#bryan kneef fanfiction

[storiesofsvu]

Journey to the Past Ch 23

Bryan Kneef x reader

It was very safe to say that the next week was one hell of an awkward one. You were irritated that you weren’t able to get into a doctor right away, wanting to get this sorted out as soon as possible but the earliest appointment you could snag was Friday at four in the afternoon. The pessimist side of you was certain that the tests had been flukes, that this was a warning sign of something worse going on in your reproductive system, another bad cyst or something of the like. Maybe the tests had been expired, you’d forgotten to even check until you were sitting in your office on Monday pretending to work. You were thankful at least that you still had your apartment, able to spend some extra hours in the office and blame the late night and not wanting to drive across town to avoid Bryan, not wanting to let him know and thus panic before you had confirmation. You hated it, having to spend a full week in limbo, but your hope wasn’t very high considering your history and none of that was affecting anything positively.

You were even more thankful with just how patient he was with you, giving you the space without asking too many questions, accepting the excuse of a long hard week of work, overwhelmed with cases. He still went out of his way to drive up to your firm, making sure you had lunch (and a fresh coffee you pretended to sip at while he was still there) and were taken care of. You knew that he loved you no matter what and was just hoping that would extend to your current stipulation. You’d spent a couple of nights at his place (that was now both of yours), but retired to bed early, the exhaustion setting in heavily being a nice excuse to avoid the nightly wine.

Which is exactly why on Friday Bryan had left work early to make sure the apartment was not only clean, but as close to spotless as he could get it. He knew he’d been lagging in that department this week and felt bad about it, so he did as much as he could. Laundry was tossed into the machines, sheets were changed and refreshed, the living room was tidied and vacuumed and the pile up of coffee mugs in the sink got put in the dishwasher and ran through. He’d stopped at the grocery store on the way home, picking up things for a lavish dinner including appetizers and a pricey bottle of Argentinian wine. He knew you’d had a long stressful week and wanted to make sure you were well taken care of, and he figured you probably wouldn’t want to go out tonight after it all. The appetizers were easy to take care of, setting the display up on the kitchen island so he could start on the main course, wanting it to be ready as close as possible to when you got home.

Once the chicken was in the oven he poured out a glass of leftover wine from the previous night for himself while he waited, retreating further into the house to change into something more comfortable before swapping over a load of laundry. A case file lay open on the island that he was going over when he heard the front door open and the tell tale sign of your heels on the hardwood. You rounded the corner of the hallway and let out a small sigh, a tiny smile on your cheeks when Bryan’s eyes met yours.

“Hey.” He greeted with a warm grin and you hummed in response, dropping your bag and blazer onto the couch, practically kicking off your heels before letting out a groan at the shoes no longer pinching at your feet and making a beeline to Bryan.

“Hi.” You murmured into the crook of his neck, appreciating the way his arms tightly wound around you, letting you rest in his embrace for a few moments as you let out a couple of breaths, his lips brushing against your hairline.

“Long day?”

“Long week.” You replied, finally letting go, accepting the gentle kiss he gave you.

“Well, here.” He reached around you, pouring a glass of the lavish wine out for you, handing you the glass and you let out a little sigh, turning in his arms to face the island.

“What is all this?” You asked, your brow furrowing. You could smell that he was cooking dinner from the moment you’d set foot in the apartment but hadn’t taken into account the platters set up on the island. Bryan let out a soft chuckle, wrapping you in his arms from behind, his lips kissing at your neck gently.

“I felt like you were having a bit of a rough go this week.” He murmured, his words broken up by kisses, “wanted to treat you but I figured you wouldn’t want to go out, so why not bring the fancy restaurant to you?”

“You’re too sweet.” You picked up his hand in yours, brushing your lips across his knuckles and he gently squeezed at you. Your eyes glided across the island and you couldn’t help but let out an ironic laugh at the sight, Bryan had set up a plate of oysters, a homemade charcuterie and cheese board beside it and of course, the wine.

“What?” He asked, teeth nipping at your skin, “you already knew I could cook, is this that much of a surprise to you? You know I love you.” His lips trailed across your skin as he spoke.

“I don’t know how you managed to fucking do it, but I can’t eat any of this.” You stifled another laugh, Bryan still distracted in nuzzling against your skin.

“Oh c’mon.” He chuckled, “you love oysters.”

“I do.” You nodded, “doesn’t mean I can eat them.”

“You know they’re an aphrodisiac?” He muttered, finally turning you half in his arms so he was facing you, your sides to the island as he cupped at your cheek, lips chasing after yours.

“You really think you need an aphrodisiac to get me in bed?”

“No but figured it couldn’t hurt.” One of his hands vanished from your waist, drizzling some hot sauce onto an oyster that he then sucked back, “they’re fresh, and fucking delicious.”

“Bry…” you laughed, unable to keep the grin off your cheeks at the devilish look in his eyes as he continued to tease you, shifting you in his arms again so you were facing the island and all the bits and bites.

“Try the cheese, that lavender honey goes fantastically with the blue.” He nuzzled into the crook of your neck again, “it took me an hour to figure out the fucking salami roses.” His hand started to reach out for the soft cheese and you finally found your words again.

“Give me the gruyere.”

“Knew I’d get you somehow.” He chuckled, picking up a cube and guiding it to your mouth before he shifted again to face you, his hip resting against the island, “it pairs perfectly with the wine.” He picked up your glass and your fingers gently pushed it back to the island and he let out a scoff of a laugh. “What?”

“Out of the things on this island, there’s approximately five things I can eat and that includes the pickles.”

“Did you eat already?” His brow furrowed, “Larissa said you’d left work early for something.”

“No. I—”

“Dinner’s almost ready,” he smiled, pecking your cheek softly, “settle in, have some wine, trust me, it’s a good bottle.” He slid the glass toward you again and you let out a small laugh,

“Bry, I can’t.”

“You had rough week, let the past be in the past, have some incredible wine.” He laughed, stepping toward the stove when the timer went off to move a pot off a burner. “it’s what you deserve.” He moved back to you, an arm winding around your waist while he took a sip of his own wine, “I’ve got to be able to spoil my girl, that’s all I was trying to do sweetheart.”

“I know.” You smiled softly, accepting the kiss he left on your lips.

“I’m fine if you ate without me,” his lips started to trail across your jaw, “I can eat later… cause I can definitely think of something I’d rather eat right now instead.”

“Bry!” You laughed, hands attempting to grasp at his body as his mouth began to make its way down your neck.

“What’d’you say, have some wine and relax then let me make you even more relaxed? Hmm? Enjoy the food later after you’ve worked up an appetite again?”

“Bryan…” you nudged at his chin and all he did in return was attempt to hand you the glass of wine again before burying himself in the crook of your neck, “Bry…” you couldn’t help but giggle at the sensation of his beard scratching against your skin, “Bryan, c’mon.”

“Take a sip and I’ll stop.” He murmured, his tongue soothing the spot he’d just bit and your fingers threaded into his hair in a very unsuccessful attempt to tug him off you.

“Bryan…I’m pregnant.”

The words slipped from your lips; it wasn’t exactly how you’d been planning on telling him but it seemed to be the only way to gain his full attention. Even then it took a few moments for him to actually hear you, his lips continuing to kiss at your skin before you finally felt his body tense for a second before he pulled his face from the crook of your neck.

“Wait… can you seriously not eat cheese while you’re pregnant?” He asked, a worried look on his face and you couldn’t help the bark of a laugh.

“Is that seriously your first question here?” You asked, watching the way his eyes suddenly darted from yours down to your stomach and back up. He felt the all too familiar sensation suddenly burning in his gut and start to creep up his throat as he scrambled through his thoughts to try and form proper words.

“You’re pregnant?” He asked quietly and you nodded, he felt a pang within him at the fact that you didn’t have an excited smile on your face, nor did you look like you were panicking, you were stoic, nearly unreadable in the moment. “Are… are you sure?”

“Yeah.” You let out a small breath, “Kim was freaking out last week ‘cause she was late, I took a test with her to help calm her nerves.”

“You’ve known all week?” Bryan stilled in front of you, a moment of irritation flashing over his features and you gave him a knowing glance as you let out a huff.

“No.” You shook your head, gently squeezing at his hand “I was certain it was a false positive. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure. I didn’t want to freak you out for no reason and I mean, there might still not be any reason to freak out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I may have cleared the twelve week mark but considering my age and history, who knows how things’ll turn out.” You watched as his brow furrowed, the wheels turning in his head, “what?” Your voice suddenly soft, timid as it left your lips, worry etching its way across your face before Bryan glanced back up at you.

“You’re three months along?”

“Almost four.” You replied, wringing your hands, “listen…” your hand met his lapel gently, “I know there’s a lot to unpack here…” you felt the butterflies building in your gut, terrified that you were about to lose the man you loved because of your decision. “Even if I wanted to, it’s too late to terminate. But this is what I’ve always wanted, a baby, a family… I thought I’d lost that opportunity nearly a decade ago.” Tears began to blur into your eyes, “but sometimes life kicks our asses in the greatest way and gives us the second chance we never thought we’d have. I’m having this baby. And I know that might not be what you imagined for your future, so I understand if this is the end for us.”

Bryan looked up at you with an unreadable expression on his face, you could see the slight pain deep in his eyes but weren’t sure exactly where it was coming from. He on the other hand saw nothing but worry in yours, knowing just how many things you were probably terrified of right now. His hand shifted to cup at your cheek, thumb stroking at your skin gently before he spoke.

“I told you I wanted a future with you.” He said gently, his voice impeccably soft as his chest swelled, “no matter what kind of future that is, I still want it.” He felt you let out a breath, your shoulders sagging in relief as your body relaxed in front of him, “I may have a lot of reluctance in myself as a father but I know you’ll be the most incredible mother in the entire world. It may take some baby steps on my behalf but I know you’ll be able to help me become the parent our baby deserves.”

“Our baby…” You nearly whispered, looking up at him with a happy smile.

“We’re having a baby…” He let out a bright laugh and you shrieked as he suddenly pulled you to him in a tight hug, lifting you up off the floor as you laughed. He only let go of you when the timer for the oven went off and he let out a quiet swear, reluctantly stepping away from you to pull the tray from the oven and grab plates from the cupboard as you crossed through the room. You grabbed your purse, crossing back over to the island.

“Smells amazing.”

“Oh fuck.” Bryan swore, his head shooting in your direction, “can you have cream cheese? It’s cooked?” You couldn’t help but laugh at his sheer innocence on the subject at hand considering just how brilliant his brain was when it came to the legal world.

“Yes I can.”

“You said almost four months…” Despite being calm Bryan also felt his mind going a million miles a minute as it raced through everything he did know about babies and pregnancy, “isn’t that when people start telling people?”

“Yeah,” you let out a small sigh, “but I’d really rather not do that yet.” He noticed the shyness in your voice, the way you nearly wrapped around yourself as you leant against the island and he stepped toward you, tilting your chin up to find a misting of tears in your eyes, a frown tugging at the corner of your lips.

“Hey… hey…” he assured softly, a hand resting on your hip, “I thought this was supposed to be a happy thing, why the melancholy face?”

“I’m scared.” You admitted after a minute, your voice doing its best not to shake, “I’m in my forties, I had a huge struggle getting pregnant before…this probably isn’t going to be an easy walk in the park or anything… all the risks are higher, I swear I got a bigger stack of brochures about the risks than the positives.”

“Are there any they’re particularly worried about right now?” He asked and you shook your head, “was it just a pregnancy test today?”

“It was the one thing after another. I explained the test I took, my history, they did another test, a blood test and then rushed me for an ultrasound.” You reached out, grabbing at his arm, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you I just didn’t have time and didn’t know how to explain everything over the phone, I would’ve much rather had you been there.”

“They did an ultrasound?”

“Yeah…” your hands slipped into your purse, flitting through until you pulled the small black and white photograph from within it, placing it down on the island in front of Bryan, “so far it’s one happy healthy baby…”

“Oh shit…” he almost timidly reached out for it, picking it up off the counter before his eyes flitted between it and your stomach, finally meeting your gaze as his hand reached out to stroke at your cheek, “and mom?”

“Healthy.” You nodded, the smile unable to be restrained as you nodded and Bryan let out a sigh of relief, kissing your forehead before he turned around, pinning the ultrasound to the fridge with a magnet and turned back to you, cupping your cheeks.

“Then we take the rest of this one day at a time.” He kissed you softly, “I’ll do everything I can to catch myself up to speed, but in the meantime we’ve got the money, we’ve got the connections, you’re going to have the best doctors in the country, we’ll run every test that’s safe for the baby and we’re going to do this.”

“Are you sure?” Tears began to blur into your eyes as a tiny laugh escaped your lips, “you really want this?”

“I do.” He kissed you gently, “you’re my future. And now this little bean is too.” One of his hands dropped to your stomach, resting gently there for a moment before your hand curved over top of his, fingers slipping between his.

“We’re having a baby….” You whispered, pure adoration pouring from your eyes up to his as he smiled back down at you, feeling his chest about to explode with the total and complete love wrapping around the two of you in that moment, only able to press a tender kiss to your lips before he replied.

“We’re having a baby.”

_____________________________

@detective-giggles @plaidbooks @thatesqcrush @witches-unruly-heart @beccabarba @bisexual-dreamer02 @amelia-song-pond @madamsnape921 @whimsicallymad @mrsrafaelbarba @mysticfalls01 @ssaic-jareau @caracalwithchips @barbasbodaciousbeard @alwaysachorusgirll @beardedbarba @michael-rooker @rafivadafreddy @lustvolle-liebe @anlin2058 @fandom-princess-forevermore @tinyboxxtink @alexusonfire @xovalliegirlxo @somethingimaginative17 @momlifebehard @misscharlielulu @fighterkimburgess

[thatesqcrush]

Alright, making plans, making plans. Send me a request for any* REE characters & a #/prompt

Note: I reserve the right to not write for some characters/requests/prompts.

Kinktober 2024 Prompt List

Please feel free to share and use the list below. Or the header! This is only for anyone 18+ years of age, minors - please do not interact. Please feel free to tag me in any and all Kinktober stories that you post, I’m eager to read them. Have fun and have a wonderful Kinktober!

Handjobs // Temperature Play // Breast Worship

Piercing // Double Penetration // Voyeurism

Sixty-nine // Public Sex // Pet Play

Sensory Deprivation // Leather or Latex // Watersports

Rough Sex // Anal Beads // Bondage

A/B/O Heats or Ruts // Sadism-Masochism // Anonymous Sex

Bruising or Bitemarks // Virgin // Ice Play

Flogging // Swallowing // Cock Warming

Anal // Praise Kink // Food Play

Face Sitting // Lingerie // Overstimulation

Gags // Shaving // Knife Play 

Sex Toys // Dirty Talk // Breath Play

Pregnancy // Aftercare // Roleplay

Gangbang // Collaring // Candle - Wax Play

Hair Pulling // Glory Hole // Teasing

Nipple Play // Cock Worship // Lactation 

Squirting // Dom - Sub // Period Sex

Cockring or Plugs // Foot Fettish // Massaging

Suspension // Fisting // Mirror Sex

Infidelity - Cuckolding // Cunnilingus // Threesome

Gun Play // Monsterfucking // Shower - Bath Sex

Deepthroating // Thigh Riding or Fucking // Choking 

Licking // Degradation // Breeding 

Glove Kink // Masturbation //  Somnophilia

Pussy Slapping // Non Con - Dub Con // Titty Fucking

Pegging // Edgeplay // Seduction 

Lap Dances // Hate Fucking - Angry Sex // Breast Worship

Fucking Machine // Phone Sex // Impact Play

Branding // Hunter - Prey // Uniforms

Weight Gain // Object Insertion // Sex Pollen 

Free For All 

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

Bryan Kneef:  Breaking Point, Part Nine

Word Count:  6786

TW:  Angst (job loss; DUI; family estrangement); fluff (reconciliation); smut (PiV, unprotected).  18+ only.

