#anyway don't mind me it's late and I'm having thoughts

[notlhecxzsa]

Never Wanted Love Just A Fancy Car - N.R

Summary: Time seemed to pass by so quickly, everything seemed to be moving past between Natasha's fingers, but would she let the only thing that seemed to be giving her everything go? It is not what she wanted anyways... right?

Author's Note: Hii! Omg, finally! I hope this is enough to fill the weeks I haven't updated, I kind of got lost and everything's piling up. But, now, I finally have a good vision on how I want this to go! This is 3k+ words.

Warnings: Starting of Mean!Natasha (ughhh, here we go), bruises, mentions of abuse, sad Y/n (give my girl back her dog and lucy!)

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3rd Person's POV:

A week has already passed by, a routine was set between Y/n and Natasha. Inside that week, Maria, Clint and the other noticed how Natasha stayed in the penthouse, which was very unusual, given that she mostly lives in the manor. They chose not to mention it around the red head, thinking that they might just be thinking too much about it.

Y/n already knows the whole penthouse by heart, keeping everything as tidy as possible even though Natasha had kept saying that she has people to do those things. Making different delicious meals for the both of them, even making extra more for Clint, Maria, Bucky and Steve whom she met on the 3rd day of being there.

Y/n's kindness and attentiveness did not go unnoticed by the people that would come and go inside the penthouse, her actions warms the head of the people around her and makes their stomach churn in a very good way.

Natasha's eyes never left the petite figure of her 'significant other' wherever she goes and whatever she does. The fluttering of her heart makes her want to throw up as the compliments from her friends about Y/n makes her eyes roll. Though, she can't deny that her friends seemed to enjoy going to the penthouse ever since Y/n came.

Late night games and movies became a thing for the past week and a half, 'addicting meals'—as to how Bucky proclaimed it to be, are always served, all while Natasha kept to herself, specifically on times when she and Y/n are not alone.

She felt a magnetic-like energy, rather work at home than to do the work she normally would choose to do. Her tongue burning to get a taste of whatever's being cooked in the kitchen. The little moments and conversation that was spent between the younger girl became something she cherished and most awaited every single day, even though she will never admit it—even to herself.

Now, at the very moment, Y/n was cooking in the kitchen while Natasha seemed to be having a very serious call on the balcony with someone. Y/n's eyes kept checking her over, eyes raking on the expressions she wear across the kitchen, to the living room and to the balcony. She wanted so badly to ask what was wrong, her inside a raging bull that kept pushing her to be there for her...wife.

Before she could even go deep inside her thoughts, the sound of the sliding door filled the air and she quickly looked down to what she was cooking. she was cooking, heavy footsteps was what it was followed, then those deep heavy sighs she's starting to get familiar with. She's stressed. Natasha is stressed.

"Are you-" She started, not even getting the chance to talk before Natasha's dominant voice went straight to her ears.

"I'm going out. Don't wait up for me. I just need to deal with something." Natasha's footsteps did not falter, not even a bit as she passed through the kitchen, leaving Y/n alone and confused, her heart and mind fighting wether should she check on the redhead or not.

This is the first time she witnessed the redhead so stressed—the first time witnessed Natasha going out to do something without even knowing what it is. Usually, there would be a follow up reason, a short explanation from Natasha without even asking. Now, she just acted so...weird. There wasn't much evidence that Y/n saw from how she just acted, but Y/n could feel it.

What happened?

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Back at the penthouse, silence enveloped the whole atmosphere as Y/n fixed the food inside the microwave, deciding to wait up for Natasha so that they could eat together. Surely, she won't be home late, right? She always gets home by dinner.

Deciding to spend her time waiting by the living room, turning on the TV to watch something. Her hand subconsciously going up to play with her ring finger, wondering when will the ceremony of their wedding will be. Her mind fantasizing how beautiful the even might be, her younger self's dreams might finally happen in just a few days.

Her mind flooded with questions. Will my parents be there? Will Lucy gonna be there? Tamtam? Her heart fluttering in excitement at the thought of the two latter. She don't know how the wedding will go, all she knows is that this is all about something between Natasha's parents and her's. But, it's a wedding, a special event, a matrimony, it has to mean something more than just a business plan, right? Right.

Even though she still has mixed feelings about her unknown relationship with Natasha, she kept learning on how to love her, that what a wife does, right? That's what they should do.

Clad in her usual clothing, leggings and a domesticated sweater with her hair up in a ponytail and strands of hair falling to the sides of her face. Her attention was swarmed by the announcement spoken by the reporter on the television.

"Stark's industry has once again published a new electronic device, setting a standardized testing all over the countries, even in Asia. But, nevertheless, we can see how Romanoff corporation is still on top of the business. Electronics, weaponry, and services for the people and the government...." A small smile made its way on her face, her heart beats with pride. She was proud. She took a mental note to congratulate the red head later, maybe that's where Natasha was going. To discuss about this, this should be something to be celebrated.

Her gaze averted down to her arm, where the sleeves of her sweater was slightly ridden up. There was a vivid bruising, already healing. Caressing it, her eyes fell into a solemn look, thinking of home. Tammy, Lucy. She just hopes they're doing good. Her parents would call her, asking how she is, spending only a minute to talk to her before the conversation is averted about Natasha.

Pulling up the sweater to check on her other bruises, she saw how the others are still visible in the eyes close-up. She hopes it will be gone soon, people might think weird of her once they notice how she only wears a sweater and cover-ups.

Too lost in her thoughts, she did not notice the ninja-like footsteps getting near her. "Y/n?..." She jumped up at the sound, looking up to see Maria with a certain look on her face, her eyes glazing over the arm that was set in front of her. "Are you okay? What happened?" Looking down, Y/n realized that the sleeves was still ridden up.

Quickly pulling it down, she stood up. "Maria! I didn't- I didn't hear you... Why are you here?" Y/n mentally slalpped herself, sounding so nervous and maybe even mean. Fiddling the hem of her sleeves, she continued, "Have you eaten already? I cooked something... I-I'm just waiting for Natalia to come home, she left earlier, by the way-just incase you're looking for her..." She trailed off, not knowing what to say anymore.

Maria's gaze stayed for a while on Y/n's covered arms that was visible a while ago. She saw it. Bruises littered on her body is what her life is all about in this business, and she can't be mistaken if she saw one. She saw the stiff shoulder of Y/n and what seemed like a tensed body, clearly having a good read that it is not something she would be open into talking about. But to Natasha, she will for sure ask about it. There's no way Natasha's hurting her?

"Yeah- no, I mean, I was just gonna pass by to bring these papers to Natasha..." Briefly holding up a briefcase in hand, Maria's gaze averted to look back into Y/n's face. "She's been spending work times here, I told her I'd just give this to her and she agreed—where is she, by the way? Did she say anything about where she was going?" Maria asked as she put the suitcase on the coffee table and sat on the couch.

Y/n stayed standing up, "Uhm... no, she left in a hurry... and she also seemed stress." Silence enveloped the atmosphere around them, Maria seemed to be in a very deep thought as her gaze glued on the television while Y/n shifted on where she was standing.

"Would you— would you like to eat, Ria?" Maria look back at the young girl, smiling at the sound of the new nickname she earned.

"What do you have there?" Standing up, they both walked towards the kitchen.

"I cooked salmon! I also did some vegetables salads, if you would like I can make you some juices." Setting up a plate, Maria frowned.

"Aren't you gonna eat too? Did you eat already?" Sitting down, she muttered a small thank you when a glass of water was set in front of her.

"No, don't worry about me. I'll wait for Natalia..." Maria's eyes squinted a little as she looked at Y/n who was taking out the food from the oven.

"Why do you keep calling her Natalia?" Maria blurted out and Y/n frowned, her movements faltering as she turned to look at Maria.

"Isn't that her name?" She questioned.

With a chuckle, Maria took a sip on her water as the food was set in front of her. "No, yeah, it is, it is. She hates that name, do you know that? We all call her Natasha." Maria explained, amusement sparking in her voice.

With a deeper frown, Y/n sat down beside her, after setting all the food that is available in front of the raven haired woman. "She hates it? Really?" With a blown confused voice, she asked. "It's just... it was what I used to call her... before. From as far as I can remember."

"Yeah... but, doesn't seem like it when you're that one calling her that..." Maria took a bit of the delicious food, just as she was about to take a second bite, her movements faltered. "Wait... before?" Looking at Y/n who was looking ahead into a space, seemingly lost in her thoughts with a faint blush creeping up on her cheeks.

"Yeah... when we were kids. She used to come in our house with her parents, but I remember only very little." She explained, looking at Maria with a small smile on her face. "Why?" Seeing the distant look on Maria's face, she asked curiously.

A blip of silence came over, the gears running inside of Maria's head seemed to be heard by the girl beside her before she clears her throat slowly. "Urhm... no, nothing. Just curious, that's all—This is so good, by the way. Might eat it all if only Natasha would not kill me." Giggling, Y/n shook her head.

"I can cook you another?" Warmth spreading in her chest, she thought how Natasha got so lucky.

"No, no, don't bother, this is all good." With a nod, Y/n settled beside Maria, conversation thrown at each other like a normal friends would do.

Y/n could only hope Natalia is fine and will come home sooner.

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3rd Person's POV:

Hours passed by and the both of them had settled by the living room, with Maria deciding to stay for a couple of more hours and Y/n now falling asleep on the couch.

Averting her gaze from the television to the young woman who had her head on her knuckles while the other hand cuddled a pillow on her lap. Maria looked down on her phone, all of her messages from Natasha popped up immediately with no reply in sight. Sighing she got up to get herself a glass of water, deciding to stay a few more minutes before heading off.

As she was pouring herself a glass of water, a sheets of colored papers along with some art materials caught her eyes. Flower papers. The same ones she saw on Natasha's glovebox. The same one she also saw on Natasha's room yesterday.

Huh. Smirking, she shook her head before the sound of the door caught her attention. It might be Natasha. Deciding to stay in the kitchen as those familiar quiet footsteps reached her ears. From where she was standing, she could still clearly see where Y/n was laying on the couch but she's not visible for anyone to see if the person walking inside will go straight in the living room.

She watched as the familar form of a red haired woman with a dominant aura walked slowly with careful steps that Maria is not familiar with approach the young woman. With furrowed eyebrows, curiosity filled her body as she watched Natasha stand still, her figure looming over the girl, just watching over her.

Slowly, a sly smirk made its way on her face as she decided to step little by little closer to the living room, coming into a view where she can see Natasha's face clearly.

There was a certain look in Natasha's face that she could not pinpoint. A certain look she'd never seen before. Now, with a frown, she thought how could Natasha not notice another presence with them? With her eyes soft and tensed at the same time, analyzing the small figure by the couch, she decided to get her attention.

"Natasha..." With an uncertainty in her voice, she called out.

Head whipping around, shoulder becoming tensed as her features falter, Natasha replied, "Maria..." Clearing her throat, she straighten up, turning on her heels and walked towards the kitchen, her eyes trailing towards the art materials present on the table. "What are you doing here?"

Watching as Natasha opened up the fridge but just stared. "I got you the files. Where did you went?" She asked.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you not to come anymore. I'll be going back at the mansion." Closing the fridge, she went to sit on one of the stools, now looking straight into Maria's eyes, not caring how she ignored the second question.

Frowning, she asked, "What? What about Y/n?"

Natasha shrugged, "What about her? I mean, she's doing fine here...I can just check on her—you guys can check on her from time to time." Taking a sip on the beer she got from the fridge, she averted her gaze to look by the living room, her gaze immediately falling down on the young woman laying on the couch.

With a still frown, Maria couldn't help but notice how the atmosphere had shifted, now taking notice that there was something up with her friend. She know her too well not to notice it, but seeing how tensed Natasha was, she chose not to question. Questions that are already piling up after the things she had witnessed and learned today.

"Well, then, I should go now. The files are by the living room..." Turning, Maria gathered her things she left on the kitchen counter earlier.

"Thank you, Maria." Natasha said with a monotone, acknowledging the effort that was made by the woman.

With a nod, Maria walked towards the exit, but her movements faltering as she turned her head to look at Natasha who was still looking ahead. "She cooked for you..." Even with her face in a stone cold feature, Maria could see right through her. "She was waiting for you to come back."

Receiving no reply, Maria headed off, leaving Natasha in her own bubble that seemed to be going off in any moment.

As soon as the sound of the door closing in, she swallowed a heavy lump that formed in her throat, her facade falling into pieces as she took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she let it out.

As soon as she opened it, she saw a movement by the living room. Taking a large swig of the beer, she watched as the figure took notice of her presence. Those eyes that haunted her in her sleep, the same ones she craved as soon as she wakes up. Natasha made no effort in resolving her facade, watching as the young woman marched forward in the kitchen, strands of hair falling into place as she took careful steps just like what she always do, as if worrying that she might trip.

Natasha learned all her habits, the way she would tuck her hair behind her ear, how she would fiddle the ends of her sleeve as she tried to cover up her hands as if she was not covered enough with those sweaters and cardigans along with leggings and pants that seemed to be countless. The way her eyes would move everywhere when she's nervous and couldn't seemed to hold an eye contact. Many more she could not even begin to explain, and many more she could not stop thinking about.

She was held captive, and she knows it. Especially, after tonight. It was a hard pill to swallow, finally realizing that she was capable of doing something she grew up thinking she was not able to do so.

"You're home." Home. Natasha's gaze felt like she was burning holes into Y/n's eyes. "Do you wanna eat? Wait, let me just reheat it. Maria was here earlier, she got your files by the living room—oh, I also made a dessert for us, thankfully Maria did not see it inside the fridge, she would eat it all for sure." A giggle passed her soft lips, even though she was not in Natasha's view, the red head could see the smile she wanted so badly to keep from the world and own it to herself.

So that she could only see it.

So that she could only smile for her.

She was not supposed to feel like this, and that was what makes it more a bitter thing to taste.

"She's just simply the paper in between their business, Natasha. After the marriage, you and I both know she's nothing to father..."

Her facade hardened at the voice of her sister from earlier, receiving the truthful message that made everything clear for her.

She was not supposed to feel like this because that smile was never meant to be hers.

She has a mission to do, a mission for herself.

"...and you and I both know she means nothing to you..."

Standing up, everything seemed to be closing in around her. Gulping down the beer while her eyes strayed away from the one's who's trying to catch it with a confused and worrying gaze.

"I'm not hungry. You should also clean that mess up... can't have my house piling up with childish things." Pointing briefly on the art material she knew clearly well was meant to be given to her.

She was met with silence, and it was almost deafening. Walking away, her insides screamed to her the giggle earlier, craving to hear her voice filling up the air as she bid her goodnight.

Once again, a lump started to form in her throat, but this time, she can't find the strength to swallow.

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Author's note: Hope you liked it! I tried my best, really ಠ⁠︵⁠ಠ I'll do better on the next one! More angst piling up in the corner, I know this seemed to be in a rush but I promise to give more on the next ones! Many peeps keeps on messaging me and piling up my asks so I just did what I can do at the moment ಠ⁠ ⁠೧⁠ ⁠ಠ thank you for reading, until next time!

