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[eupheme]

— trouble will find me

[part ii | masterlist]

bodyguard!logan x mobster’s daughter!reader

rated e - 3k

tags: 70s era, dofp/bonedaddy!logan, bodyguard!logan, reader is the daughter of a mobster, reader is shorter than Logan, club setting, use of alcohol, cigar smoking, mutual pining, flirting, light brat taming!logan, references to violence, competence kink, semi-public vaginal fingering, kissing, forbidden relationship

a/n: I can’t stop thinking about dofp!logan sleeping with the girl he’s guarding, this is inspired by that scene! huge thank you to @pr0ximamidnight who let me chit chat about this little idea. you are amazing! 💖💕

His eyes darken. Fingers pinching against your skin, as he adjusts his grip, “‘s a bad idea, sweetheart. Supposed to keep you out of trouble.”

Your hands skate lower, fingers tracing the edge of his belt buckle. His nostrils flare - a warning, though he does not move.

“Supposed to keep me out of trouble,” You hum, “But what if I want a little in me?”

You can feel his eyes follow you.

Which shouldn’t really be surprising. It's his job, of course. Keep an eye on you, keep you safe.

But there’s something in the way he watches.

A curl of smoke from a lit cigar. Fingers tracing the rim of a half-downed whisky, a worn leather jacket thrown over a broad shoulder. The tilt of his chin when your eyes meet his - dark and narrowed, missing nothing. Slipping over you like the soft silk of your dress.

Indulging, almost. Unashamed.

You might have a crush.

You're trying not to think about it too much.

Tonight, you're just trying to enjoy the after-party.

It's all bright lights.

The room is bathed in pinks and yellows and flashing red. Disco club music pumped through the speakers, the panels of the floor flickering to the beat. You've been here for two hours already. Nursing tequila sunrises and pink squirrels. Sweat sticking to the nape of your neck, as the minutes tick by, bleeding past midnight.

He's not going to stop you, just yet. You can have your fun tonight - sway to the beat of the music - as long as you play by the rules.

Logan is so different from the ones before him.

Tripping over their feet to check on you. Breathing down your neck, with their padded-shoulder suits smelling like cigarettes and cheap cologne. Too afraid for themselves, of your father, to actually do a good job of protecting you.

Stifling and all too willing to tell you yes to anything.

It was exhausting.

Logan had come recommended - an acquaintance of a friend. He'd 'get the job done' from what you heard. Motivated. Needed the cash and would listen, no questions asked.

Just the type your father thought he could sway - a half-wild guard dog, his salary a leash. Heeling at the click of a tongue, the snap of fingers.

It's not how you saw him, though.

His silence was not obedience. There was nothing bought about this man - watching you from the line of leather booths along the wall.

You've wondered if maybe - you're just desperate to find some form of kindred spirit in someone. Too used to feeling like an accessory instead of a person. Your appearance at your father's events drove home his image. The good, family man who was oh so generous with his time and money.

Articles were written weekly about how philanthropic he was.

You had no idea if anything ever came from the numerous events you hosted - an attempt at doing something with your education. How much was skimmed off your blood, sweat, and tears, funneled back into what he did best.

Maybe you both saw through the bullshit.

He'll last longer than the others, at least.

More than once you've been halfway out the door, headed off to East Village or SoHo, only for him to catch you by the scruff of your sweater - whisking you back inside or into the Lincoln Town Car before you realized what happened.

An angry fist connecting with the nose of a man who had gotten too close at a gala last week. Cornering you in the coat room. Logan, charging in like a snarling beast when you had whimpered his name - red dripping down to stain the pressed white collar as the man was hauled away.

You’ve been thinking about that for days.

There was no sucking up. No flashing of a holster under his arm, some grandiose promise that you don't need to worry. You've never even seen Logan near a weapon but somehow, you feel more safe with him than you ever have with anyone else.

But this bit of internal tenderness that has sprouted, paired with his competency, has been seriously cramping your style.

It’s been enough that he's been hard to get out of your mind. Two weeks of teasing and poking at the limits set. Never giving you much, with that glare - thick arms crossed over his chest. A little thrill rippling up your spine, when his voice goes low and gruff.

The lights go dim, as the music begins to slow.

With the way your eyes wander, you know he sees you when you pick up a partner.

A man that moves with you, peeling off to crowd your space after your hips swivel with the hustle. His hand dipping low from where it rests on the small of your back.

Bold, when he bends to ask you 'if you'd like to get out of there'.

You meet Logan's eyes when you tell him yes.

Telling yourself that it's just to forget him. Definitely not because you're desperate to see the look on his face. To hear that tone he takes when he's pissed off.

A way to ascertain if you've taken root in his mind, even for just a moment.

There's zero chance Logan heard you from across the room. But it doesn't stop him from moving. Pushing to his feet, cutting straight through the crowd to wrap a hand around your bicep the second you start peeling off with the stranger - heading towards the side door.

"No fucking chance." It's gritted out, as he yanks you to him. Your shoulder collides against his chest as he steps between you and the man.

A sloppy hand pushes against his arm. The man's eyes are hazy under the neon lights as he makes a grab for you.

"Come on, man. I saw her first."

Logan pivots you away with a snarl, "She ain't leaving with you, bub."

Another sloppy shove, glancing off the brown leather jacket.

"You're really starting to piss me off." Logan's tone drips with warning, with knowing, "Gonna regret starting something in a room full of people like this."

And it's now that he takes in how big Logan is. The flex of splayed-wide fingers, knuckles curling into a clenched fist. A look in his eye that says that punches won't be pulled - not tonight.

The stranger takes a step back. It's enough.

You're already getting hauled away before they can answer. Guided into one of the many VIP rooms. A snarled "get the fuck out of here" to the attendant, before Logan's crowding you against the bar - hands bracing on his hips.

Fuming, you push yourself up to sit on the top - an attempt to get closer to his height.

"What was that about?" Your chin lifts, as your arms cross.

His eyes flash - a curl of his lip, "Can't you make my job easy, kid?"

Kid. It always makes you bristle. So far from that, and it's the way he says it. That dripping edge, like he knows something you don't.

"Maybe he was a friend." You deadpan.

"Yeah. Real friendly," He scoffs, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose, "You think your daddy is gonna like you going home with a piece of shit like that?"

That makes your teeth clench - a glare sent his way, "I don't think it's any of your business."

"It's literally my business, sweetheart." Logan huffs. His hands curl around the edge of the bar, braced on either side of your knees.