AN:  Part nine of a nine part series.  Other parts can be found here.

The night of the STR Laurie holiday party, you had asked Bryan Kneef if he had a rock bottom.  The implication in your tone was that no, he didn’t have one.  But that wasn’t true.

Bryan Kneef had a rock bottom.  In truth, he had been working his way to it for years and years, but the real, final skid started only a few days after your disastrous hookup the night of the party.

He had thought that it was odd how no one in his group chat had mentioned the plans for St. Kitts for the year.  The morning after your hookup, he sent out a few texts as feelers.  It was a day or two later when he got a reply – a halting series of texts from his stepbrother, gently explaining that everyone would prefer if he didn’t come this year.  

“Maybe next year?” Kyle texted.

Bryan didn’t respond to that.  He managed to cobble together a last-minute trip to Maui, but it was lonely.  The spectacular sunsets, the sea breezes all reminded him of you now, and you weren’t there.  No one was there but him.

Kyle’s gentle rebuff around St. Kitts was just a precursor.  Bryan’s stepbrother met him for lunch early in January, and over seared bay scallops, he informed Bryan that unfortunately, he wasn’t invited to the spring nuptials between Kyle and Jessa.  

Normally Bryan wouldn’t care, since weddings were just bullshit anyway.  He was still hurting from St. Kitts, though, and honestly – Kyle was an only child too, and Bryan was the closest thing he had to a brother.  Why wasn’t he invited?

“Jessa is really close with her cousin,” Kyle said after hesitating a moment.  He glanced up at Bryan and took in his blank face, then sighed in exasperation.  “You took her home after the engagement party.”

The memory was a little hazy; Bryan had been mostly tipsy and a little drunk.  “Oh.  Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah,” Kyle mimicked.  “Jesus, Bry.  You don’t even remember, do you?  You had sex with Jessa’s cousin and then kicked her out immediately like a complete douche.”  Kyle shook his head.  “I’m sorry about the wedding, but Jessa doesn’t want any drama.  I don’t want any drama.”

-----

If that were the end of it, Bryan would have been fine.

So he was mostly estranged from his remaining family.  Fine.

So he had grown apart from his oldest friends.  Fine.

It wasn’t the end of it, though.  Bryan had a long way to fall to hit his rock bottom, and because he was an asshole who drove everyone away from him, he was alone for all of it.

*****

When you got home after the disastrous night with Bryan, you took the weekend to give your life a long, appraising look.  Ever the planner, you wrote out a list of things you wanted to achieve in the upcoming year, and at some point on Saturday night (after you finished off half a bottle of Moscato), you made a snap decision.  When you woke up on Sunday morning, late, your email was full of confirmations – airplane tickets, vacation rental.

It wasn’t the worst thing you could have drunk-bought.

Everything else with Bryan Kneef aside, the trip to St. Kitts got into your bloodstream and never left.  It was the travel bug, for a woman who had never traveled further than Missouri her entire life before.  You had been born and raised in Chicago.  You attended college there, and you found a job there.  But St. Kitts had reminded you that the world was big and diverse and beautiful, and if that was the lesson you took from your interlude of madness with Bryan….there were worse lessons to take away from it.

You spent you holiday break in Rincon, Puerto Rico which felt fitting.  “Rincon” meant corner, and it felt like exactly the right place for you to see out the old year.  You found a small studio apartment that overlooked the ocean, and because Bryan and his too-cool-for-school friends were absent, you did everything.  You snorkeled.  You tried surfing, and you discovered that you did not have the balance for surfing.  You went for hikes and got your first massage.  You went horseback riding.

And when you got home to Chicago, you got to work on the rest of your new year’s to-do list.

First thing was first:  find a new job.

The truth was, STR Laurie bought out your firm years ago.  It was fine as a company, paid well enough, but there were too many inconsistencies between departments.  Some groups got bonuses, plenty of days off, the occasional catered lunches….other groups, not so much.  The senior litigators seemed to do whatever they wanted with little more than slaps on the wrist from H.R.

There was something deeply unsettling about your work.  You had somehow fell into a corridor of the law where you helped the very rich defend themselves and their money and property, as if they couldn’t spare a hit to their outrageous fortunes when they behaved terribly.  It made you uncomfortable.  You had grown up in that hazy place of working class and lower middle class:  your mother had been a housewife, and your father a carpenter.  You had attended public school.  Your college career had been funded by Pell grants and a generous scholarship.

So you left STR Laurie after securing a coveted role with the Exoneration Project.  Your new boss never sneered at you and called you just a paralegal.

Second thing:  find a new place to live.

You had been living in Wicker Park for a while now, and you always rented because you were holding out on the hope of finding someone, getting married, buying a place together.  So much of your parents’ unequal marriage had seeped into your subconscious without you even realizing it.  You’d been waiting on a man before you allowed your life to really start.

You were limited in what you could afford in Chicagoland with your salary, but when you found the place in Ravenswood, you knew it was the one.  It was love at first sight.  You had been waiting on a person, but it was a house instead – a well-sized place that had been stripped to the bones by an ambitious amateur house-flipper before the mortgage caught up to them and it went into foreclosure.  But it had a nice, small backyard and everything was updated – electric, roof, plumbing.  

And you had been your father’s little helper for all of your childhood, so you knew how to hang drywall and install tile.

You made an offer, and you were stunned when it was accepted.

By the end of summer, you had a new job, a new house.  The house wasn’t done, of course – most of it was still torn down to the studs – but it was livable.  You had a functional bathroom and kitchen, and you were camped out in a guest room while you worked on your bedroom.

In September, with the shortened days and the chilly nights, you got lonely.  Instead of going out and finding some broken asshole to try and fix, you just adopted a dog.  A dog, you found, was infinitely more trainable than a man and far more loyal.  You named the scrappy mutt Joey, mostly because you loved how confused people seemed to get about a dog with a human name.

You weren’t sure how much of your life overhaul was organic and how much was caused by Bryan.  Certainly, you had been drifting through life since your mother died the year after you graduated from college.  Your dissatisfaction – a growing frustration with your life – had only grown every year since.  But it was something about that awful final night with Bryan that seemed to spark the change, and by the start of October, your anger and frustration at the man had burned off like fog rolling off of the lake.

If you ever saw him again, you might even thank him.

*****

STR Laurie let Bryan go in March.  “Let go” was a polite euphemism for “fired unceremoniously,” which is to say:  Bryan Kneef was marched into H.R. one morning, read a list of unforgivable sins, and then marched out of the building with a security detail.

On the list of sins was one glaring omission – blackmailing an employee into a holiday vacation – so he knew that secret was safe.

In the end, it came down to his abrasive behavior.  Lawyers – especially really good ones like him – got away with a lot.  Other industries wouldn’t entertain an employee like him:  the casual cruelty and the more intentional cruelty.  His department had bled personnel until he was completely staffed with people like him, namely, douchy frat boys.  It was fun at first, but the lesson came too late to save Bryan’s job:  people like him were fucking exhausting to deal with.

Bryan wondered if you’d gloat once you heard, but he didn’t think you would.  You were, at your core, a kind person.  A thoughtful person.  At worst, you’d shake your head knowingly at the news of his demise.

It was harder for him to find a job than he realized.  He used to be pursued by headhunters; now he was calling people in his alumni network for crumbs.  There seemed to be millions of lawyers in Chicago, but the legal community was still tiny.  Everyone knew he’d been canned by STR Laurie.

He got the DUI in April.  

To be fair, he wasn’t drunk.  Not drunk drunk.  He’d only had a few drinks, but they had been on an empty stomach, and when he blew through the red light on Michigan Avenue, he had been a prime target for the cop sitting there.

But those were excuses, and as part of his plea deal, he had to deal with his problems.  The chirpy little ASA wanted him to commit to AA, but Bryan negotiated for a private therapist instead.  He had thought, incorrectly, that he could charm his way through therapy.  

No chance – he ended up with an older man who looked like a kindly Santa but who fucking tore through all of Bryan’s glib snark within the first ten minutes of their first session.

Here was Bryan Kneef’s rock bottom:  unemployed, friendless, estranged from his family, with a suspended driver’s license.  He had a failed engagement because he’d been a cheating bastard, and after that, all he had was a string of failed affairs and half-relationships.  Anytime a good woman made him feel something, he pushed her away.  You had been the latest, but you certainly weren’t the only one.

The nice thing about rock bottom, however, is that there is nowhere to go but up.  Sure, it was a cliché, but Bryan Kneef was sufficiently humbled now.  A little cliché was fine by him.

-----

It was almost the end of October when Bryan saw you again.  He had found a job – finally – with the state attorney’s office in Cook County.  Ironic, that.  Bryan used to represent the rich and powerful of Chicago.  Now he prosecuted them as an ASA.

He was at the courthouse, loitering around the lobby.  It was one of the more difficult moments; he always wanted to celebrate a victory with a drink, but he knew it was dangerous to celebrate alone.  Bryan wasn’t dry by any stretch, but he had identified (with his therapist’s help) harmful patterns.  He had rules now – never drink alone aside from a glass of red wine before bed.  Never drink more than two drinks in one sitting.  And so forth.

Never get so blindingly drunk as to drive away the one woman who seemed to enjoy being with him.

It was stupid, but when Bryan won a guilty verdict, he always wanted to reach out to let you know.  He thought that you, out of everyone he knew, would be pleased by his sudden shift to the right side of the law.  

It was like a scene out of a movie.  He stood in the lobby, fiddling with his phone uselessly, and thought of you.  And like magic – there you were.  It was so unexpected that he had to do a double take.

You looked beautiful in a vaguely-retro looking tweed suit – the skirt hit right at your knee, and the coat was perfectly cut to your form.  In the biggest surprise, your feet were clad in a pair of patent leather pumps instead of your usual colorful flats.  You looked like a lawyer, but Bryan knew the timeline wasn’t right.  You couldn’t have graduated from law school and sat for the bar all in the span of ten months.  You hadn’t even showed interest in becoming a lawyer.

You were standing and talking with an older woman that he didn’t recognize.  Did STR Laurie acquire a new firm?  Whatever you had been at the courthouse for had ended well, judging by the broad smile on your face.  

When you worked for him, you could feel him staring at you about half of the time.  You must have felt the weight of his gaze now, because you turned your head and scanned the lobby – and saw him.

It wasn’t that your smile fell, exactly.  It was more like it receded a little, like the outgoing tide.  The smile left your eyes, but stayed on your lips where it hardened just a fraction.  The woman with you caught your gaze, and she said her farewells and left you standing there.

*****

There was no good reason for you to get a drink with Bryan, but you weren’t the same person you had been a year ago.  From the looks of him, Bryan wasn’t the same person either.

He looked much the same – maybe a shade thinner, but nothing extreme.  His expression was markedly different.  When he walked over to you, there was no sneer or frown on his face.  He looked….happy to see you.

There was a nearby martini bar that was a favorite of the courthouse set, so that’s where you went.  Surprise number one:  Bryan ordered a mineral water.  In the entire time you’d known him, you had never seen him drink something that wasn’t alcohol.  You had always just assumed he stayed hydrated by the miniscule amount of water that melted from the ice in his whiskey.

Surprise number two:  he was charming, and not in his usual asshole way.  He was…nice.  You wanted to reach out and touch him, see if he was real and not some android replacement.  For all the time you’d spent with him, he had never once showed an interest in your life.  Now, he was asking you a ton of questions.  He seemed genuinely interested, so you told him all about your new job, your new house.

Surprise number three:  Bryan told you about his life.  He was probably hedging a bit, but he was shockingly honest.  He had been fired.  He had gotten a DUI.  He was in therapy.

The final surprise of the evening was when he apologized to you.  It was a genuine apology, not the half-assed sorry’s he gave you at the holiday party.  He looked you dead in the eye and apologized.

“I treated you terribly,” he said.  “And there’s no excuse for it.”  He glanced down at his glass of water, toyed with the wedge of lime on the rim.

It was weird seeing him so uncharacteristically humble.  “It’s okay,” you replied.

“It’s not okay,” he said with a firm shake of his head.  “I blackmailed you.”

“It wasn’t blackmail.”

“It was though.  I weaponized your kindness for your coworkers to force you into a holiday with me.  Forced you to pretend to be my girlfriend.”  He slumped a little, his shoulders rounded in apparent shame.  “Forced you…” He trailed off and didn’t finish the sentence, but his intent was obvious.

“Hey.”  You reached out and tapped the back of his hand.  “You didn’t force me to do anything.  I could have gone to H.R.  The vacation to St. Kitts felt like a mutually beneficial thing.”  You paused until he looked up at you, and you added, “and you definitely didn’t force me to sleep with you.”

It made him smile.  It was a small smile, but probably the first real one you’d ever seen on his face.  

“You’re too nice for your own good,” he said.

He was probably right in that regard.  When you both went to leave and stood out on the sidewalk in the chilly autumn evening, he hesitated a moment and then reached for you.  You stepped into his outstretched arms and let him pull you into a warm hug.  His behavior was completely different, but he smelled exactly the same – the cologne that smelled like an expensive, musky wood fire.

“I’d like to call you sometime,” he said once he finally released you.  Bryan Kneef probably never looked uncertain in his life, but he seemed almost shy now.  Shy-adjacent.

“I’d like that too,” you told him.  

*****

Bryan knew he didn’t deserve anything from you – not your time, not your forgiveness – but you gave him both.

It was strange, dating a woman.  Dating in his previous life meant buy them some drinks, then fuck them, then repeat until someone got bored or found greener pastures.

Bryan knew he could likely charm you back into bed, but he had spent too much time in therapy picking apart his relationships with women.  How he focused on shallow encounters.  How he fled from connection, feeling.  How it all traced back to his mother’s untimely death from cancer in his childhood.

He eased into things with you now.  It was the most difficult thing he ever had to do, delaying intimacy, but he did it because he wanted intimacy.  He didn’t want to just fuck you.  He wanted what he almost had in St. Kitts.

For the rest of October, he kept everything in first gear.  There were a few lunches during the workweek and a few dinners.  One Sunday night, he was feeling especially low – his bad feelings stirred up in anticipation for Monday afternoon’s therapy appointment – so he called you.  You took his call, and you talked with him for two hours, listening to everything he spewed at you, offering support.  Your mother had died from cancer too in the year after you graduated from college, and Bryan felt a warm (albeit sad) kinship with you over it.  Both of you, motherless.  Both of you with fathers who remarried too quickly and ignored their children’s needs.