[mustainegf]

I totally understand if you won’t be comfortable with writing this, but could you write something, where the reader struggles with an ED? James (any era is fine) obviously notices her weightloss, and discovers her purging one night, comforts her, and helps her with recovery? I completely get if you don’t want to write this, but thank you anyway, for all your amazing fics! 💞

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: mention of ED, purging, mention of vomiting

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ¹⁹⁸⁷

It was late one night in '87, and the stars outside our small apartment seemed extra dark, as if even they took a cue from our dramas. The city was quiet, but my mind was loud, racing with thoughts that couldn't let me sleep. James had long since taken up most of the bed, sprawled out and snoring like a chainsaw, as he always did after a night out. We had been out with his bandmates earlier, grabbing burgers and beers after their rehearsal. I tried to enjoy it, went along with everyone, laughing and talking; but as usual, couldn't get past that nagging voice in my head telling me I shouldn't have eaten so much.

I waited for James to go deep into sleep, his soft hum of breathing filling the room. Quietly, I slipped out from under the sheets, my heart pounding. I hated myself for what I was about to do, but the shame was just like that itch I couldn't ignore. My feet padded softly across the cold floor toward the bathroom, and I shut the door behind me, trying to be as silent as possible.

This was not something I wanted to be doing. Still, it had to be the only way to undo the guilt, wash away that heavy feeling which could trap a person in their skin. I leaned over the toilet and started to do what I had to, hands gripping the sides of the porcelain, eyes shut tight. Just as I started to groggily stand back up, a creak sounded from behind me. I turned around, my stomach falling. There, in the doorway was James. His face screwed up in a mixed expression of. He didn't say anything at first, he just stared, he couldn't believe what he'd just walked in on.

My heart raced in my chest, and I could feel the tingle of heat rise to my cheeks. "James… I, I didn't mean—"

He shook his head and stepped into the bathroom, softly closing the door behind him. "Babe, what are you doing?" His voice was soft, without any trace of anger or disgust, as I'd feared it might be. He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. I tried to look away, but he tipped my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze.

"I-" My voice came out hoarse; the words seemed to catch in my throat. "I don't know. I just... sometimes I just can't control it... I don't wanna be fat..."

James exhaled deeply, his fingers warm against my skin. "You don't have to do this. You don't need to hurt yourself like this... and you aren't fat." His voice was steady but with a slight crack, it sounded like he was trying not to break down right there in front of me.

Immediately, my eyes welled up with tears, blurring my vision. "I just… I feel like I have to. It's like… no matter what I do, I'm not enough. Not good enough. Not thin enough. Not… I don't know." I wiped at my face, embarrassed to be breaking down like this.

James hugged me tight, holding me close. He didn't let go when, ashamed and embarrassed, I squirmed and tried to pull away. Instead, he drew me closer still, his gentle circular motions on my back soothing me all the more. "Hey, listen," he whispered. "You're enough. You are so much more than enough. You don't have to do this to yourself. Not for me, not for anyone."

We stood in the bathroom for what felt like forever, him just holding me as I cried into his shoulder. I could feel his heartbeat.

After a while, he leaned back, his hands still on my shoulders. "Have you been doing this... a lot?" he asked softly.

I nodded, my head hung in shame. "Yeah..." My voice was barely above a whisper. I didn't want him to know, yet at the same time, it felt like a weight had been lifted just by saying it aloud.

He nodded, his eyes off mine for a moment before he refocused on mine. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I shrugged, swallowing hard. "I didn't want you to think I was weak or… crazy."

"Hey, hey," he said, the tone firm. "You're not weak. And you're definitely not crazy. But we're gonna get through this together, okay?" His eyes softened into a warmth that I hadn't felt in so long. I nodded, something small flaring to life in my chest.

After that night, James was by my side every step through recovery. He would leave little notes around the apartment reminding me how beautiful I was, how much he loved me. He'd take me out on walks in the city, not to burn calories or anything, just to feel alive, to remember that the world was bigger than the darkness inside my head.

There were days it just seemed impossible. Days when the voice in my head was louder than his reassurances, and I'd find that old urge crawling back. But every time, James was there. Sometimes with a hug, sometimes with a distraction, and sometimes just with silence beside me, making sure that he wasn't going to go anywhere.

He helped me to view food as other than just calories or numbers on the scale. We would cook together, laugh together, making a mess of the kitchen, flour everywhere and dishes piling up in the sink. He would make me his pancakes on lazy sunday mornings, and though that voice in my head still nagged, it started to fade, little by little.

Slowly but surely, I taught myself to trust again. Not because I was just ready to trust, but because I had learned that I didn't have to be perfect to love, or to be loved, and that I didn't need to punish myself to feel in control. And every time I doubted that, every time that old fear began to creep in, I would look at James, at the way he looked at me, and it was a reminder that I was enough.

It wasn't easy, and I knew that days of roughness would lay ahead. But having James at my side made me feel capable of handling them. That somehow, I was strong enough to press on-to keep fighting for me, for us.

That for now, was enough.

[plasticfreckles]

🪶 short comfort rookanis so i dont lose my mind enjoy 🪶

"Rook."

"Hm?" Her drink splashes over the edge of her cup and onto her shirt.

"Are you.. what's wrong? I've called your name out three times now."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm good."

"You said this is your favorite singer. Yet you're miles and miles away. Talk to me." The flier advertising her appearance that night was the only reason they lingered so long.

Rook sighs. She takes a sip of her drink and leans back to focus on him.

"You know how, when your mind is left alone with your thoughts for long enough, you just sort of.. start spiraling?"

"Not lately, but I've been there." That his mind hasn't been left alone for a while now, Lucanis doesn't need to say.

"Whe- the Ossuary."

When Rook points that out, it doesn't hurt as much as when others do. Maybe there's an implied compassion from their - not shared, but similar - past.

We like her, idiot. She likes us. That's why it doesn't hurt. Spite pulls at his hair and stomps his foot with how stubborn Lucanis is over this. His scalp starts to burn.

"Before that, too." The singer excuses herself for a drink. "If you'd like to talk about it, there's a lull now."

The weight of all Thedas rests on her, the way she sighs, and it's true.

"I'm just... so deep in it, right now. Should've just sat down and awaited orders, like Viago said. Don't tell him I said that. It'll get to his big head."

"Too late." Rook tracks his eyes tracking the Fletching behind her getting up and leaving so obviously Caterina would send them straight back to the Barracks with the raw recruits.

Rook closes her eyes and - not even sighs, she just exhales, but there's still a lifetime of exhaustion in it.

"Besides," he tries, "How could you have known killing some Antaam and breaking out an author would lead to this? Solas set these events in motion so long ago, one could no longer even see his hands in them if he weren't clinging to the reins like a drowning man to thrown rope."

It doesn't work.

"Had I just kept my head down-"

"Then Solas would've succeeded with that ritual of his, and all Thedas would burn already. This way, we can at least pretend we have a chance at turning the tide."

A pause, as she considers it.

"And we would never have met."

The smile he finally sees on her is small, tired and aching. But it's still a smile. He'll take it.

"Now you're breaking apart my doomclouds."

"I live to serve." She takes a slice of bread out of the basket between them and starts wiping the soup from her bowl.

"You'll live for so much more. Trust me."

With my life, Lucanis thinks.

🪶

thesis anxiety hella kicking so im a lil quiet rn and also im not sure if i like it but I hit barricade at a concert and had a straight up menty b over the general course of my life and three ppl down ppl got engaged mid-song so i need some comfort

@lanafofana this isn't what we talked about but have a tag anyway lmao

rook sighing with closed eyes like the meme of the smoking actor in the blue top that i have no idea who he is or what he does.

[solarmorrigan]

Found a picture of my sister and I on Halloween from nineteen years ago. We're dressed up to go trick-or-treating, both wearing cheap costumes from some local party supply store, caught in the middle of some awkward facial expressions by my mom's digital camera

I haven't seen my sister in person since before the pandemic, but we talk on Discord. We both dressed up to go to work today, both in slightly nicer costume pieces, still making awkward faces at the camera when we traded pictures, and I dunno, it was kinda nice to think about

Over 700 miles apart and we're both wearing impractical shoes and silly things on our heads, still kinda connected by the little ways we find joy in the day

[cranberrymoons]

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[tanicus-caesareth]

guarana drama, damage control

[anonyanonymouse]

🙈

[nekrosmos]

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[sysig]

what's your favorite part about making art?

Getting it out of my head (lol)

To give a more complete answer haha, each step has its own charm! Sketching is nice to have it Out of me, alleviates the itch of having a Thought or Feeling that just needs to be Out and onto paper already

If I'm drawing digitally, lining has gotten rather meditative, or if my sketches are particularly scribbly then it's like a puzzle haha

Toning on paper is a fun exercise in tool usage - I have specific pencils I switch back and forth between to get The Effect I'm looking for, or filling in with the same pencil for the whole piece is nice to just have it done all at once, it's satisfying both ways

Editing has kinda fallen by the wayside for me lately (as evidenced by my lack of uploads - I keep wanting to share, but there's a stopper in my brain that says "No, they're Not Done!" which is like......half correct? It's done when I say it's done, but they haven't been edited "properly" so) but it also has its good points! It took a bit to find the fun again because editing is definitely Not my favourite part of the process - it's not Creative or Exciting or Expressive in the same way as the other steps but it is something I can do for my art that makes it appear how my hand, eye, and brain want it to - my hand is messy, my eye is very particular, and my brain parses between the two, takes away the lines that muddle the final image until there's only The Picture left :) And sometimes it's all I have the energy for! Sometimes all I can do is take my backlog and make it pretty rather than make something new - but it's still Making Art :)

The only part I really don't like is scanning lol, it's just annoying, why can't my pictures be uploaded in perfect quality directly from my sketchbook to my computer haha

And most of this is to do with drawing since it's still my main art form, but a lot of the same applies to writing and papercraft and whatever else I try my hand at - it's nice to Have and Do and see where it gets me :)

I'm doing well! I've been writing more than - ever? I think? I think this is officially my up-to-now peak of Finished Writing by wordcount and time spent on it lol, it's been very fun!! And also a little overwhelming haha I still haven't quite found a New Normal about it, it being The Most haha, but I want to work towards that balance! More practice means more time to implement it so lol

[grimandghoulish]

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[fandomsandfeminism]

Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?

Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.

All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)

But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.

But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.

I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?

It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.

Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.

Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)

[ghostsprincess]

I can't stop thinking about Ghost being a better boyfriend than your ex, even without establishing that title....

This is a continuation of part one.

warning: mention domestic abuse

💀

Simon was there every night you worked. You never gave him your schedule, but he'd show up and settle onto one of the stools like clockwork. Soap often joined him, and while they carried on like always, you knew Simon's gaze lingered on your body. You could practically feel the weight as you took drink orders and pulled pints. It wasn't unwelcome. In fact, it made everything easier knowing you weren't alone if your ex dared show his face.

When your shifts ended, Simon would walk you back to your new place. The one time you insisted he didn't need to do that, he grunted and said, "What if I want to?"

You didn't mention it again. Instead you got into a routine of giving him a fifteen minute warning when your shift was going to end, and you'd head out into the cold night with him at your side. He was mostly quiet while you chatted about whatever was on your mind. When you'd ask him about himself, he'd reroute the conversation back to you. Then he would wait while you unlocked your door and stepped inside.

You always had the urge to invite him in, but you were taking up so much of his time already. And what would you do with him anyway? This hulking military man with kind eyes? 

You thanked him and gave him a little wave before ducking inside, and you knew he always waited until he heard the sound of your door locking before he left. 

"Y' alright, love?" he asked one night when you were starting to feel particularly good about yourself again. Your split lip had healed which required less makeup. You felt stronger for having left your ex in the dust. You were wearing a new top that made you feel sexy.

"Yeah. I'm alright, Simon. I feel really good, actually."

You served him a drink and refused to let him pay. You really ought to make him stop tipping you at this rate. He was doing so much for you and getting nothing in return. He was doing all of the boyfriend duties just as he had promised, but he never so much as touched you other than the occasional hand hold.

What if you wanted more?

He broke into your thoughts as he said, "I can tell. Ya' been smiling more. Almost ready to go?"

Tonight you felt like you were floating along the dirty sidewalk with your hand tucked in Simon's massive paw. He was keeping you warm without doing anything, and he listened to your nervous rambling as you tried your best to work up your courage. But the two of you reached your front door all too quickly.

"Get inside," he said, voice deep and tender in spite of the command. "An' lock up."

When he started to pull his hand away, you didn't let him. And you didn't budge when one of his eyebrows inched higher. "Not quite yet," you whispered, toe tapping the cement step you were standing on which put you slightly closer to him in height. "I have to tell you something."

Simon's lips pressed together in a tight line, and his chin dipped in a slight nod. "I need to tell ya' something, too. Just don't want to."

"What?" you asked immediately, the lightness you'd been feeling instantly replaced with a lead brick inside you.

"I'm leaving. Late tomorrow night. Not until after I make sure ya' get home from the pub."

"Leaving?" you whispered, heart pounding faster. He was in the military. Some sort of special mission involvement. You knew that much. And you could read between the lines to know that someone who looked and behaved like he did was probably about to risk his life, not for the first time. "Simon, where are you going?" you asked with tears in your eyes even though you figured he wouldn't be able to tell you.

Simon shook his head, his lips curling into a soft smile. It was a rare sight, and it made you dizzy. "Pretty little thing like you shouldn't be worried 'bout me." You wanted to tell him you would be. You'd worry nonstop until you saw him again. You'd come to rely on him, but mostly you liked how you felt when he was around. "There'll be someone to walk ya' home from work every night. I can promise that."

You wanted to lean in and kiss him, but instead you threw your arms around his neck. He was so solid and warm, and the scrape of his facial hair on your cheek was somehow comforting. "But I'll see you tomorrow, right?" you asked, voice breaking on a sob.

"I'll see ya' tomorrow, love."

He didn't move an inch as you extracted yourself, and the sound of his receding footsteps could only be heard once you'd locked yourself inside.

💀

Part three

[skunkoon]

Not god complex as in "I am better than everyone/I am infallible/I am all powerful" but god complex as in "Every day I am startled by the fact that I can change the world around me in beautiful and profound ways not unlike a god"

[hanahaki270]

♡ Sharing a Dorm ♡

♡・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・♡

Synopsis ┊Your dorm is going under renovation and you need to find a place to crash in for a while. Luckily a certain someone offers you to stay in theirs for the time being.

Characters ┊Katsuki Bakugou, Shoto Todoroki, Izuku Midoriya.

A/N ┊beginner Writer here, these were harder to think of than I thought ngl. If you have any requests please send them to me, I'm open to do different characters and also different anime's!

♡・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・♡

Katsuki Bakugou

❥ By no means whatsoever does he offer his dorm out of the kindness of his heart. He just got pissed off of seeing you sleeping on the couch in the commons area every morning, and accidentally stepping on your blanket or pillows. After stepping on your blanket once more he grabs your shit and puts it in his dorm and acts like he's bothered by this but really he doesn't mind at all.

❥ Makes you sleep on the floor for the first two nights until you convince him to share the bed. He's reluctant at first but then allows it as long as you stay on your side of the bed. Do you really though?

❥ Expect to sleep earlier and get your sleep schedule in check because his dorm, his rules, lights are off at ten pm sharp with no exceptions.

❥ Also expect your grades to go up. While he's your roommate he's going to make you don't slack off on your studies.

❥ When he wakes up in the morning and notices your head resting on his chest he gets somewhat annoyed but secretly likes it. he's willing to get behind on his strict schedule and let you rest on him a little longer. but just a little.

