, crashing into the walls as you go, balance off-kilter from sleep.

But it’s ok - he catches you, all white t-shirt and tight blue jeans. Incognito, if you will, in casual sneakers, but the cowboy hat is on as always. You knock it off post-haste, burying your face in the side of his neck in a desperate need for contact, his warmth seeping into your skin and wrapping you up in the deepest of comforts.

His hair is longer than he usually keeps it, and your fingers twist into his tousled curls when you pull back, taking in the stubble on his sharp jawline, and his tired eyes. But before you can say anything, he leans in and slants his lips over yours.

The taste of airplane coffee is sharp and bitter on his tongue as he kisses you deep and messy. You startle when he suddenly slams the door shut behind him, not realising it was still open, and his beat-up weekend bag is tossed carelessly behind him somewhere in the doorway. 

The legs of the kitchen table scrape jarringly against the floor as he crowds you onto it, big hands cupping your ass and pulling you against his straining erection through his jeans.

‘Fuck, it’s been too long, darlin’.’ His voice is gravelly from an apparently sleepless overnight flight, and hearing his voice finally on the shell of your ear has you whimpering needily.

‘Can’t wait any more,’ he growls, desperation thick in his voice.

With a flick of his wrists, he shucks off your ratty sleep shirt, eyes hooded as he gazes down at your tits, like he can’t believe he’s actually touching you. Cupping them, soft and heavy, with reverent, rope-worn palms, he sucks one nipple after the other between his lips, making you squirm against him and leak wet and sticky between your thighs.

Strong hands hold you in place easily as you buck, the scrape of his moustache almost painful on your over-sensitive skin, nerve endings on fire after being deprived for long weeks. 

Too impatient to wait, you tug your pyjamas shorts down your hips and kick them off clumsily, panties tangled in your damp folds as you writhe under him. 

You feel the breath catch in his broad chest at the peek of your pussy, a rapidly growing damp spot darkening your cotton underwear. Hooking his thumb under the fabric, he tugs it unceremoniously to the side, baring you to him. 

‘Look at all this,’ he marvels, tracing the fleshy pad of his thumb through your folds, making you arch clean off the table. ‘So wet for me and you’ve barely woken up.’

‘Been thinking about you the while night,’ you admit, hips twitching as you chase his touch. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

‘Did you touch yourself, darlin’?’

You shake your head vehemently. ‘No. Wanted your fingers. Your cock.’

His nostrils flare at your answer, unabashedly possessive in the way he looms over you. 

‘Good girl,’ he murmurs into your throat, nosing the side of your neck while thick fingers thrum against your clit. ‘I was so hard for you the whole fuckin’ flight.’ 

As if to prove it to you - not that you need it - he rolls his hips into your inner thigh, the hard bulge undeniable.

You mewl, hooking your ankles around his waist. ‘Fuck me now, Jack - please.’

There’s a wordless fumble for the solid sterling flask bottle of his belt buckle, his usual level-headed composure nowhere to be found as he pushes down his jeans with shaking hands, just enough to pull his cock out of its denim confines - 

And then he thrusts home inside you.

After months of only your fingers, it’s a stretch. But what a delicious stretch it is.

You feel him throb deep inside you, feel the thunder of a pained groan in his chest, pressed up against yours. Your cunt is all slick and give to his determined strokes as he begins to move. 

There’s no finesse, hardly any awareness, when he fucks frantically into you. His solid weight pins you to the table, and it rattles precariously under your back.

Your legs are splayed obscenely wide and bent at the knees while Jack pounds into your wet heat, eyes wild and mouth hanging open, watching your tits bounce as you take him, your nails digging into the cotton of his white t-shirt. He never did take off your panties, and the fabric rubs your clit just so with every one of his thrusts, rapidly sending you to the edge.

In the back of your mind, you’re aware of the coarse scrape of his jeans against your inner thighs, and something digs hard into the tender skin, the repeated motion dulling the sensation to an almost numb pressure. 

When you cum, you’re crying out before your head catches up, your body convulsing with blind bliss as your pussy clenches around him in a hot rush. The blood pounding in your ears is drowned out by your chants of his name, and then his hips start to stutter and his whole body tenses, frantic eyes on yours as he teeters on the edge. 

‘Where, darlin’?’

‘Inside me.’

The words have barely left you and he’s coming, broken pants against your lips as he comes and comes and comes - spilling inside you, filling you to the brim until he’s empty, turned inside out.

Slumped, boneless on top of you, humid pants pressed into your shoulder, his fingers tangle with yours, squeezing as if to let you know that he’s here.

You almost doze off, the gradually slowing rise and fall of the cowboy’s broad chest a comforting anchor, when he rouses you with gentle lips along your jaw. You giggle, feeling him softening and sliding out of you, making a mess of your kitchen table. 

‘Mornin’ darlin’,’ he says somewhat belatedly, warm eyes crinkling as he smiles at you.

‘Morning,’ you grin back, and when he shifts, you wince at the ache in your joints from being pinned to one spot for this very vigorous wake up call. His hands smooth over your legs in apology, and you jump when his fingertips brush over somewhere at the juncture of your upper thigh that is surprisingly sore.

‘What’s that?’ you ask, puzzled.

Jack doesn’t answer, curiously quiet. You look down to where he’s bracketed between your legs, watching him trace his index finger over the unmistakable imprint of his distinct belt buckle on the inside of your thigh, where it’s been digging into your skin the whole time. 

He glances at you. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’

‘No, you didn’t,’ you give him a knowing grin. ‘And are you really sorry, cowboy?’

He doesn’t even have the decency to look sheepish. Gently pinching your swollen folds together, he groans when a milky bead of his cum dribbles out of you, running down the inside of your leg and smearing onto the flask-shaped impression.

‘Ain’t sorry about somethin’ that looks this good on you, darlin’.’

‘Could’ve asked me before you branded me, you know,’ you half-joke, running your own finger along the deep lines carved into your skin, for now.

‘Beggin’ your pardon, I tend to forget my manners when I’m balls deep in a pussy as sweet as yours,’ he retorts, one eyebrow arching when he feels you shiver at his words.

You huff in jest, ‘Doesn’t sound like much of an apology if you asked me.’

‘Whatcha want, darlin’? Me on my hands and knees for you?’

Heat flashes under your skin, from your cheeks down to your toes, and Jack’s eyes darken as his tongue wets his bottom lip. ‘Alright. I hear you loud and clear, ma’am.’

Slowly, he sinks onto his knees in front of you, his joints creaking endearingly as he goes, and you can’t help but tease, ‘Easy there, cowboy.’

The wicked tip of his tongue peeks out, and you bite your lip in a moan when it cleverly traces the outline of the belt buckle on your skin, ending in a playful nip that pulls a gasp from you.

With an unapologetically smug grin, Jack winks. ‘I’m only just gettin’ started, darlin’.’

Note: Thank you for reading ❤️ I’ve missed these two, and if you’re new to Palomino, I hope you’ll give the series a chance!

[missyorkswhore]

Pedro Pascal with weapons, this is the post

[absurdthirst]

Kinktober 2024: October 7th

Day 7: Bruising or Bitemarks // Virgin // Ice Play

Agent Whiskey x F!Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings: Vaginal sex, cock riding, biting, hickies, begging, submissive Whiskey, teasing

|| Kinktober List || MasterList ||

Click Keep Reading only if you have read the Rating and Warnings and understand the warnings may not be complete to avoid listing spoilers. As AO3 says 'creator chooses not to use warnings'. You also agree that you're the right age to be consuming anything here.

“Uh, Whiskey?” Jack looks up from examining the amber tone of the newest batch of Statesman that had been un-barrelled and bottled, sniffing the oaky rich notes and was satisfied with the hint of cloves and honey. It will be a good vintage, one that he had personally crafted and he was just about to put it to his lips to taste when he’s interrupted. 

Looking up, he finds Champ, aka Agent Champagne, his boss - staring at his neck. Making him frown at the bewildered and slightly bemused expression on the older man’s face. “What is it?” He asks, setting down the glass and reaching up, his brows pulling together even more when he feels a tender abrasion that has been exposed as his collar moved down, pulled tighter as he had sat. Making his own embarrassment bloom on his face as he realizes what Champ is staring at. 

****

“Fuuuuuuuck, sugar.” It’s hotter than fucking Satan’s ass in the middle of July, but he’s not going to even fucking complain. Your sweat slick body writhing on top of him, your cunt wrapped around his cock, bouncing on it so expertly that it makes his toes curl every time you settle on him. His head tips back, eyes closed as you kiss down his jaw. 

You hum, the sound almost a growl as you reach up and start to tangle your fingers into his sweaty hair, holding onto him like you are riding a bull. Putting a little more roll into your hips as your teeth come out and you scrap them over his skin. 

“Oh shit.” Jack hisses, his cock twitching in an instinctive reaction to your little nip and making you giggle. 

“You like that, baby?” You coo, your voice dripping with sex and honey, just the way he likes it. You nibble at his throat again and he moans softly, his cock jolting inside your walls again. Even if he denies it, his body is telling you that he loves what you’re doing. 

“Hmmmmm.” You smirk and open your mouth wider, letting your teeth sink into the sensitive flesh of his neck, right above the pulse and dig in. 

Your name falls as a whimper from his lips, his own fingers digging impossibly tight into your hips. Holding you there rather than trying to push you away. You know Jack is stronger than you are, you have seen him in action. If he didn’t want this, he could easily stop it. 

The fact that he doesn’t makes you feral. Sucking and biting more and more. The same spot over and over again until he is wearing an impression of your teeth in the smooth, tanned skin of his vulnerable throat. A bruise is already starting to bloom under the surface from where the pressure of your mouth has broken capillaries. 

“Goddamn.” He pants, rocking his hips up into you, needing and wanting more of your cunt while you lose yourself in the taste of his sweat and the beauty of marking his body as your own. “Sugar, you gotta- I need-” 

He whines again when your tongue presses at the hollow of his throat, your teeth scraping over his Adam’s apple. He’s never been one to give up too much control, but right now, it’s like you’ve lassoed him to the bed and he can do nothing more than bed for you. Chills racing up his spin every time your teeth bite into his flesh and his body pulls tight in pleasure. 

“I know what you need.” You tease, lapping at the latest mark and then deciding to suck on it again. Enjoying the tightening of his core and the melting of his limbs as you put another set of bitemarks to his shoulder after you’re satisfied with one right above his collarbone. 

His chest becomes your canvas, your mouth the paintbrush. Bruises and impressions start to form a pattern over his skin. Making him whine and squirm ever more, groaning in protest when you actually pull off his cock so you can move down his body. 

Another bruise on his hip bone, making sure that it will be vivid when it fully forms, imagining the way it will look when his low slung jeans rest right below it. It makes your now empty cunt clench around nothing and you moan before you move to give him a matching mark on the right side. 

Jack Daniel whines when you bite right next to the base of his cock. You don’t apply as much pressure as you do on the less sensitive areas, but the shudder of his thighs and lovely little spurt of pre-cum that beads up against his belly and slides down his stomach gives away how much he likes this. 

Your tongue teases his balls, making him gasp and they draw tight, as if he is about to cum, but you move away and his groan is heavy with disappointment. 

Focusing on his thighs. You always love how thick and strong they are. Able to ride a bull and hold tight, they are tight with need and anticipation as you smirk up at him, your face planted right at the most sensitive inner portion. 

“Cock tease.” He blows out a half breath, half laugh as he looks down at you. “You might as well make your mark there, too.” He pants, making your smirk at the way he makes begging seem like he’s going you a favor. He wants this just as much as you do, maybe even more. 

You blow on his skin, making him hiss before you finally give him what he wants. Your mouth suctioned to his skin, pulling it harshly before you pull away and bite around the mark. Only to do it all over again under there is a change in the skin. The slight puffiness of where it has been sucked on, the discoloration and then the indentions that are so close to breaking the skin that they are bruising as well. 