By November, you were the one who moved things forward a little.  You invited him to your house, and the old Bryan would have openly mocked you for how unfinished it was.  New Bryan could see the potential, and more than that – he saw the gleam you got in your eyes as you showed him what you’d done already and what you planned to do.  

He wasn’t even jealous when the two of you sat on your couch and your mangy mutt crowded him out and got between you.  It was a first for him – a shelter dog cock-blocking him.

By the end of November, though, he was invited to spend the night at your place, and you shut your bedroom door firmly in your dog’s face (but only after handing him a huge rawhide bone in apology, and promising him an extra-long walk the next day).  

And then when you turned to face him, to step into his waiting arms, there it was – that fucking smile like he was the only person in the world that you wanted to see.

*****

Before, the two of you had fought:  the snowball fight, his drunken rant on New Year’s Eve, your own emotional raging at the STR Laurie holiday party.  Your first fight as a couple came in December.  You hadn’t realized that you were a couple now, but the fight revealed the fact to you.

You had started the tradition of traveling for your holiday breaks.  Your father had remarried a full month into his widowerhood years ago and started a second family, and neither you nor your sister really fit in with them.  Your sister was married with a kid, and she spent her holidays with her in-laws.  With no one to spend the holidays with, and after the thrill of going to St. Kitts, you traveled.  

Last year you had gone to Puerto Rico on a whim, but this year, you had planned a little better.  You had chosen the Maldives all the way back in June.  The plane tickets were booked, the little rental on the beach was booked.

When Bryan broached the subject of the holidays, you told him about the Maldives, and his face got that stony quality you remembered from working with him.  Before you knew it, the fight was upon you.  He wanted you to cancel your plans and join him in St. Kitts.  You wanted him to get real – why would you go back to St. Kitts and relive that?  No infinity pool was that good.

The real issue wasn’t St. Kitts.  The real issue was that he wanted to spend the holidays with you.  It didn’t matter where.  That fact hit you like a load of bricks.

Therapy wasn’t lost on the man.  You’d give him that much.  You watched him as he physically took a step away from you, and you swore you could see his therapist’s words rolling through his head as the silence descended between the two of you.  You gave him all the time he needed.

When he finally stepped back towards you, he took a deep breath and held out his hands in a conciliatory motion.  In a move that probably pained him – the man who never needed anything or anyone – he looked you dead in the eyes and asked if he could join you in the Maldives.

“Bryan, I…” You hesitated to answer him; you had to get the right tone.  “I’d be happy for you to join me, but – “

“But,” he echoed, and his face looked set and stony again.

“But…the place I rented is not…not some villa on the hillside.  It’s just a small little cottage.”

“So?”

You stared at him a long moment.  This was the man who had deep and strong opinions about the top notes of his whiskey.  This was the man who once dressed down a paralegal for having a four-in-hand tie knot instead of a half-Windsor.  This was a man who openly sneered at any cut of beef that hadn’t been hand-massaged from womb to slaughterhouse.

This was the man who mocked your glee and wonder of the world.  Sure, he seemed different now, but how would he feel when he saw the vacation you had planned?  The tiny cottage with no infinity pool, no waterfall showerhead, no giant Viking range in the kitchen?

Bryan must have read the expression on your face and understood its source because he snorted and gestured around him.  “Baby, you don’t even have walls in half of your house.  Whatever you rented in the Maldives is fine.”

You crossed your arms.  “I don’t believe you.”

Some vestiges of the old Bryan remained.  He was still a smarmy bastard sometimes, and he fixed you with a fully vulpine smile that only softened once you uncrossed your arms and let him pull you into an embrace.  It seemed like it was easier to talk to you sometimes when he didn’t have to look at you, so you weren’t shocked when he muttered against your head, so low that you nearly missed it.  

“I just want to spend the holiday with you,” he mumbled softly.  When you joked that he sounded like he was veering into boyfriend territory, he tightened his arms around you and replied, “would that be so bad?”

Sometimes you wondered if you had really drowned in St. Kitts and everything that followed was some sort of purgatory-based test to gain entry into heaven.  It made your head spin, the unreality of the situation.  At this time two years ago, you were so furious with your asshole boss that you drilled him in his smug, handsome face with snowballs.  Now he was holding you tight to him and asking you in a roundabout way to be his girlfriend.

You heaved a sigh of mock-weariness and extricated yourself from his arms.  “Fine,” you told him with a forefinger poking him in his sternum.  “But the minute you start complaining about the accommodations, you’re getting slapped.”

You had always suspected that Bryan had some pain or humiliation fetish.  You hadn’t missed how his eyes had darkened in lust, for example, the time you slapped him in his office.  He verified your suspicions now – his deep green eyes narrowed a little, and his voice dropped a quarter octave.  

“Promise?” he asked.

*****

What a change from two years ago.  Bryan remembered your first airplane flight, how icy your hand was in his and how you had huddled against him involuntarily.  Now you breezed right down the plane’s center aisle and ignored the flight attendants’ safety demonstration like a veteran traveler.

You were nervous though.  Bryan could feel the tension radiating off of you, and he felt a sting of shame about it.  He was the cause.  You mostly only knew him as an irredeemable snob and a consummate asshole, and your carefully planned vacation seemed shabby in your eyes now that he was tagging along.

He couldn’t tell you otherwise.  He just had to show you.

The private cottage you had rented was small, but it was lovely.  There was no pool, but there was a Jacuzzi and a huge bed and it was right on the beach.  You watched him look everything over, and judging by the way your jaw was set, you were just waiting for criticism.  Hell, your itchy right palm was practically twitching to deliver a blow.

“Seems small,” he said casually, and sure enough, you lifted your arm and hit him.  It wasn’t hard at all, just a light pat to his cheek, and you held your hand there to cup his face.  The look on your face – the soft smile, the hopefully rise of your eyebrows – was irresistible.  Bryan stepped forward and dipped his head to kiss you, and even though you had been traveling for over a day, he didn’t stop for quite a while.

-----

You and Bryan seemed to have different philosophies surrounding vacations. Bryan wanted to lie on the pure white beach and stare at the ocean that was so blue it made his eyes ache.  You had an agenda.

It was just your zeal for life, and after a bit of grumbling, Bryan leaned into it.  He skipped from island to island with you, went snorkeling, rode on horses, chatted with the locals.  It was refreshing to experience the world with you, since you were so unabashedly in love with the world.  At your side, Bryan shed a little more of his tough outer shell.

If the days were fun, the evenings were magical.  It was the same sort of spell from St. Kitts, only more honest.  You weren’t his fake girlfriend – you were his real one.  He wasn’t trying to make anyone jealous – he was only trying to convey how much he cared about you.

How much he loved you, even if he couldn’t quite say the words out loud.

You were both settled into the jacuzzi for the evening after a light dinner.  You had been shipwreck diving that day, an endeavor that revealed how out of shape Bryan was.  He lowered himself into the jacuzzi with a tortured groan, and you followed him a moment later with a pair of glasses and a bottle of wine.  Over the past few months, he had taught you the complicated calculus around what and how much he would drink, so now you both sipped at the shiraz and watched the sun sink in the west.

There was one similarity to St. Kitts, and it was how you got a little melancholy at sunset.  You still got that faraway look on your face, and you still sighed a little.  Bryan asked about it once and you seemed surprised and unaware that you did it.  He didn’t press – he only watched you, and if you seemed a little sadder some nights versus others, he only held you a little closer to remind you that he was there.

That’s what he did tonight as the sun set – he took your wrist and tugged you over to him until you were nestled against him.  He drew his fingertips up and down your arm until you gave an involuntary shudder against him.

The swimsuit you were in was familiar.  It was the same one you practically lived in during St. Kitts, which was fortuitous – Bryan already knew how to get you out of it.  As the sun set and as darkness settled over the island, he toyed with the knotted straps behind your neck, letting his fingers slip into your damp hair until your breathing was uneven and you were squirming against him.

The water gave a bit of buoyancy, and it was easy to maneuver you into his lap.  It was his favorite position, you sitting on his lap with his cock buried in you, you just a fraction above him so that he could access your face or your tits just as easily.

After his awkward foray into asking you to be his girlfriend back in Chicago, the hard conversation about birth control ensued.  You were still hurt by his accusations, rightfully so, and Bryan had to sit and listen to all of it.  Then, haltingly, the real truth came out.

“I don’t think I want kids,” you had told him, and you looked terrified once the words were out of your mouth.

“That is not a deal-breaker for me,” he had replied.  “At all.”

Then, because he hadn’t snapped at you or called you a monster for lacking maternal feelings, you admitted that it wasn’t that you didn’t think you didn’t want kids – you knew you didn’t.

Bryan admitted as much to you, and it was the most honest either of you had ever been with the other.  Or with anyone, possibly.

For now, in the Maldives, the box of condoms in Bryan’s carry-on luggage remained untouched.  You had an IUD, and Bryan already had an appointment in Chicago for a vasectomy for when he returned.  The difficult conversation was behind you, as well as a heartfelt apology for the St. Kitts blow-up, so in the jacuzzi, you wriggled out of your swimsuit bottoms and resettled in his lap.  His cock was rock-hard, straining against his trunks, and it twitched against your hand when you reached down to free it from its constraints.

You pumped his length in your hand almost lazily as you lined yourself up to him.  You notched the tip of his cock against your entrance and removed your hand.  You placed a hand on each side of his face to hold him firm, kiss him deeply, as you lowered yourself onto him.

Fuck, it was romantic bullshit like this that Bryan always avoided in the past, but it killed him when it was you doing it.  It was sensory overload – the feel of your fingertips against his bearded cheeks, the feel of your tongue licking into his mouth, the feel of your slippery cunt taking every inch of him until your ass was settled on his lap.  You moaned into his mouth when he finally bottomed out and the crown of his cock nudged against the end of you.  You moaned again when he wrapped his arms around your waist and drew you down another fraction onto him.

He let you set the pace, and you went slow.  The pace in Chicago was always a bit more playful, more frenetic, but island life slowed you down in your love-making.  You rode him at a languid speed, the look on your face dreamy at the sensations you were feeling.  For Bryan, it was like heaven being buried in you.  He fit you perfectly - the analogy of a lock and a key came to mind like a damned cliché.  He loved how your arousal coated his intruding length the closer he brought you to orgasm; he loved how well your feverish flesh gripped him when you finally did come.

Over and over, he brought you to the edge and pushed you over it.  Bit back his own release that threatened at the edges of his vision like an impending blackout.  Once he made you come once, he found it was easy to bring about a second, a third.  You got so sensitive – your swollen clit dragging against the root of his cock, your quivering cunt never recovering from its aftershocks before coming again.  Even your tits got more and more responsive, until all it took was a brush of his lips – a bit of friction from his beard – to make you arch against him.

“Are you close?” you panted against his neck.  You had come a third time and then collapsed against him, your head nestled in the space between his head and his shoulder.  Your tits, tipped with diamond hard nipples, were pressed against his chest.  You had stopped riding him, completely exhausted, so Bryan pressed his hips up into you and smirked at the tortured little whine in your voice, the shaky, uneven way you were breathing against him.

“You’ve got one more,” he told you, and you laughed weakly against him.  When you tried to protest, he took one wrist and then the other into one of his hands.  He held them behind your back, a tame move of possession to remind you that while you may be on top, he was still in control.  A fact you happily agreed with, judging by how hard you always arched against him when he did it.

Bryan slid down in the jacuzzi a little, just enough to stretch his legs out and press his feet against the opposite side.  It allowed him to thrust up into you – one hand gripping both of your wrists behind your back, the other wrapped around the back of your neck.  His hand was big enough to cup your entire head, and he pressed the tip of his thumb into your soft cheek, kept you from turning your face away from him.  

Your eyes had that unfocused, fucked-senseless quality to them, and Bryan usually preened when he saw them like that.  It meant he had fucked you so well that he had completely short-circuited your brain.

“Look at me,” he ordered, and he had to turn your face back to him when you tried to look away.  Sometimes – since St. Kitts – you turned away from him when you were feeling too much.  He didn’t want that anymore.  He wanted you to look right at him and feel everything.

“Fucking look at me,” he repeated.  He was rewarded a moment later when you finally did, and he pressed his hips up into you and watched as your mouth fell open at the thrust.  It was something about your face – so open and so beautiful, especially in the afterglow your orgasms – that made Bryan feel suddenly sick, like he couldn’t draw a breath.  His throat felt tight and he swallowed hard.  It had been a terrible start of the year.  Cut off from his family, cut off from his friends. Unemployed and with a DUI and all his own doing.

But fuck was it all worth it to be here with you now.  It wasn’t just the sex, though that was certainly part of it.  It was the connection with you, the way you looked at him now.  Bryan Kneef openly sneered at love, at bullshit like soulmates, but damned if he didn’t think he’d found the one person for him in the entire world, and she was perched in his lap right now.

And not just that:  she had extended her forgiveness to him for the unforgivable.  She had let him back into her life when anyone else would have moved on and left him out in the cold.

“I love you,” Bryan said, and he said it so defensively that your eyes widened at both the words and at his tone.  He saw you open your mouth to reply, but he shifted his hand and covered your mouth.

“Don’t fucking say anything,” he continued.  “You’re too damned nice.  I don’t – don’t want you to say it back to me because you think you have to.  Just….just keep your mouth shut.  And know that I love you.”

He felt your lips curve into a smile against his palm, so he removed his hand and pulled you in so that he could kiss you.  He still felt sick – his heart was pounding in his chest – but he could discuss it with his therapist when he returned to Chicago.

Bryan never got that final orgasm out of you, but you never complained about it.  You held his head firm in your hands and kissed him, your mouth slanting against his with an intensity that stole his breath away.  That, paired with his confession and the incredible heat of your clenching cunt, made him unravel completely.  He felt that delicious tension in his gut, felt the moment it snapped.  His hips jutted up into you on their own accord, and he groaned your name into your mouth as he gave one, final thrust and filled you with his release.

You were silent as you nestled against him afterwards, and you were silent when you dismounted him.  You allowed him to lead you inside, and you showered together before bed.  Bryan was exhausted from the day’s activities, but more so from the confession.  It drained him to even admit to himself that he had feelings, let alone say them out loud.  Your silence wasn’t helping.

You put your hands on his shoulders and turned him around, and you scrubbed his back for him.  Such a simple gesture, but it made him want to cry.  

Maybe you sensed his inner turmoil.  You reached for the shampoo and gestured for him to bend down a little, and you lathered up his hair.  That did make him tear up, your gentle fingers massaging his scalp, over and over until all the sea salt and sand was out of his hair.

“Am I allowed to speak now?” you asked quietly as you rinsed his hair for the final time.  Bryan wiped the water out of his eyes and looked at you.  You were smiling at him, a little teasing.

“You are allowed,” he replied with a regal wave of his hand, and you feigned that you were going to smack his hand out of your face.  But your smile faded, and you looked at him with a solemn expression that made his heart sink.

“I love you too,” is all you said.

It made Bryan just as sick to hear you say it, but with enough therapy, he eventually would learn that the sick feeling – the tightness in his throat, the racing pulse – well, that was love.  It only felt like an illness to him because it was so foreign.

But all that insight was months and even years away.  All in the future, with you by his side – your house in Ravenswood finally finished, Bryan’s condo sold as he moved in with you.  You would eventually add to your family – another shelter dog, one for Bryan this time because Joey would always be your dog and never quite his.  When the second dog drifted more to you, Bryan wouldn’t even be hurt by it.  