Your breathing hitches, for just a second. The soft name is ground out between his teeth, but it still shoots straight to your pussy.

You haven't been this close to him before. Enough to see the bleed of brown to green in his hazel eyes. The sharp mark between his brows that you want to press your thumb against.

The shorn-down hair at his chin, before it grows thick across his cheeks. Handsome in a way that makes you ache, your fingers curling into fists to keep from touching him.

There's been moments alone - car rides, lounging in the armchair in the corner of your room when he barks at you to hurry up.

But it hasn't been like this.

Maybe it's the opportunity. Maybe it's the amber glitter of tequila in your veins, but you let your palms press against the shining wood. Your knees inch a little further apart, the hem of your dress riding up your thighs.  

"That the only reason you whisked me away?” Your eyebrow lifts, "Kidnapping, if I recall, is one of the things you're supposed to be keeping me safe from."

"You are safe." He deflects, "'s not kidnapping when it's me.”

Those eyes are still on yours. Not dropping to where his hips nearly press against the edge of the bar top.

You break the eye contact first.

“Well, it’s fine.” You sniff - as if his actions had been your idea, “I didn’t want him anyways.”

Logan grunts. There’s the slightest brush - the flex of his thumb at your thigh, where your dress rides up. A long look before he’s pushing back to step away, but your fingers reach out, catching on his white shirt.

“Are you going to ask me what I do want?”

There’s the slightest twitch of his nose. Lips parting to show the peek of a tongue, caught between teeth. The briefest dip of his eyes. Down to the shadow between your breasts, pressed together as you lean forward to catch him.

“I know what you want, sweetheart.” He rasps, “Not gonna happen.”

The rejection stings, and you pout, “What isn’t?”

A sigh, and he’s stepping back into your space. Your hand flattens against his stomach, hard muscles beneath as his head tilts.

“You want a man to take you home. Treat you nice.” Logan’s eyes burn into you. Wide hands curving around your knees, thumbs pressing into flesh, “I’m not that guy.”

You wonder if he can hear your heartbeat. How it thunders to the beat of the music muted outside this room. Dropping down to pulse between your thighs.

Wondering if he’s thought about you, the way you have him. How he could both see and miss so much at once.

“You’re wrong,” Your head shakes, “I don’t want that.”

A breath, before you’re confessing, ”I want you.”

Logan's eyes darken. Fingers pinching against your skin, as he adjusts his grip.

“‘s a bad idea, sweetheart. Supposed to keep you out of trouble.”

Your hands skate lower, fingers tracing the edge of his belt buckle. His nostrils flare - a warning, though he does not move.

“Supposed to keep me out of trouble,” You echo, “But what if I want a little trouble in me?”

The smile you give him is sweet, a tilt of your head as he catches your hand. Thick fingers curl at your wrist, holding your hand in place. A thumb pressed up against your pulse.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me.” He rasps, voice low.

You’re undeterred.

“Could get on my knees.” You coo, “You could show me. Would you like that?”

Logan’s jaw grits. His grip loosens just long enough to feel your wrist flex - before he guides your hands, pressing your palms flat against the polished wood.

“It’s not going like that,” He husks. The tone is the same as when he’s ordering you around, one that makes your back go straight, “Those are staying right there. Got that, honey?”

All you can do is nod, as his hands skate up your thighs. Fingers massaging into flesh, soft and smooth as he eases them wider apart. Fitting himself closer between them.

The way he looks at you now is the way he did before.

Focused, as your dress inches higher. The fabric pooling at your hips as they tilt toward him, the pretty lace between your thighs now on display.

“Look at you,” His tongue clucks. A finger tracing the elastic edge, as you clench in anticipation, “Need this, don’t you?”

Drifting across, a thumb pressing against the fabric. It sends a jolt through you, your fingers almost reaching for him before you remember.

“Good girl.” He muses, as your hands flatten again.

The slightest pressure as the pad of his thumb slips up. Nudging against your clothed clit, as you inhale a sharp breath.

Pressing, and circling. It’s agonizingly slow, his eyes flicking up to watch the way you bite back a whimper. Your hips flexing into his touch, aching for more.

It lifts, so he can see how the fabric has dampened. Clinging to your skin, his knuckle tracing your seam.

“Making a mess.”

You can only whine in reply. Afraid that he’ll stop if you make too much noise. If you move - he’s made it clear he’s in charge here, and for once you’re willing to follow.

The pad of his thumb pulling back, a faint shine in the neon-bathed room.

“That for me?”

Your head nods, “Logan, please-”

There’s a sharp flash of teeth. Fingers pressing low, fitting against you, “You want me here?”

“Yes.”

You need him. Need anything he’ll give you, the sharp pinch in your palms where your nails bite into flesh.

“Ask me.” He coos.

“Please put use your fingers,” It comes in a rush, “Want you in me-”

Logan smirks, as his fingers slip beneath the waistband. Air sucked through clenched teeth when he meets slick, soaked skin. A teasing swirl against your clit before he’s parting you.

The tip of his middle finger tracing your hole, before it dips inside. His hips flex against the wooden edge, when you clench around him immediately. Trying to draw him deeper, as he works himself further in.

His fingers are much thicker than yours. A second already tracing where he opens you up. Teasing the tip in as his hand flexes, the heel of his palm grinding against your clit.

Your head tips forward. Each breath growing shorter, as you’re stretched around him. That slight ache unfurling into pleasure. Panting, as the pump of his fingers grow louder - the muffled cadence of skin against skin each time his palm collides with your cunt.

The fabric strains against his hand, his knuckles pressed against the soaked fabric.

Something bright burns in your belly, as your knees press into his hips. It makes you break the rules - a hand grasping at his arm. Anchoring yourself with your grip.

“I wanna watch. Let me see you.”

He lets you. A tap against your hip so you can lift. Carefully pulling your underwear down, easing them over the heels of your boots.

The lace disappears into his jacket pocket. His palms against your inner thighs, spreading you open. A throaty groan when he sees you, one that he can't quite manage to bite back - the rough sound shooting straight through you.

You both watch, when his fingers fit inside you this time. Two sinking down to the knuckle, slick and shining.

Unable to bite back the moan this time, though he does not shush you. His eyes fixed on your face instead, watching how your brow pinches when his fingers crook deep inside you. Searching.

The way you go jolt and then go tense when he finds it, a soft cry loosening.