Jack looks drunk, his eyes heavy and his chest heaving, so close to just giving in and cumming untouched from the attention of your mouth. “Sugar.” He slurs the soft praise. “Goddamn, c’mere.” He reaches down and urges you back up his body. “I fucking need to be inside you when I blow my load.” 

You nip his hip again and giggle when he moans, your teeth carving the path back up his body. 

****

“Jack?” He doesn’t hear him say his name the first time. “Earth to Jack.” 

Jack squirms slightly, pulling his collar and covering up the bruises and bitemarks that could be seen and shooting Champ an innocent look. “Training injury.” He lies, knowing that the man would never believe that for a second. 

Champagne snorts and shakes his head, turning back to the bar cart with a chuckle. “I’ll have to get Ginger to get the nanites to get rid of it for you.” He offers, smirking to himself. 

“No.” Jack shakes his head quickly, picking up his whiskey glass to lips to hide his grin. “I’m good.” 

[parkjammys]

choose your fighter: Pedro Pascal or Beldro Ramscal

[creedslove]

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who was so unsure of starting a new relationship with you after all the heartbreak he went through; after losing his wife and unborn son, he just shut himself down for new relationships and only got involved in meaningless hook ups here and there but the moment his heart beat faster at the sight of you, he felt something inside telling him he should give himself a new chance

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who still feels guilty about being happy after what happened to his first family and sometimes can't help dwelling into depressing and self deprecating thoughts, but gets his heart soothed when you assure him his wife would've wanted him to be happy

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who is so thankful for your attitude towards his past, the way you are always respectful towards the memory of his first wife and you always know how to address the situation without being jealous, as the two of you know it's not the case there, Jack loves you, but he can't help being consumed by guilt at times

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who appreciates how you are always motivating him to seek help and continue his therapy so he can be better for himself and for you too

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who feels turned on if you call him 'Whiskey' but what he truly loves is when you call him Jack, simple as that, he's just your Jack, your cowboy, because it doesn't really matter if he's an agent or not, he's just you handsome cowboy

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey whose heart melts whenever you show him some affection, he never realized how touch starved he had been all those years until he effectively felt your warmth in several ways: your arms around him during a hug, your lips as you left pecks all over his cheek, his neck and his lips, your fingers scratching down his back gently, or going through his locks in a gentle caress

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who doesn't feel the need to go to as many missions as he did before, instead, his adrenaline longing decreased and he values the quiet, domestic moments he spends with you on his ranch, just being around nature and loving each other

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who loves taking you to the barn and making sweet love with you during a warm lazy afternoon, the way he loves feeling the soft feel of your sweaty skin under his finger tips and knows how lucky he truly is

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who will definitely teach you how to ride a horse and even buy you a new one as a gift, so just he can see you enjoying the ranch life

boyfriend!Agent Whiskey who isn't so sure if he would face marriage again but it doesn't matter to him if he'll make things official or not, all it matters is that he wants to be with you forever

[scrambledslut]

pov: you’re obsessed with your boyfriend

( part 2 )

[bonezone44]

Tender This (21+)

Uncle!Jack Whiskey x Fem!Reader

Summary: You have a bad dream and ask to sleep with your Uncle Jack.

Word Count: 2064

tags: dub-con/non-con somno. thigh grinding. coming in pants. Reader is the aggressor ! nicknames for Reader: baby, angel, niece.

+++

By the time you opened your eyes, the nightmare was gone from your mind. The foreboding visuals that caused you to feel cornered and terrorized were erased. Unfortunately, though, your body and heart were slower to rid you of the experience. You didn’t think twice before hopping out of bed and heading down to your Uncle Jack’s room. You didn’t care that all you wore were your cotton pajamas.

You could hear the drone of the TV from the hallway, lights flashing from the crack of his door. Knowing he was still awake was a relief, but it wasn’t enough for you to go back to bed by yourself. You rapped your knuckle on his door. He cleared his throat before answering.

“Come in!” he called.

You tip-toed barefoot inside with your shoulders high in your ears. Jack sat up in bed when he saw you–worry evident on his brow. He wore a white t-shirt and thin wire-framed glasses. He grabbed the clicker and turned down the volume on the TV.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked.

“I had a bad dream,” you pouted. 

He sat motionless with his mouth open–his heart nearly beating outside of his chest.

You wrung your hands together. “Can I come sleep with you?”

A few more stunned, heavy breaths before he answered. “I–well, angel–I mean–” he released awkward chuckles between his stuttering. “I-I don’t think you’d have a lot of fun in here with me–” he pointed across at the TV. “--I’m just watching a-a-a documentary on uh… saddles of the old vaqueros from back in the day.” He cleared his throat again and smoothed the thick quilt in his lap.

You glanced to your right at the TV that sat atop his dresser. On screen was an older gentleman in a white sombrero who was smiling and showcasing leather embossing. It took more effort than you’d like to admit to not roll your eyes–because of course Uncle Jack would be watching something like that in the middle of the night. You remained undeterred.

“Please, Uncle Jack?” You attempted the most pathetic look you could muster. “That dream messed me up. I really don’t wanna sleep alone.”

It was almost visceral the way his heart broke for you–brows all curled into his forehead and his eyes growing big and misty. “O-okay, angel,” he croaked, looking you up and down. “If it’s that important to ya.”

“Mm-hmm,” you nodded and scurried forth. You drew back the quilt, distinctly avoiding the look of nervous dread in his eyes as you climbed into the bed with him. Before he could think to put a pillow between the two of you, you scooted as close as you could and wrapped your arm across his middle. 

He choked on his breath and placed his hand on your arm. “A-angel, I don’t know–” 

“Please, Uncle Jack? It was a really bad dream,” you pleaded with your chin on his chest. 

Another yank of his tender heartstrings. His glittery eyes bounced between yours as he tried to find the words–but none came out of his pouting lips. He looked away and wiped his mouth with his hand. “O-okay, baby, just uh… just for tonight, I guess. But–” he cleared his throat a third time. “--but let’s try to-to-to watch the program, okay?” He locked his eyes on the TV. He twitched and tensed his jaw and neck. His lips were close enough that you could smell whiskey on his breath. You wondered what he tasted like this late at night. 

You tugged him closer and pressed as much of your body into his as you could–from your cheek on his chest, to the front of your torso against his side, down to your leg lining up with his. His breathing stuttered, but you ignored it. Instead, you listened to his rapid beating heart. You melted into his strong, steady heat and the scent of his skin. You watched the TV for a while like he asked, and it was actually pretty interesting to see an expert artisan craft a saddle seat out of leather. But really, the most interesting part came when the artisan had to measure and cut the leather pieces for the horn because that’s when Uncle Jack placed his arm around you–his large hand finding respite on your shoulder. You instantly released a small whimper and squeezed his middle.

“It’s alright, angel,” he cooed–his thumb caressing your bare skin. “You’re safe, now. Just keep on watchin the TV.”

“Thank you, Uncle Jack,” you murmured–daring to press a quick kiss to his chest before resting your head again.

“O-of course,” he coughed and squirmed, but his hand stayed steady on your shoulder.

You grew weary as the night went on. Your eyes drifting shut. But you could never quite fall back asleep–not with your body this close to your Uncle Jack. Wetness pooled between your legs. Your body burned so badly for him you were aching. You didn't know what to do. You were afraid of scaring him off, but you were patient. You could be patient for a man like Uncle Jack.

Once the credits started rolling, Jack turned off the TV. You felt him shift beneath you, but you refused to budge. “A-angel?,” he whispered. He tapped you lightly on the shoulder. He was trying to wake you up… without waking you up. “I–... shit,” He murmured. He clicked off the lamp on his bedside table–a soothing darkness blanketing the room. He tried to situate himself a little further down the bed and you did let him move–but only a little. You were determined to stay on him. So much so that once he had settled into a comfortable position, you faked a sleepy moan and wrapped your leg on top of his. 

You could hear him suck air through his teeth–but he didn't push you off or away. In fact, his arm moved from your shoulder down to your waist, rubbing the exposed skin between the hem of your shirt and the waistband of your bottoms. It felt like he was igniting you with his fingers, like each one was a matchstick. You wanted more, but you had to be coy about it. 

“Angel?” He tried again and you refused to respond. 

You counted your long, slow breaths, counted the heartbeats you felt in your pussy. You needed to give him time. Let him think it was all happenstance. You waited for as long as you could possibly stand. Then, you shifted again, another sleepy groan and stretch until you were half on top of him–your crotch on his thigh, your leg between his. His hardness poked against you.

“ssshit,” he whispered to himself. The hand that was once on your waist found its way to your shoulder. You couldn't see in the dark, but you knew his mouth was open. You knew he was stumbling over what to do. But he didn't push you away like he should have–like he would have if he truly didn't want you there.

It made you crave him–burning up and down your skin. It made you hungry to know that he desired you–that he wanted you so much that it made him all twisted up inside. That you had the power to falter the boundaries of a man so formidable. The roll of your hips was instinctual–your body so desperate to relieve itself from the ache, but the taste made you voracious. 

You rolled again and a whimper forced itself from your lips. You tried to muffle it by nuzzling into his chest. 

Jack didn't move. He still didn't push you away. He was gonna let you do it, wasn't he? Let himself pretend you were doing this all in your sleep. 

You pressed your swollen clit against his thigh and pushed upward from your knees, curling your toes, and grinding against him. It felt glorious, but you had to take it slow. No matter how much you really wanted to yank his pants down and ride him like the cowboy he was. 

And every little brush of your leg against his hard cock made him twitch and hiss. Again and again you thrusted yourself–rolling your entire body against his while he held himself back. He was braced and taking it. 

—---------

Jack felt drunk. Inebriated. Boozed up. Three sheets to the wind. And it was all because of you.  Your desire for him made him dizzy. The way you tucked your chin and looked at him with the sweetest, most docile eyes. Your sugary pouting lips. It felt too good to have you so close and snuggling up to him. He loved knowing that he could protect you and that you wanted him to protect you. It comforted him that you sought him for comfort. That you trusted him enough to surrender yourself and all your worries upon his shoulders. How could he ever deny you? How could he ever say no to your tender affection?

He knew it was wrong. It didn’t matter that you weren’t blood. It was the principle! He knew his feelings for you were unrefined and not very Kingsman-like, but … you had this way of hypnotizing him–captivating every nerve and synapse in his whole got-dang body. All it took was one wayward look from you and Hoo! Buddy ! he wanted to ravish you in an open prairie, by a campfire, underneath the shining eye of the moon. He wanted to buck up into you from underneath, let you ride him like a stud bull til he filled your belly full of his seed. He wanted to lathe and lick your breasts with his tongue–suck hickeys into your thighs in the shape of the letter J. He wanted to stuff your mouth full of his cock so he could make love to your sweet, darling face.

But …

As it has been mentioned before…

These feelings were unrefined and not very Kingsman-like. 

Jack saw himself as a gentleman. And gentlemen uncles do not bed their nieces.

Yet there you were, grinding against him, moaning and murmuring in your sleep. He knew he should wake you up. He knew he should have made you go back to your own bed. He knew he should have done anything other than what he had done, but… he didn’t. 

He stayed as still as he could. His body twitching and stuttering every time you brushed his cock. He tried to angle his hips a bit to cause more friction and it worked for a little while–but then you started chasing your high. He could feel it deep down in his gut how much your hazy mind hungered for release. He didn’t know what you were dreaming about that would cause you to react in such a way. You were twisting your hips around and moaning, arms wrapped around his middle and your face resting flat on his chest. 

“Uncle Jack…” you cried and Jack’s fist flew to this mouth to bite back his groan. “Please…” you begged as you rode his thigh with deep languid strokes. 