❥ Demands you now be his training partner but is careful to not get carried away. You're strong, but he still doesn't want to run the risk of hurting you. therefore, he always keeps Aid kits in the bathroom just in case you do get any scratches, even if they're minor.

❥ Constantly threatening to kick you out over every little thing but actually has no intention of doing so. He won't admit it but he enjoys your company. "I swear if I see one more sock lying around I'm grabbing your shit and throwing it out."

♡・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・♡

Shoto Todoroki

❥ "Why don't you sleep with me." he said boldly unaware of how his sentence had more than one connotation to it. I mean you need help and as your friend he's more than willing to help you out. plus he has the biggest dorm compared to everyone else, if anything he's the most suitable to offer his help he thought.

❥ Asks you what temperature you prefer to sleep in so he can use his quirk to either make the room colder or warmer depending on your preference. and ALWAYS makes sure to make both sides of your pillows cold.

❥ When he's out visiting his mother you make sure the place is clean (though it usually is since he tends to be on the neater side) and prepare some soba for him as a token of your appreciation. After a couple of times he starts to look forward for it and got saddened the one day you forgot.

❥ In return he made sure not turn on the lights when getting ready in the morning as to not wake you up. Part of it was for a selfish reason though, he thought it was cute how you slept soundly on his bed.

❥ Speaking about sleep; During the night he would find himself cozying up next to you, not on purpose though. He just felt comfort in your presence and he realized you felt the same way when you also moved closer to him during the night.

❥ Leaves out coffee for you in the mornings since you tend to stay up late on nights and wake up always running late to your classes.

♡・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・♡

Izuku Midoriya

❥ Overheard you talking to Tsuyu and Uraraka about how you need a place to sleep in and walked over to offer his help without a second thought. You already spend most of your time in his dorm room during the day to share notes anyways. The only difference would just be you spending the night.

❥ Offers for you to sleep in his bed while he sleeps on the floor. After you refuse to let him sleep on the floor he shyly agrees to share the bed with you constantly asking you if you're okay with it.

❥ Midoriya stays up late at night writing in his notebook and murmuring thoughts to himself. You persuade him to go to bed and leave his worries for the following day. he deeply apologizes for the burden kind of embarrassed. "I-I'm sorry! was I keeping you up? I'll go to bed in a few minutes don't worry."

❥ Always invites you to go out with him whenever he leaves the dorm, even if it's something as simple as going to the gas station to get some snacks.

❥ he loves to talk your ear off geeking out about the knowledge he knows about the top heroes and their quirks. When he notices he got carried away he gets all types of flustered but even then he doesn't get the sense of being judged.

❥ Since he's constantly getting injured and going to see Recovery girl he always comes back exhausted. regardless, his stubborn ass still tries to go out on missions and push himself to the limits. he get's frustrated when you don't let him do so and force him to rest and leave his chores to you. But he loves you for it.

[witchywithwhiskey]

sweet as honeycrisp

pairing: sugar daddy!ari levinson x sugar baby!female reader

summary: your sugar daddy takes you on an autumn-themed date to the apple orchard, and what starts off as a fun and flirty day unfolds into a meaningful turning point in your relationship.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), established sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, smut, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, piv sex, outdoor sex, creampie, oral sex (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), finger sucking, biting, brief cockwarming, exhibitionism, light bdsm, dirty talk, daddy kink, praise kink, very light degradation, lots of teasing, pet names (darling, honey), aftercare, happy ending, so much fluff

word count: 14.5k

a/n: whew i've been working on this for like two weeks now, and i'm so happy to finally be able to post it!!! i was struggling a bit with the emotional throughline of this fic, and i only decided on it very late in the editing game so if some things don't make sense, just ignore it!!! if you can believe it, i originally just wanted to write about a quickie in the apple orchard and it turned into this 🫣 anyway, i hope y'all enjoy!!!

“Kiss.”

The warm, playful voice of your sugar daddy, Ari Levinson, met your ears as you lowered yourself into the passenger seat of his Lexus, greeting you in the way he always did. When you closed the car door behind you, the sounds of the Manhattan street were silenced, leaving you in the relative quiet with Ari.

Eagerly, you twisted on the sumptuous seat of the expensive car to lean over the center console, brushing a teasing kiss to Ari’s scruffy cheek, your lips grazing the edge of his full beard. His skin was warm and inviting, and you lingered for a moment, breathing in the the familiar scent of Ari’s cologne, smelling of vetiver and leather. 

When you pulled back, Ari’s blue eyes were glittering with a hint of mischief that made your heart thump with excitement, a warmth blooming in your core despite the cool air of the car’s air conditioning brushing your legs. It was a warm September day, the last remnants of summer clinging in the air as if it protested giving up its seat to autumn. 

The thought crossed your mind that if any man looked like the embodiment of summer, it was Ari Levinson. His skin was golden with a perpetual tan, and his brown hair had sun-kissed blond highlights that shimmered in the daylight, though they were dimmed a bit in the shadow of his car. 

Still, as he grinned at you, showing off his pearly whites framed by his dark beard, you couldn’t help but feel like the summer sun had taken a liking to you and sat beside you. When he looked at you like that, with that smile and those blue eyes shining like the sun off the ocean waves, you wondered what it would be like to have his attention all the time—to be more than just the sugar baby he took on occasional dates when he wanted to have fun.

Pushing those bothersome romantic notions aside, you raked your eyes down Ari’s form, noticing that he’d dressed down for your date. He wore a soft denim, long-sleeved button-up over a simple white t-shirt and tailored slacks. Casual loafers and sunglasses perched on top of his head completed the look. Even in such a simple outfit, he looked good. 

“Show me.” 

His voice was a deep rumble that pulsed between your thighs, and you flicked your gaze back up to his face, finding heat in his expression, the same mischievousness in his eyes that’d been there since you got in the car. The corner of Ari’s mouth was curved in a smirk, and you felt another throb of warmth in your core.

Your lips curled at the edges, a wicked smile curving your mouth as the energy in the car crackled around you, spurring your heart to beat a little faster. You knew exactly what Ari wanted you to show him, and you knew it was naughty—but that was part of why you liked spending time with your sugar daddy. 

Ari was always urging you to be a little daring, to do something that made your heart race and your breath come a little faster. He didn’t push you, so much as guide you down the path to depravity, and you followed him willingly. You never felt more alive than when you were with Ari.

So while you smiled at him, you spread your legs on the leather seat of his Lexus, the short skirt of your dress falling between your parting thighs. Ari’s smirk deepened with satisfaction as he watched your movements with rapt attention. Your fingers toyed with the edge of your dress, the fabric having ridden up quite high on your thighs. 

But before you could reveal what was beneath your skirt, you looked away from Ari, and it crashed over you that you sat in a car in the middle of a busy Manhattan street surrounded by other people. There were folks driving in their cars just outside your window and others walking by on the sidewalk beside where Ari was parked. There were even people filling up the buildings that overlooked the street. They were everywhere around you.

“Darling, look at me,” Ari murmured, his tone entreating enough to call your attention back to him. 

You noticed his sparkling eyes had lost some of their mischief when you looked back at him. But the steadiness of his gaze had you relaxing when you hadn’t even realized you’d tensed up, and the corners of your mouth flickered in an uncertain smile.

“Do you trust me?” Ari asked simply. His face was open, no hint of pressure in his tone or voice. 

For a brief moment, you considered his question, then you nodded your head. You watched as warmth flooded into his gaze, and it made you feel a little more sure. 

“Lift your skirt for me, darling,” he implored, his eyes dropping to where your thighs were still spread, the flimsy fabric of your dress barely hiding your core. “Show daddy what you have under your pretty little skirt.”

You gathered every ounce of braveness in your body and pulled up the hem of your skirt. There, nestled between your spread thighs, was your bare pussy. The air in the car seemed to heat by a few degrees when you heard Ari suck in a sharp breath.

It had been Ari’s idea for you to go without panties on your date, and you’d agreed, the idea sending excited thrills through your body. Walking through the halls and the lobby of the Manhattan high-rise you called home, you’d felt like you had a secret that only Ari knew, and it gave you a delicious kind of satisfaction showing your sugar daddy how you’d gone without panties, your pussy fully exposed beneath your dress.

“You have such a pretty cunt, darling,” Ari groaned, his hand sliding up your thigh until the tips of his fingers teased the top of your slit. 

You bit back a gasp and squirmed in your seat, trying to hold your hips back from thrusting into his touch. 

“I never get tired of seeing this pussy, and how wet she gets for me.” 

His fingers spread your lower lips and he brushed ever so gently over the tip of your clit, making you twitch in your seat, your legs shaking with the effort it took not to close them on his hand and trap him against your heated core.

“And the way your thighs tremble for me,” Ari rumbled, pulling away from your quickly dampening slit to grope roughly at your plush softness, his grip possessive in a way your sugar daddy rarely was. 

“Ari.” His name was a breathy exhale, an undercurrent of admonishment in your tone as his touches stoked the blazing fire in your core, making you squirm even more on the seat. A sliver of worry wormed into your mind as you remembered the leather you sat on, which would surely stain if he kept touching you, and you gasped, “The seat.”

Ari only chuckled, the sound cavalier in a way that made butterflies take flight in your belly, but before you could chide him again, his hand was slipping back between your thighs. Ari dragged a finger from the bottom of your slit all the way to the top, flicking your clit and wringing a moan from your lips as your thighs trembled on the seat.

Then he was pulling his hand away, leaving you to drop your skirt to cover yourself, and popping his finger into his mouth. Your sugar daddy made a show of savoring the taste of you, and your head fell back against the headrest. You watched him suck your taste from his skin, your breaths heavy in your chest while Ari’s eyes sparkled with mischief. 

“Mm, sweet as apple pie,” he praised, making heat rush to your face while you shook your head and rolled your eyes—even as your chest warmed at the compliment. Ari was grinning shamelessly at you when he grabbed your face gently and pulled you gently across the car toward him. “C’mere, darling, see how sweet you taste,” he murmured against your lips before kissing you.

The musky flavor of your body made you moan into Ari’s mouth, your sugar daddy devouring every little noise you made while he kissed you thoroughly. You sank into him, reveling in the smooth glide of his lips and the possessive exploration of his tongue. Your fingers curled around the collar of his denim shirt and you clung to him, feeling the edge of something more in the way he kissed you. It left you breathless when you finally pulled away.

You fell back into your seat with a soft “oomph,” the breath rushing from your lungs when you looked into Ari’s eyes. His blue gaze was softer than you’d ever seen it, and there was something in depths of his eyes that you couldn’t quite place—affection or fondness maybe. 

A small, uncertain smile curled your lips, your heart thumping in your chest as you wondered if that’s how Ari looked at someone he truly cared about. Someone special to him, who had a more permanent place in his life than the sugar baby he called when he wanted to have some no-strings-attached fun. 

For the briefest of moments, you could pretend Ari was more than your sugar daddy, and you were more than his sugar baby. 

But then the moment ended, and Ari cleared his throat as he looked away, focusing on the wheel and gear shift of his car to put it in drive. A silent sigh of disappointment gusted from you, and you turned toward the passenger side window, intent on watching the city fly by once Ari eased into traffic.

To your surprise, Ari’s hand slipped into one of yours, his palm pressing against yours while he laced your fingers together. Your breath hitched with uncertainty even as the corners of your mouth flickered in a smile. It took you a moment to get used to the feeling of his hand in yours, turning it over to trace the veins on the back gently while he maneuvered his Lexus through the Manhattan streets.

It had only been a few months since you’d started seeing Ari, and while his touches were often greedy when you were fooling around, he hadn’t been prone to physical displays of affection since the first few dates you went on with him. Back then, he’d reached for your hand a few times, but after a point he’d stopped.

Truthfully, it had been a relief. One of your greatest fears was falling for a sugar daddy who didn’t return your feelings, and considering how handsome Ari was, you’d known it was a serious risk getting into a relationship with him. But he’d been so charming and carefree, you didn’t think it would be a problem to keep your heart out of things. He didn’t seem like he was looking for anything serious anyway.

So you’d focused on having fun, and that had been easy. Ari took you to expensive restaurants with delicious food in New York City, or he’d fly you somewhere else if he was itching to get away for a little bit. During meals, you’d chat about trivial things, then fall into bed together as soon as you were back in whatever hotel room Ari had booked for the night. 

You didn’t quite know why your conversations didn’t go deeper than the shallow things you talked about, but you didn’t question it. It made everything so much easier if you didn’t truly know Ari—if he didn’t know you either. So you just stuck to safe topics, like planning dates and having sex. 

Your relationship with Ari was a nice change of pace for you. He was far from your first sugar daddy, and you’d learned some hard lessons in your past relationships. Too often, sugar daddies wanted to know things you weren’t comfortable sharing, but Ari had never pried. He’d set boundaries and didn’t push them. You were grateful for that.

But another part of you, a part that started off small and was growing with every date you went on with Ari, yearned to know more about your sugar daddy. You wanted to know what he liked to do when he wasn’t working or taking you on dates. You wanted to know if he had any family, if he celebrated the holidays with them. You wanted to know if he’d ever had his heart broken. 

Tamping down on those curious thoughts, you focused on the present—the music that was playing gently in the car, and the scenery passing by your window. The skyscrapers and high-rises of Manhattan had given way to the tightly-packed homes of the suburbs. 

Biting your tongue against all the questions you wanted to ask, not even sure how you’d begin to try to get to know your sugar daddy better—let alone whether it was a good idea—you sat in silence with Ari. The suburbs eventually gave way to the lush forests and hilly countryside of the Hudson Valley, giving you something prettier to look at.

It was too early in September for the leaves to be changing yet, but there were glimpses of golden yellows and warm oranges among the green foliage. A hint of what was to come. Autumn was inevitable and you found comfort in the changing seasons. 

Cozy weather was right around the corner, and you couldn’t wait for it. Hot apple cider and pumpkin pie, butterscotch cookies and mulled wine—you were a glutton for all the food and beverages associated with the autumn months. And you liked to make them yourself from scratch whenever possible. 

It was part of the reason you’d wanted Ari to take you apple picking, though he didn’t know that. He’d just accepted the request and planned the date. 

After a little while more of driving, Ari pulled off the paved road and onto a dirt track. There was a sign for Brothers’ Apple Orchard fixed to a worn, wooden fence, though dense trees hid the farm from view. 

A little ways down the dirt road, the trees opened up into a large parking lot that was already packed with families and groups of friends going apple picking on the warm September afternoon. The sight and sounds of all the people had nerves twisting in your stomach, and you wondered if it had been a smart idea to go without panties to a place that was meant for wholesome fun.

You’d long since learned that Ari had an exhibitionist streak, and that day wasn’t the first time he’d told you to show up to one of your dates without panties. You’d always enjoyed the excitement in the inherent risk of wearing a dress without anything underneath, but he’d never taken you somewhere with so many families before. The consequences of getting caught seemed so much worse than they ever had before.

Ari must’ve felt your fingers tense in his because he gave you a comforting squeeze as he pulled his Lexus into an empty space and put the car in park. Once done, he looked to you, his smile faltering when he took in the way your brows were pinched and the corners of your mouth were turned down in an uncertain frown.

“Do you trust me, darling?” Ari asked, cupping your face and leaning across the car’s console to press his forehead to yours. His thumb stroked gently over your cheek, matching the sweeping of his other thumb against the back of your hand. 

You were quiet for a moment, nibbling on your lower lip as you thought about his question—really thought about it.