“You been fucked like this before?” Logan growls, his fingers dragging against that soft spot inside you with his emphasis.

Your head shakes, when he does it again. Eyes dropping to watch his how hand looks, how you wrap around his fingers. The slick shine as they pump a little faster.

His other hand taps against your thigh.

“Words, sweetheart.”

“No,” It comes out hushed. Needy. “Never.”

His lips part with his groan, baring his teeth. With the way he touches you - his thumb moving to rub circles against your clit - it’s not long before he has you close.

A swiftly building pressure in your belly. That space between you eases as your knees close around his hips. His head tilting until his nose ghosts against your cheek.

Breath hot against your neck, as he inhales you. The slightest scrape of teeth that makes you bear down on his fingers - so careful not to leave a mark behind.

“Logan,” You pant. “That feels, ah, I think I’m gonna come-”

He groans against your skin, keeping the same pace. Feeling how you forget yourself - grasping at him, arching into his touch. Your muscles going tight as your breath grows short - panting.

“Give it to me,” Logan growls, “Come on my fucking fingers, baby.”

It’s impossible not to listen. You come, with his thumb pressing against your clit. His fingers notched deep inside you, as he feels your pulse racing beneath his lips.

The moan that rips from you pitches up, and then goes silent.

It leaves you breathless. Deep waves throbbing inside you, as you dampen his palm. Washing over and pulling you under, as your vision darkens.

“That’s fucking it. Come on, honey.” He coos, “Just look at you, so fucking pretty.”

The pump of his fingers goes still, the tips still crooking, as the tight pulses wane. The air comes rushing back into your lungs as you come back to yourself, your hands fisted in his jacket.

His chest heaves. Eyes hungry, when he slips from you. Slick clinging to them, webbing between his fingers as he pulls them up to the light.

Before he’s focusing on you again, his other hand thumbing at your lip.

“Open.”

They part automatically. Closing around the fingers he feeds you. The salt of his skin pairing with the sweet tang of your release, too blissed out to do anything but suck them clean.

“Good girl.”

It’s soft, as his fingers press down. Spreading, until you’ve cleaned yourself from them. Only when they slip from you, does his head dip.

A soft sound as his mouth presses against yours. There’s the sweep of his tongue against your lip, needy and insistent. You part for him, swallowing the moan as he tastes you. Teeth and tongue - deepening the kiss as his hands grip at your waist.

Letting your hands grasp at his shoulders. Tug at his hair until you’re pulled flush against him, your tits crushed against his chest.

Hungry, threatening to devour you, until you mumble his name.

Bringing him back to himself. Sharing a breath, Logan’s forehead pressed to yours when he pulls back. Those spit-slick fingers dropping down.

Palming himself roughly, where his cock strains - thick and hard against his jeans. A bitten-back groan, the word “fuck” rumbling deep in his chest as his hips flex into his hand.

“You going to listen now? Get that out of your system?” It comes out ragged, and you’re nodding.

All your sharp edges smoothed down. Blissfully complacent, as his fingers get a better grip on your waist. Bringing you down to the floor with wobbly legs, his hand coming to grasp at your upper arm.

“Good.” He growls, “Come on.”

A sharp tug, and you almost trip over yourself to follow.

“I’m taking you home.”

ahh I had the idea for this and had to jot it down! and I do know he goes by james/jimmy in the 70s because it’s pre-weapon-x, but I'll be keeping it as logan for this. (And I am thinking this will be a two-shot - give her a chance to get what she wants 😏💖)

[thevapegiant]

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[virginreprise]

J U N K Y ' P R I D E

joel miller x reader

" I KNOW I CAUGHT YOU AT A NOT SO HAPPY TIME OF YOUR LIFE " ✧ ⁺ ⁺ 　°

WARNINGS: age difference (big one), pervy joel, trailer park joel, joel miller has a vintage porn collection, joel's a sad old man, video game joel was in mind when writing, joel is six foot because i say so, multi-part, smut in the next chapter because i can't write anything if it isn't slowburn

WORD COUNT: 7.7k

CHAPTER TWO

AO3LINK

CHAPTER ONE—BAD DISEASE

Static from the television set tucked in a corner, a beaten leather armchair parked in front of it and a stack of vintage, VHS porn tapes on the unit. One half of “Agent 69” stuck in the VCR, balancing on its side due to the lack of care from its owner who’d jacked off in the very chair that towered over it—cum stained fist and a name on his lips, slipped out between plush flesh. Hand frantic, jerking in tandem with the buck of his hips as he flit his eyes between the TV and the wood-panelled ceiling, profanities spilling from his filthy mouth. Muttering to himself as pornstar moans graced his ears, words whispered into the night, stolen by the archangels and flown up to God: conspiring, scheming, uttering under their breath that he should not be allowed through the holy gates on judgement day. That the defiled Bible on his bookshelf and the cross that had been left for him by the previous owners, pinned to the trailer wall, was not enough for them to ignore the strained sentences that he spewed in a desperate bid for the Trailer Park Princess on her knees—red nails and red lips wrapped around his cock. A ring of colour staining the base. 

Utter filth. And Joel knew it. 

The perversions he didn’t keep to himself, laughed about bending over the pretty thing next door whilst nursing a beer on Pete’s porch—puffing away on the cheap cigars he’d stolen from the liquor store. They tasted like shit, smelt like shit and Joel would’ve been better without it, but it added to the image: kept Susan from asking him stupid questions like why he didn’t have a woman. It was her way of flirting, bikini top displaying her sagging tits, bending over the kitchen counter whilst his buddies watched baseball. 

“You got your eye on anyone, Joel?” 

“Not really, Susan.” 

Then Pete interjecting. 

“Come off it, Susan. Just cause he ain’t committed don’t mean that he ain’t got women.”

That kept her quiet, made her slink away into the hallway, slipping into their bedroom and pulling a cover-up on—suddenly insecure. 

Joel wasn’t a pervert. He didn’t have some strange penchant for young women. They were just…nice to look at. Pretty and sun-kissed in the Texan heat, ass hanging out their shorts, bikini top doing much more to entice than Susan’s did. There was no harm in looking—they never knew. He prided himself on being discreet, nursing a beer in the late afternoon whilst Kenny Rogers lulled from the radio, flicking ash from his cigarette onto the porch floor—eyes trained on your open window, cracked just a tad to let the air through. Drapes open. 

At times, he thinks you do it on purpose, a gentle taunt, a silent jeer: “You can only look, perv.” 