Jack didn’t want to whip his dick out and make a big ol’ mess all over the blankets and sheets and you. But he was feeling pretty goddamn desperate for some relief. He did his best to avoid touching you–lest he wake you up, you poor thing. You were so close! And shit, he was, too! So he reached his hand down and gave his cock a gentle squeeze through the fabric of his sleep pants. Something to ease the ache until he could extricate himself from you and disappear into the bathroom for a few shameful moments. One squeeze wasn’t enough, though. Especially once you started whimpering and shaking and meeting the end of your delightful, filthy dream. He couldn’t wait any longer. Gentlemanly duties be damned! He gave himself a few quick tugs through his pajamas, squeezing the head of his cock in his big, thick hand. He huffed and puffed before grunting hard through gritted teeth, cursing as quietly as he could while come spurted from his cock and smeared into his sleep clothes. ‘Oh, angel.’ He thought, feeling the fabric of his pants cling to him. ‘You’re gonna be the death of your ol’ Uncle Jack.’

After cleaning himself up and changing, he came back to bed and put a pillow between the two of you. Instead of what he wanted to do, which was spoon you, press his cock between your thighs and grind against your slick. But he couldn't. What he had done was shameful enough as it was. He had to stop. He had to put an end to it all. Not that anything had really happened, ...had it?

He took a deep breath and started listing different types of saddles in his head before eventually falling asleep.

+++++++++++++

@xdaddysprincessxx -- I thought this might be a fun one for ya. 😘😘😘

[thelastofhyde]

hit the road, jack!

pairing. ex!jack daniels x fem!reader synopsis. the last time you sat in jack’s infamous bronco, you broke his heart. now, a year later, you’re sitting in it with a mud-stained wedding dress and he’s driving you back to the man you left at the altar. is one night, a thousand miles, and a well-timed car radio enough to remind you of the love you shared? warnings. road trip au, exes to lovers, runaway bride!reader, mutual pining, miscommunication/no communication, idiots in love, exes in love, minor character death, infidelity, one ( 1 ) comment regarding food restriction, mentions of period, smut ( unprotected piv, dirty talk, sex in public spaces, implied creampie, fairly non-descriptive ) the reader of this fic is mostly non-descript, with mentions of having hair long enough to stick to her neck when wet and hands smaller than jack's. word count. 14.7k hyde's input. quick disclaimer that this fic was admittedly better in my head, but i tried my best :') it unfortunately never got to reach it's full potential as my friends dragged me off on an unexpected trip on friday for my birthday (which is today aka the 23rd). because of that, i've not had time to finish the last few scenes as well as i'd hoped to (it's literally 5 am as i'm editing it bc it's the only chance i've had) but i don't want to post this any later as this is my entry to the #SummerLovin'24 event, organised and hosted by @pedgito, @chaotic-mystery & @amanitacowboy , a massive thank you to them for creating such a fun event. i really enjoyed taking part and i can not wait to sink my teeth into the other amazing fics from this event. if you care to listen, here is a playlist of songs mentioned/featured in the fic.

INTRO — silver springs.

“Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me.”

Stevie Nicks et al chant out of old speakers, a bass blown out over time and an intruding static that demands to play alongside the band. Perched upon the bar counter, they sit adjacent to a cash register that shakes each time it opens, a slam seemingly the only way to close it. The swish of a mop over chequered vinyl flooring and the squeaks of a waitress’ coffee-stained sneakers play to their own tune. The passing of time turns it all to background noise.

Through lunch, through dinner, and two shift changes you’ve survived. Out in the parking lot now sits only a semi-truck, its drivers, two men in scuffed boots and jeans that fray at their seams, the only other customers that remain. One tucks into a Sloppy Joe, the other has fallen asleep against the table, his coffee turning as cold as your own.

You ordered the coffee for nothing more than an excuse to sit a while longer. Time for figuring out what’s next. What you’ll do, where you’ll go, how you’ll get there. The elderly couple who’d been kind enough to take you off the side of the road, moving luggage into the trunk to make space for you in the backseats, are now long gone from the roadside diner.

It wasn’t a sorrowful departure. You were quite happy to see them leave, and take their pitiful glances and unasked questions with them. The looks still linger on in others. Each pair of eyes you’ve encountered, dragging over the expanse of your messed up hair, and your smudged eyes, and your mud-stained gown. It’s not hard to imagine the scenes they play out in their heads, of a bride scorned and abandoned on what was meant to be the happiest day of her life, a day meant for vows and first dances twisted into one of heartbroken wandering and roadside pit-stops.

You wonder if any of them know you’re not the victim, but the aggressor. The one who fled, leaving behind a bouquet of striped carnations, marigolds, and purple hyacinths.

Tires crunch on gravel as a car rolls into the parking lot. Whichever fool sits behind the wheel has their full beams on. A light flickers over your head. It’s been doing so for the past hour, an irritating reflection in the window that steals your attention back into the diner.

The waitress is eyeing you again, a weary look on her face that tells you she wants to approach but doesn’t know how. Maybe she wants to ask if you’re okay, or enquire about the events that led you here, deep in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe she just wants you to close your tab and leave. 

The bell above the door rings as it opens. It’s been a while since you heard it do so. A smile comes over the waitress as she greets the newcomer. Her eyes seem to take them in, slowly. From top to bottom, and right back to the top. Innocent, if not a little flirtatious. She’d not looked at either of the truckers that way. Perhaps this is her lover, here to wait about and keep a watchful eye as she works the night shift. You can’t imagine it’s the safest place in the world for a woman to find herself working through the twilight hours, nothing but open road and sky-rise trees surrounding the diner.

A sip from your coffee. It’s as cold as you expected. Bitter too, having not found your voice in time to ask for sugar. Your stomach growls, a plea for a meal. If you’d only stayed at the venue, you’d be full of vanilla frosting, and smoked oysters, and… had it been the coronation chicken or the roast sirloin the wedding planner had gone with in the end? You can’t remember. What you do remember is her unwanted advice: just stick to some light bites, no bride wants a food-baby in her pictures.

In retrospect, you’d disliked her from the moment you met her. But you had no desire to plan a wedding. And no time either, much to your future mother-in-law’s chagrin. So out she’d gone, a cat on the hunt, dragging home some mousy-brown haired wedding planner as a sacrificial lamb. Better it be her than you who stresses over the shade of napkins, and the taste of merlots, and the seating arrangements.

Footsteps thud against the floor. Slow, deliberate, not a stumble in the way they move. You stare back out the window and spy a cowboy hat reflected in it. It belongs to the waitress’ lover, who by now is likely making his way over to pull her in real close and swoon her with a kiss only men blessed by southern charm possess.

A different version of you, a happier version, used to be kissed like that every morning.

“Are you lost, sweetheart?” The voice of a man echoes. Softly spoken, yet loudly heard in the quiet of the diner. In the window, the cowboy hat stands right behind you. You turn slowly, let your eyes dance over its owner. Like a sculpture plucked out of ancient Rome, he’s a fine art only the most delicate hands could shape. He’s brown-eyed affection. He’s an aquiline nose. He’s a well-groomed moustache. He’s Jack. “Think it’s a few miles up north they’re expecting a pretty bride.”

Leather jackets and well-fitted jeans have been traded in for a suit. Simple, classic. White shirt, black tie, a trademark cowboy hat you’d never failed to spot amongst any crowd. There’s a crinkle where a cheeky grin meets eyes framed by full brows and lashes, a scar on his right temple a reminder of the kind of man he is. Dauntless, righteous, brave. An undercover agent, posing as the CFO of one of the largest whiskey distilleries in the world. 

An illusion plays out where no time has passed and his is still the face you come home to each night. A lot can change in a year, however, like the bed you sleep in, or the ring upon your finger.

He welcomes himself into the seat across from you. The protective barrier of a water-ring stained table keeps a safe distance between you both, yet you still feel his knee knock against your own as he makes himself comfortable. One arm stretched over the backrest, the other rests against the table and drums a nervous tune with his fingers.

“You’ve worried a lot of people, darliln’,” his gaze studies you. You wonder if it’s the same look he used to give his targets. The thought sours the sweetness of seeing his pretty eyes after all these months. “Runnin’ off like that, not even a hoot or a holler to let your daddy know you’re alright.”

Your dad. He’d slipped off to the bathroom, a kiss to your cheek and a promise he’d be back in time to walk you down the aisle. What must he have thought, rounding the corner to the sight of a bouquet, abandoned a la Cinderella and her glass slipper. Before you stew in guilt for too long, the rest of Jack’s words catch up to you.

He knew you ranaway. That glimpse of a cowboy hat amongst the pews had not been an illusion.

Jack was at the wedding.

“What happened?” His hand seeks you out. Warm as you remember him to be, large enough to engulf your smaller palm in his. “Why’d you run?” You stay quiet. Shrug your shoulders, eventually, and stare down as his thumb brushes over your knuckles. “You gonna give me a proper answer, sweetheart?”

Another shoulder shrug leads Jack to a sigh. There’s a pause in the quiet tension brewing between you, in the shape of the smiling waitress, pen and pad in hand. Her eyes seem to dart between you both, and you can almost hear her wondering who Jack is, if he’s the man you were meant to meet at the end of the aisle. There’d been a time when yes was the only possible answer to such a question.

“A glass of your finest whiskey. Neat, of course. And how ‘bout somethin’ to please a sweet tooth, hm?” His foot bumps yours beneath the table, calling you to look at him. You meet his eyes, watch him raise his brows in question. “Spied a pretty mean lookin’ cherry pie on my way in. That sound good to you, darlin’?” Your mute staring continues. Your stomach takes control, answers him with a disgruntled growl from within. His head turns to the side, laughing, and he nods at the waitress. “Think she’s gonna need a slice of that pie, miss!”

The right to speak returns to you at last, as you watch the glass of liquid caramel be placed down in front of him, head turning to stare out the window, a familiar Bronco sits poorly parked, obnoxious in the way it treads the line of two parking spaces.

“You shouldn’t drink and drive.”

Surprise flashes over his face, but he recovers quickly, untensing his shoulders as he sinks further into the booth. “Didn't order it for me,” he slides the glass of whiskey over to you. “Eat up, drink up. You need it.”

Though it kills you to admit it, the first bite out of the pie feels like heaven in your mouth. Tart, sweet, with pastry so golden it’s as if King Midas baked it under the heat of his own hands. A sip of the whiskey isn’t so great, but you stomach the burn and accept the erasure of nerves it promises. Your eagerness to clear the plate and empty the glass has nothing to do with the approving smile Jack watches you with.

“How did you find me?” 

“You doubtin’ my skills?” He’s teasing. You know this. Still, you fall into the trap of a panicked head shake, a cough over the final bite of cherry goodness. “I stopped at a gas station. Runnin’ on an empty in the middle of nowhere ain’t on my list of wants, you see. Overheard two kids talkin’ about some bride sittin’ at a dinner a few miles down. Don’t take no Hercule Poirot to figure it was you”

“Oh.”

You shouldn’t feel disappointed by his answer, there’s no reason a man you hurt so deeply would have any vested interest in finding you.

The last you’d seen of Jack was through your car’s rear-view mirror, his tear stricken face watching you drive away, five years of clothes, and shoes, and memories stuffed into your car. He’d begged you not to leave your shared home; offered to sleep in the spare room, give you both time to work things out between you. You’d been the one to declare it useless.

“This isn’t something we can fix, Jack!”

“But, darlin’, I love you.”