Of course they loved you best.  You were the best.  

But that was in the future, and right now, you were watching him carefully in the shower of a Maldives guest cottage, and it was all only the beginning.  Bryan barely had the language to express his feelings (he’d eventually learn it, though he’d never quite be fluent), so he just gave you a nod of acknowledgement.  

And then kissed you.  When he tilted his head to capture your mouth with his, he caught that usual happy smile etched across your lips.

He only hoped you could see the same smile mirrored on his own mouth, just as happy to kiss you.  Like you were the only person he wanted to be with because, it had to be said, that was the honest truth.

[melk917]

Wet Hot Summer Bingo Round Up... so far

I have been terribly behind on reading and sharing and writing... I will get there! But for now, a masterlist of all the amazing creations people have posted so far....

@thatesqcrush

@storiesofsvu

[tinyboxxtink]

I love this shit. When people tell you that you got X character "wrong".

Dude, it's FANFICTION. Whoever I'm writing, they're MY version of that person.

People are ridiculous. 🙄🙄🙄

you didn’t get Paul’s personality correct but the smut was done to perfection , but it did feel like it was more for Rafael or Bryan more than Paul?

Hmm. Oh wise Paul expert, do enlighten me so I can correct myself next time. What say you @melk917 ??

[itsjustmyfantasyroom]

I've been BURSTING to post this little teaser for a fic I have written cause I'm so excited for it!

Two Worlds.....will be posted next week 🤭

[lannister-slings-and-arrows]

I FINALLY GOT TO THIS. OH MY GOD I JUST. PLEASE RIFLE AWAY IF THIS IS THE RESULT. I LOVE DICKFACE AND I'M NOT EVEN A CAT PERSON. (also i love another fic of yours where we get canonical bisexual sex god Bryan.) (bc really.) (he totally is.) (and of course, as previously discussed, even just cuddling with that thicc broad beast would be immensely satisfying lolol)

A Cat Called Dickface

Written for @storiesofsvu’s Fall Bingo, filling the Fireplace square. 

Dickface stolen from discord headcanons & plot inspired by @lannister-slings-and-arrows​ and @pascalispretty​ I’M SORRY I’M RIFLING THROUGH YOUR ASKS ;_;

Warnings: NSFW discussed (no smut), secret soft cat dad Bryan. You came for smut but got fluff instead oops. 

1,170 words

Your one-night stand with Bryan Kneef was not going anything like you had imagined.

First, there was Dickface.

The anticipation of pleasant soreness ached between your thighs the entire ride up the elevator to his swanky Chicago penthouse. On your modest salary as a legal secretary, you could only dream about affording a place like the firm’s top litigator, but tonight you were more interested in the legend between his legs. You’d seen the outline of his massive cock pushed up against the front of his slacks as he swaggered through the office, snapping at interns, and he wasn’t even hard.

Bryan had a reputation: heartless toward coworkers, ruthless in court, and an absolute god in bed.

There would be no feelings, no phone call the next day, and that was OK. You didn’t want any. Being his latest conquest was a thrill, and if the rumors were true, well worth it.

The elevator door opened to a monstrosity of modern design straight out of Forbes, and the sound of shattering glass. Bryan stormed out ahead of you.

“DICKFACE, YOU ASSHOLE!”

Keep reading

[inknopewetrust]

Here is the first of many recommendations of my favorite fanfictions. Now, this is not a cumulative list of everything I've ever read, but it is what I've been enjoying most recently or can’t get over, and the ones I immediately believe deserve recognition and further exposure.

I hope those who decide to read these fics enjoy them as much as I have, and to those who I've included, thank you for sharing your gift with this community and continue pursuing your passion.

Golden Cages // @aniqua

Aleksander Morozova x Sun!Summoner Reader x Malyen Oretsev // Firstly, let’s establish one thing: I am not the biggest fan of sun!summoner readers because of the initial reaction to Alina being one originally—but this fic is just *chef’s kiss.* It’s amazing. That’s plain and simple, taken as fact, an honest opinion and I love it. Plus I didn’t think I’d like Mal as much as I do in this?? I am a strictly Darkling girl and that surprised me a lot. A true testament to the writing and how it makes me feel.

Brighter Than the Sun // by @holden-caulfield

Aleksander Morozova x Reader // This is shorter compared to many of the other works on the list, but nevertheless angsty, heartbreaking, and truly invokes a sadness in the readers heart. Good angst writers know how to capture every sense needed to feel tension and truth, to which this author does spectacularly in less than 400 words.

Five Times Olivia Benson Thought She Saw Sparks Fly (Plus the One Time She Saw Them For Herself) // by @hurricanejjareau and @qvid-pro-qvo

Rafael Barba x Gender Neutral Reader // Words cannot describe how much I love this fic. It is so wonderfully written and full of love, longing, and ultimately an adorable resolution. This was one of the first Barba fics I had ever read on here, and it certainly has remained a favorite. It’s a fantastic collaboration between great writers.

I Can’t Hold You Now (And God, it Kills Me) // by @qvid-pro-qvo

Rafael Barba x Reader // I absolutely adore fics that follow canon is some way, shape, or form. As a direct insert into 17 x 10—Townhouse Incident—it feels incredibly natural to the storyline. There isn’t a heavy backstory on the reader and I love it. It’s about the characters, their relationships to one another, and the revelation of reader’s relationship with Rafael. I am just smitten with this fic!

Masterlist // by @thatesqcrush

I know this isn't what is usually on a fanfiction rec list, but ya'll, I have enjoyed ever single fic I've ever read from this author. From Rafael Barba to Bryan Kneef to Nevada Ramirez and more, there are few who write them all exquisitely as she does. So, I couldn't just choose one because I love them all. They're beautifully written, sexy as hell, and leave me wanting more every time I finish reading one. (These are 18+ so don’t go reading unless you’re of age!)

Sham, Pride, and Illicit Affairs // by @peeterparkr

Anthony Bridgerton x Reader // Seriously one of the best, if not the best, Anthony Bridgerton x Reader stories. It is exquisitely written and immediately pulls you in and asking for more. The reader is written in a way that feels natural, a continuation or addition to the story we know rather than an obvious insert. I cannot say enough wonderful words about this fic, so if you are a Bridgerton fan, you have to read this fic!

We'll Meet Again // by @siren-meets // on Ao3

Ronald Speirs (Band of Brothers) x OFC // I have read this story over and over again because it is simply amazing. Eleanor is the perfect OC to pair with Ron; their story is believable, the writing is respectful and flows so well with the episodic drama BoB so gracefully produces. Reading this, you can see the care and love put into the interpretation of each character (which is absolutely spot on), as well as the steadfast effort to make the female OC nothing like we'd expect her to be.

Dance With Me // by @zim-zam-goddamn

George Luz (Band of Brothers) x Reader // This fic is so heartwarming and cute. It's a really great interpretation of how Rick Gomez portrays George Luz, almost exactly what I'd imagine the character to be like if the situation were real. I think that speaks to the testament of how well BoB writers understand the characters and how to further them on the page (or computer, or cellphone, or where ever someone reads fics).

A Punchable Face I Want to Kiss // by @prurientpuddlejumper

Frederick Chilton (Hannibal) x Reader // This entire series is phenomenal. Chilton is a character you shouldn’t like. Irredeemable qualities, malpractice, etc., etc., but 1. Raúl Esparza and 2. this author knows how to make you love the character. It’s masterfully written, incredibly spicy, and full of heart I wasn’t expecting. An Absolutely wonderful series. (Chapter 1 is linked!)

Death of a Bachelor // @delos-mio

Logan Delos (Westworld) x Reader // I read this months ago and still think about it. Its a detailed, original story that I can get behind and it includes an entire trip to a city I hold very near and dear to my heart (it’s so descriptive and accurate too!) Definitely one of my favorite Logan stories written on any of the platforms. Plus Ben Barnes is having a MOMENT right now and Logan is one of my favorite characters of his.

[storiesofsvu]

Journey to the Past Ch 14

Bryan Kneef x reader Warnings: language, alcohol consumption, smut, light teasing.

When you awoke the sun was streaming in through the curtains, basking Bryan’s room in a golden glow, the warmth came from both the sun and Bryan’s body nestled behind yours, his arm draped over your body, holding you to him. You burrowed deeper into the pillow and heard him sigh behind you, arm tightening as he pulled you closer to him, his lips meeting the back of your neck and you could feel his cock hard up against your ass. You let out a quiet chuckle, arching your body into his and he groaned softly, hips rocking towards you as his hand shifted upwards, cupping your tits, gently rolling your nipples between his fingers.

“Morning.” He murmured, his beard scratching against your skin as he spoke and you shivered.

“Mmm…”

His hand drifted south, leaving goosebumps on your bare skin as the sheets shifted, exposing you to the cool air in the room. Bryan tickled at your skin, sinking between your legs and began to lazily rub your clit in small circles. You let out a breathy moan as pleasure began to flow through you, your back arching into his embrace. His hand sunk lower, sliding through your folds to feel how wet you were, smearing your juices around your pussy as his hips undulated against you. His lips made home in the crook of your neck, causing you to shiver, eager for more. Bryan’s hand nudged at your top leg, pulling it back around his to open you up for him while the tip of his cock teased at your entrance.

“This okay?” He murmured into your skin and you nodded.

“Yes….please…”

With an easy roll of his hips he sunk fully into you, letting out a soft moan at the perfect way your pussy wrapped around him. He started a lazy pace, thrusting into you deeply, the arm he had wound around your body held you tight, helping you rock back towards him in the same pace. You felt your breath catch in your throat; eyes fluttering shut as you moved together in search of your pleasure. One of your hands reached behind you, tangling into his short locks, tugging at his hair every so often when his cock dragged past the sensitive spot inside you. The other one made a home interlocking with the hand he had around you, fingers tangling together as he continued to fuck you.

“Oh god…” you whimpered out, your pussy fluttering around him, feeling every ridge of his cock with each roll of his hips and your body began to tremble.

“Good girl…” he cooed into your ear, “that’s it, come for daddy.”

“Fuck… fuck…” You bit you lip, your eyes clenching shut as your cunt pulsated around Bryan, letting out a quiet cry as your orgasm washed over you.

Bryan groaned his cock twitching deep inside of you, he barely picked up the pace, continuing for a few more thrusts until he moaned into your ear, breath hot on your skin as he came, spilling inside you. He shallowly thrusted a few more times, filling you with all of his cum before stilling, pressing a row of breathless kisses across your skin. A moment later his hand shifted to your hip and he was about to move away from you when you let out a small whine, your hand shooting to his.

“Wait…” you murmured and he grinned, pressing a kiss to the crook of your neck as he slid the rest of the way back into you, nuzzling against your body.

You stayed nestled together as Bryan softened within you, a series of happy content sighs coming from both of you as you drifted between the urge to fall back asleep and the expectation of starting your day. Bryan could feel his shoulder starting to cramp up, kissing your shoulder softly before slipping out of you and rolling onto his back, tugging you with him. You rolled over, smiling at him as your eyes fluttered open, leaning in for a gentle kiss. Your lips moved against each other with ease, a now very familiar dance that neither of you could get enough of. You hummed happily, coming to rest against his chest while his hand ghosted up and down your back.

“How do you feel about breakfast?” He murmured and you hummed.

“Sounds like a great idea, what’d’you got?” You started to sit up and he immediately tugged you back down.

“It’s pretty bare out there, oatmeal and scotch is about it.” He replied and you snorted.

“Great offerings.”

“I was gonna say we can order in.” He reached out to the side for his phone, unlocking it and opening the app.

The two of you scrolled through your options before deciding on West River Café and Bryan ordered multiple plates of banana French toast, apple cinnamon pancakes, a benedict to share with some sides of bacon, fruit, hashbrowns. He reluctantly got up out of the bed to pull on some briefs, make coffee and collect things when the food arrived.

He returned to the bedroom, grabbing a towel from the en suite to make sure nothing got dripped onto the bed, tossing the TV remote to you before he stripped back down and slipped back under the covers. You scrolled through options on the television while he carefully laid out the towel and started to unbox brunch before the two of you settled against the headboard, food laid out between you. The TV played quietly in the background, something mindless that neither of you were really paying attention to but it filled up the otherwise comfortable silence in the room. Bryan fed you bites of French toast, scowling when you stole the last piece of bacon off his plate with a wicked grin. Rather than apologize you simply leant in, kissing him gently, the sweetness of the syrup still evident on your lips. He found that he couldn’t help but smile as you let out a happy sigh, leaning into his side to get comfortable when you were done eating. Food was placed off to the side, coffees were finished, his free hand coming up to gently play with your hair, stroking down your back, fingertips trailing across your skin.

“Are you staying for the weekend?” He asked softly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“I’ll have to run home to grab clothes for work at some point.”

“We can stay at your place Sunday?” He offered.

“Yeah? You have plans to leave the house?” You asked with a grin and he laughed, knowing what you were getting at.

“I was thinking about heading over to check out what WNDR has going on right now.”

“Oh god it’s been ages since I’ve been there.”

“You interested?”

“Yeah.” You stretched out under the sheets, rolling over onto your stomach, “as long as we don’t have to get out of bed today, I’m down.”

Bryan chuckled, sinking down to your level and grabbing you for a kiss, “I think that can definitely be arranged.” His lips met yours once again, this time with more fire behind them as his tongue slipped into your mouth and his hands began to wander.

He spent the afternoon doing exactly what he wanted to, taking you apart piece by piece, watching you come undone first with just his hands, then watching the way your body trembled as he ate you out, pulling as many orgasms from you that he could until you were tugging at his hair, pulling him off of you. Recovery periods were spent dozing, curled in each other’s arms, sometimes attention on the television, sometimes simply talking until he got you worked up once again. You rolled on top of him, sinking down onto his cock with a breathy moan as you began to ride him and Bryan had never seen a sight so gorgeous.

You did actually end up getting out of bed as the sun began to set in the sky, tugging on one of Bryan’s hoodies as you shifted from the bedroom to the living room for dinner. A classic black and white movie played on the television while you enjoyed pad Thai and a few glasses of wine together before finally heading back to bed.

Sunday was a bit of an earlier start, heading out for breakfast this time before adventuring through WNDR. The entire museum was an interactive experience and it took up most of your day wandering through the rooms to see everything, immersed into a different world. Bryan’s hand remained on the small of your back, or fingers entwined with your own the entire time, happy to be spending the time with you out in the world, a chance to show you off. You stopped for Mexican at Blue Agave Tequila bar, sharing chips and guacamole, enchiladas and tacos, with plenty of leftovers to heat up for lunch the next day.

You let Bryan into your apartment, kissing his cheek softly as you asked him to put the leftovers in the fridge and make himself at home before you disappeared down the hallway. Bryan did as you’d asked, moving through your space with a comfortable ease, he found an open bottle of wine from earlier in the week and poured out two glasses. You wandered back into the kitchen clad in pj shorts and a Harvard tee, your hair pulled up and make up wiped off, you had your laptop under your arm, placing it down ono the kitchen island.

“I’ve got to go over a couple of things for tomorrow, I hope that’s alright?”

“Of course.” Bryan reached for you, pulling you into a gentle kiss, his hands resting on your hips, “you take whatever time you need.”