If the invitation was there, he’d take you up on it. Because out of all the women he’d fucked, headboard bashing against the wall, a chip in the wood of the trailer evidence of his trysts, you were the only one who’d worked him up to the point of no return. The only one who’d grabbed him completely by the collar and forced him to lick your boots. 

Like Joel said, he wasn’t a pervert. You were just a fucking whore who needed to be put in her place. 

So he’d sit there, in the white garden chair he’d snatched up from the pile of scrap that accumulated just east of his trailer, and watch. Most days, you’d be doing nothing in particular, unfortunately already dressed, dirty clothes in hand and wet hair dripping down your back. Other days, the days where Joel thought he was really lucky, where he’d stumble inside with a hard-on, sit on his recliner and hastily shove whatever he got his hands on, into the VCR, skipping over the poorly acted introductions, and pretend that the moans reverberating the trailer, were yours. Images of you slipping your shorts over your hips, swaying slightly to whatever tune you were listening to, peeling your shirt off your body. No bra. Slyly stepping towards your window, catching his eye once, a look so slight that he wouldn’t be surprised if he imagined it, and pulled your drapes shut. 

He’d spilt all over his hand, white on his knuckles and a smile on his lips. 

Joel would never feel guilty for wanting you, not when he had already made peace with the fact he was a deadbeat, bound to the white trash lifestyle, unemployed and living off the pills he paid for and sold for a ridiculously high price, still grieving his losses and wondering what the fuck he could’ve done differently. If he would’ve done anything differently given the chance. 

No, Joel was not a bad person. He just looked for her in every person, desperately seeking a will. And so far, you had succeeded in helping him remove the gun from his mouth—evenings spent in different, dangerous ways. 

Texan summers were unlike anything you’d experienced before, the heat so incredibly stifling that your love for the sun disappeared completely. Mornings spent on the porch, soaking in the last bits of breeze before cycling your ass to work, sweating and heaving by the time you got there, in the same condition when you rode back home and locked yourself away with every window flung open before nightfall fell and you felt you could breathe again. 

The cicadas were loud, the snakes huddled up in the shade, waiting for you to trample on them, and the beast next door, Joel Miller: terrifying, gorgeous and a fucking pervert. 

The day you’d moved into the trailer, despairing the loss of stability, ruminating upon your desperate escape from a home now dead and lost to the prairies of your mind, he’d been there. Wifebeater stretched across his wide torso, a cigarette placed on his lips, unused as it hung there, smoking away, the grey wisps begging with each dissipation into the atmosphere: breathe me in. He’d stared. Unable to be subtle no matter how slick he thinks he is, eyes flitting between your tits and your ass. Tits. Ass. Tits. Ass. A calculated dance that left a funny feeling brewing in the pit of your stomach, a lurch in your bowels that made nausea claw its way up your throat. 

Tits. Ass. Then, he suddenly looked at your face, standing there on his porch, the sunrise building its way up the horizon, too early for anybody to see him looking you over like you were a dead deer he’d just shot, smirking at the notion of sawing your head off and displaying it on the wall above his mantle. Heaving boxes into the empty trailer, lot number seventeen, whilst the owner of lot eighteen wouldn’t take his fucking eyes off you, was a terrible feat. 

Once you’d shoved the last box into your bedroom, you’d shut the door, locked it tight and peeked through the window to see that he had gone back inside, retreating to the haven of steel and veneer. 

Over time, Joel became easier to manage. After the initial, awkward introductions where he’d called you princess, babydoll, sugar (almost adding a “tits” to the end of the nickname before realising where he was) your stomach reeling at the monikers, time settled your unmistakable disgust for him, the universe replaced the sickness you felt when you spoke to him with another stomach-turning anxiety that you pushed down far into every crevasse and high onto every mountain. 

You grew to enjoy the nicknames, skipping a few paces up his porch steps and ask him ever so kindly if he could come and fix the cupboard door that was swinging off its hinges, change the lightbulb because you couldn’t reach the ceiling yourself, stop the leaky tap that seemed to start drip drip dripping every month—just to bully you. 

Although you knew that Joel was a dirtbag, hearing him talking about the filthiest things, laughing as Pete clapped him on the back in praise and acknowledgement, knowing that he wanted nothing more than to treat you like a whore, he gave you nothing except a sly smile, a sleazy nickname and the occasional help around the house. Fixing things. 

So, naturally, you began asking around about Joel. Susan liked to gossip. So did Lillian, a woman who had spent her entire life in the park and, at sixty-two, had no interest in leaving. 

“I remember when he moved here,” she’d told you one fine summer evening, when the heat wasn’t as menacing and you felt content being away from the air conditioning, sipping sweet tea in Lillian’s wooden garden chairs, feet placed on the seat—chin resting on your knees. “All stoic, wouldn’t speak ‘ta anyone. I could tell he’d gone through something bad, you know me and my sixth sense.” 

She’d paused for a moment, taking a drag, a sip, a sigh before looking at you solemnly. 

“He was a catch with the ladies,” she’d muttered. “They were all after him, even this one over here,” she’d pointed to Susan who’d smacked her arm, complaining about her disrespect. She was a married, loyal woman after all. “Well, it’s true. If I were twenty years younger, I would’ve gone for him too, but it wouldn’t have done much anyway cause he didn’t touch anyone. There ain’t many pretty young ladies round here, you know you’re the only one,” she’d said plainly, addressing you with a hint of affection. 

Waving her cigarette around as she relayed every single detail she knew about Joel’s love life, telling you how after a few years of moping, he’d bring back girls in the middle of the night, fuck them, and then throw them out the next day. 

“He’s not a romantic,” Lillian had prefaced, Susan interjecting with:

“Ya think so? I think he is…if he just found the right woman-”

“Oh don’t listen to her Darlin’, he’s a man who likes to play. He ain’t lookin’ to settle, I tell you that much.” 

Listening to them both, their anecdotes, their stories, and their opinions, you concluded one thing about Joel Miller. He was an asshole. A man who had done nothing to better his life since he stepped foot in the trailer park ten years ago, a sag in his shoulders and an anger in his eyes. 

You weren’t sure if he’d mellowed since then, or if he’d just managed to conceal it better. Joel hadn’t been angry around you, not when you knocked on his door at three in the morning, asking him if he could come get the spider out of your bedroom, not when you’d accidentally run into his truck with your bike or told him that he was an asshole when you’d caught him talking about you one day in springtime. 