“A happy coincidence, I was lookin’ for ya anyway. You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on inside that head of yours yet?” At least this time your mute stare is paired with a head shake. “Look, I mean well when I say this, but darlin’, you’re lookin’ a mighty mess. Now, a pretty mess that may be, but a mess all the same.” His hand is back on yours, squeezing with enough strength to ground you and keep you from floating off into the landscape of your own conflicted mind. “So here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna take a trip to the gents, then I’m gonna square up whatever we owe this fine establishment, and then we’re gettin’ that pretty caboose of yours up'n out of here.”

Frozen where you sit, it takes a few moments for the warmth of whiskey to settle in your bones, lurching you forward when it does, a gasp and a tight grip at his wrist, holding him back before he can stroll away from the table.

“Where are we going?”

“For a drive, sweetheart.”

TRACK 1 — vienna

You and Jack are no strangers to a late night drive.

An entire love story, told within the confines of four wheels and a chassis. The very night you met, you wound up in his passenger seat, arms up in the air and the wind blowing through your hair, the charming cowboy next to you taking every joyful laugh as a plea to go faster, nothing ahead but the open road and a southern voice crooning out of the radio. Too lost in your own head, that’s what he’d claimed you to be, having strolled up to a lonely-you in a crowded bar, lamenting over a glass of bitter white wine, freshly fired and with no real clue of what you were going to do next. Never one to entertain a stranger, you’d tried to brush him off, but he flashed that smile and invited you, so tenderly as the intro to a Bruce Springsteen song began to play, to just give him one dance.

One dance led to unimaginable love.

As time passed, a relationship burst into full bloom, the imprint of you carved into the car’s leather. Jack insisted you grow accustomed to the life of a passenger princess. He picked you up from work, drove you to all your girls’ night outs, sacrificed hours of necessary sleep to drop you at airports, and train stations, and whatever other public transport your work trips demanded you to travel upon. But how could you dream of saying no when you got to ogle the view of him, one hand on the wheel, the other on your thigh, effortlessly manoeuvring his beloved vehicle. 

The car came on couples' vacations, too, road trip getaways. Up north, past the Canadian borders, and down south to the skyline of Mexico City. Out west, a trail up to the Grand Canyon, the Empire State Building in the east. But the late night drives, those were your favourite. Times when life felt too much, with work stressing you out, or your parents giving you grief, or a stress headache gnawing away at your remaining sanity, Jack would tug you wordlessly out into the driveway, buckle your seatbelt, and drive off into the night. Roof down, radio on, the cool breeze clearing your mind.

The only breeze you feel now blows in through an open window.

Pulling away from the diner, Jack turned the wheels south, out into the dark of the night. Trees wall the road in, a never ending sea of pine-green lit by headlights, the looming presence of a dark, dangerous, rumbling sky above. A storm brews ahead, awaiting the perfect moment to crack open and drop a downpour on the world. Little words have been exchanged between you, most of them spoken by Jack, as he tells you about the nightmare he had checking in at his hotel, and the difficulty he had finding the venue, and just how beautiful you look in your dress, tears tracks and messy hair aside. Softly playing over the radio, Billy Joel seems to speak to you, pleading that you slow down, you crazy child.

“D’you remember our trip to Vienna?”

Your head snaps over to Jack. His eyes remain on the road ahead, and a part of you is thankful, unsure of how you’d fare gazing into them as melancholy tangles itself in their shades of brown. The other part misses how it used to feel to catch him watching you from the driver’s seat, affection incarnate as his loving gaze burned heat into your cheeks, your own voice pleading him to pay attention to the road, the light’s already green, Jack!

“How could I forget you almost getting us kicked out of Saint Peter’s church?”

“Hey, now darlin’, let’s not start playin’ the blame game!” His head turns once in your direction, a teasing smile splashed upon his rosy lips. You try not to think about how you’ve felt that very smile pressed against your mouth, memorised the shape of it so perfectly you could draw it with your eyes shut. “You knew what you were doin’ wearin’ that pretty little sundress.”

The dress in question had been a purposeful attack, an attempt at getting payback for the night prior, in which Jack found pleasure in reducing you to tears, begging for release hour after hour, after hour of edging touches. Never the best at putting up a fight against his pouting lips, pleading eyes, and filthy tongue, you’d caved into his hands the moment they skimmed their way up the length of your thigh, the watchful eyes of any Lord above be damned.

“I still dream of the garden’s at Schönbrunn Palace,” a sigh floats out of you as your brain hits play on a kaleidoscope of memories of strolling the grounds, hand in hand with a man you’d imagined yourself being with for the rest of your life.

If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes? He’d asked, as you watched a couple get engaged before your very eyes.

Promise me we’ll get married here, and I’ll consider it.

“I still have nightmares of the boat.”

“The boat!” The patterns in the kaleidoscope shift into images of a viennan skyline reflected upon glassy waters, a city cruise dragging you down the canal. “I still can’t believe you fell off it!”

“I jumped.”

“Backwards? Just admit it, you fell into that water!”

“I jumped, to make you laugh!”

“Oh, don’t worry, me and the coast guard were definitely laughing!”

A silence settles between you both. Jack drums his fingers along to the closing notes of the song, your foot does the same. It crosses your mind that this, in itself, may very well be a dream. Sitting back in the Bronco, staring over at Jack as he drives you both into the aimless night. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s visited your dreams.

You watch him inhale, deeply. With a blink, his eyes reflect the moonlight, glassy with unfallen tears, the image of him too beautiful to be fiction. 

“Sometimes I wish we’d never left Vienna.”

His words cut you deep, the sorrow he speaks them with cuts you deeper. Barely a week back in your own home, suitcases still unpacked, pulling into the driveway hours after the unexpected funeral of a friend, you broke both your hearts.

All that goes up must come down and, in the very same place your relationship started, it ended. Sat across from him, rain beating down on the windows, tears trailing down your face. He begged you to stop before those words came out of your mouth, tried his best to switch the engine back on and pull out into the road. You’re just stressed, darlin’, he’d said, a deceptive whine in his voice cracking his straight-faced facade. Just need to clear your head, right? Lemme take ya for a drive. It was too late, your own hand curling back around the handle and forcing the door open, the water from outside flooding in. I’m sorry, I can’t be with you. Not anymore.

“Yeah,” you exhale, shaky. Swallowed emotions, a tight lipped smile, eyes that search for sanctuary out the window. “Me too.”

In the wing-mirror, lighting crashes amidst the sea of pine-green.

TRACK 2 — purple rain

A perfect summer’s storm.

Mother nature’s mid-June release of pent-up heat, making space amongst the skies for what’s yet to come in the scorching months of July and August, the last of any rain to be seen until September brings back the sombre skies and cooler weather. The rain falls heavily, a persistent thump-thump-thump of water that bounces off the car’s roof, bonnet, windows. In the sky, thunder roars an angry sound, each one louder than the last, followed by an even brighter flash of lighting that electrifies its surroundings, turning the black night into shades of violet, and midnight, and indigo, and purple.

“You’ve not bought any new albums? None at all?” The question comes as you flip through Jack’s collection of discs, a notable lack of change in his roster since the last time you’d sat in his car.

This lack of change is likely not without good reason, like the lack of time to go CD hunting between secret missions to save the world, or a general lack of interest in newer records. He’s always been a fan of the old fashion, after all, the home you’d once shared made up of collections of vintage whiskeys, and classic records, and faded wallpaper that he convinced you gave the kitchen charm.

“Nothin’ new since…” His eyes shift over your way, the look in them enough to wordlessly end his sentence. “You were always the one buyin’ me music. Said you didn’t want me get-”

“Getting bored on missions,” impulse seems to be what forces you to speak, an honest smile sent his way. “I remember.”

It had been a while into your relationship, with i-love-yous and apartment keys exchanged, until the truth of Jack’s job came up.

On your first date, he’d told you he was a businessman. A few dates later, he specified that he was an investor, dipping his fingers into the honey jar of some classically Texa whiskey distillery. Only a half lie, and not one that was hard to believe. Every fibre of his being, stitches and loose threads included, made sense as a man in the business of selling whiskey. The overzealous amount of Statesman whiskeys occupying the shelves in his apartment, the photos he’d send of the view from his high-rise office, the endless number of suits and ties that occupied his wardrobe, even his damn name, Jack Daniels. 

Then, out came the truth.

A phone call from one of Jack’s co-workers, Ginger, lasting no more than five minutes and of which only three words mattered: Jack’s been shot.

A bullet through his head. Any ordinary man would have died. Yet there was your Jack, eyes open, a measly bandage over his temple, and standing up-right. To your own credit, you managed to keep a grasp on your sanity long enough to drive him home, cook him dinner, and sit yourself down across from him at the table. But when he pricked his finger on the tip of his knife, the rivulet of blood dripping down his finger was enough to send you over the edge. Open mouthed sobs, hands clinging to him the instant he sank down on his knees at your side, tears staining every inch of his white cotton t-shirt.

You could’ve died, Jack.

Now how could I go dyin’, when I got such a pretty reason to live for?

You begged with questions, he promised with answers. Hands intertwining with your own, a gentle voice guiding you out the apartment, the soft slam of a car door closing. He turned the key in the ignition, pulled your hand up to his mouth for a kiss, and drove you both off into the night. Under the melodic fall of rain beating down on the car, you came to terms with three facts: Jack was involved in the business of selling whiskey; Jack was otherwise known as agent Whiskey, esteemed senior agent to the Statesmen secret intelligence agency; and Jack was not often shot- at least not in the head.

Arriving home that night, with the rain falling heavy on your front lawn, you’d tried your best to dash from the car and into the house but Jack had other plans. He’d gripped your hand, and pulled you close, and kissed you under the flash of lighting. And when you dared whine that your clothes were soaked, he held you tighter and let himself guide your body into a gentle sway, two lovers under the moonlight and the storm. That night had ended with a fatal promise from Jack, your limbs entangled upon a shared bed, his lips pressing into your forehead.

I promise I’ll always come home to you safe.

“Don’t need no discs anyway, already got all I need right here,” Jack’s impeccable timing, seemingly sensing the shift in your demeanour. It’s like he knows what you’re thinking about, and trying to drag you out of the past and back to the present, his fingers stretching over to turn the volume up. A familiar set of haunting chords plays over the radio, a grin instantly appearing on his face. “Shit, they even got Princ-”

“Stop the car.”

“Huh?”

“Just pull over, Jack!”

Despite the confusion, he abides by your words, foot pressing down on the break, hands steering the wheels off-road, fingers switch the car off. Without the hum of the engine, the rainfall grows louder, the view out the windscreen suddenly blocked behind a wall of flowing water. The radio plays on, the voice of an angel singing lyrics that so aptly match the purple shades painted across the sky by the storm above. There’s a cautious echo of your name, and, for a moment, it’s easy to forget this is the first time you’ve heard him actually say it in over a year. It feels like just yesterday he was calling out to you, begging with solutions you weren’t willing to give.

Your heart beats with a longing to escape your chest, hard and steady against the cage that is your ribs. Your eyes fill with emotions from the past and of the present, as every version of yourself that’s sat within this car comes together as one. Your hand curls around the silver grip of the door, pulling it open and lunging yourself out into the pouring rain.

Under the storm's wrath, you’re reborn. Baptised by mother nature, a soul cleansed of all its prior troubles, returned to you brand new and free of heartbreak. As the rain soaks your face, your neck, your dress, it washes all the pain away. Breathing easy, head tilted back, eyes closed. It's the feeling of being alive, an anomalous euphoria found only beneath a thunderous sky. The tears that dare fall here mean little, a known comfort that they’ll mix with the rain and be swept away.

Enthralled under the moonlight and barefoot, you drift on through the trees that line these woods, chasing the sweet promise of petrichor. You’re unsure if it comes from the sky, or the trees, or Jack, but something calls your name. A fallen tree trunk becomes your own personal tightrope as you dance over the length of it, one careful foot in front of the other, arms stretched out to the heavens above. All it takes is one misplaced step and you lose your footing, slipping over moss and bracing for impact that never arrives.