It weighed on you a little that you didn’t know Ari very well, especially since a part of you desperately wanted to, but that didn’t mean you didn’t know his character. Ari had never pushed you to do something you didn’t want to do, and he always checked in with you when you were together, making sure you were comfortable and having fun. So while you didn’t know his favorite color, you did trust him. 

Exhaling slowly, you nodded, your forehead shifting against Ari’s. “I trust you, Ari,” you said, your voice little more than a whisper, like you were telling him a secret in the privacy afforded by the enclosed space of his car. 

To your surprise, Ari sighed in relief at your words, the exhale so short and quiet, you wondered if you’d heard correctly. But you didn’t have time to analyze it because Ari was pressing a quick kiss to your lips and then pulling back to open his door and step out into the September sunshine.

You watched as Ari rounded the front of the Lexus, a charming grin on his face as he winked at you over the hood of his car. It was only because you were alone that you allowed yourself a silly little giggle, your mouth spreading across your face in a wide smile. He opened your door and offered you a hand to help you out.

“Careful, darling, wouldn’t want to give anyone a free show,” Ari murmured teasingly while you slid your hand into his, feeling the roughness of his palm against the pads of your fingertips. 

A zing of thrill went straight to your core at his words, joining the sparks you felt when you touched him. The fingers of your other hand played with the hem of your dress as you stepped one foot out of the car. You darted a look around, finding you had some relative privacy between Ari’s Lexus and the next car over, and pretended to rearrange your skirt. 

In reality, you flashed your bare slit for your sugar daddy, biting your lip and ducking your head when you heard his sharp inhale. Ari made a low, tortured sound and squeezed your fingers, practically pulling you out of the car before pinning you against the side.

“Naughty girl,” Ari growled in your ear, pressing his big body against yours so you were trapped between his hard muscles and the warm metal of the Lexus at your back. “You’re going to get us in trouble if you keep flashing that pretty pussy at me, darling.” 

A breathless, disbelieving laugh gusted past your lips before you could stop it, even as your head went a little fuzzy from the familiar scent of Ari’s cologne filling your senses. It felt like the vetiver and leather on his skin was embedded in your mind as a reminder of all the pleasure he’d given you, and with his body pressed against yours, it took you a moment to respond.

“You’re the one who told me not to wear panties to our apple picking date, daddy,” you reminded him, gripping the soft cotton of Ari’s t-shirt beneath his denim shirt, your fingers brushing against the sides of his tapered waist. You pushed yourself up onto your tiptoes to whisper in his ear, brushing your body against his firm form enticingly while your lips grazed along his scruffy cheek. “Maybe you shouldn’t have done that if you didn’t want me to show you my achy, needy cunt.”

A low growl rumbled in Ari’s chest and he pressed you harder against the side of his car, his body impossibly warm and hard through the thin fabric of your dress. You could feel every firm line of him against your soft curves, including the thick bulge digging into your stomach. 

Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Ari’s hands skimmed down your sides and dove beneath the hem of your skirt, palming your ass and kneading your soft flesh with firm, possessive fingers.

“Darling, if you keep saying such filthy things, you’re gonna end up in the back of my car with my cock buried in your achy, needy cunt,” he purred, a threat in his tone that he punctuated by nipping at your ear, making you gasp and arch into him, pressing your tits against his solid chest. “You’re gonna get us banned from the orchard because you won’t be able to stop screaming while I pound your pussy—is that what you want?”

It was on the tip of your tongue to say yes. 

In the short time since you’d stepped out of the car, Ari had you feeling wet and aching and empty. Warmth flooded your body that had nothing to do with the sun shining brightly above your heads, and you wanted badly for Ari to free his cock from his slacks and slide it inside you.

But then the shrieking laughter of children punctured the bubble of lust surrounding you, and you remembered exactly where you were. Shaking your head, you dropped your gaze to the edge of Ari’s jaw while you sucked in a deep breath, focusing on the fresh air beyond the scent of your sugar daddy’s cologne. 

Ari’s big body eased back, giving you more room to breathe and you ignored the pang of disappointment at the loss of him. Instead, you let the crisp autumn breeze brushing against your cheeks and dancing between your thighs cool you down. 

After giving you a moment, Ari curled a finger beneath your chin and tipped your face up to look at him. His brows were lowered and his eyes looked at you questioningly.

“Do you still want to go apple picking?” he asked softly, planting his other hand on the hood of his car, as if he needed to force himself not to touch you so you could answer his question. The thought made you smile, and his eyes dropped to your lips, his thumb brushing quickly over the bottom one. 

“I do,” you said in a light, breathless voice, a smile teasing around the edges of your mouth. On a whim, you nipped at Ari’s thumb, giving him a smirk when his eyes darkened. “If you think you can keep it in your pants until later, daddy,” you taunted him, pushing your hips forward so his bulge pressed into your belly.

“You’re such fucking trouble,” Ari growled before his mouth captured yours in a searing kiss. One of his hands grabbed your waist, pulling you into him while the other cradled your head gently, holding you exactly where he wanted you while he devoured your mouth, his tongue sweeping possessively past your lips until you were moaning softly into him.

A loud, clearing throat had you finally breaking apart. Both you and Ari turned your heads toward the sound, finding a blonde woman raising an eyebrow at the two of you before cutting her eyes pointedly to the children beside her. Your cheeks heated and you buried your face in Ari’s neck to muffle a cackling laugh. 

“Apologies, ma’am,” Ari called gruffly, raising a hand in a repentant wave. 

The woman huffed and rolled her eyes, which only made you laugh harder, pressing your face deeper into the warm curve of Ari’s shoulder as you tried to stay quiet. When the woman and her family were finally gone, you leaned back, giving Ari a cheeky grin. 

“Think she’s gonna complain about us and get us banned?” you asked teasingly, sliding your hands up Ari’s chest until they rested on his shoulders, trying not to think about how easy it was to touch your sugar daddy so casually. “Tell them we were acting indecently in the parking lot?”

Ari laughed, chucking you under your chin gently before ducking down for a quick kiss. “If she does, I’ll just buy the farm,” Ari murmured against your mouth. “They can’t ban us if I own them.”

Your breath caught in your lungs at Ari’s pronouncement, surprise making your heart leap in your chest. Your sugar daddy had bought you plenty of expensive gifts since you’d started seeing him, but buying a farm so you could go apple picking in peace was on another level entirely. You had to wonder if Ari was serious, but the look in his eye was genuine when he pulled back. 

“Don’t give me that look, darling,” he rumbled, his heated gaze raking over your face, taking in your wide eyes and parted lips. His thumb stroked over your bottom lip, pulling on it ever so slightly to the side, sending a little thrill through your body. “Or we aren’t making it into the orchard.”

You closed your mouth, swallowing thickly and bobbed your head in a nod. Then, you slid away from Ari, slipping from between his big body and the car and taking a deep, steadying breath.

Even with the warm September sun shining down on your shoulders, you felt a little cold without Ari’s heat and shivered. But you told yourself you were being ridiculous, shaking off the shiver and turning back to your sugar daddy.

Ari was standing with both hands planted on the hood of the car, his head hanging between them while he took deep breaths. He must’ve felt your attention on him because he lifted his head and gave you a charming smile. 

“Just gimme a sec, darling,” he said, shooting you a wink before he straightened and dropped his hands to the bulge in his slacks. 

You tried not to ogle your sugar daddy as he adjusted himself to make his hard length less prominent in his pants, but you knew what was hiding beneath his clothes and you knew how good his cock felt sliding inside you.

A sizzling, delicious warmth cascaded through your body, and you let yourself watch Ari’s big hands adjusting his bulge for a moment before tearing your eyes away and taking deep breaths of the fresh air to clear your head as much as possible.

A moment later, Ari slung his arm around your shoulders and together the two of you walked toward the entrance to the orchard.

It took effort, but you managed not to look down at the front of his pants, sure that if you did, neither of you would make it any further. And you did want to go apple picking. You had so many things you wanted to bake with the apples you were going to pick. 

Keeping your chin up and your gaze forward, you and Ari walked to the small, squat red building that served as the entryway to the orchard. One side was for folks heading into the field of apple trees, and you joined the line while scrutinizing the size of baskets and crates you could get for picking. 

Ari let you choose the size, and you picked a decent size wooden basket, thinking that would give you plenty of apples to use for baking. A farm worker explained that your apples would be weighed when you were done, and you paid per pound. Then they handed Ari a map that specified where each apple variety could be found, and the two of you were set free into the orchard. 

“What kind of apples are we picking today?” Ari asked, peering at the paper in his hand while he snagged the basket from you. 

You leaned into his side so you could read the map, and pointed when you found what you wanted. “Honeycrisp, honeycrisp!” you chanted, letting your excitement overtake you. 

Ari chuckled, folding the map and tucking it into his pocket before giving you one of his charming grins. “Honeycrisp it is, honeycrisp,” he teased, smoothing his hand down your arm to lace his fingers with yours before he began walking into the orchard.

A shiver of delight raced down your spine at Ari’s gentle, familiar touch and the sweet new nickname. He’d only ever called you ‘darling’ before, and while you liked the pet name, ‘honeycrisp’ made you feel closer to your sugar daddy because it was meant for only you. It was something people in a real romantic relationship did, wasn’t it?

Your feet stumbled a little before you fell into step beside Ari. Out of the corner of your eye, you looked up at him consideringly, wondering—not for the first time—what he thought of you. If he thought you were someone worth caring about—if he thought of you at all when you weren’t together. 

Your sugar daddy flashed an easy smile at you, and you couldn’t help but return the gesture, even as you thought about how difficult he was to read. He was always charming and easygoing, and it made it hard to figure out what he was really thinking, let alone what he was really feeling.

You did your best to push those pondering thoughts from your mind and simply enjoy the walk through the orchard with Ari. You reminded yourself that he’d made it clear he just wanted to have fun with you, so that’s what you were determined to do: Enjoy the warm day and pick some apples with your handsome sugar daddy.

The honeycrisp section of the orchard ended up being quite busy, with families and groups of friends forming small crowds around all the trees closest to the entrance of the field. You paused for a moment, your face falling in a small frown.

Ari must’ve seen your expression because he tugged on your hand and led you past the crowds, strolling down a long row of apple trees to go deeper into the orchard. The excited chatter of other people faded until you could barely hear them and the farm grew peaceful. Finally, you came to the edge of the orchard, and Ari pulled you to a stop at the end of a row of honeycrisp trees. 

“Wow, that’s a lot of apples,” you said, peering up at the trees around you. They were bigger and taller than the ones you’d passed that were being picked over by the crowds. Their branches were practically bursting with ripe, red apples, the color swirling with yellow and green as it often did with that particular variety. 

It seemed no one else had thought to escape the crowds and venture deeper into the orchard, because you couldn’t hear anyone else around. It was just you, your sugar daddy and the apple trees. 

It was so perfect you couldn’t stifle the beaming grin that spread across your face.

“Should I go back for another basket—or a crate?” Ari asked, a grin in his tone. 

When you finally tore your eyes away from the trees and their bounty, you found him staring at you, something like fondness in his gaze. It struck you that Ari had no idea why you wanted apples—you’d never told him you liked to bake or what you planned to do with the ones you picked—but he’d planned the date and was offering to help you pick as many apples as you wanted. 

A warmth started in your chest, feeling as though it were wrapping around your heart and filling you up with a dizzying amount of sunshine, until your ribs were nearly bursting with it. Your cheeks felt warm, and your face ached a little from how wide you were smiling. 

When you realized that you were staring back at Ari with just as much, if not more, affection than was in his gaze, you tried to tamp it down, forcing yourself to scoff lightly at his question. 

“I think one will be plenty,” you said dryly, turning back to the trees and trying to calculate how many apples would fit into the basket Ari carried. Would it be enough for the apple crisp cheesecake recipe you’d been dying to try? You decided it would have to be. 

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours, honeycrisp?” Ari asked softly, curling a finger beneath your chin and tipping your face to look up at him. He eased your bodies toward each other and your arms wrapped naturally around his waist. 

It wasn’t until you’d pressed your hands to Ari’s back, your hands settling against the solid muscle of him, that you even realized what you were doing. When you did, you froze, feeling a little spooked by how easy it was becoming to sink into Ari’s casual touches and return them. It felt like there was a growing intimacy between the two of you, and you didn’t know quite yet how you felt about it. 

“Honeycrisp?” you asked, latching on to the one thing you could think to say that would delay you needing to answer Ari’s question. 

He’d never asked you what you were thinking before. When he checked in with you, his questions were always more direct, and more specific about what you were doing. You didn’t know if he really wanted to know, so you hoped a distraction might work.

Ari’s grin turned a little mischievous, like he knew what you were doing, and he wrapped his arms around you, hauling you up against his large, firm body. He ducked his head and nudged your nose with his, tickling your cheek with his beard until you laughed softly into his scruff.

“It fits, doesn’t it?” he asked in a low, rumbly voice that sent warmth dancing through your body. “You’re sweet as honey and as delicious as an apple crisp.” He kissed your lower lip, sucking on its plumpness with a slow, deliberate drag that had you nearly moaning into his mouth.

“Yeah, I like it,” you murmured when he released your lip, your voice obscenely breathy as your eyes fluttered open. You couldn’t remember closing them. Being so close to Ari, having his arms around you and his lips on you, was rattling your brain a little.

“Now, darling honeycrisp, tell daddy what had you thinking so hard about those apples,” Ari rumbled, his voice sweetly coaxing as he brushed butterfly kisses along your jaw. His lips were soft and his beard was coarse, and the contrast of the sensations had you sighing softly and melting further into his arms. “Unless you don’t want to tell me?”

There was a thread of uncertainty in Ari’s tone as he voiced the question, like he wasn’t sure if he was pushing too hard by asking you to tell him what you’d been thinking about. 

It was so different to how other sugar daddies—other men in general—had treated you. They’d always demanded you tell them whatever they wanted to know, as if they had a right to every part of you. 

But Ari wasn’t like that. He’d never been like that, and it didn’t surprise you that the first time he asked something even remotely personal, he was still giving you the opportunity to sidestep the question if you didn’t want to answer. It made you want to tell him all the more.

“I was thinking about what I want to bake with the apples we pick,” you answered, a smile teasing around the edges of your mouth. “And trying to make sure one basket would be enough.”

Ari brushed a kiss to the apple of your cheek, as if thanking you for telling him. Pulling back a bit so he could look at you, he tilted his head to the side in curiosity.

“You like to bake?”

You felt a little shy in the moment, ducking your head under the weight of his sparkling blue eyes, and nodded. “Yeah,” you said shrugging as if it was no big deal. Then, when Ari didn’t reply right away, you went on, filling the silence by answering a question he hadn’t asked. “I don’t usually tell sugar daddies—the one time I did, he got weird.”

Biting your lip to stem the flow of words from your mouth, you winced. You weren’t sure if Ari had known you’d had other sugar daddies before him, but it felt awkward to acknowledge the fact even if you weren’t ashamed of it. Besides, something inside you rebelled against the idea of lumping Ari in with all your other sugar daddies—he truly wasn’t like anyone else you’d been with. 

“Weird how?” Ari asked in a tone gentler than any you’d heard him use before. One of his hands cupped the back of your neck, but he didn’t try to make you look at him, just stroked your skin with his thumb. The gesture was so profoundly comforting that you lay your head on his shoulder and gave a sigh of relief. 