“She’s as dumb as fucking rocks,” he’d chuckled. “Bet she gets cockdrunk so easy.” 

He’d grumbled out the last sentence, an afterthought that was more for him than the men he was talking to, but you, stumbling around, half-asleep after your shift, were not willing to take the degradation. You’d berated him in front of his peers, slammed the door behind you, and regretted it immediately. Because, even though it shouldn’t matter, even though you thought he was pervy and angry and wouldn’t treat you how you’d been told you deserved, the last thing you wanted was for him to hate you. 

Every time he praised you, told you that you looked good as you stepped out of your home, on your way to Lillian’s for a catch-up and the cigarettes she bought you every three weeks, just for being good and keeping her company, you felt that tingle, the synaptic transmissions running down your spine every time he stepped through your door, asking what the issue with your tap was. You should’ve been disgusted when he’d left and you’d gone to the bathroom only to find the panties you’d left on the floor were gone, but you’d felt that same spark instead. A deep, sliding ache that consumed every part of you. 

Luckily for you, your sink decided to start leaking again on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Perfect time to lure him into your trailer, grab him by the neck and ask him as nicely as you could if he could cease the pain. 

Sip of beer, drag of cigarette, click of the remote to change the channel, repeat. 

A usual Sunday afternoon pastime. 

Joel would’ve rifled through his VHS’s, find something he could jack off to whilst he deliberated whether today would be the day he’d say “fuck it” and saunter on over to next door, hoping to god he’d get his dick wet by someone other than a whore, but he couldn’t be bothered to move from his seat. It was effort enough trying to change the channel, arm aching as he pressed the button, rolling his eyes as the same boring drab illuminated his TV screen. 

It was another one of those days. Glancing at the watch on his wrist, the broken glass, the notion that he would never fix it no matter how easy it would’ve been to go over to Shane’s and ask him to get it working again, all for the low price of a few pills. 

She’d left him with it and he would die with it. 

A reminder of her every time he glanced at his watch, swallowing hard as he remembered the way he’d pressed cool metal to the side of his head, a tear slipping down his cheek before realising that he never could. Because Joel was an asshole, he knew that. He was selfish and cruel and spoke about people as if they could get any lower than he already was. But more so than anything, Joel was a sad old man.

Tommy, the damn bastard, who’d left Joel to fend for himself while he went off with his new-found “true love” to have kids and a decent life, had sent a few thousand dollars and a pitiful “I’m sorry, Joel,” over the phone after his big brother had fucked up and lost his job. When Joel had been left penniless and broken. Nothing to fight for. No one to hold him or tell him that he was loved. He’d spent all his money raiding gas stations for cases of beer, bottles of whisky, anything that could numb the pain—choosing the alcohol over food, over his mortgage. When he’d lost the house, he hadn’t taken anything of hers. Even after she’d died, he’d insisted that everything needed getting rid of. Her clothes, her posters, even her damn phone. He’d slammed Tommy against the wall after realising that he was taking everything with him, that he was not doing as he was told. After that, Joel had closed the door on her bedroom and never stepped foot in it again. 

All he had of her was a damn watch, a photo that his little brother had shoved into his hands, a harsh, “Take it, you damn bastard. You’ll regret it when you stop feeling so sorry for yourself,” on his lips, and the memory of her in his arms when he’d felt that huge heart of hers stop beating. 

There had been many low points in Joel’s life, wandering through his existence on a tightrope that was ready to snap with every step, but none had been lower than that. 

Not even when he’d called Tommy in the middle of the night, sobbing, struggling to breathe with a clean bottle of Jim Beam in his hands, begging him to help. He’d lost his house, he’d lost his job, he’d lost his daughter. Where to next? 

Tommy, all the way in Wyoming had scraped together some money, told Joel to get himself down to the mobile park and a steady job. Start from the bottom again. 

Sometimes, Joel resented his brother for not giving him that money for a flight to the West, smiling down the phone as he informed that they had a spare room for him, his nephew cooing in his bassinet and waiting for his old uncle. 

He understood though. When he wasn’t drunk it made more sense why he hadn’t invited him to his home. 

They hadn’t spoken in sixteen years. To his nephew whom he did not know the name of, he was just the deadbeat uncle who hadn’t made it out of Texas—still alive but lost. 

Tommy would’ve probably hated him more if he was sitting on Joel’s couch, staring at the porn and the beer, the cigarettes that his little brother knew he had only smoked when he was a rebellious teenager—the occasional pull never becoming a habit, especially when his daughter came along. 

Almost certainly would’ve despised him if he knew how he felt about the girl next door, the perverse catharsis he experienced when he took himself in hand and imagined taking care of her, shushing her whimpers, making her whine with the way he stretched her open. 

Oh, and he was a bad man. A bad fucking man and he was the last thing you needed. Some poor, young girl who was doing her best to make it. Pay the rent on time, make sure she was kept fed, all whilst juggling the inescapable feeling that once you were in the trailer park there was no getting out. 

Joel didn’t see an end. He’d been here for over a decade; his drug money was not for a new house or a new life, it was for whores and booze, a carton of Marlboro reds that he got for cheap from Bill, and porn. He’d collected all the goddamn vices—became a person so unlike who he was, so far from the quietly loveable single dad he’d been hailed as years ago. 

As far as Joel now was concerned, that guy was a fucking pussy. 

That guy would think he needed professional help for the way he thought about you, would expel every single image of you naked and writhing, tits bouncing in time with his thrusts as you lay boneless and crying in his grasp. 

You were legal. What was the big fucking deal? 

Joel needed this. You were not just some throwaway material good that would leave him in debt for the next ten years—you were full and gorgeous, smart, quick-witted and made him harder than the oak tree that stood centuries-old just a little down the road from the old Palmer farmhouse. 

That day you’d heard him talking about you to his friends, the way he’d lied and said that you were dumb, when you’d come storming up his porch steps—all rage and heat—and cussed him out, he’d laughed. It didn’t matter about the taunts and the sniggers he got from his buddies who he would have no issue never speaking to again. They could go fuck themselves for all he cared because you hadn’t willingly thrown yourself at his feet and licked his boots. 

Whores were easy. No challenge with a whore, no longing, no desire, just a mutual understanding that this was transactional and she was going to moan as loud as you wanted her to whether it felt good or not. 

But you had given Joel something worth chasing. And fuck he was going to catch you, even if it meant he’d die in the chair he sat in, with nothing to show for his life except a case of Bud, an empty fridge, and a stain on his bedsheets where you’d reached for him—begging for everything he could not give.