“You’re a gem, you know that?” You smiled softly at him, stealing another kiss, lingering longer this time. Bryan squeezed at your hand softly, picking up the wine glasses as you scooped up your laptop and made your way over to the couch. You settled against the arm, your legs draped over Bryan’s lap as you tossed him the remote and opened your laptop.

If you had asked, Bryan would have sworn that he was simply watching T.V, leaving you in peace to do a little bit of work, but that was a straight up lie. His fingers traced patterns onto your skin, and out of the corner of his eye he was watching you work, the way you’d tug your lip into you mouth while you read something over. The way you flitted with ease between the computer screen, your phone and the case file beside you, the cute little way your brow would furrow as you rewrote something. He could see the wheels spinning behind your eyes and knew that your brilliant mind was at work, that yes, you were the girl he could dress up and show off out on the town but you were also whip smart. That you were so incredibly different from the string of meaningless women that had come before you in his life. You could hold your own, you had your own reputation, you weren’t just someone who was along for the fancy parties and expensive gifts. He’d enjoyed this past weekend more than he had enjoyed one in what felt like years. Usually any type of work event or gala was insufferable, aside from the open bar of course, and to spend the entire weekend with you wasn’t what he’d expected but it had turned out wonderfully. He felt a knot in his stomach slowly come undone and the all to familiar blooming sensation build up in his chest and he grimaced, clearing his throat.

“You okay?” You asked suddenly, glancing up over the laptop.

“Yeah, heartburn.” He massaged at his chest, “it’s gotten worse recently.”

“There’s antacids in the bathroom cabinet.” You gestured in the direction, “maybe you should cut back on the coffee… or the booze…too much hot sauce at dinner?” You raised a brow in his direction and he scoffed, gently moving your legs off his lap so he could stand. “What?” you laughed, “I’m serious, acid reflux is terrible, and with the stress of our jobs it’s worse. That’s why I cut out carbonated drinks.”

“What’s the point of life if you take away all the fun stuff?” He countered and you laughed, rolling your eyes, reaching out to grab his hand over the back of the couch you tugged him back to you. He leant over the couch, accepting the kiss that you murmured into.

“I didn’t say all the fun stuff.”

“Now you’re just being a tease.” He muttered back, kissing you again, “get back to work counsellor.”

You playfully rolled your eyes, watching him wander down the hallway before you returned to your work. You were unbelievably comfortable with him in your space, or being in his, it just felt natural at this point to come home to someone rather than an empty apartment after a long day. You let out a happy sigh, reaching out for your wine, taking a sip before looking back to your laptop.

Bryan found the antacids with ease, popping a couple and taking the time to change out of his dress clothes into pyjamas. The burning in his chest seemed to be subsiding, he let out a sigh of relief and made his way back down the hall, though he couldn’t help but pause at the end of it, leaning against the wall while he watched you for another moment. It was almost too late to be working now, he could tell by the fact that you’d put your glasses on, eyes tired at the end of a long day, and the way you rolled your neck every couple of minutes in an attempt to get the kink out. He almost didn’t notice the smile creeping onto his cheeks, you were special, he knew that. You cared about him, wanted to make sure he was taken care of, and that was very evident in both your words and your behaviour. Whatever feelings you had for him he was certain that he must feel them back to you because in that moment he crossed through the living room, approaching the back of the couch and his hands met your neck. They started out soft, enough to relax but not pull your attention away from the task at had, working slowly to undo the knots. You let out a happy sigh, your hand coming up to squeeze at one of his in an appreciative manner before returning to the keyboard. In return he bent over, kissing the top of your head,

“I know this is probably important, but can it wait for tomorrow? I’m sure whatever it is you’re more than ready, you deserve some time to relax too you know.”

“You’re probably right.” You shut the laptop, twisting on the couch to face him with a warm smile on your cheeks and a glimmering in your eyes as you looked up at him.

“What?” His head tilted and you laughed softly.

“Thank you.” Your hand caressed his cheek, and he leant over you to kiss you.

“Of course.” He shrugged, moving around the couch as you piled your work on he coffee table, “now what’d you say to finishing that movie from the other night?”

“Sounds like the perfect ending to a perfect weekend.”

______________ @detective-giggles @plaidbooks @thatesqcrush @witches-unruly-heart @beccabarba @bisexual-dreamer02 @amelia-song-pond @madamsnape921 @whimsicallymad @mrsrafaelbarba @mysticfalls01 @ssaic-jareau @caracalwithchips @barbasbodaciousbeard @alwaysachorusgirl @beardedbarba @michael-rooker @rafivadafreddy @lustvolle-liebe @anlin2058 @fandom-princess-forevermore @tinyboxxtink @alexusonfire @xovalliegirlxo @nobody-important1212 @somethingimaginative17 @momlifebehard @misscharlielulu @fighterkimburgess

[raulesparzaconfessions]

“For all fanfiction writers, if you are reading this and feel inspired by my request, please do yourself a favor... Right now I really like to read angsty fanfiction, I started to like this style recently, I've already read a lot of fanfiction about Raul's characters and I'd like to read one where either Frederick Chilton or Bryan Kneef (I think it "might" fit better with those characters) is really really really bad/evil. I don't know what situation in particular, for example harassing an employee? I don't have something in mind but, i trust you, you'll find something... The only request i have is, a lot of angst and a Villain Raul's character, and “smut” if it fits. Thanks for reading me !” 

(x)

[lv7867]

Me rn🤔🤔🤔🤔

In Another Time, Ch. 4

Bryan Kneef x Reader. CW: language & smut for giving Bryan a helping hand. WC 1.5K

Bryan groaned as he opened his eyes. His head was aching and throbbing, as if someone had taken a jackhammer to his head. The lights were bright and he squeezed them shut instinctively. As he pushed himself to a full sitting position, he winced as the head pain came roaring back to its full extent.

“Where am I?” Bryan asked out loud to the empty room. Looking around, the room was unrecognizable. “Where are my things? What the hell is going on?” He tried to stand but could not due to the pain. The light was bright - almost too bright and it made him instantly nauseated. He let out an audible groan.

“Oh thank God you’re awake.”

Bryan took in your rain-soaked appearance, hands filled with some various bags. “You had a nasty fall.”

You walked over to Bryan and pressed a kiss on his lips, before brushing some hair off his forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Bryan groused. “I’m starving and my head hurts. Where are we?”

“Downstairs, in the den. After you slipped and got hurt, you were up for a bit but then were woozy enough to go out again. Helping you down the stairs was easier than up.”

You then turned towards one of the bags you had. “I found a twenty-four hour diner not too far off from the main road. Eat something and you can then take something for the pain.”

**

“I’m sorry for blowing this weekend.” Bryan groaned as he polished off the last of his fries.

You looked at him and shrugged. “Look, all that matters is that you’re okay. Hopefully you’ll get some sleep and we can go home and you can rest a bit more.” You replied, wiping your hands with a napkin.

Bryan gave a small shake of his head. “No, you’re right - you have been right. I have been acting off and not like myself. And you deserve to know why.”

You sat up straighter and pushed your food away. “What’s going on?”

"This will sound so far-fetched, but I want you to listen," Bryan looked earnestly into your eyes, his usual confidence faltering. "I'm not who you think I am. Or, at least, I am Bryan Kneef, I am an attorney, I do live in Chicago...but I'm not your husband. I'm not our - your - Sophie’s father." He paused.

You narrowed your eyes, trying to understand. "What do you mean?" you urged, a little frightened by his words.

Bryan sighed. "It all started one day in the rain…" he went on to explain what had happened to him, how he'd woken up to a different life. He chose his words carefully, his gaze dropping away from your sceptical, increasingly bemused, expression.

When he finished, he looked back at you, waiting for your response with baited breath. You responded by bursting into laughter.

“Oh babe - you must have really hit your head!” You covered your mouth, trying to stop yourself from laughing so much.

“I am not surprised you don’t believe me.” Bryan replied, frustrated. He rubbed his face in exhaustion.

You gave Bryan a pout. “I’m sorry. I believe you.” You used air quotes as you spoke.

Bryan sighed. “It’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t know why I bothered.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “God, my head fucking hurts.”

“Well then, Mr. Mysterious. Nurse Y/N can make sure you’re all taken care of.”

“Is that so?” Bryan questioned, a lascivious smile crossed his face. His earlier confession was now long forgotten at the possibility of sex.

“Mmm-hmm.” You hummed, moving to sit closer to him on the couch he was laying on.

“And what kind of tender loving care am I to expect?”

“Something like this.” You pressed kisses on his face softly, moving from cheek to cheek, to forehead and then nose. Bryan shifted so he could capture your lips with his. His hands wrapped around your head, winding themselves into your hair. You climbed over him, settling your legs outside of his thighs and then sitting.

“How’s your head?” You questioned in between kisses. “I’m not hurting you am I? Do you want me to stop?”

“Never.” Bryan rasped.

You could feel his cock hardening beneath you and you rolled your hips in response. You shifted so you were scooted back on his thighs. You palmed his cock through the pants, enjoying the groan he emitted. Bryan let out a groan. His head was throbbing, but the throbbing sensation in his cock was way worse. He decided the pleasure coursing through him was well worth it and focused on that, instead of the searing pain in his head. You undid the fly of his pants and reached inside, finding his shaft. Bryan let out a sigh and watched fascinated as your manicured hand encircled his cock. Your hand appeared delicate and dainty and with his cock in your hand, the sight was absolute filth. What he thought was going to be a blow job wasn’t. Instead, you spat on your hand and began to stroke his cock, up and down, up and down.

“Ah that’s it…” Bryan groaned. His cock feels very thick, hot and hard in your hand and you revel in the way he is twitching with his arousal. You gaze upon his face, his eyes now closed, lost in the pleasure. Your hand ran over the texture of the ridges and veins of his shaft, before you spat more into your hand. Your hand, covered in saliva, moved lower to caress his balls. Bryan bucked his hips in response and his breaths became more ragged.

You scooched further back so you can lower yourself more against his body. Your mouth found purchase on his neck where you sucked a mark into his skin as you continued to stroke him, using his pre-cum as additional lubricant.

“Fuck, uh, yes, that feels so good.” Bryan groaned as you continued to lick and suck his neck, leaving yet another mark. You moved up to his ear and took his earlobe into your mouth, nibbling and blowing. Bryan’s breaths were uneven and his hands covered yours, further guiding you.

“I’m so close.” Bryan grunted. “Gonna make a mess in your pretty little hand.”

“Oh no.” You gently chastised him. “You’re going to shoot that load in my mouth.”

His shirt had ridden up slightly and you could see how his muscles twitched and you knew he was so close. The words coming out of his mouth were more nonsensical as he moved his hips more forcefully.

“Fuck! I’m gonna--” Bryan all but shouted. And you ducked your head, swallowing his length. His hands immediately latched onto the back of your head, forcing you to take more of his cock, causing you to gag slightly. The head of his cock hit the back of your throat and you could feel his cock twitch as thick, white creamy cum spurted down your throat. His load was so big, some of it dripped out of the corners of your mouth and to the base of the shaft, covering some of the neatly trimmed hair.

Bryan let out a sigh of relief as his cock twitched slightly in the aftershocks of his release. You waited until he was done to then move off to take a deep breath before bobbing back down to make sure he was fully clean. When you were done, you gave him a lascivious look akin to the cat who caught the canary.

“Fuck! That was amazing.” Bryan sighed. You beamed and leaned over to press a kiss against his lips.

“Nurse Y/N to the rescue. Now, you get some rest and I’ll be back in a bit with some more blankets and pillows.” You climbed off Bryan and bounded up the stairs. Moments later when you returned, you found Bryan fast asleep. You smiled to yourself before taking a blanket and covering him.

**

When Bryan woke up the following morning, he called for you before fully opening his eyes. When you didn’t respond, he sat up and looked around. He was somewhere else entirely different. He was acutely aware of the sound of a monitor beeping in the background. He looked down and realized he was in a hospital gown and that was when he noticed the plastic bracelet wrapped around his wrist with his identifying information.

Bryan wasn’t even aware you were in the corner, your arms crossed, along with your legs. When you spoke, he turned to where you were. His eyes grew wide with realization.

“Welcome back to the real world asshole. Shame you didn’t die.”

TBC.

Tags: @mgarner1227, @madpanda75, @tropes-and-tales, @dreamlover31, @beardedmccoy, @youreverycolor, @sass-and-suspenders, @beccabarba, @neely1177, @witches-unruly-heart, @ottosuricato, @mrsrafaelbarba, @skittle479, @mommakat32, @lovebishoplosamiguelgalindo, @dreila03, @garturbo, @sweetsummertime99, @imjustreallynosy, @sweetsummertime99, @whyissvuruiningmylovelife, @annabelleb49, @redlipstickandplaid, @redlipstickandblacktea, @zoeykaytesmom, @differentshadesofgray, @misssirenlove, @esparza-army, @bananas-pajamas, @storiesofsvu, @pieceofshittytitty, @ktiz90,@evee87, @detective-giggles, @itsjustmyfantasyroom, @rampantmuses, @jazzyjoi, @rachelxwayne, @i-justreally-like-cats-okay, @prurientpuddlejumper, @lv7867, @permanentlydizzy, @bisexual-dreamer02, @madamsnape921, @averyhotchner, @teamsladsandgents, @qvid-pro-qvo, @alwaysachorusgirl, @amelia-song-pond, @wanniiieeee, @tintinxtintin, @law-nerd105, @metachorism, @choppedgalaxynerd, @catnip987

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

Contractual Obligations, Prologue

Word Count:  2727

TW:  Talk of sex work (sugar baby/sugar daddy).  18+ only.

AN:  Part of an unfinished series.  The series masterlist here.

It was Brooke’s fault that Bryan Kneef ever fell into your orbit.

Brooke was married to Charles.  Before Charles was, well, Charles (and before he had a burgeoning softness around the midsection that Bryan always associated with married life in the suburbs), he was Chas.  Back when he was Chas, he and Bryan were both pledges to Phi Alpha Delta, and both had the same mostly-repressed memories of their shared hazing.

But now he was Charles, married to Brooke, living in a monstrously ugly pile of bricks in the suburbs of Glencoe.  And Brooke – perpetually bored – hosted a lot of dinner parties.

Bryan could only ever get away with declining about 40% of those tedious invitations.  Which meant that most of the time, he had to haul his ass out to the suburbs and eat bland food and engage in the same boring suburb talk about country club fees and tee times and property taxes.

Sometimes, though, the suburb talk fell away, and Bryan became the topic of conversation.

That night, after the saddest Lobster Thermador he’d ever eaten, Brooke swiveled her beady little bird eyes onto Bryan and remarked that it was simply impossible to find a spare woman to round out the numbers when Bryan came to dinner.

“I’ll stop coming to these then,” he replied simply.  “Problem solved.”

But Brooke misread his dry tone as joking (as she often did), and she slapped him playfully with the back of her hand in an “oh, you!” sort of gesture.

“You need a girlfriend,” she told him.  “A good woman to hold you down.”

Of all the problems Bryan had with women, being held down wasn’t one of them.  The women who passed through his life never seemed to want to stick with him, in the end.  He couldn’t think of any girlfriend who had hinted at more – moving in together, engagements, a brat or two – beyond the surface level dating and fucking that defined Bryan’s romantic life.