“Once he knew I liked to bake, he expected me to bake for him,” you explained slowly, choosing your words carefully. “But not just bake—he bought me an apron and skimpy little dresses to wear underneath it with these ridiculous heels. He wanted me to bake for him and…service him.” 

You pressed your face into Ari’s shoulder, remembering the experience and cringing over what you’d let that man talk you into. He was a major reason you appreciated Ari’s boundaries so much. You felt safer, like things couldn’t spiral out of your control, with the boundaries your sugar daddy had set in place.

After you’d answered his question, Ari stayed quiet, just holding you, his thumb stroking soothingly over the back of your neck. His big arms felt so steady around you that you couldn’t help but take comfort in them, and you went on, feeling safe enough to tell Ari the rest.

“He took all the joy out of baking,” you said in a small voice. “I stopped seeing him soon after, but he wasn’t happy about it.”

Ari exhaled a sharp breath and he squeezed you in his arms, holding you tight for a long moment before he eased up a little. 

“Thank you for telling me,” he murmured, brushing a kiss to your forehead. “I would love to try your baking, but only if you want—hell, you can come over today and use my kitchen and bake in one of my shirts if you want.”

A relieved laugh gusted out of you, and you were so glad Ari understood that it took you a moment to realize he’d invited you to his apartment. 

You’d never seen where he lived—and even though he paid for it, he’d never been inside your apartment either. Ari had always gotten hotel rooms, even for dates in in the city. 

You hadn’t thought much about it beyond appreciating the fact that Ari didn’t act entitled to be in your space because he paid for it. But now he was inviting you to his apartment, his space, and you didn’t know what to make of it.

Pulling back, you gave him a curious look. 

“Are you sure?”

Ari leveled you with a look of his own, and though his gaze was serious, there was a hint of amusement in the curve of his mouth. “Are you sure?” he countered, his voice going low and rumbly as he went on. “If you start baking in my kitchen wearing only my shirt, there’s a very good chance I’ll eat more of you than whatever you make.” He raised his eyebrows, as if to drive home the lewd insinuation of his statement. 

But despite his dirty warning—or perhaps because of it—you only warmed to the idea of baking in Ari’s apartment. It sounded fun in a way it hadn’t been with your past sugar daddy and you bounced on the balls of your feet as excitement flooded through you. 

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, daddy,” you sassed, shifting your arms to wind around Ari’s neck. You used your hold on him to keep your balance as you pushed up onto your tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his scruffy cheek. “I already know what I want to make.”

Ari chuckled, giving you a quick kiss before pulling out his phone and telling you to pull up the recipe so that he could forward it to his assistant to make sure his apartment had everything you’d need. You did as he asked and handed his phone back to him, watching for his reaction to the recipe you’d chosen.

To your delight, Ari groaned like he was being tortured, his thumb flicking over the screen as he scrolled through the recipe to look at all the pictures.

“You’re gonna make this?” he asked, before reading out the title, “An Apple crisp cheesecake?” He made another agonized sound before looking to you for confirmation.

You couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction, knowing he was excited despite the miserable noises he was making, and nodded eagerly to answer his question.

Ari shook his head with a disbelieving look on his face and tapped out a message on his phone before pocketing it again. Then he grabbed you around the waist and hauled you against him again.

“You’re trouble for my pants, honeycrisp,” he muttered, dropping a too-brief kiss to your lips. “First you make me hard enough I feel like I’m gonna pop my zipper.” He trailed kisses along your jaw and down your neck in between his words, his mouth and beard tickling your skin while you melted into his arms. “Next you’re gonna fill me up with apple crisp cheesecake until my button breaks.” 

You made a sound that was half-laugh, half-moan as you tipped your head to the side, giving him more access to nip and lick at your neck while you clung to his shoulders, your knees going weak from your sugar daddy’s attention. 

“You don’t need to eat that much cheesecake, Ari,” you wheezed in between bouts of laughter, giggling harder when he nipped playfully at your ear.

“If it’s as delicious as you, I don’t know how I’ll be able to stop myself,” he flirted, kissing the spot just beneath your ear that had you shivering in his arms. 

“Ari,” you said his name on a breathy exhale, and it was a good thing his lips captured yours in a searing kiss, because you didn’t have any hope of responding to his compliment. Instead, you showed him how much you appreciated it by kissing him back hard, your fingers tangling in his soft brown hair as you clung to your sugar daddy and made out in the apple orchard.

By the time Ari pulled away to let you get some air, you were breathless and happier than you’d been in a long time. To your own surprise, you felt good about opening up to Ari and telling him about your past bad experience. He’d made you feel heard and cared for, all while giving you reason to believe he’d never do anything like that to you. He made you feel safe in a way you hadn’t with any of your other sugar daddies. 

Because of all that, you were actually excited to finally see his apartment. It felt like an important step, the beginning of something new, perhaps something deeper, and though there was an undercurrent of anxiety in your belly, you were more excited than anything else. 

And if you weren’t mistaken, Ari looked excited, too. His eyes were looking at you with affection in their depths, and his mouth was curved into a genuine smile. 

As he grinned down at you, Ari let his hands slide down from your lower back to your ass, groping you through your dress before swatting the soft cheeks lightly. 

“Alright, honeycrisp, these apples won’t pick themselves,” he teased good-naturedly. “And I’ve got a craving for some apple crisp cheesecake now.” He waggled his eyebrows at you, making you laugh.

But you forced a serious expression onto your face and gave him a mocking salute. “Yes, sir,” you said in a deeper voice, trying to tamp down on the smile that wanted to break free.

You lost the battle when Ari gave a loud laugh, his head tipping back and the sun shining down on his golden face while he gave into your silliness. He recovered quickly, though, looking back down at you fondly as he rumbled, “That’s ‘yes, daddy’, to you, honeycrisp.” Then he slapped your ass a little harder to urge you to get a move on before he finally, reluctantly, pulled away and turned in the direction of the apple trees.

To ease some of the disappointment you both felt, Ari gave you a salacious wink that had your cheeks warming again. You couldn’t even blame the September sun on the heat in your face. Your sugar daddy was just so hot, it was hardly even fair.

To distract yourself from wanting to curl up in Ari’s arms and say to hell with apple picking, you snatched up the basket he’d dropped, arching your back and popping your ass to give him a peek at your pussy, then straightened and skipped to the nearest apple tree to start picking. 

When you chanced a glance over your shoulder, you saw Ari’s eyes were heated and staring at the way your skirt fluttered around your ass, his big hand palming his bulge in his pants. You wiggled your ass for him, turning back around to hide your laughter when his long-suffering groan met your ears. 

But you couldn’t keep your eyes off Ari and you turned your head to watch him out of the corner of your eye, catching him swiping a hand down over his face while he shook his head. Something about the gesture sent your heart pitter-pattering in your chest—which only got worse when Ari caught you looking and winked while he adjusted himself in his pants.

You felt giddy as you refocused on the tree in front of you, your breaths coming in soft little gasps as excitement and desire swirled in your core. It took you a long moment to gather your thoughts and remind yourself that you could not jump your sugar daddy in the middle of an apple orchard that was open to the public—no matter how much you desperately wanted to. 

With slightly shaking fingers, you began to pick apples, doing your best to pay attention to what you were doing and make sure you were selecting the best fruit you could find. If Ari was going to try your baking for the first time, you wanted your apple crisp cheesecake to be the best that it could possibly be. 

Ari came to stand beside you, and though you wanted him to put his hands on you, you were happy to see him dedicate himself to the task of picking apples, even reaching up to the branches that were too high for you. In turn, you showed Ari how to check for bruises and other unwanted things in the fruit before adding them to the basket at your feet.

Between the two of you picking apples, it wasn’t long before the basket was nearly overflowing, but you were having so much fun, you didn’t want it to end. So when Ari asked if you still needed more, you gave him a shy smile and said just a few. You didn’t want him to go get another basket—because, really, you didn’t need that many apples—but you didn’t want the apple picking part of your date to end just yet.

Your sugar daddy seemed to understand your desire to linger because he didn’t call you out on the fact that your basket could barely hold any more apples. Instead, he flashed you an indulgent grin and nodded, joining you under the apple tree where you’d been picking. 

But rather than moving beside you, as he’d stood while you’d worked together, he came up behind you so that his chest was brushing against your back. His hands settled lightly on your waist, loosely caging you in beneath the apple tree with your body facing the trunk. 

He ducked down so his scruffy, bearded cheek was pressed to yours and pointed to a cluster of apples just out of your reach. “Why don’t you grab one of those?” he suggested, the practiced innocence in his tone nearly making you snort with laughter. 

You knew Ari was playing a game, you could feel it in the mischievous tension crackling in the air, and you were almost certain it would lead to some sort of naughtiness in the orchard. But your body was wound tight, and you wanted to get up to a little mischief with your sugar daddy, so you decided to play along. 

“I can’t reach, daddy,” you simpered, proving your point by reaching your hand up to show that the apples were too high up, your fingertips only barely grazing the fruit. You used the movement to deliberately push your ass back into Ari’s lap and you had to smother a giggle when you felt the hard ridge of him in his pants.

“Let me help, honeycrisp,” Ari rumbled, and though you couldn’t see his grin, you knew it was there by the warmth in his voice. You bit your lip against your own wide smile.

Ari’s hand slid down your side, all the way to the back of your thigh, before he gently grabbed your leg behind your knee to lift it until your foot was planted on a low branch. Then he guided your hips deeper into his lap, where you could feel the long, stiff length of his cock wedging between your ass cheeks through your thin dress.

“C’mon, honeycrisp, reach a little bit more,” he urged, tilting your hips and bending his knees so that his hard bulge was pressed against your bare slit. Then he surged forward, lifting you just a little off the ground while he dragged the thick length of his cock against your weeping pussy. 

You fell helplessly against the trunk of the tree, the apples forgotten as a low moan slipped past your lips. Ari teased you with his clothed cock, and your spine arched to bare more of yourself to his hard bulge. Craning your neck to catch Ari’s eye over your shoulder, you gave him a desperate, pleading look. 

“Daddy, please,” you begged on a whine, pushing back into his lap and wiggling your ass side to side to try to entice him into giving you something more. You’d been teasing each other all day, and you were hitting a breaking point. You needed him to give you something.

Ari chuckled, burying his face in the side of your neck, his deep laughter rolling deliciously down your spine and settling between your thighs, until you were pulsing with desire. He curled around your body until he was surrounding you, your smaller form fitting perfectly within the cage of his arms. 

He reached above you and easily plucked the apple he’d directed you to pick from the spot you hadn’t been able to reach and presented it to you. At the same time, his other hand began to wander, groping your soft tits until you moaned prettily again for him. 

“Does it pass your inspection, darling?” he asked, urging you to focus on the apple he held in front of you. 

Truthfully, you didn’t care anymore about picking apples—you had plenty of them in the basket at your feet—but you did your best to look it over. You turned it over in your trembling fingers, checking for bruises and bugs. Finding it to be perfect, you nodded. 

“Yes, daddy.”

“Good girl,” Ari murmured, taking the apple from your hands and pulling away to set it on top of the pile in your basket. 

You had to bite back a whine at the loss of him, but he was back against you a moment later, his warmth surrounding you as his arms curled around your body. His hands slid up your sides and cupped your tits, kneading them in his big, strong hands until your head fell back against his shoulder and you let out a soft whimper of need.

“Now is that enough apples, honeycrisp?” he asked, a hint of teasing in his tone.

“Yuh huh,” you mumbled, nodding weakly as you arched your spine and pushed your chest into Ari’s hands. He rewarded you by pinching and plucking your nipples through the soft cotton of your dress, wringing a weak whine from your lips. “Plenty.” 

“Good,” Ari rumbled, pressing his face into the side of your neck, his mouth licking and nipping at your skin like you tasted as sweet as the fruit you’d been picking, his rough beard making you shiver in his hold. “Because if I had to see your pretty pussy winking at me from beneath your skirt one more time while you were bending over or reaching for some apples, it was going to drive me fucking wild.”

A low moan slipped free from your lips while one of Ari’s hands skimmed down your front, sliding under the hem  of your dress and cupping you between your thighs. His big hand covered your entire mound, which was sticky with your juices. 

He growled when he felt just how wet you were, the sound reverberating down your spine and making your pussy spasm, more wetness dripping from your slit and into his palm.

“Fuck,” Ari ground out through gritted teeth, his voice rough with his own barely leashed desire. “You’re soaking wet for me, honeycrisp—I gotta feel you,” he said, an urgency in his voice as he sank two fingers into your drenched hole, pulling another moan from you. His hips were grinding his bulge against your ass so hard, you could feel him throbbing. “Gotta feel this tight warm cunt on my cock, ‘m not gonna make it back to the car—need you now.”

“Ari,” you whispered harshly, trying to sound angry, but the two syllables of his name came out dipped in desire and you felt your sugar daddy shudder against your back, his fingers working harder inside your sopping cunt, his palm making soft slapping sounds every time he bottomed out. “We shouldn’t.” 

Despite your weak protest, you rolled your head to the side on Ari’s shoulder, peering through the branches of the tree toward where you’d left the crowds of other apple pickers. They were still so distant you couldn’t hear them over your soft, gasping breaths, but there was no telling when someone might stray from the others. They could stumble upon you at any moment. 

The only protection you had from wandering eyes were the branches of the apple tree. Thankfully, they were close enough and the leaves dense enough that you couldn’t see much beyond Ari’s big body, but if someone came close enough, they’d no doubt hear you or Ari, and then you’d be caught.

“We’re going to get arrested,” you scolded in a hushed tone before turning your head to bury your face in Ari’s beard and stifle the moan on the tip of your tongue. He hadn’t stopped fucking you with his fingers and your reluctance was ebbing from your body just as surely as your desire was leaking into his hand. 

Instead of responding to your statement with the seriousness you felt it deserved, Ari simply chuckled against your cheek and used his thumb to circle your clit, making your hips jerk into his hand, your body wordlessly begging him for more while you muffled a whine into the underside of his jaw. 

“We’ll be fine, honeycrisp,” Ari soothed in a placating tone that made you growl like a feral kitten into his throat, so he switched tactics, his voice going low and rough. “Don’t you wanna feel me, honey?” He asked, grinding his hard length into your soft ass until you mewled pathetically. “Don’t you wanna drip your sweet juices all over daddy’s cock like a good girl?” 

It was on the tip of your tongue to give in. You knew you shouldn’t. You knew there was a very real possibility that you could get caught, and it was only your fear of the potential consequences that held your words at bay. But Ari was well acquainted with the fear that held you back, and he knew exactly how to help you break through it. 

“Just the tip,” he murmured, his voice so warm you could hear the smile in it. “Just take the tip, and stay quiet, and we’ll be golden.” He nuzzled your face, his beard rasping over your soft skin and sending tingles of delight all through your body. 

You knew it was a ploy. You knew that Ari knew that you’d never be able to settle for just the tip of his cock—after all, you never had before. But it was easier to pretend you could settle for just the tip than to say yes to Ari fucking you in the middle of the apple orchard when there were people not too far away. It was the small step you needed to break free from your fear.

Lifting your head, you looked around. There was nothing to see except dense branches and leaves and endless apples. Ari’s body hid you entirely from sight, and you still couldn’t hear anyone else close by, so if you stayed quiet, you really could get away with a quickie in the orchard. 

A wicked smile spread across your face and you turned your head to catch Ari’s eye over your shoulder.