Something about him had you checking your appearance before you walked out the door, making your hair presentable, touching up your lipgloss, blotting the oil from your face. All for a man who saw you as nothing but jailbait

You wanted to be wanted. To be looked at with a fire, an urge to grasp you and take you fully, pull you close when you cried and kiss you when you shook with the need to run far away. You wanted to be kept, to be reminded every day that you were needed, loved and desired.

You wanted Joel. 

Joel: the sad old man next door, the dangerously handsome figure in your life that stood six feet tall, jaw sharp and strong, muscles straining with his arms crossed—built big and firm. A chest you’d very much like to lay your head on. A bulge in his pants you’d very much like to see stripped bare. 

So when the opportunity came, you seized it, with an iron first, intent on capturing what had been yours since the day you’d moved to the free prison—since the day he’d stared at you, an unadulterated and irremovable, perverse desire that shook the very beings of your existence. That determined exactly who you are and how you would fall for the watchful eyes and glinting gaze that befell you every time you stepped down the rotten wood steps at the foot of the trailer entrance. 

You stepped onto them then, Chuck Taylors strapped to your feet, laces loose and lazily tied, skin smoothed from the razor you’d pressed against it in the shower that morning—all for him. The appearance every bit of expectation you had for his fantasies and ideals, hoping that the attire would thrust him further into abandoning a morality he did not have. 

The sun set rapidly behind you, the grass long and dry around your ankles, unmowed—as you nor Joel had ever discussed who would get mowing duty—and a clear head. A set destination, unstifled by a long day at work, the sweat curling along your back too harsh to be ignored and the sometimes discourteous demeanour of Joel’s so powerful that you often wondered why you liked him. Why you gave so much attention to a man years ahead of you, unable to look at you without laughing at the prospect you thought you were more to him than a pretty thing to look at whilst he wallowed in his castle of self-pity he’d built for himself all these years spent trapped and lonely. 

It all seemed insignificant that day you’d crossed the boundary between lot seventeen and lot eighteen. When you’d shakily advanced up his steps, onto the porch you grew so fond of, and knocked once, twice, thrice on the white door—stepping back to await his welcome. Hoping to god that he’d see you and take you there. 

The shuffling on the other side of the door raised your heart rate, a sweat forming on the back of your neck which you brushed away with a hasty hand, intimidated by what awaited you when the white disappeared and transformed into bulking arms and a firm chest—a tall body that you gazed up at with ardour. 

When the sight appeared, you gulped away the desire to run away, to pretend that you’d just come here for the leaky tap and that there was no other reason you had bothered him on his peaceful Sunday afternoon. No ulterior motive. Not that you just wanted to see him because he had hardly been around the past couple of days and in truth you were worried about him; you wanted to make him feel better. 

“Hi.” He struggled to conceal the surprise in his voice, seemingly struggling further to keep the thickness in his throat at bay, the redness of his eyes that displayed days of restlessness and insomnia. “You alright?” 

“Yeah,” you murmured impassively, licking your lips, swallowing away the dryness in your throat at the state of him: burning cigarette in hand, flannel shirt unbuttoned and displaying the white wifebeater that lay underneath. The shape of his belly was visible underneath it, his belt purposefully unbuckled and hanging from the loops of his jeans. “I’m alright.” 

There was a twitch of his lips as he stared down at you, eyes flitting from head to toe—shameless in the way he always was. In the way you liked. 

“You sure?” 

It seemed stupid suddenly: the entire situation. The call you felt towards him, the want you had to curl up against his chest, let him hold you and tell you he was proud of you for opening up to him—telling him how fucking much you wanted him, despite knowing exactly how it would end if you were to venture further into a relationship that surpassed just neighbours. 

So instead of inviting yourself in, seducing him until he fell to his knees, tugged you by the waist and begged you for just the smallest piece of yourself, you succumbed to your insecurity, and retreated from the palace walls. 

“Yeah…yeah, it’s just that my taps leaking again.” For a split second, he almost looked irritated, eyes honing in on you, narrowing with a look of aggravation—confirmed by the clench of his jaw. You appeased him, saying, “You don’t have to come over now. I just thought I’d tell you,” and the expression slowly slipped away into something much more sinister: mirth. 

“Sure thing, pretty girl,” he said as he slinked away from the doorframe, inviting you into his home, coaxing you past the threshold as he fumbled about in the fridge and pulled out two beers. 

Contemplating, you stared at him, the flex of his muscles as he uncapped each bottle, the stature and size of him as he hunched over the counters, turning around to hold out a drink to you. An invitation. One that you had expected you’d have to give yourself—that you’d have to kick and cry before he ever let himself find you. 

“Just have a drink,” he soothed in that southern lull of his, the words rolling from his tongue with ease. As if he had practised the scenario before he knew it would befall him. “No point in worrying over your tap, I can’t do anything until I buy new washers. I’m out 'cause of you.” 

The irritation he’d shown earlier seemed palpable now—as if he was inviting you into his home simply to make you as uncomfortable as possible, hold you down by the hips until you promised to leave him alone. A taunt, a ploy to make sure you would never get what you wanted. 

However, you had never stepped foot in his trailer, had only ever been on his porch and ran your hand over the chair he frequented, wondering what it looked like beyond the four walls, and curiosity prevailed as it always did. 

Uncertainly, you stepped onto the carpet, gently closing the door behind you, and mumbled a thank you as you took the beer from his hand. 

Almost immediately, you felt like apologising for his irrational emotions. 

“I’m sorry,” you muttered. “I didn’t mean to put you out. I’ll pay for whatever you need-”

“You pay in ways you don’t know. I don’t need your money.” 

The cryptic way in which he spoke, the casualness as he gave you a look that hinted at something you couldn’t decipher and the slow saunter to his armchair left you in a state of uncertainty. Standing there, with a beer wetting your hand, a frown on your face and a furrowed brow, you had no idea where to go next. What would await you if you questioned him—the things you would discover that were best left in the hands of God and no one else. 

Again, curiosity thrust its violent hand into your stomach and forced your feet to start moving towards him, hoping that he’d appreciate your bravery—your denial of your urges to run far away. It was noted, however, that Joel Miller could care less about bravery. That the quality itself was right down at the bottom of the ladder and that he could and would not give a shit if you welcomed his advances in spite of your lack of courage. 