Chas – no, Charles – snorted at that.  “Finally ran through all the available women in the Chicagoland area, Kneef?”

Well, kinda, actually.  Bryan was at a strange point where his usual hunting grounds only offered old news.  Women he had fucked once or twice.  Women he had dated.  He had ventured into new territory recently – a coffee shop that had a barista who was charmingly cute, as coffee shop workers sometimes are.  She had a tiny little fake diamond stud in her nose and a streak of blue hair that Bryan mistakenly assumed meant young and energetic and adventurous.  Which was the opposite of what had happened.  She was entirely boring, and Bryan never called again after their lackluster encounter.

“You just need to get yourself a sugar baby,” Charles continued.  It earned him a playful slap from his wife, but his face got a thoughtful cast to it as he kept talking.

“No, seriously.  Think about it.  You need someone reliable to go to events, keep you company.  Instead of spending all the money on wining and dining women who have a short shelf-life, just invest in a sugar baby.”

Bryan scowled around the rim of his wine glass and said nothing.  He hated the term sugar baby, it made him think of – well, sugar babies.  Squeaky-voiced barely-legal young women, mincing around in skimpy hot pink clothing, tottering on platform heels, pressing their overinflated fake tits against his arm as he wheeled them around some STR Laurie social function.  No, thank you.

“How does one even find a sugar baby?” asked one of the other women at the table.  Her husband supplied the answer (“there’s websites”) which earned him a glare and probably a fight once they got home.

Then the subject shifted onto the boring topic of car leases, and Bryan breathed a sigh of relief and counted the passing minutes until he could politely take his leave.

After he said his goodbyes, in the entryway of the home, Bryan paused to pull on his overcoat, to wind his scarf around his neck.  A man from the dinner – some coworker of Charles’ – joined him, pulling on his own winter wear.  Bryan gave him a nod, received a nod in return.  The man cleared his throat after a moment and spoke.

“Don’t go onto those websites,” he said, and it took Bryan a moment to get up to speed.  He thought for a moment, stupidly, that the guy was talking about car lease terms.  But then the man added, “most of the women on those sites are flat-out grifters” and Bryan was yanked back into the painful sugar babies discussion.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Bryan replied dryly.

The man gave him an appraising look, then sighed and reached into his pocket.  Pulled out a business card and handed it to Bryan.

“I know someone,” he said.  “If you’re interested.”

-----

Bryan was not interested.

But Bryan was also not not interested.

A week passed, and then a month.  Late one night, Bryan did actually peruse a site for sugar babies, and his suspicions were confirmed.  They all looked outrageously young, and Bryan was certain that there had to be girls on the site lying about their ages.  The scandal that could fall down upon his head, if he hired an underaged sugar baby made him cringe in pre-emptive shame, and he closed the site and purged his search history, just in case.

It was another month of Bryan playing with that business card – pulling it out of his wallet, running his thumb over the edges until they got soft and rounded.  

A month after that before he broke down and called.

It wasn’t you he called.  The business card belonged to the man from the dinner party, Richard, and Bryan had to set up a lunch to get more information.  It was stupid, maddening, like those secret raves they used to throw back in his undergraduate days (did they still have those?) where you had to know someone who knew someone who knew the address of the party.  It was tedious and almost never worth the effort.

Over lunch at Blackbird, Richard and Bryan exchanged awkward small talk.  It wasn’t until the plates were bussed away and they were each nursing a coffee that the subject turned to the topic at hand, the someone that Richard knew.  

You.

“I’m not even sure if she is available for a new client,” Richard told him as they settled the check.  “But if you’d like her contact information, I can give it to you.”

It was just like those warehouse parties after all.  Bryan sighed but finally nodded, and by the time he was striding back to his office, he had your phone number securely tucked away in his breast pocket.

-----

It took another month to finally get the courage to call you.  The entire maddening enterprise started all the way back in November, at that stupid dinner party.  By the time Bryan met you, it was nearly spring.

You had been polite and frustratingly non-committal on the phone when he called, and you only stayed on the line long enough to get his name and set up a meeting at a coffee shop.  Which is where he found himself now.  He got there too early, and now he had to wait.  He wasn’t nervous, exactly (Bryan Kneef didn’t get nervous), but his heart did seem to thump a little harder in his chest, the pulse echoing in his inner ear like a second heartbeat.

You looked so normal that he nearly missed you.  Bryan would come to learn that he had a lot of misconceptions – all rooted in movies and television – about what you were.  For now, the first misconception:  your clothing.  He thought you’d be in something slightly too risqué for daytime, dramatic makeup, big hair.

You were in dark-wash jeans and a cream-colored cashmere sweater, and your makeup was tastefully underdone.  Your hair was down, but parted and partially swept back by a silver clip.  You looked…normal.  Like the girl next door, if she was a graduate student at Loyola with an internship at one of the finance firms.  Young, but not teetering on the edge of something statutory.

But it was you.  You zeroed in on him the moment you entered the coffee shop, and you walked over to his table and shook his hand.  He recognized your voice from the phone call.  It was you.

You seemed to sense his disorientation.  You gave a light laugh and gestured for him to sit down again, and you settled into the chair across from him.

“You seem surprised,” you said.  “Expecting something different?”

Bryan nodded, opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the waitress.  He already had his order in front of him, a double espresso, and he studied you a little closer as you placed your own order of a cappuccino.  

You were pretty, but not a knock-out.  Well, maybe you could be with the right clothes and makeup – the more he studied you, the more you reminded him of a blank canvas.  The neutral clothing, the neutral makeup.  All the women on those sugar baby websites seemed to hew to the same sort of fantasy, but maybe you had a different approach.  Maybe you presented a neutral option first thing for a reason.  Maybe you only took on color and texture once you were beyond this awkward little first meeting.

Maybe he could mold you into what he wanted, and that thought made him sit up a little straighter.

That was the thought at the forefront of his mind as the two of you chatted.  You did most of the talking, easing him into deeper waters carefully.  You started with inane small talk about the weather, and then you segued into business.

“How much do you know about this sort of thing?” you asked, and you tilted your head to wait for his answer.  You had bright eyes, expressive, and he was suddenly aware that you were studying him as much as he was studying you.

“Almost nothing,” he answered truthfully.  “I went on some of the websites – “

“Oh, those,” you broke in, waving your hand.  “Glorified back pages.”  You took a sip of your cappuccino, and asked, “What are you looking for, Mr. Kneef?”

An impossible question.  He wanted a reprieve.  He wanted not to worry about finding a date to events, finding someone to fuck when he was keyed up.  He wanted to cut through all the bullshit of getting to know new women – the boring back-and-forth, the gradual shedding of false fronts to reveal the real person underneath.  He wanted a little security that someone would stick around when he was insufferable, even if he had to pay them for the privilege.  He just wanted a fucking break.  A little breathing room.

He told you so, as eloquently as possible and with minimal swearing.  You only nodded thoughtfully.  And you were silent for a long beat after he finished talking.

“I always ask,” you finally said, “because many men have the wrong idea about these sorts of arrangements.”

“How so?”

Your lips curved into a slight smile.  “Sex, Mr. Kneef.  When I ask a man what they are looking for and they just give me a laundry list of sex stuff, I know it’s not a good match.”

Bryan raised his eyebrows at that and felt a filament of disappointment curl low in his gut.  “So that’s off the table?”

You laughed again, the same light chuckle from when you first arrived at the coffee shop.  “Of course not.  But you’d be paying for me, and that includes everything.  Some call it ‘the girlfriend experience.’  To break it down to a sordid little bucket list of all the things your wife won’t do is a waste of my talents.”

“I’m not married.”

“Have you ever been married?”

Bryan shook his head, and you gave a thoughtful hum at that.  

Another long beat of silence stretched out between you, and Bryan wondered at the men you met with in settings like this.  Men like him, and men entirely different from him.  Married men, bored with their lives, without the courage to really change them.  Single men who were just tired and wanted the so-called ‘girlfriend experience’ for a moment before descending back into the fray.

You finished your drink and pushed the empty cup aside so that you could sit forward, your forearms on the table and your hands folded in front of you.  All business all of  a sudden.

“I am currently between situations,” you said matter-of-factly, as if you were a freelance consultant and not, technically, a sex worker.  “If you are interested, the minimum here is a six-month commitment.”  You went on a little, discussing the technicalities, finally naming your price, which made Bryan nearly choke on his own spit.

“That’s ridiculous!” he said.  “For that amount of money – “

“For that amount of money, you are free to try and find someone who will be at your beck and call at all hours, all days, for nearly whatever you want.”  You smiled at him, beatific, like a painting of a saint.  “That amount is more than fair for the service I provide.”

“It’s expensive.”

You gave a little shrug and sat back in your chair.  “I know what I’m worth.”

Bryan could afford it, and though you didn’t say it, he had the distinct impression that if he didn’t move quickly, you’d find another situation with a man who would happily pay your exorbitant fee.

“Let’s say I’m interested,” he said.  “What next?”

Another smile, another beat of silence as you reached into an inner pocket of your pea coat draped over the back of your chair.  You pulled out a thick envelope and handed it to him.

“Next step is that you read the contract,” you told him.  “Then we meet again to discuss specific questions.  If we both agree then, we sign, you pay, and….”  You let the sentence trail off, let Bryan’s imagination fill in what came next.  

When Bryan pulled out the tri-folded contract, it nearly sprung out of his hand from the force it had been stuffed into the envelope.  “Jesus,” he muttered as he thumbed through the pages.  There was an entire list of hard limits, a section on health concerns….

“That protects both of us, by the way,” you said.  “There’s an NDA in there.  I can’t imagine you’d ever make partner at STR Laurie if this arrangement became public knowledge.”

Bryan’s bent head snapped up to glare at you, you knowing more about himself than he was comfortable with, but it only earned him a another placid smile.  “Relax,” you told him.  “Of course I searched your name before meeting you.  You wouldn’t believe the creeps out there, and besides, you have a LinkedIn page that is public.”

“So you know I’m a lawyer.”

“So I know you’ll go over that contract with a fine-toothed comb,” you countered.  You stood up and pulled on your coat, and you pulled out your wallet to lay down a few bills for your coffee.  The expression on Bryan’s face must have changed at your action, because you smiled and told him that you weren’t on his payroll yet, and you could pay your own way until then.

“Assuming I decide to put you on my payroll,” he said, and he narrowed his eyes a little and set his jaw in the way he did when he was trying to intimidate others at work.  You didn’t seem intimidated at all, though.  You only held out your hand and said it was nice to meet him and that you looked forward to hearing from him.  And then you left.

The second misconception:  that mild smile of yours hid a keen ability to read people.  Bryan wouldn’t know it until later, when you told him, but you left that coffee shop knowing that he would call you the very next day, after he stayed up the entire night to read through your contract three times.

In the coffee shop, you had seen through his flimsy little act of hesitancy.  Bryan Kneef was absolutely going to sign that contract and put you on his payroll, and you knew it the moment you set eyes on him.

[melk917]

Melk's 250 Follower Celebration!

Ah! I’ve hit my first fairly-major follower milestone! As such, I wanted to celebrate with a bingo idea that has been on my mind for ages: What’s Your Fantasy.

I love writing smut and so it only seems appropriate to celebrate with a bingo card full of possibilities. 😈

Each bingo square will be a line from this classic piece of work by the sage poet, Ludacris. If you don’t know the song, go take a listen. For your own education and sheer enjoyment.

Rules are laid out in detail below the cut along with the card but the overview:

I will be accepting requests from today until 1/18 for 250-500 word fills. Feel free to send in a request for Rafael Barba, Nevada Ramirez, Jackson Neill, or Paul Mendelson + a square. Each square will get filled only once. I will be posting the fills as my schedule allows starting Feb 1. If you're writing/producing your own content, there's a lot more you can write for, but I will only be doing these four boys.

This is a bingo! So I’d love for other people to do their own fills as well. See below for more details + the card.

Even if you’re not participating, please share! I’d love to see how wide-reaching this can go and what creative things people can do. This is about community, and I want to celebrate that.

NOTE: Nothing about this song or the card itself is SFW so participation is restricted to 18+ ONLY. This is a hard and fast rule. If I discover anyone requesting is under 18, you will be blocked. If you are under 18 and participating, you will be blocked & your media removed from the bingo.

Rules:

For writing/creating your own work: Pick a single square, a row, four corners, fill the whole card. Up to you. No pressure - this is supposed to be fun!

For requests: send a square + one of the 4 boys marked with MK below.

How to use the squares? You can take them as literally as you want. They’re intended as inspiration, so feel free to use it to just set the tone, or feel free to incorporate the lyric literally. Let the muse lead you how it will. (And even though the bingo card itself is explicit, the fic can be anything from G to E. However you want it, as Luda would say.)

Types of media: you can do mood/storyboards, artwork, long fics, one shots, drabbles, HC... whatever your fancy. Want to do all fics? Great! Want to mix and match? Ok! All moodboards? No problem!

If your story is more than 500 words, you must use a “keep reading”. Anything explicit must also be below a cut.

One square per fic (note: multi-chapters can use more than one square, but it must be one per chapter).

Characters allowed (**can be reader insert or OC or fandom pairing. I will only write reader inserts**):

Rafael Barba (Can request from MK)

Jackson Neill (Can request from MK)

Nevada Ramirez (Can request from MK)

Paul Mendelson (Can request from MK)

Frederick Chilton

Jonas Nightingale

Bryan Kneef

Sonny Carisi

Nick Amaro

Mike Dodds

Rita Calhoun

Olivia Benson

Amanda Rollins

Want to write for someone else? Feel free to shoot me a message for requests. No promises, but open to requests.

No RPF/real-person fanfiction. No underage character (incl. reader/OC). No non-con. If you have any questions about something, feel free to shoot me a message. I also reserve the right to refuse any requests or add additional restrictions on a case-by-case basis, should there be an issue that arises.

Posting will be between 2/1 & 2/28 (this goes for both requests I fill and anything you wish to post)

Please tag me in your entries! I want to see the madness you create. Please also use the following hashtag: #melk917fantasybingo.

Any questions let me know. AGAIN HAVE FUN. Bingo card is below

You do not have to participate but a signal boost is always nice!

[storiesofsvu]

Journey to the Past Ch 1

Bryan Kneef x reader Warnings: language, that's about it so far. this one's kinda a prologue. If it looks familiar it's because ch 1 was posted a while ago when i didn't know where the story was going, but don't worry, i've got things up and running now. Lol.

Bryan was annoyed, as per usual. It was Friday, it had been a long week and he had wanted to be out of the office early to prowl his way through a couple bars with more than a couple glasses of scotch. Hopefully finding someone to pass a few hours with in the bedroom before bailing so he could wake up on his own.

But today, he had to wait. Diane had shifted meetings around with him, pushing his own back by over an hour already. At least it wasn’t an actual meeting, more of a rather quick conversation, he’d hopefully still be able to make happy hour at at least one of his usual watering holes. He was more than tempted to pour himself a glass of scotch while he waited but figured Diane would smell it on his breath and the last thing he needed was another reprimand from the woman.