“Just the tip?” you asked, you voice laced with suggestion. You knew Ari was going to end up sinking much more of his cock into you, but you wanted to play along for a little bit. “Promise, daddy?” Your question was meant to sound innocent, but you couldn’t help the way the corners of your lips wavered in an eager grin.

Ari chuckled and kissed the corner of your mouth, because he knew exactly what you were doing. “I promise, darling…” he said, trailing off as he pulled his fingers from your pussy with an embarrassingly wet sound that made him grin. “Unless, of course, you beg me like a good girl.” 

“Hurry, daddy,” you cooed, wiggling your ass against Ari’s bulge, a teasing smile on your lips as you watched him over your shoulder. 

Ari’s eyes darkened and then he was using his clean hand to fumble with his belt and fly while he swatted your pussy playfully with his drenched fingers. You gasped and twitched, trying to stay quiet and failing miserably as desperate keening sound slipped from your mouth.

At your urging, Ari wasted no time, shoving his pants open and pulling out his cock, pushing your dress up over your ass and rubbing the tip through your drenched folds. Both of you groaned, Ari’s face falling forward against your shoulder while you grabbed onto the trunk of the tree in front of you, trying to stay upright while your knees trembled. 

Then Ari was pushing inside, the head of his cock sinking into the warmth of your pussy. The stretch of him was too delicious, and you moaned louder than was wise, but you couldn’t help yourself. He felt too good. 

“What’d I say about staying quiet?” Ari rumbled in your ear, right before he shoved his fingers in your mouth. The tart taste of your wetness mixed with apples burst on your tongue and you moaned again, licking wildly at his fingers to get as much of it as you could. “Mm, that’s it, clean up your mess, honeycrisp—show daddy what a good girl you can be.”

Ari’s other hand gripped your hip, holding you steady while he fucked you with just the tip of his cock, pushing into your tight hole and pulling free until the tease of it drove you wild. 

“Mm-oah, mm-oah,” you begged around Ari’s fingers, trying to push back on Ari’s stiff length and take more of him, but he held you still, forcing you to take only what he gave you. You bounced impatiently, the foot that was still lifted on one of the branches shaking it so furiously, the leaves rattled and a few apples dropped to the ground.

“Oh, did you want something, honey?” Ari asked, his tone filled with mocking innocence as he pulled his fingers from your mouth. You shot him a half-hearted glare over your shoulder, pouting. 

“I need more, daddy, please,” you begged, giving him your best desperate, pleading look while you pushed back against his hold, reveling in the way he didn’t let you move to take him further. “Please split me open with your thick cock, daddy—I need it.”

Ari blew out a sharp breath. “Fuck, I wanna tease you some more, but I can’t—need you too bad, honey,” Ari rasped, squeezing your hip while his other arm wrapped loosely around the front of your throat, so the bulge of his bicep was just beneath your chin. 

“Remember, stay quiet.” His hushed words were your only warning before Ari slammed into you, shoving every inch of his hard cock into your wet, needy cunt. 

A scream welled up inside your chest, your mouth dropping open as it clawed its way up your throat, but at the last second before it was set free, you managed to bury your face in Ari’s bicep. Your teeth sank into his warm, golden skin and you bit your sugar daddy while you screamed into his arm. 

His tortured groan was loud, but only because it poured directly into your ear, the sound dripping in pleasure as your inner walls squeezed his hard cock and made room for the thick length of him in the depths of your body.

Bliss consumed you, the stinging edge of Ari pushing inside you so fast and stretching you so suddenly making your body burn all the hotter. Already, your cunt was pulsing around Ari’s cock like you wanted him to stay buried inside you for a long time and you sighed happily, pulling your teeth from your sugar daddy’s arm. 

While Ari gave you a moment to adjust, his hand kneading the plush softness of your hip, you kissed and licked at the indents your teeth had left in his skin. He chuckled, brushing a kiss against your temple, an acceptance of your wordless apology. 

“Ready, honey?” Ari asked softly, nuzzling your cheek while he rolled his hips, grinding his cock into you in a way that had you moaning again. “This is gonna be hard and fast. I can’t—I gotta pound your pretty pussy,” he rumbled, his tone almost apologetic with the urgency in it. “Gotta feel you dripping around me, squeezing me, milking me.”

His hand shifted from your hip to slip between your thighs, his fingers finding your slippery clit and rubbing the puffy pearl. He grunted when you clenched around him, his fingers stroking you harder and winding your pleasure higher while he rolled his hips, fucking you in short, sharp thrusts.

“Fuck, honey, fuck,” he bit out, his breaths heavy in between every word. “Tell me you’re ready for me to move.”

“Please, yes, move,” you cried propping your chin on Ari’s bicep while your nails dug into the trunk of the tree in front of you. You used your grip to brace yourself and push back on Ari’s cock, taking him deeper with every thrust. “Need you, daddy, please, please, please,” you babbled, your voice coming out strained with the effort to keep it quiet.

“Fucking right you need me—just like I need you,” Ari growled, pulling his hips back and slamming forward, driving into you with so much force, you could hear the soft sound of your ass slapping against his thighs. “You have the sweetest, tightest pussy I’ve ever had—best fucking pussy in the world. I dream about it when I’m not with you,” he confessed, his words rough like he’d pulled them from the depths of his soul. “Dream about pumping you full of my come until your belly’s bulging with me, honey.”

Your mind reeled at Ari’s confession even as your body sank deeper into his hold. You were still trying to catch up on processing his words but your pussy was clenching around his cock greedily, as if begging for him to come inside you already. 

In that moment, a singular truth crystalized in your mind: You’d been deluding yourself into thinking you didn’t care for Ari—that he didn’t care for you. It was very clear that Ari did care about you, and you cared about him.

All those boundaries in your relationship, you realized you’d been the one creating them, not Ari. Ari had been patient, chipping away at the walls you’d built around yourself until he’d somehow found his way in. He’d dreamed about you, and you’d thought he was just another sugar daddy looking to have some fun. You’d been so wrong about him.

At the weight of your realization, you nearly collapsed against the tree, but managed to hold yourself up, sobbing with pleasure and emotion. Ari seemed to sense the shift in your mood and he slowed his movements, as if he was going to stop, but you shook your head, feeling feral with your need for him. 

“Please, daddy,” you cried softly, your voice hoarse with the flood of affection filling your heart. It was emphasized by the feeling of Ari inside you, surrounding you, your body cradled in his arms while he fuckd you like he wanted you to never forget the feel of him. “Fill me up, make me your perfect little cumslut, daddy, just keep me—keep me.” 

“Always,” he rasped, his lips at your temple. The promise in that single word buried deep in your heart, taking root. 

Something changed between you and Ari, and you knew he felt it too because he started fucking you faster than before, his hips snapping harder against your ass so he could push deep into your cunt with every thrust.

“Fuck, honey, ‘m almost there, are you close?” he rasped, his tone desperate. 

Your head bobbed in a nod. 

“Uh huh, ‘m close, just need a little more…” you trailed off in a whine, trying to push back on his cock and grind your clit against his stroking fingers at the same time.

Thankfully, Ari understood what you were begging for, and he rubbed you harder, his fingers relentless in his pursuit of your pleasure while he rutted into your cunt.

“C’mon, honey, come on daddy’s cock,” he rumbled in your ear, his voice deliciously deep to match his dirty words and push you closer to the edge. “Be a good little cumslut and milk my cock, make me fill your sweet pussy with all my come, honey.” 

You buried your face into Ari’s bicep again, your teeth sinking into his skin as you screamed your release. Wave after wave of pleasure pulsed through your body, until your limbs were trembling and your fingers were shaking against the outside of Ari’s arm, having forgotten when you’d let go of the tree to cling to him.

With a grunt, Ari’s cock twitched inside you, reacting to the sting of your bite and the merciless grasping of your inner walls around his hard length. His hips stuttered, then he started fucking into you wildly, his thrusts falling out of rhythm while he chased his own release. 

“Good girl, honey, so good, feel so fucking good milking daddy’s cock,” he muttered, cutting off on a deep groan while his cock throbbed inside you.

Ari spilled himself deep in your cunt and you moaned weakly, pulling back from his arm and licking his golden skin to sooth the indents your teeth had left behind. He tasted like salty skin and sweet apples and you hummed in pleasure as you rode out the remainder of your release with your bodies writhing together.

After a few long moments basking in the glorious afterglow of coming together, Ari took a deep breath and shifted his arm, chuckling lowly when you whimpered at the loss of his bicep to lick and kiss. He made it up to you by turning your head and capturing your lips in a sweet kiss, pouring all the affection you finally knew he felt for you into the way his mouth moved against yours. 

When he pulled away, leaving you slightly breathless, Ari leveled you with a serious look. 

“You know you’re special to me, don’t you, honey?” he asked, using the new pet name that you knew was shortened from ‘honeycrisp’. 

You’d been too wrapped up in your own head to notice the way it rolled off his tongue—it was an endearment for someone Ari cared about, someone who was special to him, as he said.

Biting your kiss-swollen lower lip, feeling a little abashed that it had taken you so long to realize what Ari felt for you, you nodded. You could feel your cheeks warming, and tried to duck your head, but Ari only chuckled and caught your lips in another kiss, though it was briefer.

When he’d kissed away your anxiety, Ari set about extricating himself from you, pulling free from your body and helping you down from the tree. He quickly stuffed his softening cock back into his pants and then helped smooth your dress back over your hips before doing up his slacks. You turned to him, brushing his hair back from his face and warming at the way he was smiling down at you. 

Ari had an infectious grin on his face, and you couldn’t help but return it, your heart feeling warm and cozy in your chest. 

The two of you smiled goofily as you helped right each other’s appearances. Once you’d fixed yourselves as much as possible, Ari stooped down to pick up the basket of apples you’d picked, then grabbed your hand, lacing your fingers together and planting a kiss on the back of your palm before heading off back to the farm stand.

As you walked past all the crowds of people, you were certain everyone knew what you and Ari had gotten up to in the orchard, but no one stopped or stared or said anything. They were all too focused on their own friends and families and the task of apple picking to notice you and Ari, or your big, silly smiles.

At the farm stand, Ari paid for the apples, then loaded them into his Lexus before helping you into the passenger seat. He dropped a kiss to your forehead, then rounded the front of the car and slid into his own seat.

You were quiet on the drive back to the city, your mind ruminating over the beginning of your relationship with Ari. When you thought back to your first few dates, you realized you’d been the one who was hesitant to answer any personal questions from your sugar daddy—and you’d never asked any of him. You’d also been the one to balk at the idea of either going back to his place or your apartment, leading him to get hotel rooms. 

Ari had been the one to respect your boundaries, even as he’d tried to get to know you better. He’d tried to ask you questions you felt comfortable answering—it was how he’d found out you liked apple picking, because you’d chosen it as a fall-themed date. He’d been so careful with you, it made your heart hurt a little that you’d kept him at arm’s length for so long.

Turning from the scenery of the foliage fading into the cityscape of New York, you ran your eyes over Ari’s profile. His expression was easy, relaxed and open, the hint of a smile on his face. You’d thought he just always looked like that, but you realized it was because he was with you. 

Reaching across the center console, you scooped up Ari’s hand and laced your fingers through his before settling your joined hands on your thigh. He glanced at you, shooting you a quick smile and squeezing your fingers, before turning back to the road.

By the time the car pulled into the underground parking garage of the high-rise on the Upper West Side where Ari lived, you were resolved to try to let your guard down a little more around him. Ari had shown you he could be trusted with your heart just as much as your body, and you were determined to show him you trusted him with all of you. 

Still, it was a little intimidating walking into his apartment for the first time, the anxiety that he was only bringing you there because he wanted something from you—something you didn’t want to give—was a knot in your stomach. But then you looked at Ari and you realized he’d never do that to you. He was bringing you to his home because he wanted to, not because he wanted something from you. 

Ari’s penthouse was warm and cozy, decorated in dark brown wood and warm golden tones, with hints of blue that reminded you of the ocean. You realized you knew Ari was a fan of the beach, because so many of the trips he’d taken you on had been close to the water. Walking into his home felt like walking into a reflection of his heart, and you didn’t take that for granted.

After setting down the apples on a table next to the door and stepping out of your shoes, Ari took you on a tour of his apartment, both the upstairs and the downstairs (because it was big enough to have two floors!). He showed you every room, including his bedroom and his study, tugging you into each by your joined hands when you seemed hesitant to enter his spaces.

Ari left the kitchen for last, but the two of you lingered in the living room, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Central Park. Ari wrapped his arms around you from behind, swaying you lightly from side to side, almost like you were dancing. 

“You have a beautiful home, Ari,” you said, looking out over the city and appreciating the way the buildings and treetops were cast in the warm, yellow glow of afternoon sunshine. An errant thought crossed your mind, that you could get used to the view from Ari’s apartment. It was stunning.

“Thank you, honey,” Ari murmured, dropping a kiss to the base of your throat while his arms squeezed you tighter. He buried his face in your neck, so his words were a little muffled when he said, “I always hoped you’d like it enough to want to come over again and… again.”

You could hear in the pause of his words where he’d stopped himself from saying something different, and you wondered over it. But you knew yourself well enough not to ask. If just walking into his apartment felt like a big step, you knew asking him what he’d meant to say might spook you a bit too much, and you didn’t want that. So you just hummed in response.

Ari chuckled, like he somehow knew it was taking effort for you to be in his apartment, and he thought it was cute how difficult it was for you. His mouth trailed up your neck, effectively distracting you from your thoughts, before nipping at the edge of your jaw. 

“Want to see the kitchen now?” 

Nodding so eagerly, you nearly head-butted him, you turned in his hold and looked up at him with expectant eyes. Ari gave you an affectionate smile, then grabbed your hand and led the way to the kitchen.

He’d saved it for last, and when you stepped inside, you understood why. A gasp slipped from your lips as you took in the beautiful space. The color scheme of the apartment carried over to the kitchen, with dark brown cabinets and lighter wood countertops. There was a pop of blue in the backsplash, and all kinds of expensive gadgetry. 

You were so busy taking everything in, it took you a moment to spot the brand-new stand mixer sitting on the counter in a color that matched the rest of the room. Beside it were some of the ingredients you’d need for the apple crisp cheesecake you’d told Ari you wanted to make and you realized his assistant must’ve already come and gone. 

Walking over and running your fingers over the sleek mixer, tears welled up in your eyes. It took effort to blink them away, and you shook your head slightly at yourself. It seemed silly to be crying over a stand mixer, but it felt bigger than that, like it was a sign of Ari making room in his life for you. He wanted you there, he wanted to keep you, like you’d begged him to. 

“Everything ok, honey?” Ari asked, coming to stand behind you, but not touching you, giving you some space while you processed everything you’d realized that day.

“Yeah,” you said, your voice thick, no doubt giving away the emotion you were feeling. Before you could overthink it, you spun around and threw your arms around Ari’s shoulders, launching yourself at him for a tight hug. “You bought a mixer,” you stated, as if that was explanation enough. 

A soft laugh rumbled in Ari’s chest and he swept a hand down your spine, comforting you while a few tears leaked down your cheeks and into the collar of his denim shirt.

“Well, yeah,” he responded good-naturedly, a smile in his voice. “I did say I wanted you to want to come back, didn’t I?” 

“Uh huh,” you mumbled, laughing a little at his comment. Then you murmured, in a small voice, “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Ari said, sounding genuine. 