Hesitantly, you planted yourself on his couch, the furniture built into the wall, curving into an L shape where you imagined he’d kick his feet up after a long day, palm the bulge in his jeans and pick from the litany of porn that you took one glance at and thought better than to stare at it too long in case he felt offended by your interest. 

The discovery admittedly took away a little of his allure. 

“Make yourself at home,” he insisted, taking a sip of his beer and urging you to do the same with a single nod of his head. The slight twitch of his lips when you did so caused your body to go squirming, shifting uncomfortably in your seat as the fire raged within you—unable to be sated with the way he looked at you then. 

Just a scoff, a sip, and a glance at your lips before he turned away completely and focused his attention on the blank TV screen— his reflection the only entertainment. 

Silence grew uncomfortable, the bitter taste of alcohol coating the back of your throat, dripping down your oesophagus and choking any words that you wished to say. The heat emanating from him was overpowering even from the distance you sat apart, the scent of cigarettes overwhelming, so much so that you needed a distraction, anything to dull the rest of your senses from shutting down—all because of his powerful presence; the effect he had on you even when he sat still and awaited your call. 

“What did you mean?” The words came tumbling from your mouth, driven by an insatiable desire and lacklustre confidence you had somewhere deep in the pits of your stomach, bubbling with the acid that nestled there until it rose to the surface—bile transforming into questions that could leave you in a shell of humiliation. At his furrowed brow, you expanded. “About me paying in ways I don’t know.” 

He leaned forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees. Sombre, all of a sudden. Staring into the barrel of his bottle, the brown glass reflecting like constellations on his face—accentuating the sharp angle of his jawline, the sunken hollows of his cheekbones. 

When his eyes nestled on yours, burrowing right into your skull, you couldn’t move. Couldn’t even fathom the thought of taking a lungful of air, waiting with your breath held tight inside, for his answer. 

“You shouldn’t go asking questions like that.” He sipped quietly, wetting his lips by flicking his tongue in and out, averting his gaze back to the shadow of himself in the television. “You’ll get yourself in trouble.” 

It was not the answer you wished for, eyes downcast, focused on your shaking knee as you tried to gauge some form of clarity beneath the mystery that clouded the gates to his head—what lay beneath his skull; what you wished to find. 

Against your better judgment, you pressed further, keeping the beer bottle clutched between your hands and hoping it would stay cold forever. 

“I can handle myself.” It came out more confident than you had expected, your bobbing knee ceasing its movement, your dry throat provided with moisture. A break from the anxious sweat you had broken out in. “If you don’t tell me I’ll just leave a hundred dollars on your doorstep and leave you alone.” 

You hoped quietly, in that stifling room, that he would make sure it didn’t come to that. That he would let you pay in any way he saw fit. You hoped that the sad hulk of a man sitting in the lone chair with porn in every drawer and money set aside for whores, would let you have him—bring back a semblance of light to his eyes. Find out what kept the despondency trapped so tight around him, the crown of thorns on his head expanding until it reached his feet and kept him locked in nature's prison—skin scratched, bloody and unable to be healed unless he found someone willing to cut through the overgrowth. 

He seemed to bristle at your words, shoulders tightening, jaw clenching in the manner he did when he was irritated. You’d seen it before when Dale had been drunk and had followed you home. When you’d stumbled uncomfortably to your trailer and pleaded Joel who sat on his porch, almost looking like he was waiting for you, to get him off your back. That tick, the downturn of his brow, the twitch of his lip, the look so intimidating you had rushed inside and watched through the window as Joel clapped a hand on Dale’s back and ushered him away from you.

You had no idea what he’d done after they’d left your sight but Dale barely looked at you after. The last interaction you’d had with him was the morning after when he’d knocked on your door, timid for a fifty-year-old man, and apologised. Joel had been there, like he almost always was—always dancing in your peripheral, waiting for you, taunting you—with a cup of coffee clasped between two hands and a smug look on his face when he watched the interaction. 

“You ain’t as smart as you think you are,” he uttered, slipping you away from the vignette and shattering the memory with his simple words. 

They stung. More than you cared to admit. 

Men were never this difficult, never this hard to get through to, never this confusing. He had given you every possible sign, every protection, every knowing look that confessed: you are everything I wish to have. 

It seemed every day he was further from you, every day he looked at you and thought that he was blinded by loneliness and that you were the last thing he needed to dote on. 

With the rejection, came vexation, a rumbling little thing that forced its way into your mouth—lips parting to let it out. 

“You’re not as discreet as you think you are.” As soon as they fell, the rest came following like a herd of bulls, a huge red flag flying through the air, right where Joel sat. They came for him, and you didn’t care enough to stop them. “I’m not stupid, no matter what you say.” 

The tick, tick, tick of his jaw. That subtle way his eyes narrowed, honing in on everything but the thing causing his problems, trying desperately to stop the truths from betraying his conceptions. 

“I see you, Joel. I see you through my bedroom window, using me as your personal stripper because you’re too fucking cheap to go down to the strip club and give a tip.” The push and pull was becoming apparent, the sympathy and disgust you held for him all at once growing and growing until all that prevailed was rage. That after everything, he still refused. That he was still a fucking coward no matter how many faces he pulled at anyone who looked at him wrong. You would not be deterred by the look he gave you then: one that should’ve made you shrink away in fear he would do something rash. “I see the way you looked at me from day fucking one. Just a pair of tits to stare at, a new young girl that you can prey on-”

“Stop.” 

“I’m not stupid.” Your voice was rising rapidly, your lips downturned in a scowl, unable to see the danger that befell you if you continued. “I know how you talk about me to your friends, I know that you make a show of being this immovable thing that no one can ever get to because you’re so wrapped up in your own self-pity that you can’t even admit to yourself that the only thing you are is a fucking pervert. And an asshole.” 

“You are crossing a line, little girl.” 

His words fell on deaf ears, a scoff coming from the back of your throat—so many things that you wanted to say but couldn’t voice. You settled for a final, blow. One that might kick him off his feet. 

“I know you stole my panties.” Jaw ticking, teeth grinding so hard they were liable to turn to dust in his mouth. “Took them right off my bathroom floor. Could you not help yourself? Are you that sad, Joel? Are you that much of a fucking perve-” 

Silenced by the way he towered, standing upright, bottle discarded by the leg of his chair and fury dancing in his eyes—so apparent and profound you finally stopped and cowered. 

“You don’t know a thing about me.” 