“Heaven to Betsy, darlin’!” Jack’s hands, warm as a summer breeze, catch you by the waist, your shoulder socking him square in the face as you fall back into his figure. He makes no complaint of pain, taking it like a champ and placing you back down on steady ground, upon unsteady feet. “Did’ya sneak a few extra whiskeys when I was takin’ a leak?”

You open your mouth to reply, to deny, but the rain comes to a stop, and the thunder no longer rumbles, and the moonlight breaks through the parting blanket of clouds, and you’re suddenly so aware of how close you both are.

Like his hands, do his lips still feel the same? Soft as a feather, pillowy as a cloud, as sweet as a peach? It’s not something a married woman should be thinking about another man, about the man another version of her had loved.

But you’re not a married woman, are you?

Wet to the bone, it's as if your wedding dress has shrunk, possessive linen meant to warn you away from leaning forward till your face meets his.

“Careful where you point those eyes, sweetheart. Don’t go givin’ me a reason to make a dishonest woman out of you.” His warning only makes you want to lean in more, test just how dishonest he’s willing to make you, in a dress you wore for another man, upon a forest floor covered by moss, and mud, and rainfall.

He’s stepping back and holding out his hand before you can even try, saving you the trouble of mixing up your head even more. 

Careful steps back to his car, where the radio plays on as Prince’s voice slowly fades out. The headlights are back on, the key sits in the ignition, and you half wonder just how quickly he chased after you, abandoning his precious car so carelessly at the side of a darkened country road, free for any Tom, Bill, or Sally to claim for themselves.

“You’re lucky I got spare clothes in the back,” Jack’s voice echoes out from where he stands, bent at the waist, and rummaging through the floor of the back seats. You want to think he’s not going this on purpose, putting himself on display so obviously, but it feels easier on your conscience to blame him for your own inability to stray your eyes away from how snugly the soaked dress pants hug his behind. “Ain’t no hope in hell I’d let you in my car, all drippin’ wet.”

“You never used to complain about me being wet in your car.”

It’s a quickfire response, the kind you don’t quite get the chance to think over before you say it. Though it may shock your own ears to hear, it seems to shock poor Jack more, the smack with which his head hits against the car’s roof loud enough that you almost feel it in your skull.

You rush over to his side, dress dragging through more mud, and more leaves, and more broken gravel. No chance to even rest your hand upon his arm, Jack’s already pulled himself out the car to face you, a splash of pink brewing across his cheeks and a hand soothing over the back of his head. In the backseats, his hat lays abandoned, knocked off in the commotion.

“Can’t just be sayin’ things like that, darlin’,” he says as he holds out a change of clothes for you, smugness in his voice yet a shake in his hand. “Not unless you’re tryin’ to give old Jack over here a heart attack.”

In silence, you both turn your back on each other. Jack does so in spare of your modesty, and you, in search of someplace dry to lay down his clothes. You do so upon the passenger seat, hands immediately contorting every manner of way they can to reach the dress’ buttons that span down the length of your spine, each more finicky than the last. You manage to free only two, in the very centre, before you sigh and wonder if the entrapment you feel in the white gown could get any more literal than this.

“Jack,” it only feels right to seek out his aid, you tell yourself, the sooner the buttons are undone, the sooner the dress will be off, the sooner you’ll be changed, and the sooner you’ll both get back on the road again, destination unknown. It only makes sense, really, so who could blame you when you say, “come help me out my dress.”

No reply comes your way.

At first, you think he’s not heard you. Then, you worry that he has, and is choosing to ignore such a request, thinking it best he keeps his hands away from any act that involves undressing you. Then, fear that you’ve given him that heart attack after all. Fingers brush wet hair off your shoulders before you can turn to check on the cowboy.

Cicadas scream out into the night, and some faceless host rants over the car radio about the rising conspiracy theory of spycams in childrens’ toys, and your heart beats louder than any set of drums could ever hope, but all you can hear is the steady breaths Jack pulls in and blows out behind you, so close you feel each exhale brush your skin. His fingers do so too, with each button they pop loose, each inch of skin he reveals.

Before you can ask him to touch you with more than just his mouth and breath, his own voice fills your ears.

“I used to dream about doin’ this someday.”

“I think we both know this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten a girl out her dress, Jack.”

“Is your mind ever anywhere but the damn gutter?” A pinch delivered against your left side, a chastising tsk accompanying his words. “I meant that I dreamt about this, me helpin’ you take your weddin’ dress off.”

There’s an audible hitch in your breath, one that perfectly tells Jack everything your own voice seems to fail to. Air stings at your eyes, yet you refuse to blink, too aware of the tears building within them. His warm hands dance back up your spine as the final button is loosened, tracing slowly over skin he’d once memorised, a missionary returning to the land it once knew.

Your dress falls to the floor.

“‘Course I never thought I’d be doin’ it on the side of the road, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

TRACK 3 — lover you should’ve come over

“Wait, are these pyjama pants?”

The realisation dawns upon you twenty minutes after you hit the road again. Confined to the small space of the Bronco with little to look at— besides Jack, his clothes still damp and smelling of summer rain, a towel laid over his seat— you’ve resorted to the finer details, picking apart the scraps of clothing he’d handed you. A plain white t-shirt that, when paired with one of his tight-fitting jeans and a corduroy-lined leather bomber jacket, becomes a Jack Daniels staple. You find it best to ignore how it smells of campfire, and sweat, and the cologne you’d bought Jack on your last anniversary. He’s paired it with a pair of blue chequered pyjama pants, loose-fitting yet tied securely around your waist by a fraying draw-string.

“Took myself and the old gal up to Alaska a few weeks back, chasin’ after a view of the Northern Lights.” There’s a flash of something hot, bright, green as you register his words, myself and the old gal, tamed and dampened only when you remember that’s what Jack calls the Bronco, his old gal. “I was livin’ out my car the whole trip, figured it was easier than trynna find some inn out in the middle of the Alaskan woods. In fact, if you check down there, pretty sure you’ll find some uneaten energy bars I packed for the trip.”

He seems to point aimlessly down at a space around your legs, hand back on the wheel and guiding the wheels around a harsh bend before you can truly pinpoint what he’s referring to. You settle on the glove compartment, sitting upright and reaching a hand out to pop it open.

Then you remember what it houses, the weapons Jack carries in there. The lasso, the whip, the pistol, the bullets. A sickness burns your throat, your eyes unable to even glance down at the opened compartment, instead searching for Jack’s own eyes that stare back with equal amounts of surprise.

“I forgot those were in there.” He steals the words right out your own mouth, a nervous chuckle following them. You’d known to never touch the dreaded compartment, for your own sake, too eager to forget about the parts of him that made him an agent, the parts of him that put him in danger. “You can read ‘em, if you want. They were written for you anyway.”

Confusion floods the soul, curiosity winning over survival and dictating that you muster the courage to turn your head, take a peak at what sits inside the glove box. When you do look, you find there’s no whip nor pistol, no piece of Agent Whiskey in sight. What is there are the energy bars he’d promised, a hiking guidebook of sorts, a map, and a stack of wrinkled envelopes.

One glance back at Jack, he encourages you to take them with a nod, and so, you do. Feel the weight of them all in your hands, do your best to not drop any as you pull them out onto your lap. They scatter all over you, each a different shade of white, unopened and all sporting a red return to sender stamp. All appear addressed to the same place, and it takes only a moment of wondering why it seems so familiar for you to realise.

It’s your old address.

“They’re all labelled with dates, I wrote the first one a few weeks after you left. Wasn’t sure where you’d moved to, I figured there was a chance you’d gone back to your old place. I never forgot about how much you loved that apartment,” he says, and you did. Leaving it behind had been hard, the first real home you’d made for yourself since moving out of your parent’s place, the first space you made your own in the world. The idea of making a new space with Jack, a place you could build together, share together, had outweighed the pain of saying goodbye to your little one-bed apartment. “Wrote the second one because you didn’t reply, and I was missin’ you. Then I just kept writin’ em, and sendin’ em, and waitin’ on you writin’ back, even if just to tell me to get lost. I got a note back, along with the letters, but it wasn’t from you. Some older couple moved in to your old place, told me they’d been keepin’ em all safe incase you ever came round to collect your old mail, but they figured it was time I stopped writin’ to a ghost.”

Attentive to his every word, you search for the letter with the earliest date. Sent two weeks after things ended, with a colourful stamp and a seal that’s slightly opened at the edges, the glue’s hold loosening with time and neglect. You tear it open completely and unfold the sheets of paper found within, eyes drawn immediately three quarters down the page.

I saw our friends tonight for the first time since you left. They asked how you’re doing and where you were. I thought they were just being cruel at first but no, they didn’t know about the break up. I told them you weren’t feeling well, that you decided to stay home tonight. I guess I just wanted one more night where you were still mine, even if it was just in the eyes of our friends. I will tell the truth next time I see them.

You feel as though you’re invading his privacy, reading over words he’d written months ago, despite being the intended audience. That doesn’t mean you have the willpower to stop, however, eyes diving deeper down the page.

Or maybe I won’t have to tell them. Maybe, next time I see them, you’ll have come home. There’s still a chance for us. I believe it because I love you. You said this wasn’t something we can fix. I think you’re wrong. There’s never been an issue we couldn’t solve by talking it through, why should this one be any different? Let’s get coffee, darling. Our usual place, our usual time, next Tuesday. We can get through this, you just have to let me know it’s something you want, that I’m something you still want. 

Jack’s quiet in the driver’s seat, forgiving with the time he gives you to read over his letters. When the turning of pages and the ripping of envelopes rings too heavy in the car, your shoulders tensing up in a discomfort of disrupting the peaceful silence, he wordlessly turns the radio back up and the voice of Jeff Buckley greets you both.

You return to his letters, the second he’d sent already open in your palm.

I went to our usual spot. You never showed up. Your lack of reply to my letter should have been enough to tell me that, but I still had hope. Maybe I really am a fool. Our friends seem to think so. I told them about us and they immediately asked what I’d done wrong. There was no answer I could give them. The worst thing isn’t just that I’ve lost you, it’s that I don’t even know why.

You open the next envelope, and the next one, and the next one, paragraphs melting together into a heartbroken shape.

I tried to sleep in our bed. I lasted half an hour before crawling back to the guest room.  Our room just feels too empty without you. I smell you everywhere no matter how many new sheets I buy.

Eggsy and Tilde got married. It’s the first wedding I’ve been to without you. I’m doing a lot of firsts without you recently. I hate it. Our friends (am I wrong to call them our friends? I’m not ready to just call them mine) tried setting me up with someone new. They showed me a picture and she’s beautiful, but I just kept comparing her to you. Against your beauty, she’s nothing.

Your mother was at the Statesman ground tour today. I was surprised to see her, she already done the tour years ago. I tried not to talk about you too much, I didn’t want her knowing how desperate I am to hear about you. Congratulations on your promotion, I always knew you’d get it. I’m so proud of you for finally applying for it. I heard you’ve started seeing somebody, a veteran turned mechanic. Your mother was kind enough to give me his name. I hope you understand that I don’t want to invade your privacy but I had to make sure you’re safe. The guy’s got a clean slate, other than a sketchy trip down to South America with some other vets. He seems like a good man. I want you to get your happy ending. Are you happy? I’m not. 

Only one envelope remains unopened. The weight of it sits heavy in your lap, a fear settling in that has you not wanting to open it. You study the front of it, find out it was mailed three months ago. The radio moves in sync with you, it seems, the song that plays reaching its climatic moment at the same time as you do, tearing open the final letter. Next to you, Jack clears his throat and wrings his hands over the steering wheel.

This last one, you read the letter in full.