For a long moment, you hugged him, and then you pulled away, swiping at your cheeks to clear away any tears or makeup. 

“Is the offer still open to bake while wearing only your shirt?” you asked, tipping your head back to smile shyly at Ari while your fingers played with the collar of his button-up.  

A grin spread across his face while shrugged out of the denim shirt. Then, to your surprise, he yanked his t-shirt off over his head, asking you which one you wanted. 

You took the denim one with fumbling fingers, your eyes raking over his bare chest while warmth bloomed deep in your core. It wasn’t the first time you’d seen Ari shirtless, of course, but you never got tired of looking at the expanse of his golden skin, dusted with dark brown hair that you wanted to rake your nails through. 

Ari let you look for a moment, using your distraction to help you slip out of your dress. Then he eased your arms into the denim shirt and buttoned it up, his big hands pausing briefly to grope your soft body every few moments. 

There was a glimmer of deep satisfaction in his blue eyes when he stepped back to look at you in his shirt. 

“Mm, you look so pretty, honey,” he rasped, taking one last look before crowding you into the counter at your back. His gaze darkened as he stared down at you, his grin turning wolfish when he rumbled, “I think I need a snack before you start baking.”

That was your only warning. You shrieked with surprised laughter when Ari hauled you back into the living room and tossed you down on one of his leather couches. Your giggles cut off abruptly in a moan when Ari descended on you, burying his face between your thighs and feasting on you like he was starving.

Your fingers twisted in Ari’s brown hair while he ate your pussy, encouraging you to scream your pleasure in the comfort of his home while he made you come against his mouth. You shattered apart with a loud cry while he fucked you with his tongue, his mouth greedily devouring your release, and the come he’d buried inside you earlier, like he hadn’t eaten in days. 

When he finally pulled away, Ari’s beard was soaked in your juices and he grinned up your body while you lay limply on the couch, your chest heaving as you caught your breath. Chuckling at the sight of you sprawled out on his couch, Ari pressed wet kisses to the inside of your thighs, licking the traces of your release from your skin.

“Fuck, honey, I can’t get enough of you,” he rumbled, his big hands kneading your plush thighs and hips, proving his point since it seemed like he couldn’t stop touching you. The blatant need and desire in his voice sent a shiver racing down your spine.

“If you keep going, I won’t have the strength to bake,” you warned him in a breathless voice, managing to lift your head enough to give him a stern look. 

Ari laughed into your thigh, pressing one last kiss to your skin before he raised up and gave you a wink. “Can’t have that,” he quipped, grabbing your hands and helping you up off the couch. You stumbled a little, your legs weak from your orgasm, but Ari caught you easily, wrapping his arm around your waist while he led you into the kitchen. 

Once you were propped up against the counter near the stand mixer, Ari left to retrieve the apples from the entryway. When he returned, you noticed he carried a pair of slippers that matched the ones he’d put on. Without saying a word, he set them on the floor next to your bare feet and carried on to start washing the fruit in the sink. 

You stepped into the slippers, your heart warming when you realized they were a perfect fit. For a long moment, you stared at Ari’s bare shoulders and broad back, wondering how you’d ever kept such a thoughtful man at arm’s length. Well, you decided, once again, you wouldn’t be doing that anymore. 

Turning back to the stand mixer and the ingredients, you organized everything on the counter, going to the fridge to pull out everything else you’d need. 

To your surprise, you and Ari worked well together in the kitchen. Once he was done cleaning all the apples you’d picked, he asked what he could do next, and you put him to work peeling and coring the fruit while you worked on the other elements of the cheesecake. 

When it came time to bake, Ari took the pan from your hands and popped it into the oven while you set a timer. Tension crackled between the two of you after the oven had snapped closed, and you came together in a flurry of limbs. Ari guided you back into the living room while he kissed you, his hands making quick work of removing all your remaining clothes.

You rode Ari to another orgasm while the sweet treat baked, the golden glow of the New York City sunset keeping the apartment awash in warm hues that made you feel cozy—like you were home. 

Once you were both sated, you collapsed on top of Ari’s chest, burying your face in his neck and nuzzling into his beard. You inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne, vetiver and leather, with a little bit of cinnamon from baking, and melted against him. You wanted to breathe in nothing but that scent for the rest of your life—and you refused to let that thought scare you.

Ari pulled a flannel blanket off of the back of his couch and wrapped it around you both, your pussy keeping his cock warm while you cuddled together until the timer went off. 

You couldn’t help but laugh as you watched Ari take the baking pan out of the oven wearing only an oven mitt on his hand. You, meanwhile, stood off to the side with the flannel blanket wrapped around your shoulders. He’d told you the blanket was highly flammable and insisted you stay clear of the oven with a stern look that made your insides go all gooey.

The two of you made out in the kitchen and made dinner while the cheesecake cooled. All the while, you kept thinking how easy it was to be with Ari, how you could see what your life would be like together. And you liked how it looked. You liked kissing him whenever you wanted and asking him about what movies he liked and what was the last book he read.

After dinner, you ate a slice of cheesecake together, and you couldn’t keep your eyes off of Ari’s face, enjoying every little groan and expression of pleasure he made. It was erotic enough that you left the last bite for him, getting to your feet to walk around the table and straddle his lap. 

He fucked you to another, blisteringly hot orgasm, and laughed only a little when you fell against his chest with an exhausted, but satisfied, sigh. 

In a soft voice, Ari asked if you’d stay the night, and the hope in his tone made your heart warm enough that you ignored the brief flicker of anxiety the question prompted. You shushed the worry inside you and said yes. 

Together, you cleaned up the kitchen and then Ari led you upstairs to the bedroom, pausing every few minutes to kiss you, like he wanted to remind himself you were still there. 

He gave you some of his clothes to wear to bed and showed you where everything was in his bathroom. You couldn’t help but notice that he had all of your favorite products, and a spare toothbrush for you. You smiled as you got ready for bed and slipped under the covers with him.

“Did you have a good day, honey?” Ari asked, pulling you into his body and wrapping you up in his arms. You were wearing one of his t-shirts—a clean one—while he had on a pair of boxer briefs. You hummed happily when your legs tangled together, enjoying the feel of his warm skin and tickling hair against you. 

“Mm, I had the best day, Ari,” you murmured sleepily, the comfort and warmth of his bed making it easy to let your exhaustion creep in. “Kiss,” you said, turning your head and repeating the greeting Ari had given you when he’d picked you up.

Your sugar daddy chuckled, the sound rumbling down your spine and making your heart flutter with delight. Your eyes were already closed, but you could feel his smile when he pressed a sweet, lingering kiss to your lips. 

“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll still be here in the morning,” he promised, his words assuaging a fear you hadn’t realized you’d felt, and you sighed in contentment.

Everything had changed between you and Ari, and you couldn’t help but think it was for the better. You were still a little anxious about opening yourself up to someone, especially a sugar daddy, but Ari had shown you that you could trust him—really trust him, with all your heart—and you were determined to do just that.

“G’night, Ari,” you whispered into the pillow that smelled like him, a hint of a smile in the curve of your mouth as sleep claimed you. 

“Good night, honey,” Ari crooned in your ear, his voice gentle and soft and oh so affectionate. “My sweet, sweet honeycrisp.”

[nereidprinc3ss]

do you believe me now? | 8

it's the morning after. spencer reid suspects you’re left with some doubts after losing your virginity to him. he has to figure out why—which is hard when you're keeping secrets.

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this series is 18+ warnings/tags: fem!reader, blood related to losing virginity (dramatized for the drama duh), super vague allusions to the BAU being hungover, mild blasphemy if anyone even cares, pondering god bc am I really a fanfic writer if I don’t get a little religious w it, emily AND hotch are here and nobody knows why pls don't pay attention to that bc we are imagining like season 11/12 spencer and I'm inconsistent w who is unit chief in this series apparently, spencer slut lore, spencer emotional wounds lore, Spencer is a traumatic situationship survivor a/n: DADDYS HOMEEEEE (me and dybmn not spencer) anyway missed these little guys and am happy to be writing for them again!! idk what my upload schedule will becoming back to this but pls lmk what u think of this part, I have no idea how you will respond but I'm being brave and ily

Friday morning Spencer comes into the office fifteen minutes late (he tried his best), in yesterday’s suit (everything in his go-bag had been too wrinkled), hair messy (no doubt from your fingers), coffee cold (he’s exhausted) and overall, in an excellent mood.

The rest of the team isn’t faring quite as well—Spencer gathers they stayed at the bar celebrating Derek’s birthday a lot later than he had. It shows through sallow skin and dark circles and the grimaces he receives on the way to his desk that are probably supposed to approximate good morning’s. 

Honestly, he doesn’t mind the dull mood—he doesn’t need the teasing and the prying questions that would be sure to come if his co-workers were at peak performance and were able to put together his unusually perky demeanor and disheveled appearance. At least Prentiss doesn’t appear to be paying him any mind. She’s always the one who can read him like an open book and has no shame in doing so aloud. Echoes from years of, ‘so who was the lucky girl, last night, Reid?’ Still ring through his mind and it’s like he can feel her finger prodding at his side. 

The Emily of it all makes him smile, though the rest of the memory leaves a metal tang in his mouth. Back in those days, there were sometimes a lot of girls, but even then he was consciously aware he wasn’t necessarily doing something he enjoyed. He spent a lot of time, actually, staring at his bedroom ceiling, psychoanalyzing himself. Repetition compulsion. The insatiable desire to repeat or reenact emotionally painful experiences. Maybe he thought if he could teach himself to subsist off of emotionless hookups, he could in some way heal from his experience with Elle. Though, he’s hesitant to think of it now as healing—it’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing when a few nights after she said I don’t feel the same I’m sorry he opened up his front door for her. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing every time after that. So, maybe heal isn’t the right word, when one doesn’t have the right to be injured. Or when the injuries are, in a manner of speaking, self-inflicted. At the very least he could tell himself that this time around, meaningless sex was a choice he was making for himself. Spencer hates when things just happen to him. 

But you—you’re different. You were a complete surprise. At first, a cute and unexpected complication. After a few painful and short-lived attempts at real relationships, Spencer decided he was simply not to be trusted with emotional intimacy of any kind, including that which inevitably develops from physical intimacy, and would resign himself to a life of celibacy. He tried not to like you, but you were just so damn likable. Magnetic, to use a trite and perfectly honest turn of phrase. All that to say: he doesn’t regret you at all. There is no filter of putrid shame or anguish over his memories of last night. 

Just you. Perfect. Starlit. Glowing softly around the edges like you’re not even real. 

I love you I love you I love you. A hymn with no melody. You, always reminding him exactly why he is decidedly not a man of faith. At least, not in the typical sense of the word. 

How God became the idol and not Mary is lost on him. That’s why, Spencer supposes, tapping an eraser on his desk, marriage and sex were forbidden for so many ecclesiastics. After all, if they knew what it was to love a woman, specifically to love you, he doubts they’d feel like spending much time in the pulpit. Love. Humans had that long before they had any gods. It’s primeval. It’s the most natural manifestation of devotion and worship. It will always have come first. Isn’t it a better kind of religion when a man realizes he can kneel in front of a woman rather than an altar?

A heavy hand falling on his shoulder jolts him from his theological musings—which are in all practicality useless. What’s that saying about blasphemous thinking on the FBI’s dime? Right. There isn’t one. 

“I’m scared to ask,” Morgan says as Spencer jumps slightly in his chair. 

“What?” He mumbles, looking up from the document he’d only sort of been reading.

Morgan just looks at him, strong brows furrowed and a ditch between them, angles his head and glances to the side as if Spencer is missing the obvious. He almost follows Derek’s eye-line. When that doesn’t work, Derek just says your name. Like your status is somehow in question. 

“Did you two work things out, or not? It looked pretty bad when you guys were leaving last night.”

People often misunderstand an eidetic memory. It’s not like things can’t slip his mind—Spencer can actually be quite forgetful. It’s made worse by the fact that last night at the bar feels like months ago. For a moment, he has no idea what Derek is referring to. 

“Oh. Oh! Right, we—right. Yeah, we, uh—we worked it out.” Before Derek has a chance to read his face, no doubt as incriminating as his fumbled speech and an ill-timed throat clearing, he turns back to his paperwork. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her at the bar. I appreciate that.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and Spencer’s lips twist as he can feel the incoming inappropriate comment. 

“Is that the same suit you were wearing last night?” Morgan quips, his wide grin audible. Spencer can practically hear the cartoon gleam of his friend’s bleached teeth. 

“No.”

“You dog.” Derek is still smiling as he claps Spencer’s shoulder again. “What did you say to her that worked so well?”

Spencer clears his throat again and tries to look extremely involved in logging onto his computer, speaking quickly as if he’s beyond disinterested and can’t wait for the exchange to be over. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m actually trying to work so if you wouldn’t mind going back to your desk that would be great.” 

“Uh-huh. I’ll let you work. But I see you, pretty boy.”

Spencer tries not to blush like a teenager as he refuses to look up. 

Naturally the rest of the day is a slow descent into dread and madness as all those good feelings with which Spencer had started his morning begin to harden into something much worse, chilled by your lack of response to the text he sent you earlier. Which was essentially a rehashing of the note he left on your bedside table. 

Maybe it was too much. It should’ve been one or the other, but not both. He’s overwhelmed you. 

Okay, so maybe this is what religion is for. A last ditch effort when you can’t talk to your girlfriend so you have to try talking to God. 

But Spencer knows you, and he knows something is wrong. You wouldn’t just ice him out so blatantly if everything was okay. He catches himself glancing up toward Hotch’s window to see if the blinds are drawn, and considers faking an illness to get out of work early and go check on you. But he powers through the remaining hour and a half that he is obligated to stay at work, he bounces a pencil between his fingers, drums at his desk, and gets nothing else done. As soon as 4:59 rolls around, he’s out. 

Spencer can hear shuffling on the other side of your door as he stands in the hallway. A pot clatters. The walls hum with the rush of water through the pipes to your sink. He knocks, relieved that you’re okay and at the same time struggling with that weight on his chest—something cold that leans over his shoulders and whispers into his ear—so she just didn’t want to talk to you. 

Suddenly all sound from inside your unit ceases. For a few long seconds, Spencer’s confusion only grows exponentially. 

“Who is it?” You finally call, voice wavering. Also odd. Usually you just open the door. 

“Um… Spencer?”

“As in my boyfriend Spencer?”

He frowns, bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly as he tries to decipher your sudden paranoia. “I hope so?”

The click and jingle of several locks precipitates your much-anticipated reveal. 

“Come in,” you say breathlessly, more harried than usual and not giving him the tender greeting he’s selfishly become accustomed to—barely even giving him a second to look at you. But he steps inside, watching on in concern as you do up every single lock—the one on the knob, the deadbolt, even the chain. Is this really all because of his little comment last night about anyone being able to get in? He certainly hopes not. He didn’t mean to terrify you. 

When you finally turn, he takes stock of your appearance. Big hoodie, pajama pants patterned in little hearts. Hair pulled back hastily. Your skin is sort of dull where you normally glow. But you’re beautiful, like always. It always aches just a little bit to look at you. Spencer’s always been like that. Going breathless at a particularly good piece of art or pretty girl. Like yourself. Mostly you. 