He caught sight of the lawyer who was clogging up his schedule coming out of Diane’s office, giving her a firm handshake and a polite smile. He thought she looked familiar, his forehead furrowing as he tried to place where from. He hoped she wasn’t some conquest from a drunken night if she was going to be around the office more frequently. At least she was well dressed, a perfectly tailored pencil skirt with matching blazer, a coloured button up on underneath with just the right amount of buttons undone to tease but not be inappropriate. She wasn’t some mousy paralegal like half the office was. He watched the way she walked toward his office on her way out, the little bounce in her step pulling bounces elsewhere that he was more than intrigued with.

You were a step away from turning when your head finally glanced up through the doorway of his office, the small grin on your lips slipped off and for a minute Bryan thought he was in for it. Then your head tilted as you took in his appearance before your lips broke into a grin and you paused, leaning against his door frame.

“Bryan?” Your voice was just as silky as it had been all those years ago and he nearly melted, “bashful Bry? What the fuck?” You laughed.

“Y/N? What’re you doing here?” He had to gulp back before he spoke, feeling almost as young and innocent as he did back in school.

“Talking deals with Lockhart.” Your head lolled towards the office you’d just exited, “I didn’t realize you’d settled in Chicago.”

“I thought you went to New York?” He asked in return, remembering your last conversations in Cambridge. You’d kept in contact through social media, but that had slowly fizzled out as the years went on and you got buried into your careers.

“I was.” You shrugged, “better salary out here. Horrible pizza though.” You teased, pulling a small laugh from Bryan.

“You’ve just gotta know the right places.” He managed to get his courage back, remembering who he was, the reputation he held now, shooting you a wink.

“Aw, you know a place Kneef?”

“More than a few.” He grinned up at you and you let out an adorable giggle, “we should go tonight.”

“You know I’d love to.”

“Really?” He glanced up with such surprise that you chuckled.

“Yeah, but I can’t tonight. I’ve got plans, but..” you paused as you dug through your bag, pulling out a business card, stepping through the office and passing it to Bryan. “My cell’s on the back, I’d love to catch up. It’s been too long.”

“It really has.” Bryan smiled at you, pocketing the card.

“I’ve gotta run, motions to file before the day’s up.” You gestured to the file in your hand. “I look forward to hearing from you.” You smiled softly, “nice beard.” You winked and whisked yourself out of the office, leaving nothing but the smell of your perfume in the space.

Bryan couldn’t help it, leaning back in his chair as he pulled the card out of his pocket, turning it within his fingers. Looking at the way your embezzled name seemed to glisten in the light of his office, he was amazed at the chance of running into you again. Wondering just how much you’d changed after all these years, if you’d changed as much as he had or were still relatively the same person.

The two of you had gone to Harvard together, back when he felt like a literal fetus. Sure, he’d had a healthy, wealthy nice life growing up, but he was nowhere near the man he was today. The nickname you’d called him ‘Bashful Bry’ was known around campus, he’d been this soft, shy, inexperienced kid. It took him at least the entire first year of law school to get fully on his feet, and even then he was never as confident and brash as he was today, and he certainly wasn’t the asshole he’d become to be known as around the firm.

Meanwhile there was you.

You were the one that befriended him first, half shy, more so coy, small grin on your cheeks as you introduced yourself, extending a hand to shake. You had more than your fair share of classes together, and often grouped up for projects, spending the rest of your free time studying together, testing each other, playing mock court room to up your skills and wit.

You were always so kind to him, so friendly and open, there was more than just a part of him that had slowly fallen for you. First you were just a friend, but your passion, the ambition and power he could see behind your eyes, the amount of knowledge on the law that you held, the way you talked about your future career? It all made him want you more. But back in law school, he wasn’t the same kid, he was this shy little thing, he didn’t have the balls to ask you out, to ever make a move. That little grin you’d shoot him over a late night of studying? That gleam in your eye when you crushed him in a mock debate? It drove him crazy, gave his stomach butterflies, and back in the day? He had absolutely no idea how to deal with that.

You? You were the one that got away.

And now you were back in his life. Problem being? He’d made a reputation for himself, everyone hated him, thought he was a pompous asshole who valued sex, booze and winning cases over everything else. He didn’t care who he hurt along the way, he just wanted to succeed, and you knew nothing about that side of him. He knew there was a pretty high chance that you were still that somewhat innocent girl from school, there was no way you’d grown into as much of a jaded human as he had been. He suddenly felt himself in a panic, wondering if you’d be able to accept him for who he was now, better yet, if he would be able to change. He’d held such heavy secrets of his feelings for you back at Harvard, he wasn’t going to give up the chance to shoot his shot now, the only question was going to be if it would work. Whether he could be the man that you deserved after all these years, or whether he’d lose you the second you found out who he was now, he could only hope that he could try and do this.

He let out a huff of a sigh, pocketing your card before pushing back from his desk, at least for now he could worry about the meeting with Diane and distract himself from that before he had the chance to debate over how soon was too soon to call you.

________________ @newyorker14 @detective-giggles @teamsladsandgents @thatesqcrush @witches-unruly-heart @beccabarba @bisexual-dreamer02 @amelia-song-pond @madamsnape921 @whimsicallymad @mrsrafaelbarba @mysticfalls01 @ssaic-jareau @caracalwithchips @barbasbodaciousbeard @alwaysachorusgirl @beardedbarba @michael-rooker @rafivadafreddy @lustvolle-liebe @anlin2058 @fandom-princess-forevermore @tinyboxxtink @alexusonfire @xovalliegir2lxo @nobody-important1212 @somethingimaginative17 @misscharlielulu @momlifebehard

[storiesofsvu]

Masterlist

Send Req’s Here!!

Buy me a Ko-Fi ☕️☕️

Who/What I Write For *read me!!*

Prompts you can req from

Join my taglist here!

Holiday Bingo 2024!!

Law & Order Masterlist

REE Characters:

Bryan Kneef Masterlist

Nevada Ramirez Masterlist

Criminal Minds Masterlist

Heather Dunbar Masterlist

Jackie Sharp Masterlist

Duckie Masterlist

Elizabeth Keane Masterlist

Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice Masterlist

NCIS Masterlist

Chicago P.D. Masterlist

Storiesofsvuoneyearbingo

Storiesofsvufallbingo

Storiesofsvuholidaybingo

Kattsbdaybingo2022

Holiday Bingo 2022

Holiday Bingo 2023

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

Bryan Kneef:  Breaking Point, Part Eight

Word Count:  5330

TW:  Heavy angst; smut (an attempt at oral, f!receiving; PiV, protected). 18+ only.

AN:  Part eight of a nine part series.  Other parts can be found here.

There seemed to be a tacit agreement between Bryan and his friends.  No one brought up your hasty New Year’s Eve departure, and he didn’t either.  The lone acknowledgement of the drunken fight was a throwaway comment by Kyle the next day.  

“You ruined it, you know,” he told Bryan.  “I was planning on proposing on New Year’s Eve.”

Bryan snorted but wisely said nothing.  Kyle only shook his head.  Opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut as if he thought better of it.  But then he shook his head and said it anyway.

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?”  He shook his head again and then stood up and stalked away.

Bryan didn’t reply.  What could he even say to that?  That he was sorry?  That he regretted it?  That he’d go back in time if he could?  He hadn’t meant to ruin some grand moment between his stepbrother and his girlfriend.  He also hadn’t meant to ruin the thing with you, as undefinable as it had been.  But he had, so why dwell on it?

He was looking forward to returning to Chicago with his sanity finally restored.

-----

Bryan Kneef had his fair share of messy breakups.  Cara, obviously, but plenty after her:  women who tossed drinks at him, who caused scenes.  There was an ex who stalked him for a solid six months.  There was a hook-up who crashed an STR Laurie client luncheon.  

The first day back in the new year, and Bryan was curious how you would react.  You weren’t the type to cry (though he had a vague, uncomfortable memory of you crying on New Year’s Eve), but you were the type to slap him.  Had slapped him before, in fact.  He had actually quite liked it, your palm striking out like a viper, lightning-quick, to hold him to account for his poor behavior.  Bryan almost hoped you would march into his office your first morning back and deal him a stinging blow.

You didn’t slap him.  You barely even acknowledged him that first morning back.  You toed off your snow boots, shrugged out of your heavy wool coat.  You exchanged pleasantries with your fellow coworkers as they filed in.

All you had for Bryan was you usual cursory nod of greeting.  Then you sat down and logged into your computer as if it were just any other day after just any other holiday.

It stung.  In fact, it hurt, and Bryan Kneef was never hurt anymore.  At least not by a woman.

If you could surprise him with your nonchalance, he could surprise you too:  he called in some favors, pulled some strings – and he got you a new placement by the second week of January.  

H.R. handled those sorts of things.  Bryan knew the timeline of your transfer – a single week to wrap up your work with him before you left.  He never called you into his office, and you never knocked on his door to invite yourself in, though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want you to.

Your final Friday came and went.  Your coworkers took you out to a long lunch that Bryan let slide.  At the end of the day, you packed up your scant belongings and left without a backwards glance for him.

In the two weeks since St. Kitts, he had only said a handful of words to you about some client contracts you were drafting.  You hadn’t said a single word back to him, responding with your usual mute nods that hit him now like a cudgel.

It meant that as you left his department that Friday, the last words you had spoken to him remained the ones from New Year’s Eve, the ones that only returned to him after he sobered up and tried to piece the moment back together in the days that followed.

The funny thing was, Bryan swore – between your tears and his whiskey-fueled rage – that you had said you loved him.  It was stupid, and it obviously was a false memory.  Of course you didn’t love him.  You didn’t even say goodbye before you left for your new assignment.  

It had to be wishful thinking on his part and frankly, that was a more disturbing thought:  Bryan Kneef, wishing to be loved.

-----

February, March.  Bryan didn’t see you at all.  There was no cliched moment where he rounded a corner at work and ran into you.  He didn’t catch your gaze across a restaurant.

There were no moments like that because this wasn’t a romantic comedy or a fucking fairy tale and besides – whatever it had been was over now.

April came, and Kyle finally proposed to his girlfriend, Jessa.  There was an engagement party, and there was anxiety (hope?) that you might be there.  Bryan spun out an entire alternate history where he misremembered your time in St. Kitts.  Hadn’t you and Jessa been friendly?  Had you become friends?

Apparently not:  you weren’t at the party.  Of course you weren’t.  Bryan sat and watched his stepbrother and his fiancée.  If he felt anything at seeing the happy couple, maybe a sadness that he would likely never feel that connection with anyone….well, he ignored it.

And when he couldn’t ignore it anymore, he took one of Jessa’s cousins home for the night.

-----

May, then June.  Bryan saw you one day in the lobby of the building, though you didn’t see him.  It was STR Laurie day at Wrigley Field, though Bryan never went.  He was only waiting for Charles to join him for a late lunch when you walked through the lobby with a gaggle of other employees, your sneakers squeaking on the marble floor.

Bryan had needled you about your looks before, cruelly taunting you until you snapped one night and slapped him.  It was true that you didn’t have the meticulous care that his usual conquests did – the perfect makeup, perfect hair, perfect wardrobe that made his usual woman more of an ornament than a partner.  Fair enough.  But you did have something about you.  An ease maybe, or a preference for comfort that translated to ease, which translated to confidence.  

As you walked across the lobby, clearly excited for the baseball game, he couldn’t help but watch you.  And he noticed other people watching you too:  the shorts that showed off a generous amount of your thighs, the royal blue jersey, your hair swept up under a hat.  The wide grin.

Charles walked up to Bryan then and followed his gaze, but he misunderstood it.  The other man scoffed.

“Can you imagine being that excited to go sit in the nosebleed seats?” he asked with his usual faint sneer.

Bryan could not imagine it, but he remembered the childlike glee you always had, from baseball games to seeing the ocean for the first time.  He wondered what it might be like to be with someone who wasn’t completely jaded.  

-----

August:  Bryan had a girlfriend.  Merriweather was a social media influencer, which meant that she took a lot of artful photos of her food and drink and lived off of a substantial trust fund.

Bryan didn’t judge.  Merriweather was the perfect blend of hot and vapid, his usual preference, and he spent the entire end of the summer with her:  either at his condo or at her Lincoln Park townhouse.

He called her his girlfriend, but he wasn’t blind to the reality of the situation.  This was never going to go anywhere beyond where it was.  He knew he bored her after long stretches together.  She certainly bored him.  

The sex wasn’t even that great, if he were honest with himself.  None of the sex was anymore, and he knew why – he was holding up those days in St. Kitts as the gold standard.  It was funny because at the time, in those moments with you, he hadn’t felt that the sex was that amazing.  He had certainly had more adventuresome partners, more flexible partners, partners with more stamina.

But had he ever had a partner like you?  Someone who smiled – genuinely – when they turned their face to kiss him?  Or someone who was so enthusiastic in bed with him, as if he were someone they really wanted?

Bryan tried to capture that feeling with Merriweather once.  You’d had a way of running your fingers through his hair, and he had stopped you every time, stilling your hand at the intimately tender gesture.  In retrospect, he wished he hadn’t stopped you.

One night with Merriweather, mid-coitus, he took her hand and placed it on his head.  She didn’t understand his meaning, and Bryan was too proud to clarify when she twisted a handful of his hair and pulled it, hard.

They broke up in September.  Bryan didn’t mourn it.

-----

October passed.  November passed.  The first snowfall came and went, and then the first snow storm.  It was impossible for Bryan to leave the building in winter without thinking of you.  That’s when it all started, hadn’t it?  That snowball fight.  Most couples had some meet-cute; you and Bryan had a snowball fight borne out of your frustration with his asshole behavior.  

Not that there was any “you and Bryan” anymore.

-----

The stupid STR Laurie holiday party.  It was completely unavoidable.  The senior partners were there, so Bryan had to be there.

He couldn’t help but remember the prior year’s party, how you had tried to sit with him when all he wanted to do was sulk in a dark corner.  He knew he wouldn’t be offered any such courtesy this year, and it made him sad.

You sat with your new group at a table near his, and Bryan didn’t even bother to hide his staring.  You had been oblivious to his gaze at least half of the time when you worked for him anyway.  You seemed oblivious now, so he could look his fill.  He watched as you chatted animatedly with your coworkers, as you sipped at your wine, as you ate (but turned your nose at the chorizo pasta which was, by his estimation, terribly bland anyway).  

It had been madness a year ago, and it was madness now too.  The holidays always made Bryan susceptible to emotions, and this year was no different.  Halfway through the night, as the lights were lowered and as people got looser from the open bar, you wandered off.  Of course you did – you were adventuresome, and the entire museum was STR Laurie’s for the night.  Everyone else was happy to stay in the rotunda to dance and drink.  Not you, though.

Bryan followed you.

He realized too late how it probably felt from your standpoint, being followed into a quiet, unpopulated part of the museum.  He saw the moment you realized that you were being followed – how you slowed your steps, how you squared your shoulders and cocked your head a little.  He almost turned around and left, but instead, you turned around.  And faced him.

He expected exactly what he deserved, exactly what he had given you a year ago:  an alcohol-fueled rant.  Instead…well, you always seemed to surprise him.

“You finally ready to talk about custody arrangements?” you asked, and you said it so dead-pan that Bryan’s stomach dropped.  When he didn’t reply, the corner of your mouth twitched into a semblance of a smile.  “You know, for Bryan Junior,” you added, the sarcastic lilt unmistakable.