Darling girl,

Spring came faster this year. The daffodils you planted bloomed in early March. I’ve been tending to the garden, I know how much love you put into it. The flowers are coming up alright, the fruit and vegetables not so much. If only I had your green thumb.

I visited Tequila last week. I don’t know if it’s right to call him that anymore. Champ’s still not named his successor, part of me thinks he wants to retire it. That’s not what Tequila would’ve wanted. He would’ve wanted Ginger taking on the mantle. The grounds he’s on are beautiful, if not sombre. They overlook a lake, and the grass is cut everyday, and the sun shines on his grave from sunrise to sunset. I didn’t say much to him, just sat and enjoyed the view. Thought about a lot of things, and finally realised why you left.

You were scared. For me. I thought you were being selfish, breaking my heart like that, but I finally understand how awful that day must’ve been for you. We’d just buried my comrade, our friend, and you had to watch Tequila’s wife say her last goodbye, knowing it was almost me in that casket and you on the podium. That was my mission he went on, I could’ve been the one who didn’t come home to the woman I love.

I’m sorry I took so long to understand. I retired from my position at Statesman. I’m agent Whiskey no more. I’m coming to find you, and hope you give me one last real try at fixing us.

Love always,

your Jack.

“Your wedding invitation found me first,” Jack says, foot off the accelerator, eyes off the road, hands on the wheel.

The weight of his stare drags down to your lap, where the heap of papers now all sit, piled atop one another and rustling with every movement you make. Your own eyes have welled with tears that slip down the apples of your cheeks and splash the papers below, smudging the ink.

The confirmation of his invite knocks out the questions of how he wound up in the pews.

“I didn’t invite you,” you’re unsure if the truth is crueller than fiction. No part of you wants him to think you’d be so spiteful, so hurtful as to invite him to a day you’d once promised to share together. “I didn’t invite anyone. I was… busy, with work. My mom dealt with the invites, she must’ve written you down by accident.”

Your lips may be the ones to say it, but your own ears struggle to believe. Your mother’s always been a meticulous woman, practical, with her affairs eternally in order. The only mistakes she makes are the ones she means to.

“Yeah,” Jack sighs out from the driver’s seat, resignation in his voice. “I figured you didn’t invite me.”

TRACK 4 — 50 ways to leave your lover

Jack drives deeper into the night.

Out the car window, you watch as the world flies by, a blur of unlit trees and unmarked road signs. Earlier’s storm has rolled away and revealed the blanket of stars above, twinkling alongside a full moon. The road is long, and winding, and seemingly never ending. There’s no discussion of destination, no sanctuary you’re waiting to reach. You feel no urgency for it, either. So long as you sit right where you are, passenger in a car, you don’t have to take the wheel, you don’t have to choose where to go, or what to do. You can just exist within this liminal space, where no wedding lies in the balance and no hearts lay broken.

It’s just you and Jack, like the old days, going for a drive.

“Ask me,” permission comes off your tongue as you observe the driver and his less than subtle glances your way. “I can see the wheels turning in your head. Everything you wanted to know in the diner, I promise I’ll answer this time.”

“I guess I’m tryin’ to put myself in your shoes, figure out what was runnin’ through that pretty head of yours,” Jack is, at his core, a gentleman. For hours, he’s let you sit beside him, biting his own tongue and fighting back his own curiosity, a trait so vital to his existence it led him into a world of spies, and guns, and movie-esque kinds of evil. Even now, with your promised approval, he eases his way into his questioning, the part of him that knows you better than your own self dictating that this is something he must address with care.  “How’d you do it?”

“I just slipped out the back, Jack,” there’s a chuckle of sorts that welcomes itself out the depths of Jack’s chest, your choice of words going hand in hand with that of the Paul Simon record reaching its end over the radio. As quick as the humour appears, it goes, leaving nothing but the unfortunate reality of the situation. “Someone left a door open, it led out onto the back gardens. The further away I got, the faster I started to run. I made it all the way past the highway on foot before an older couple pulled over. They dropped me off at a diner, and that’s where I stayed until-”

“Until I found you,” it’s a reminder you shouldn’t want, the image of Jack setting off to find you in the midst of the commotion of a missing bride. It’s not healthy for your poor psyche, already at odds with what it wants, no need for further complications brought on by unresolved feelings. You can’t help but smile at him, however, no filter strong enough to cover your subconscious’ joy. “Why did you run away?”

Your smile fades.

The promise you made is already at threat of being broken. You thought there’d be more questions, more time until he hit you with the heaviest of them all.

Why did you run away?

You know the answer. Of course you’ve known the answer, from the moment you decided to turn on your heel and sprint down the halls, in search of an escape. As much as you can pretend otherwise, and feign naivete, you can’t change the truth. That doesn’t mean you’re ready to admit it out loud, and so you refute it with a question of your own: “Why did you come to the wedding?”

It would be easy to forgive Jack for getting irate when faced with your avoidant response. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. Instead, he spins the steering wheel and shoots you a smile, the kind that used to keep you warm at night.

“I wasn’t goin’ to come at first,” comes his admittance. You can’t say you blame him, really, a picture of yourself in his shoes, receiving an invite to his wedding. The thought conjures a painful throb from your heart. “Nearly tossed the damn thing into the fireplace when I got it. A few weeks later, I met with Champ for a drink. Drank myself blind, till I started tellin’ him all about the invite. He told me I had to come.”

A lift of your eyebrows, a snap of your head towards him. There’s a desire to have his full attention on you. There’s also the awareness that the road acts as a buffer for the tensing heartache that swells and lulls between you, each exchange of words a game of painful chess. You make the choice to bring forth a pawn this once, a simple why?

“He said I’ve been livin’ with life on pause since you left, maybe watchin’ you marry another man would be the thing to help me hit play at last.”

INTERLUDE — go your own way

Like tires upon gravel, time rolls on.

No matter how easy it is to forget about the world outside, look out the window and pretend you’re simply on a train, trapped in a constant onward motion, there’s no ignoring the orange glow that begins to grow on the horizon, nor the red lights on the car radio that read 05:38. A new day grows fast upon you and, where you remain mute to it, Jack can not allow the fantasy to go on any longer.

The tires screech against the gravel and everything comes to a stop.

“Thinkin’ time’s up, sweetheart,” his hands retreat from the wheel, finding purchase on his thighs. You try not to follow their descent over the tailored suit, try not to think about the thick muscles that sit hidden beneath the black trousers. It’s not your place to think about them anymore. “Where are you goin’?”

Decision has never been something you’ve struggled with, much less when the choices are so simple and limited. Either you go back to the wedding venue, and meet whatever fate awaits you of scornful mothers, and disappointed fathers, and abandoned fiances. Or, you can go anywhere.

You make a mistake, let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t, and end up asking yourself where will Jack go. He still lives in the home you once shared, this you know. Will he go there, pour himself a drink, and try to forget this night even happened?

You can still picture it all. The coffee table Jack hand-carved, both your initials engraved on the side. The picture frames all along the wall, a mural of memories shared between you. The matching set of mugs, eternally sitting on the drying board, waiting for Jack to stagger his way down the stairs and fill them with boiling coffee. If you walked through that door again, would you find everything just the way you left it? Or, has he gotten a new table, changed the pictures in the frames, bought new mugs? Is there someone there, right now, sleeping in his bed and waiting on his return?

A bitter taste overcomes your tongue at the thought, your insides twisting up like you’ve not spent the past few months sleeping next to someone else and saying yes to proposals you weren’t expecting.

“What do you think I should do?” You don’t want him to tell you to go home, you want him to say come home.

“You can’t ask that of me. My answer’s gonna be nothin’ but selfish.” Would it really be so bad, you wish to ask, if Jack was selfish? Maybe life would be easier if he was. He clears his throat, like he clears his mind, and gone is your moment to tell him you want selfish. “I can say this, though… Your fiance’s a good man, a kind man. Kind enough to trust your parents words and let me, a stranger, go searchin’ for you. He deserves to know what decision you make. It ain’t just your weddin’, it’s his too.”

He’s right, and you hate it.

There’s no way you can tell him now that you were even contemplating not going back, of disappearing into the sunrise with him, driving till life leads you down the right roads to find a new home, your old home, Jack.

The muddied wedding dress seems to call to you from the car boot, a whispering of your name that tells you to put it back on, go back, and walk down that aisle. You owe that much to your fiance, if he’ll still have you. With him, you’ve never had to worry about him coming home safe. With him, you could live a happy enough life, keep yourself busy enough to ignore all the what-ifs your mind would try seduce you with.

Besides, that’s what Jack needs, right? To see you marry another man, a final nail in the coffin named us, so he can finally move on with his life. You owe him that much, at least.

With a nod of your head and the straightening of your spine, you set your choice in stone, “drive me back to him, Jack.”

The engine shudders to life and the radio sets itself back on course, some upbeat voice that demands you go your own way, a musical slap delivered upon your face. Jack turns the steering wheel, rerouting the car’s course with an effortless u-turn before he presses down on the accelerator, propelling you forward down the paths you’ve already travelled.

You tell yourself you’re doing the right thing, even if a familiar dread starts to settle in the pit of your stomach, brushing them off as rational nerves. Who wouldn’t be anxious when facing a man they left at the altar?

A yawn escapes you.

“We’re a few hours out from the chateau.” There’s something in his voice that weighs on him, the tone between you shifting to something of desperation. Goodbye is a few hours away. This time, for good. “Sleep, it’s late.”

“Aren’t you tired?” Pull over, you want to say. Let’s sleep. The wedding can wait a few more hours.

How unfortunate that he cannot read your thoughts, understand the intentions behind your staring as you recline your chair, turn to face him on your side, hands crossed protectively over your abdomen.

One blink, and your eyes are already fighting to stay open, dragging you down into the depths of slumber.

“I’m fine. Don’t sleep much these days anyway,” the sound of Jack’s voice fades slowly into the background, melting away with the hum of the engine, and the turn of the wheels, and the voice on the radio. “Never got used to the feeling of an empty bed.”

TRACK 5 — i’m on fire

When your eyes next open, the sun’s warmth is caressing your face.

The sound of children’s laughter fills the air, and the smell of smoke fills your lungs, and the feeling of resting against Jack’s shoulder fills you with dread. Fearful to move, you take in all of him that you can see from this angle.

There’s no suit upon him, replaced with the casualness of a cotton t-shirt and a pair of faded denims. The hat’s back on his head, the curls of ungelled hair that peak through dry as a bone. A cigarette rests neatly between fingers on his left hand, the right one grasping at the neck of a beer bottle. No wheel sits in front of him, no gear shift keeps space between you. The Bronco’s been replaced with the view of your parent’s backyard and the comfort of a well cushioned outdoor couch.

You know this memory.

You’ve lived this memory.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” just like you remember, Jack’s stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette the moment he notices your open eyes. “How you feelin’?”

“Like my uterus is trying to carve its way out of me,” your mouth plays along with the dream, speaking the same words it had years ago.

“That good, huh?” A beer stained kiss meets the corner of your mouth, another follows up to your forehead, as Jack’s free hand reaches into his pocket, reemerging with silver foil between two fingers. “Got these off your mother. Let me go get you somethin’ to eat, then you can take two, hm?”

You remember thinking that you love him. You didn't dare speak it, however, simply nodding as you took the blister packet of paracetamol out his offering grasp and uncurled your legs back down onto the floor, stretching your arms. Jack bends down, presses his lips against the crown of your head, and then he’s off, venturing over to where your father stands grilling another round of burgers on the barbeque.