You quickly turn to hurry back into the kitchen. “I was trying to make dinner, I—”

“Hold on,” he interrupts, stopping you with a hand on your stomach that is so non-demanding it’s really mostly a suggestion. He tries to clear his head, though you make it hard. “You didn’t talk to me all day. Not that you have to, but… I was worried.”

You glance at the floor and mumble, “I lost my phone,” with so much embarrassment he believes you’re telling the truth. “Did you, um—did you text me?”

Insecurity. Spencer knows well what it looks like on you. He softens. You weren’t ignoring him—but you’d been left in a vulnerable state without any ability to contact him or anyone. That couldn’t have been comfortable. 

“Of course I did.” He pauses to observe you. Still anxious. Still prepared to run at any second. Something, and he’s not sure what, did a number on you today. Maybe it’s sheer exhaustion, maybe it was the anxiety of not having your phone. But he has to figure out what it is so he can undo it. “What? What’s wrong?”

He watches your breathing pause—watches your eyes gloss over with tears and a frown contort your features. Oh, god. He’s done something terribly wrong. It’s been thirty seconds and he’s done something wrong. 

“Can we sit down? I don’t feel very good.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we can. Whatever you need.”

You cast a baleful look at him and now he has to wonder what that means. Spencer sets his bag on a pulled out dining chair and follows you to the couch where you settle on opposite sides—you’re curled up in the far corner, hugging a pillow to your chest with your legs folded in front of you. Spencer’s heart is beating fast. He doesn’t know what’s going on with you and he can’t figure it out just by looking and you don’t seem eager to tell him. 

He’s exhausted all his typical ways of collecting information, and now he’s at a loss. 

Eventually, the anxiety comes bubbling up. 

“Please talk to me,” he pleads. And you do. Almost instantly, like he stepped on some sort of landmine. 

“I know it’s my own fault for not having my phone on me and not being able to see your texts, but it really sucks that I had to find out from my creepy neighbor that you snuck out in the middle of the night without saying goodbye.”

The whiplash is so strong it’s almost a broken neck. Spencer reels, frowning deeply as he tries to process your impromptu speech, the sudden confrontation. What creepy neighbor?

“I… didn’t. I went to grab my stuff from the car around one, but I came right back. I left at 7:30. You don’t remember me saying goodbye?”

Your brow furrows, and your eyes dart over the design on the rug like you’re watching memories go by. He sees it in your eyes when you recall some hazy image of him holding your face, kissing your cheek more times than was necessary and whispering sweet things against your lips before he had to go. You shrink into the couch, clearly struggling under the combined weight of relief and embarrassment. 

“I forgot. I thought… he said…”

A moment passes and it’s clear you’ve abandoned the sentence. Spencer is concerned about this shadowy male figure who put malicious untruths into your head. He slides his hand under yours and twines your fingers together. Finally, finally you meet his gaze. 

“Someone made you believe I left without saying goodbye.”

And he almost wishes you weren’t looking at him as more tears pool before falling down your cheeks. You nod, and don’t make a sound. 

“No, honey. I didn’t do that. I’m sorry that’s what you’ve been thinking all day.”

“I was worried that you… or that I wasn’t…”

His chest aches. You’d woken up alone, no recollection of his goodbye, and without the comfort of even a text. 

“You didn’t see my note?”

The way you look at him then is heartbreaking. Eyes wide and wet and sad, lip trembling. 

“You left a note?”

Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong, will. 

It must’ve fallen off the bedside table, or maybe he just hadn’t positioned it obviously enough. 

A lost phone, a missed note, and not even a memory of his departure. While none of these things are verifiably Spencer’s fault, he feels so, so guilty. 

“I did,” Spencer says gently, scooting closer and pulling you into him, head pressed to his shoulder as you try not to cry, and he rubs your back slowly. 

Your sulky words are muffled by his shirt. “I didn’t see it. What did it say?”

“A lot of very nice things about you,” he whispers. Spencer thought maybe he could get away with giving you all the sincere compliments you can’t accept face to face through a note you could read while he wasn’t around. That way you couldn’t refute them or stop him. It was a good plan. 

He feels the sigh of relief leaving your body against his neck. 

“I didn’t know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. That’s not… I should’ve just stayed. This is my fault.”

You keep your cheek pressed to his shoulder as you speak. 

“It’s not. You have a job. A really important job. You can’t just call out whenever I want you around.”

Logically he knows you’re right, but he doesn’t always think logically around you. 

“I could’ve made it work. I could’ve come in late, or the team could’ve called me if there was a case, which there wasn’t—”

“Spencer, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it.”

He pulls back slightly, frowning at your tone. You do look relieved, much less plagued than you’d been when he arrived minutes ago, but something heavy still weighs you down. The burden of it darkens your eyes and dulls your expression. When he cups your cheek, you glance up at him, and then away once more. 

He speaks softly. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?” 

Again he earns a moment of your eye contact, but it’s fleeting. He watches the words spin around your head as you try to figure out what to do with them—and then choose to remain silent. 

There is in fact something you’re keeping from him. 

Spencer hates to use work tactics on you, but he doesn’t speak either, hoping that you’ll feel compelled to fill the silence with the truth. Knowing how you’re not entirely comfortable with quiet. 

And you try, lips parting and the sound delayed as you wrestle with something you clearly don’t know how to talk about. 

“I… my neighbor,” you say, frowning like you don’t quite know why you’re speaking. “The one who told me he saw you leaving in the middle of the night. He also—he said…”

Spencer brushes hair away from your cheek with a thumb, stroking the high point in gentle passes as your words taper off. Now that he’s thinking about it, he did encounter a man in a dumpy robe standing in the courtyard and smoking a cigarette when he left you tangled in sheets and dozing contentedly to get his bag from the car. In fact, they rode back up to your floor in the elevator in mostly awkward silence. Spencer was sure his outfit told a story—shirt untucked and hastily buttoned only partway, no belt, shoes barely tied, duffel slung over his shoulder—he wasn’t really expecting to run into anyone at such an hour, to be honest, but he hadn’t particularly cared what this man thought of him, so it didn’t cross his mind again.

Now he remembers. 

Long night, huh? I remember those days. 

It was an inappropriate comment, but given his job he’s used to ignoring those. Mostly his mind had been preoccupied with the idea of returning to you, who gave him such a warm and sleepy welcome when he climbed carefully back into your arms several minutes later that it was like he’d never known anyone else at all. 

Now he resents that he hadn’t said anything, he hates the idea that you spoke to this man and he said something to upset you and Spencer wasn’t there. Usually he tries not a judge a book by its cover (metaphorically, of course) but he’s been around enough bad men to know when he’s looking at one. Last night he hadn’t even been cognizant enough to realize they got off on the same floor. 

“What did he say, angel?” Spencer whispers, incapable of being anything but soft with you at the moment. Even though he senses something a lot like a tide of preemptive anger rising in his chest, painted over with layers of anxiety and guilt. He should’ve found a way to stay with you this morning. 

You sniffle and let your head fall again, forehead resting against his collar. Instinctively his hand slides to the back of your neck and even at the awkward angle he finds a way to press his lips to yours hair. “Can we talk about it later? I don’t feel good.”

If it’s making you this uncomfortable, Spencer really wants to know what passed between you and this neighbor. In fact, he’d be willing to bet a lot of your strange behavior this evening stems from something that occurred which you don’t feel comfortable telling him yet. But he manages to bite back anymore questions. He doesn’t want to make you feel interrogated. 

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” he says eventually, kindly, hand tracing down the length of your back and up again. “Why don’t you feel good?”

He doesn’t miss the way you reach up to discreetly wipe your cheek. But he won’t make you talk about anything you don’t want to talk about until you’re ready, and it seems like you’re already having a rough day. Which is not what he wanted. This is so far from what he wanted for you. He’s cursing himself for how he handled this whole situation. 

“Um, I just… I don’t know. I feel… bad. I’m sorry I’m being so weird.”

“You’re not being weird, honey. You had a hard day. You’re having a normal reaction to an abnormal set of circumstances.”

You sit up, sniffing and wiping your tears like you can just make the whole thing go away. 

“No, I am. I am. It’s all okay now, right? So I don’t know why I feel like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He watches helplessly. “Nothing is wrong with you. We’ve… it’s been a big couple of days. Mostly good, but I think you’re probably really tired. Emotionally and physically.” 

You bury your face in your hands and nod silently. He still feels like he’s shooting in the dark, but you’re not entirely comforted yet, and it’s killing him. 

“Whatever you’re feeling is okay. If this is… about last night, or this morning, or something entirely different—regardless of what it’s about, you’re not going to be… in trouble with me if you’re having complicated feelings. And you can talk to me. But it doesn’t have to be right now. We don’t have to figure it out all at once, okay?”

You press the heels of your palms into your eyes, and for a moment, his words sink into silence. When you do raise your head, nodding, the evidence of your discomfort is all over your face—reddened eyes, cheeks polished with wiped tears. But you take a deep breath and try to project whatever it is you think he wants to see. 

The back of your hand is soft under his thumb as he sweeps it, as if he could draw forth more information that way. People speak when they’re ready.

“Is there anything I can do?” He tries, all ramped brow and soft spoken. 

You’re looking at where he’s tracing swirls on your hand as you swallow and blink the last of your tears away. 

“Um… you can say no, but—do you think it would be okay for you to maybe stay again tonight?”

Spencer sucks in a breath, painfully aware that he’s about to let you down. 

“I… I haven’t been home in a week. I’ve been wearing this suit for two days straight and I don’t think I would want to share a bed with me again until I shower.” He watches you wilt and lifts a hand to stroke your hair. “But I do want to spend time with you… do you maybe want to come stay with me instead? No pressure—”

“Okay. Yes. Is that okay?”

Spencer’s brow knits. You seem even more enthused about the idea of going to his apartment, like now that the opportunity has presented itself you can’t wait to get out. Maybe you have some sort of black mold problem. 

“Of course. Do you wanna grab a few things and then we can go?”

“Um—I also haven’t showered today. Do you mind waiting?”

“Sure. Or you could use mine. With supervision, this time.”

Spencer is attempting to make a joke about your unplanned (and unmoderated) stay at his apartment last week after he left—but looking at your face now he’s wondering if he touched a nerve. 

“Like… one at a time? Or…”

He thought maybe you’d be more comfortable around him after last night—and it’s not like he hadn’t seen you naked before then, either.

“Do you wanna do it one at a time?” He asks gently. 

There’s this sparkly sort of longing in your eyes that he’s seen before, but you tamp it down like always. You’re so cautious. About everything. Even the things you’re curious about. It’s sweet and a little sad. 

“I’ve never… showered with anyone.”

The corner of Spencer’s mouth twitches as he pushes hair over your shoulder. “I know. You don’t have to. We could save like 100 gallons of water depending on how long your showers typically last, but—”

“Spencer—”

“Sorry, sorry—I didn’t—I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to pressure you. You absolutely can take your own shower. You can go first so you get the hot water.”

“No,” you laugh, and it’s like a sparkling cloud of gold has settled around you, fractals bouncing off the shine of your cheeks and eyes—the sound of your laughter, the look of it, is such beautiful relief he can’t believe how good it feels, but it fades from you quickly. “It sounds… I think I want to, I just… I don’t wanna, like… do… anything.”

For a split second your veiled language mystifies him and then he realizes what you’re trying to say without saying. Something has changed since yesterday, when you brazenly referred to it as fucking, and today, when you can’t even say sex. He’s gotten as far as it being something your creepy neighbor said. Maybe. He needs to know what. 

But that’s not the topic at hand. 

“We don’t have to. I didn’t mean to imply that we would do anything like that. I don’t expect anything from you.”

You swallow. 

“Okay. I wasn’t sure.”

About what?

He says your name. No response. 

“Can you look at me, please?”

It takes you a moment, and your head raises like you might need some oil in your hinges, but eventually you manage. Spencer hopes the way he’s rubbing your leg is comforting. 

“You know I’m never, ever going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, right?”

To his horror, your answer isn’t an immediate and resounding yes. Instead you look back down and cover his hand with your own, fiddling nervously with his fingers. 

Eventually, you reply, “Yeah… I know. I just thought… I’m not sure. Maybe it’s supposed to be different now.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Nothing has to be different. We’re still doing everything on your schedule, okay? And as for the next few days, at least—I think it might be a good idea to take sex off the table altogether.”

Your eyes narrow and you hesitate. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want you worrying about it. And I don’t think it would feel good for you right now. I think there are things we need to talk about, but… we’ve probably tried enough for a while, hm?”

You give him a shy nod and hum your agreement. For a moment he lets his hand linger on your leg and then pulls it back. 

“Okay. Do you want my help packing a bag, or should I wait out here?”

“You can wait. It should only take a minute.” You pause, halfway up to look pensive. “Um, Spencer—do you think it would be okay if maybe I… if I stayed tonight and tomorrow? I just—I wanna get out of here, for a bit.”

He frowns but doesn’t hesitate. “Of course. Can I ask why?”

“It’s just… suffocating sometimes,” you call as you turn and hurry down the hallway to the bedroom. “Feels like my neighbors are on top of me, like they’re… breathing down my neck, half the time.”

Sure, bigger apartments exist—but it’s not like you’re in a studio. And you’ve never mentioned feeling that way before. That bad feeling is starting to come back—like you’re not telling him something he needs to know. But is it worse to let you deal with it yourself until you’re ready to talk or to force it from you?

A few minutes later you return, a duffel of your own over your shoulder and full to bursting. 

“So I’m an idiot. My phone was literally in the pocket of my jeans on the floor.” You drop the bag as you bend down by the door to pull on your favorite slippers. “Oh—I think I forgot my charger, can you grab it? It’s by my bed.”

Spencer of course obliges, and is secretly pleased to be in your room again, in the light this time, so he can see better. It’s sweet. The pictures on the walls, the plants and the knickknacks and the sticky notes scrawled with messy reminders on every surface and the sweater hanging over the back of a chair—the one you’d been wearing at the cafe all those months ago—it all feels so you. He wonders why the two of you don’t spend more time here. 

He lets himself linger for only a minute before remembering his task, but as he reaches down to unplug your charger, whatever dopey smile he’d been wearing evaporates. The sheets have been stripped from your bed, and he can see why—there’s a striking stain of dried blood, and several surrounding dots, soaked into the mattress. Not much, but enough to make him feel horrendously guilty. He cringes, imagining what it must’ve been like to wake up all alone to nothing but your own blood. Poor girl. Of course he’d noticed some, last night when he was doing his best at cleaning you up, but it had been dark, and he was exhausted, and he hadn’t done enough. 

“Where’d your sheets go, baby?” He asks once back by the front door with his own bag on his shoulder, setting a gentle hand on your lower back and holding out your charger for you. You jump slightly, and he makes circles on your back, wishing there was something he could do to settle you. 

“Oh! They—they got ruined. I threw them out. It’s fine. I have others.”

So you didn’t have enough energy this morning to walk a few feet to your shower, but stripping your bed, getting dressed, and walking down to the trash chute at the end of the hall had been top of your priority list. 

You swallow as he undoes the locks and holds the door open for you, and pretend like you’re not doing surveillance to either side as you stand in the hallway, locking your door again like you can’t get out of here fast enough. 

Spencer casts a sidelong glance at you and wonders if you’re intentionally avoiding eye contact. He tries not to think like a profiler. He tries not to assign meaning to your actions, but he can’t help it. He can’t not notice. 

He can’t not worry. 

And he can’t not wonder what you’re not telling him. 

-

part nine