It was a rare feeling, shame.  Bryan never ruminated on his actions enough to feel it, but it washed over him now and made him a little nauseous.  He had nearly forgotten the core issue at that fight on New Year’s Eve.  It was utterly ridiculous in retrospect.

“You owe a lot in child support,” you continued.  You were smiling now – not quite the warm, inviting smile he was used to – but not far from it either.  But you crossed your arms as you faced him.  A confusing mix of body language.

“You have a lawyer yet?” he asked, and you snorted in reply.

“What do you want, Kneef?”  Kneef.  Not Bryan.

He ignored your question.  “Where are you going?”

You narrowed your eyes at him for a moment before answering.  “I’m going to check out the Fairy Castle.  It’s a miniature castle, or a dollhouse, I guess.  There’s a million details that I never get to see when this place is open to the public.”

What a fucking dork.  You probably had scouted out the museum and planned which exhibits to look at ahead of time.  Wasn’t it just like you though?  You were the only person that Bryan knew who so obviously loved to experience new things.

You turned to make your way to the dollhouse, and Bryan strode forward to walk beside you.  You gave a small sigh, resigned, and he ignored it.

Down a stairwell and down another hallway, and Bryan was close enough to smell you again – that green vetiver smell that only seemed to work on you.  In your cocktail dress, a generous amount of your skin was revealed.  Bryan wondered how you might taste if he put his mouth on the soft skin of your throat.  In St. Kitts, you had tasted like the salt from the sea breeze.

He could blame last year on the otherness of those days with you – the tropical sun, falling asleep beside you to the sound of the surf.  What could he blame now on?  The otherness of some stupid dollhouse castle?  How another year had passed with him being alone?  How every sexual encounter since last year fell short because of you – a fucking cheerfully earnest woman who had pressed her face against the airplane window like a child when she first caught sight of the ocean?

You were bent over a little and studying the miniature garden when he reached for you.  He knew he was risking a slap to the face (a risk he was willing to take), and he knew you wouldn’t reach back for him with that easy smile you had.

You didn’t slap him, and you didn’t smile.  The moment his hand circled your wrist, you stiffened and yanked your arm from his grasp.

“What the hell are you doing?” you asked as you took a step backwards from him.  You folded your arm against your chest and rubbed at your wrist where he had touched you as if you were trying to scrub away his touch.  So he reached for you again.

He got so close, his face close enough to yours that he could see how your pupils were wide, an unmistakable sign that you wanted him too.  But your body language was confusing, and you reached out with that viper-quick hand.  You didn’t slap him, but you did grasp his face and hold it away from you.

“What the fuck is your problem?” you asked again, and this time, your voice had that low, angry quality to it.  Like when you had rubbed snow in his face.  Like when you had slapped him in his office.  

“I just – “ he started, but you cut him off.  Your question was obviously rhetorical, because you answered for him.  

And you had a lot to say.  A year’s worth of thoughts, in fact.  Bryan had thought you indifferent, and it had never occurred to him that you may have been suffering after St. Kitts – and holding it all in to make it seem like you were okay.

“You don’t get to kiss me,” you hissed, and your fingers held his face firm as you glared at him.  “You don’t get anything from me.”

“I just – “ he said again.  Again, you cut him off.

“You just nothing.”  Your grasp on his face tightened a degree as you leaned in closer.  “You fucking asshole.  I thought you were a jerk, but you are so much worse.  There’s no rock-bottom for you, is there?”

He reached up to circle the wrist of your hand that held him, and he noted how your pulse was juddering under his fingers.  You had been so coolly collected back in January, but your eyes were a little glassy now with tears.  He had hurt you after all, which meant….he had meant something to you.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

You released his face and jerked your arm out of his grip again.  “Bullshit.  You’re not sorry for anything.”

“I am sorry.”

“If you were sorry, you would have reached out.  It’s been an entire year, Bryan.  An entire year since you used me, treated me like shit, screamed at me that I was trying to…to…fucking baby-trap you.”  

“I know.”  Shame, that foreign feeling, washed through him as he watched a tear course down the side of your nose before you angrily wiped it away.  He didn’t care about you, but it did make him feel bad to have hurt you…

“I’d never have a kid with you,” you told him with an increasingly shaky voice.  “Are you kidding me?”  You pointed to yourself, jabbing yourself in the chest with your thumb.  “I know what it’s like to have a father who’s a…a fucking narcissistic asshole.  I’d never wish that life on any kid of mine.”

That stung, but it also piqued his interest.  Bryan knew nothing of your personal life.  He had pictured the quintessential nuclear family with two parents, a sibling or two, a dog and a two-story house in the suburbs.  Apparently there was a darker truth, and maybe your relentless cheerfulness was a bug, not a feature of your upbringing.

You realized what you had said after the fact.  Your face flushed a little, and you dropped your head.  In a voice that was heartbreakingly defeated, you only said, “just forget it.”  And tried to push past him to leave.

He couldn’t help but pull you into his arms.  You were right:  it had been an entire year.  An entire year with no apologies from him, but also a year since a chance reassignment had brought you into his life.  A year since his madcap plan to pass you off as his fake girlfriend.  A year since he fell asleep in your arms, your even breathing lulling him into the best sleep he’d had in a long time.

It was an awkward hug.  You were stiff and unyielding in his arms, but you didn’t push him away.  He heard your shaky intake of breath when he held you gently but firmly against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered into your hair, and the more times he said it, the less foreign it sounded coming from his mouth.  So he repeated it, over and over until it broke something in you, and you started crying in earnest.

It was far worse to make you cry when he was sober.  At least on New Year’s Eve, he had been near black-out drunk and barely remembered you sobbing.

The absolute worst was knowing he was the cause of it.  Bryan had made plenty of women cry over the years, but somehow you were the worst.  Every relationship – from one night stands to whatever he’d had with you – was a battlefield to him.  It was a struggle to see who gave in, who fought back, who waved the white flag first.

But you hadn’t played by those rules like other women had.  You had played along with the fake girlfriend aspect, but everything else had been too real – too sincere, too heartfelt.  As a lover, you hadn’t been a combatant like other women.  You had been…well…a partner.  

“Come on,” he said as he rubbed your back.  “Stop crying.”

That only made you cry harder.

There was no way to know how long the two of you stood there:  him holding you, you crying, all in front of a scale-model castle dollhouse.  You eventually pushed yourself away from him, and even though your eyes were bloodshot and swollen, your irises still glittered from the tears in the low light of the exhibit.  

Fuck, you were beautiful.  He had been cruel to tell you otherwise, an asshole technique he used sometimes to wear down a person’s confidence.  Even a middling therapist would point out that he was the one with low confidence and that his peacocking was just a thin veneer that hid a deeply insecure man.  

That didn’t matter now.  What mattered was that you were pulling away from him, and he finally had you so close.

So he pulled you back to him and kissed you.  And waited for the inevitable slap that would follow.

A slap that never happened.  You froze against him, but fuck, your lips were just as soft as he remembered, and when he parted his own lips against yours, he heard your sigh – and then you kissed him back.

*****

His place was closer, so that is where you went.

You were silent on the car ride there, to the point where Bryan had to ask three times if you were still okay with this.  You knew he was trying to gauge your mood, your sobriety.  You only wished you were wasted, but you were painfully sober.

You knew it was the worst idea you ever had.  You knew it wasn’t healthy; it was toxic at its worst, codependence at its best.  

You knew your own self best:  you were lonely (as you always were this time of year), and you were drawn to assholes because you thought you could fix them.  Like your mother before you, and her mother before her.  You were just the heir to a legacy of kind women who thought kindness could reform monsters, like some stupid Disney princess.

You knew Bryan less well, but you still had a read on him.  He was obviously lonely too.  And you weren’t his usual type (as he had pointed out over and over before), so you were just a novelty to him.

So you were both lonely.  Fine.  People fucked for flimsier reasons than that.  You hushed your judgmental frontal lobe, or wherever decision-making was housed in the brain (you weren’t sure – you were a damned paralegal, not a neuroscientist).  You could wallow and cringe at your poor choices in the morning.

Bryan’s condo was a mid-century modern slash minimalism nightmare.  It was all stainless steel and smoked glass and clean lines, and it made your heart ache a little to picture him alone here.  No wonder he was such an asshole.  It might make you act like an off-brand Bond villain to live in such an empty space too.

His bed was comfortable though.  

Bryan had tried to strip you out of your clothing himself, but he went too slow.  Maybe he was trying some new leisurely move, but it’s the last thing you wanted.  Instead, you shimmied out of your dress, shed your bra and panties until you were bare in front of him.  And then you laid down on the bed to wait for him.

He took his own clothes off – only slowing to watch as you stretched across his five thousand thread count sheets or whatever – and the look in his eyes was unreadable.  The usual wolfish, faintly feral gleam, maybe.  But there was something else there you couldn’t quite get a read on.

You didn’t care.  And when he climbed onto the bed and crushed you deliciously under his solid weight, you cared even less than that.  

But the sex was…not great.

In St. Kitts, the two of you seemed to be on the same wavelength.  It had been hard to describe, the sex you’d had in that fake relationship.  Bryan had been more subdued, and you had been a little bolder than usual.  It translated to more equitable moments, where one initiated but the other responded and you both met in some magical middle space.  You thought about those moments more than you wanted to admit, how he had always known when to fuck you harder or when to just sit and let you take what you needed from him.

Now, in his sadly empty condo, it was not like St. Kitts at all.  You just wanted to get fucked – hard, impersonal.  Get off, and then flee.  A true hook-up, and the kind you could regret in the morning because you knew the guy was bad news.

Bryan was on a different wavelength, apparently.  His mouth – that mean mouth that mostly just said cruel things to you – worked its way across your face, down your neck, back to your mouth.  Then down to your breasts, uncharacteristically tender.  The man had bruised you there on purpose before.  Now he only kissed you, worked his tongue against your nipples until they ached from his ministrations.

Then he moved lower.  Worked his mouth lower.

He had never gone down on you in St. Kitts.  Truthfully, you weren’t a fan of it and rarely had it offered to you by past lovers.  The few that had offered had complained, and it felt like more trouble than it was worth.  But Bryan’s mouth, cruel as it was, was talented, and you were tempted to let him.

“You don’t have to,” you told him weakly.  He was kissing his way across your stomach, and his big hands grasped your thighs as he spread them wider and settled in between them.  He ceased when you spoke and looked up at you from his vantage point.

“I want to,” he said, and he had that damned low growl that made your core clench painfully.  “I want this sweet pussy to fucking soak my beard.”

You groaned at his filthy words and dropped your head back down onto the pillow, and you let him maneuver you how he wanted.  He kissed his way lower, from your stomach to your hips, and then he slid down more between your legs and kissed the soft skin of your inner thighs.  Then a sting, on each one – as he sucked a mark on each, then soothed them with his tongue.

Then he reached up and grabbed your hand, and he placed it on the back of his head, and something about the motion made you seize up.

“Wait,” you said, and you felt a strange panic bubbling up inside you.  “Stop.”

He did stop, and the look on his face was unnervingly concerned.  As if he cared.  You slipped your hand off of his head and cupped his cheek instead, led his face back up to yours as he sighed in resignation and rejoined you.  Pressed a gentle kiss onto your mouth as your panic died down.

“I want to go down on you,” he said, and he sounded plaintive.  Whiny, almost.  

It was too intimate, but you couldn’t tell him that.  His bright green eyes were peering at you too closely, like he was trying to discern your reluctance.  You couldn’t tell him that having his mouth on you there felt way more close than anything else.  And you didn’t want to be close to him – you just wanted to get fucked and then leave.

“I’m already ready,” you lied.  There was a beat, and Bryan finally nodded.  He kissed you again, deeper this time, and you felt the heavy weight of his cock as he moved his hips, nudging against you, prodding at your slick entrance.

“You need to put on a condom,” you told him.  “And you know why.”

Those stupid green eyes again, gazing at you sadly.  Another nod, and Bryan reminded you of a whipped puppy when he reached into his bedside stand and pulled out a condom, then rolled it onto himself.  Resettled between your spread legs and kissed you again.

It made you a little angry, that sad woebegone look he shot you, as if he wasn’t the architect of his own misery.  Sure, you’d rather fuck without the condom too, but he was the one who had accused you of terrible things.  He was the one who called you a scheming cunt because he thought you wanted his money enough to bring another life into the equation.

He was the one who had always pointed out how much you weren’t his type – and then he had been the one to measure you against his usual type anyway.

That anger was what held you back from getting lost in the moment.  Bryan slid into you, so slowly that you knew he was savoring it, and he gave a choked groan when he finally was fully seated inside you.  He was perfectly sized, curved just enough to hit that spot inside you that made you want to cry, but he couldn’t get you there this time.

You were too angry (at him and frankly, at yourself too), and he was too…touchy.  He rocked his hips into you, keeping his thrusts slow and deep, too tender for what you wanted.  Then he laid his hand (and fuck, you loved his hands normally) alongside your face and forced you to look at him.

Then he did some weird move, pressed his forehead to yours as he fucked you, panting against your lips and gazing into your eyes.  And then he did it again – that other weird move where he took your hand and laid it on his head.  He probably wanted you to pull his hair, but when your hand moved on its own and threaded your fingers through his perfectly coiffed hair, he gave a deep groan like he was in pain.

And then he came.

*****

Bryan knew it wasn’t going great the moment you stopped him from going down on you.  He wanted nothing more than to taste you, but you had stopped him.  And it went downhill from there.

He wasn’t sure what it was.  He never had complaints from women in the past, and though you weren’t complaining now, you sure as hell hadn’t enjoyed yourself.  He could tell by how quickly you got dressed, how you didn’t even try to meet his eye.

It was also painfully apparent that you hadn’t come.  Bryan knew it, because while he hadn’t felt that tell-tale trembling, the way your cunt gripped him, you also hadn’t hissed praise in his ear like in St. Kitts.  All the times there, you had come against him, and you had always whispered in his ear how good he made you feel, how well he fucked you.

“Will you stay?” he asked, though he knew it was futile.  You were in your dress already, doing a little shimmy as you tried to zip it up on your own.  “I can make it up to you.”

You shook your head and refused to look at him, though you let him stand behind you so that he could finish zipping up your dress.  He laid his hands on your shoulders once the dress was fastened, but you shrugged out of his embrace.

“Please stay,” he said.  He didn’t even care that he sounded whiny.

You shook your head again.  “This was a mistake, Bryan.”

Of course it was, but it fucking hurt to hear you say it.  “So what, this was just some hate-fuck for you?” he asked, and his tone made you snap your head up to look at him.

“Yeah, that’s what it was,” you said.  

“I guess I deserve it.”

You laughed, a bitter sound without any humor to it.  “I don’t hate you, Bryan.  You’re just….you.  Heartless.  Asshole. Whatever.  You are what you are.”  You sighed and gave a helpless shrug.  “I hate myself.  I should have known better.”

That hurt even more.  He crossed his arms and glared at you.  “You don’t know shit.”

You gave that helpless shrug again, as if to agree with him.  But you didn’t say anything else.  You only walked out of his bedroom, put your coat back on, grabbed your purse.  And walked out of his condo.

Bryan was left, as always, alone.