Jack’s always been a confident man. He carries himself with a head held high and a careless smile on his face, no chip on his shoulder and no flare for anger in his bones. A southern gentleman, who knows his own charms and, most dangerously, how to use them. Place him alone with your father, however, and watch how he crumbles like a house of cards. To the untrained eye, it’s unnoticeable, but you don’t miss the glances he spies your father with each time he throws out a joke, nor the way his hands can never seem to relax, a nervous tic of drumming against his thighs or balling into fists as he makes conversation with the older man. He’s desperate for the approval of your monotonous father, so desperate he fails to see he won it months ago, 

“Eat up, drink up, you need it,” he says as he hands you the paper plate, and his half-drunk bottle of beer. He settles back down on the couch, pulling you into him once more. “Your old man was sayin’ we should probably head off soon, ‘fore it gets too late. Think he’s startin’ to warm up to me, he’s even worryin’ bout me drivin’ in the dark.”

“Oh, he loves you,” you take a bite, break two of the pills out their casing, wash them down with a swig of bitter beer. The summer sun burns in the corners of your eyes, forcing them into a squint. “He kept looking for you at the dinner table at my mom’s birthday, you should’ve seen his reaction when I told him you were stuck in New York slaving away in your office.”

Months later, you’d come to find out he wasn’t in New York, surrounded by mountains of paperwork, but somewhere in the south of France, hunting down some billionaire wine-maker with plans to poison the crops of surrounding vineyards, leaving only his wine safe to consume.

In your memory, Jack plucks the hat off his own head and rests it gently upon your own, a shaded barrier against the bright light in the sky. You thank him, he watches on quietly as you continue to eat, gaze not peeling itself away from you the whole time.

“What? Do I have ketchup on my face? Or, in my hair?” You’d asked him, mid-chew. No answer, more staring. Panic made a debut in your mind, suddenly alert to his unusual behaviour. “Wait, is it a bug? Jack, is there a bug in my hair?”

“I love you.”

No build up, no grand-speech, no overly romantic setting.

He said it like one shares the weather, or the time, or what they’re wanting for lunch. He said it like it was something he always said, would always say, despite it being the very first time you’d heard him do so. Tears had flown in quickly, your hormones already gone haywire with the unexpected arrival of shark week earlier that morning. There’s a vague assurance that you told him you loved him too, through tears, and he teased your weepy face with kisses down your cheeks and full-chested laughter.

“Bless your cotton socks, my sweet girl, cryin’ all cause old Jack says-”

“Tell me now baby, is he good to you?”

You jolt awake.

Jack’s by your side, suit on, hair air dried, one hand on the wheel, the other rests out the window. The roof is down, letting the sun shine on you and his caramel eyes. An old Springstein song plays in the background, the very same thing that coaxed you awake. Just like the dream, he takes a few minutes to notice your opened eyes, head turning your way as another car shoots off ahead of you both, overtaking him.

“You were mumblin’ in your sleep. Were you dreamin’ of somethin’ sweet?”

“I was,” too quick comes your reply. Too honest. Nerves have you stumbling over words, scrambling to pick them off the floor of your mind and spew out the first thing that doesn’t involve Jack and his easy-going professions of love. “About the first time my fiance told me he loves me.”

You regret it as soon as you speak, the visible halt to his smile. He overcorrects it, forcing a grin that stretches the corners of his mouth so tight it almost looks painful. “Well, c’mon, don’t go keepin’ it to yourself!”

“He, uh, wrote it in the sky.”

“How romantic. Pricey too, I bet.”

“It was his best man who did it, an ex military pilot.”

As you try to reminisce on the day, little memories blossom in your mind. Instead of vivid motion capture, the day is black and white, no sound. You don’t remember where you were, what he was wearing, how you felt when you read those words up above.

It happened only two months into your relationship, that you do remember. You also remember being parked in your old neighbourhood the night before, twenty minutes spent trying to will yourself to go knock on the door to your old home. The Bronco was in its usual spot, parked outside. No lights were on as you pulled away and willed yourself back to rational thinking.

“Jeez, if that’s how he’s tellin’ you he loves you, I can’t imagine how he proposed.”

You wonder if this is as tortuous for him as it is for you, listening to you detail the life you’d gone on to live just months after walking away from five years of love. “In a restaurant,” you can’t remember the name, or what you ate, or what you wore, as if the memory is one that doesn’t belong to you, never belonged to you. “I ordered dessert, ‘will you marry me?’ was written on it in cherry sauce.”

“You must’ve said yes immediately.”

“I did.”

You leave out the part where the whole restaurant had watched him get down on one knee, or the part where you rushed to the restroom right after accepting the ring, spewing your guts out in a stall. By morning, you told yourself it was fine, you were just feeling nervous. 

After all, you loved him enough to spend time with him, so why not spend the rest of your life with him?

TRACK 6 — she’s always a woman

It had been too easy to forget the thing you loved most about road trips with Jack.

It wasn’t his constant commentary of interesting facts on sites you’d drive past, or his love for taking the long-way to anywhere and everywhere, or his ever-present need to drag your hand up to his lips with every few miles.

The thing you loved most was listening to his voice, unfiltered, unashamed, outloud, singing along to his favourite songs. The voice of a crooning angel and the shyness of a bashful fox. Every so often, when he’d catch you watching him a little too fondly as he sang along, he’d throw in a voice crack, or twist up a lyric into a sickly innuendo.

In the present, it’s you who interrupts his spirited rendition of a Billy Joel classic.

“You were right, in the letters,” the leather of your seat squeaks as you fix your posture, sit yourself up straight if only to force yourself to stop observing the way his lips fall into a natural pout and, instead, focus on memorising the licence plate that drives ahead. “I’m sorry.”

“Right about what?” As though nothing has changed, his hand extends towards your own, effortlessly intertwining your fingers, beginning an ascent to his mouth before mind takes over instinct and he’s letting you go, setting you free.

You give up on the licence plate ahead, turn your face once more towards Jack and his pouty lips.

“I couldn’t be with Agent Whiskey anymore.” A relationship made up of a man, a woman, and an agent. Whiskey would kiss you goodbye in the morning, while Jack would be the one to come home to you. With the passing of time, three became a crowd, and so you removed yourself. “I didn’t want to break your heart, Jack, I swear. But I also didn’t want to let you break mine. And you did, every time you walked out of our home and left me wondering if you’d ever come back. Then, when Tequila… You loved your job. You loved being Agent Whiskey. How could I ask you to leave that part of you behind?”

“Darlin’ if you think there’s any world where losin’ you was easier than losin’ Whiskey, you’re out of your mind.” Like his first I love you, he speaks words that flow out of him as easily as an exhale, as though they carry no weight to them. As though they do not momentarily flip your world on its axis and have you wishing he’d turn the car around, driving you both off into the forever you never got.

Yet another car overtakes the Bronco, its driver angrily pressing on his horn. You both continue to ignore the speed at which Jack drives. Up ahead, everything you’ve been dreading comes into view, an unmissable billboard. Clearview Manor.

50 miles to go. 50 miles till goodbye. 

“I’m hungry.”

“Those energy bars should still be in there, if you’re wantin’-”

“Jack, I’m hungry,” you say it louder, hoping he’ll pick up what you’re laying down.“Can’t we stop somewhere for breakfast?”

His answer comes in the form of a left blinker switching on, wheels cutting over gravel and carrying you off the main road. Then, as if to break your heart some more than his last declaration, he turns to you. “If it had been me waitin’ on you at the end of the aisle, would you have ran?”

You try to picture it.

Jack, in his suit and tie, hands clasped behind his back to keep him from drumming nervous fingers over his thighs, eyes brimming with tears as you take your first step down the aisle. Would the panic have settled in? Would you have felt that same wrongness as when you’d been sneaking a peak at your fiance waiting down the aisle?

Would you have ran?

“It’s not something I planned, y’know? Running. I didn’t think it was even an option,” you’re laying your final card on the table, a truth you couldn't bring yourself to admit earlier at last coming out to play. You’re unsure if it dismisses or further condemns you for your runaway crimes. “I took a peak, at the ceremony hall, while waiting for my father. I needed to see what I was about to walk into. I guess I thought the nerves were just from that, the unknown. Then I saw you, a few rows from the back. At first I thought I was hallucinating, that you were just a man who happened to be wearing a cowboy hat. But then I saw my mum pulling you in for a hug, and I caught a glimpse of your face. That’s why I ran. I couldn’t… marry another man, not with you standing in the crowd.”

“You’ve not answered my question,” it’s the first you’ve seen Jack put his foot down since he dragged you out the diner, the seriousness etched into his frowning forehead and stamped onto his lips. “Would you have ran?”

“No.”

Jack just keeps driving.

TRACK 7 — dancing in the dark

“You can’t be serious!”

Squeezed into the corner booth of a dingy, run-down bar, you and Jack sit across from one another, digging into a stack of pancakes lathered in maple syrup.

The bartender and two of his patrons glance at you both every so often, and you have to wonder how odd a pair you and Jack must make. One dressed to the nines, if you ignore the dried mud at the bottom of his dress pants and his loosening tie, the other wearing yesterday’s make-up paired with cotton pyjama pants. You prefer it to the stares you’d gained in your wrinkled gown.

“Deadly. I’m a serious tap-dancin’ student,” his fork stabs into the fluffy goodness, dragging it along the plate, soaking the pancake in as much syrup as possible. You try not to think of mornings that used to be spent like this, sitting at your own table, flour in his hair and eggshells in your own, both of you ignoring the disastrous mess in the kitchen begging to be cleaned as you tuck into your homemade pancakes. “Retirement breeds weird hobbies.”

“Before long, you’ll be playing bingo at the old folks home.”

“I just have to ask, I really do,” a dread you haven’t felt since stepping out the car— with the help of Jack and his offering hand, the other holding your door open— creeps back in. You don’t want to talk about your own current reality, not when it’s been so easy to pretend none of the wedding fiasco happened and, instead, you’re simply catching up with Jack after bumping into each other in this bar.  “This fiance of yours… is he bigger than me?”

As quick as it inflates, the tension pops. 

“Oh my god, Jack!” You laugh, a little too loudly, and dip your head as other tables turn their heads your way.

“What?”

“You did not just ask me that.”

“Oh, but I did.”

“You can’t just say things like that!” In mock surrender, he throws his hands up. Your own grab ahold of your knife and fork once more, an ironclad focus on the near-empty plate as you will the shameful heat away from your face, mumbling over your words. “But, no, he isn’t bigger. Happy?”

“You’ve no idea.” As though you’re being haunted by music, a song begins to play over the speakers. You’re not the only one who takes notice, Jack’s eyes lighting up with a devious look, his legs already rising out of his seat. “Think that’s our queue, darlin’.”

“Sit back down.”

“Oh, c’mon now, don’t be so uptight,” he lays out his hand, begging for you to place your own in it. Flashes of a memory, six years back, the very same song playing as the very same man attempted to coax a dance out of you. “One dance, sweetheart, then I’ll leave you in peace.”

Just like your younger self, you’re incapable of resisting his baby cow eyes, letting him guide you out onto a makeshift dance floor before it’s too late to run back and hide in your seat, the eyes of strangers already piercing you with their questioning stares. If you weren’t deemed a strange pair with your attire alone, you certainly are now, feet stumbling awkwardly along with Bruce Springstein.

“This song was playin’ when we met,” he says it like you don’t know, like you don’t remember, like you aren’t replaying that night as you speak, pretending you’re both in that same crowd of swaying bodies, young, and naive, and on the cusp of experiencing the greatest love you’ll ever know, rather than here, on an empty dance floor, stumbling blindly through the hardships of holding each other so close, mutually aware you’re dancing on borrowed time and, soon, you’ll have to go. “Knowin’ now how it ends, if I was sent back in time, I’d still ask you to dance. I’d do it all again.”

“This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just…”

He spins you, drags you closer, sways you. It’s far less care-free than the first dance you shared, no alcohol to dull the shame and a whole lot of history packed between your bodies.

The first dance had been the thing you had dreaded most about your wedding, dancing with your husband, to a whole room of loved ones watching. Dancing now with Jack— even through all the embarrassment you feel as an elderly couple point over at you— feels easier, less daunting, so much so that you can’t help the way you start to laugh, arms loosening around his shoulders, hips moving less abashedly.

The two of you inch closer, and closer, and closer as the song reaches its end. Like a happy couple finishes their first dance, Jack’s mouth lands atop yours.

A gentle kiss, innocent of sin, it begs you to give back, to press your own mouth against his. You answer its calling, hand clasping at the back of his neck, holding him safely against you, less he drifts away and reveals this all to have been a dream, a nightmare, a delusion. Like coming home after a cold winter’s day, his kiss is the comfort of knowing you’re exactly where you belong.

And it’s absolutely terrifying.

You rip away from him, flashes of your fiance’s face blinding you as you stumble off, doing what you do best: running away. You miss the way the patrons all go back to their own drinks, and the way a new song comes on, and the way Jack chases after you, stopped only by the slamming of a bathroom door.

You come up for air when you find yourself faced with the image you paint in the mirror.

Never has there been a more heartbroken girl, eyes a mess of tears, and faded eyeliner, and smudged mascara, hair a nest fit enough for any bird to build its home in, body draped in the clothing of an ex-lover. It’s almost as frightening as the image you made yesterday, wedding gown freshly laced and make-up pristinely done.

A knock rings against the door. 

It’s followed by a gentle call of your name.

You switch on the tap, welcome the cold splash of water over your face. Pray that, if you scrub hard enough, you’ll wipe away the taste of him, forget the shape of his touch, purge yourself of the desire to follow anywhere he may go. Your hand slips down your face, the dim bathroom light catches on something.

Your engagement ring, a tight shackle that binds you to someone else, reminds you of the closure you owe to Jack.

He calls your name again.

“Darlin’,” it’s muffled behind the door, but the regret in his voice is all too clear. “I just got caught up, I’m sorry. Come on out and we’ll get back on the road-”

The hinges creak as the door opens, only a crack, and your hand shoots out, grabbing a hold of Jack’s tie before you can will yourself to be rational.

He lets you invade his space with little protest, mouths returning to the dance they never got to complete. Hands move, slipping off ties, and undoing draw strings, and locking doors. There’s a mumble, are you sure, followed by a moan, please.

All hope of forgetting his skin is lost, a leg hooked around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair. He bites at your neck, and kisses along your jaw, and pants into your ear, all the while his hips rock back and forth against your own, filling you inch by inch. Mouth covered by your own hand, muffling a cry of his name as you feel him brush against that spine-tingling spot inside you. Your head falls back, eyes slip shut. Jack’s quick to rectify it.

“Watch, darlin’,” he whispers, a hand tilting your eyes down to where your two bodies meet. “ Want you to see how perfectly your lil’ pussy takes me.”

You do as he says, hypnotised by the sight of his cock, glistening in your own arousal, sawing in and out of you, each thrust deeper than the last.  

“He can’t fuck you like this, can he?” Despite his ego-fueled words, there’s a desperation in his voice, a soul lost in a sea of darkness, searching for a life jacket. “Tell me he can’t.”

He can’t, you tell him, clinging onto him tighter, needier, begging him to never leave.

Any minute now, you worry, someone’s going to knock on the bathroom door, kick you both out. Instead, the music that plays outside the door seems to increase in volume.

“Fuckin’ made for me, meant for me,” both of you grow increasingly desperate, fingernails digging into flesh, and mouths rejoining in a frenzy of kisses, and the tightening of an invisible string, drawing you nearer and nearer to the edge. “My sweet girl.”

An end that comes all too soon, both of you exhausted, and spent, and collapsing against one another, a sticky mess left between your legs where his hips continue to rut into you through his own overstimulation.

“I’m sorry,” his head falls against your shoulder, burrows into the warmth of your neck. There’s a press of his lips against your skin, and a million apologies that follow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I love you.”

“It’s okay, Jack,” you lie, sooth a hand over his back, ignore the tears you feel falling against your skin.

TRACK 8 — hit the road jack

The clock reads 13:18 as Jack brings the car to a stop.

A set of stairs lead up to a grand double-doored entrance, a sign post declaring the extravagant building as Clearview Manor. Rented for the whole weekend, the wedding party isn’t cited to leave until late Monday evening. Though all cars remain parked in the driveway, no familiar faces await your arrival.

“I hope you get your happy ending,” the two of you step out of the car in sync. A voice whispers that it’s the last time you’ll step out the Bronco, you brush it off and follow Jack as he makes his way over to the boot. “No one deserves it more than you, Jack.”

“No promises, darlin’,” he extends his arms to you, you almost move in for a hug.

The sight of your wedding dress, no longer porcelain white, stains of brown upon a greying fabric, reminds you of why you’re here. You try your best to smile earnestly as you take it off his hands, but fear it only heightens the distress that dilates your pupils. “I’ll see you inside, right?”

The boot slams shut, and it’s an awful reminder that your time together is coming to a close, Jack dons his signature smile, cowboy hat back on his head, a head that’s shaking no.

“The mighty fool that I am, thinkin’ I could stomach watchin’ you get married to another man. After this little road trip of ours… well, I guess I just ain’t ready to hit play yet.” A tongue made of lead, shoes filled with weights. Moving feels impossible, talking even more so. You want to say his name, tell him you don’t need to marry another man, crawl back into the Bronco and beg him to drive off. “Go’on, get! There’s a good man in there, waitin’ to give you everythin’ you deserve.”

Instead, you just turn on your heel, take the first step towards the rest of your life. A life without Jack.

Halfway up the stairway, the sound of Jack’s engine reaches your ears, followed quickly by the obnoxiously poignant car radio, giving its final performance for you both.

“Hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more, no more!”

Eyes meeting where Jack sits, back in the driver’s seat, you share one last laugh.

OUTRO — everywhere

“Thank god you’re okay.”

Two arms, strong and secure, wrap around your waist.

On the other side of the bridal suite door stands both your mother and your mother in law, ushered out by your fiance upon your return the moment he noticed the panic on your face as questions and fingers prodded at you.

You block out the thought of the scowling faces, burrowing your own into the space between his shoulder and neck, whispering your inquiry on, “how bad is the damage?”

“We told everyone you were suffering from food poisoning. All our guests think you’ve been spewing out of both ends the past few hours, but I think that’s justified for the bruising you’ve given my ego.”

“Santi,” the shape of your fiance’s name feels foreign in your mouth, the taste of it sour on your tongue, so much so that you can’t say it in full. “I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be, what matters is you’re here now.”

Jack was right, your fiance is a nice man. A good man. A man anyone would be lucky to land in the arms of, the kind of man people dream of, and romance authors write of.

But to you, his arms just feel like a cage you’ve lost the key for. “Why did you ask me to marry you?”

“I don’t know. We just… make sense.”

“We do,” you pull apart, at last, nodding your head along to his answer. “But is that all marriage should be? Two people who make sense?” You stumble a few steps back from him, feet needing space to begin pacing back and forth as your filter slips and the word-vomit begins to spew itself out onto the pristine carpeted floors. “Do you really love me enough to spend the rest of your days with me? Because I don’t think you do, and I don’t think I love you like that either.”

Santiago is calm, collected, and completely unresponsive.

The longer he watches you pace and rant, the quicker you do each thing, as though you’re racing ahead to escape the fear of breaking his heart more than you already have, his love possibly more intense than you make it seem. He ends that fear in one foul swoop of words.

“When you didn’t walk down the aisle, I felt relieved. I also slept with someone at my bachelor party and the guilt has been eating me alive.”

“I just fucked my ex in a bathroom!” In an almost paradoxical response, the pair of you keen over in laughter, any expected animosity thrown out the metaphorical window and leaving you both no choice but to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. “God, we’re a mess.”

“Wait, the cowboy’s your ex? I should’ve known, your dad told him you were gone before he even bothered to tell me.” Santiago had little luck at winning over your dad, though admittedly it was no fault of his own but, rather, your father had yet to move on from Jack. There’s a sudden commotion as Santi rushes past you, peeling back the curtains and peering down out the window. “What car is it the cowboy drives?”

“A Bronco.”

“Well, you might wanna hurry, because he’s just pulling out of the parking bays.” It’s more than just a warning. It’s a blessing to leave. Overcome with emotion, you dive back into his arms and find there’s no fear of goodbye, not like there had been with Jack. An engagement ring that slips off with no resistance, no longer a shackle that ties you both together. You hand it back to him gently. “Go, before it’s too late! I’ll take care of this mess, see if I can spin this in a way that’s heartbreaking enough to get our deposit back.”

There’s more you want to say, but now’s not the time. Apologies and thank-yous can wait till you pick up your things from his apartment, right now you’re too busy rushing to the door.

A call of your name comes when you’ve got one foot out it, treading into the now motherless hallway. You face Santiago with a smile, ready to say that magic word. 

Goodbye.

“Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t invite me to your wedding.”

You make it out the double-doors, which slam loudly shut behind you, before you spot the retreating shape of Jack’s car and an anxious glee commands you to break out into a sprint, legs kicking faster than they ever have before.

Don’t speed up, you think, watching as the Bronco slowly creeps down the driveway.

“Jack!” You call out to him, hoping that, with the open roof, he’ll somehow hear you over the radio. Pushing your feet to move a little faster, your arms join the mix, waving wildly to the wind, a careless attempt to catch his attention in the rearview mirror. “Wait!”

The car breaks with a squeak, the blaring music comes to a halt, and Jack turns to face you with his own eyes, as though he can’t trust the mirrors. When you reach the car, you pull at the door handle and find he’s already unlocked it. You slide in with ease, back into the seat you’ve always belonged in: by his side.

He can’t seem to move, frozen with his eyes focused on nothing but you.

“Drive, jack,” you finally proclaim, asking him what you should’ve the moment you saw him in that diner, in the pews, in the heartbreaking hours post-burying a friend.

“Where to, darlin’?”

“Anywhere, everywhere!” You can’t help the smile that overcomes you as he pulls your hand up to his mouth, planting a familiar kiss upon it, before the engine hums back to life. “It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you, all roads lead home.”

Like old times, you lean forward and turn up the radio, a familiar tune filling the air as you sink back into your seat, the wind back in your hair and an open road laying ahead, ready to lead you both wherever the wheels may take you.

“Oh I, I wanna be with you everywhere.”

bts with hyde. this is just a little reflective commentary that i put down here, to avoid flooding my author's note with too much rambling. please feel free to skip this!!

this fic is a compilation of firsts for me. it's the first challenge i've taken part in within the pedro fanspace, which has been equally exciting as it has been daunting. i struggle immensely with writing on a time schedule, and so i'm pretty proud of myself for not posting this (too) late.

this is also my first time writing for jack. admitedly, i'm not sure if i've done justice to him, as his character is somehow incredibly strong and, yet, so open for interpretation that i found myself struggling to connect with him in my writing. i have no plans to write for him in any future wips, but that might change. it was definitely fun to push myself out my comfort zone and write for a new character!

something i want to praise myself for is the attention i put into smaller details of this fic. for example, each flower mentioned in this fic has a very specific symbol/meaning attached to it, fitting with the themes of the scenes in which they're mentioned. the other place i hyperfocused on very unimportant details is the playlist. it opens and closes on the only two songs fronted by a female vocalist, with my intention being that these songs are a representation of the reader's inner turmoils and thoughts in the opening and closing scenes. the rest of the playlist is full of male vocalists, giving a peak into jack's mind despite the entire fic being told through the reader's eyes.

okay, i've given myself enough delusional and unnecesary praise, i'm going to sleep now. please don't be mean if you didn't like this fic, it's literally my birthday 🫡

if you've read this far, ily, i hope you have a good day !