You were stunned into submission, finally on the end of his intimidation—a feat that was sure to happen sooner rather than later. You were just another Dale, just another one of his victims that he shot down with narrowed eyes and a nasty tone of voice that forced you to swallow down the confidence—sending it right back to your stomach, and burning the false assurance away. 

“I have been cordial with you for as long as possible.” There was danger in the way he spoke so calmly, a tremor in your hands as he stepped forward, facing you completely, and kneeled before you—eyes boring into yours, forcing you to look at him with the hand he placed on the couch beside you. “I’ve tried my hardest to be respectable but you make it so damn difficult.” 

“I’m sorry,” you began, wishing you could take it all back, wishing that you could’ve used your boldness for better: crawled into his lap and let him hold you, sank to your knees like he and worshipped him with every bit of yourself you had.

“Sh, sh, sh,” he shook his head, the hand on the couch, moving, the weight of it resting there dissipating and falling even heavier on the side of your face. “You can’t take it back now.” 

Nerves slipped like rapids through your stomach, the damn thing churning so much you began to feel sick with the anticipation and fear you felt being closer to him than you ever had been before. Your mouth opened as if to speak, then closed again when you realised that your throat had closed, the inside of your mouth dry and unable to lubricate your words with credibility as they fell from your lips.

“You think I’m a pervert?” he asked, eyes expecting an answer, eyebrows raising to help you find a response. “Hm?” 

“Yes.” The monosyllable fell shakily, unable to lie when he was looking at you so harshly, all whilst stroking your cheekbone with his thumb and engulfing the right side of your face with one, big, warm hand. 

He nodded with knowing, his other hand falling to your bare knee. You were crowded by him, completely consumed by his presence and with a harsh swallow, you hoped that he would slip away and allow you to breathe—if only for a moment. 

“I know,” he said with finality, your cheek whacked with cold air as he removed his hand, quickly providing you with warmth again as he pressed his thumb to your chin, holding it delicately. Making sure you couldn’t look away from him. “But you like it, don’t you?” he brushed the bottom of your lip with his nail, an uncontrollable shiver running through you that he revelled in.

He’d called your bluff entirely. He’d locked you up in his cage, gave you the upper hand for just a second, made you believe that you could get away from him if you kicked and screamed enough, only to leave you hopeless as he twisted the key to the right, and threw the metal that granted you freedom, into the fire. 

“If you had an issue with me looking, you’d close the drapes. You’re a smart girl, I’m sure it ain’t too hard for you.” 

His patronisation, his demeanour that consisted of arousal and determination, had a small breath puffing from your lungs, a sudden and overwhelming heat crawling from each of his hands and into your head—breaking your rationale and leaving you pliable and willing in his grasp. He’d got you. Right there. And if he wanted you, you would let him have you. 

“And if you didn’t want me to steal your panties, then you shouldn’t have left them there.” 

It was unbelievable, the way he twisted the blame onto you, the way he made you believe in everything he was saying with a simple swipe of his thumb over your bottom lip and a look in his eyes that stopped you from questioning him. 

“Yes, Joel, I’m sorry, Joel,” were the only words swimming through your head: words that you would’ve spoken aloud had he not stunned you into silence, the hand on your knee sliding along your skin, up towards the hem of your shorts where he slipped his fingers under and skimmed the skin concealed by the denim. 

“You understand me, little girl?” 

“I’m not a little girl,” you managed, voice shaky as the warmth of him engulfed you entirely, wrapped up in the scent of him, the feel of the callouses along your smooth skin and the eyes piercing you. If looks could kill…if those pretty eyes could rip you apart with the viciousness of their stare. 

“No you ain’t,” he murmured, gripping your chin, thumb rubbing along the flesh of your bottom lip, the skin bouncing as he peeled it back and let go. “I know you ain’t.” 

There seemed a flood came over his being, a white wave of purity dowsing him, ridding him of every adulteration and forcing sense back into his head as the hand fell from your face, the one on your inner thigh taking longer to slip away before the cloud of insensibility faded and he arrived to a semblance of morality. 

You watched as he stumbled over to the kitchen, hand working over the scruff he called a beard and forced his eyes away from you. 

“Joel,” you called softly, finally gaining back a little strength now he wasn’t crowding you; forcing you to look at him and make the first move so his conscience could be clean. 

“Just go.” The words were uttered much softer than before, the delicacy of his voice surprising you but the strain that coated his throat a reminder that this was still Joel Miller. Dangerously beautiful Joel Miller with a lifetime of terror stashed somewhere in the backrooms of his mind, a darkness in the depths of his eyes you couldn’t help but be frightened by, and a story you wished he would tell. A story that stretched years back to the life before he crept past the opening gates of Shady Springs Mobile Park and left a life that you had no clue wether  had been better or worse than his life now. “I’ll come over tomorrow afternoon and have a look at that tap. You might have to get maintenance round soon though if it keeps up.” 

“I don’t like strangers…in my house.” Your words trailed off at the end of your sentence, caught up in the possibilities of your words and how he would reply. If he would see right through you and clock how you’d only spoken because the tap was one of the biggest ties you had to Joel. If he would realise that you’d thought about getting maintenance months ago when it first started dripping but didn’t want a permanent fix, no matter how annoying. All because of Joel Miller and the way he’d perversely captured you in the plot of some barely legal porno that you would’ve turned your nose up at if it was anyone but him and you. 

You and Joel. 

The thought sounded nice—the reality a little less nicer. 

“Yeah, well…” he leant back on the countertops, arms crossed over his chest, eyes bloodshot and bordered by black—an undeniable piece of evidence that Joel perhaps wasn’t doing as well as he made everyone believe; that there was something deeper tugging at his mind and causing such aggravation. 

After a moments silence, when he looked at you and you looked right back at him, your head clear and working properly again, you diverted the conversation elsewhere—a ploy to hack deeper at his head and find what lay underneath his skull. 

“Are you okay?” Simple, easy. Not difficult to ascertain the concern laced deep in your tone because you were concerned for him. The moment he’d opened the door after days of barely seeing him, time spent cursing the fact he could peer through your windows but you could not peer through his, you knew something was wrong. That there was something happening to him. Something dangerous. Your sympathy began to overtake everything else, memory shed of all the times he had wronged you and replaced with the very little he had done right. “You look…tired. Exhausted, really.” 

“I’m fine,” he said with finality, the rage in his eyes returning but with less power this time. The fatigue was setting in, the constant running from himself finally catching up to him. 

“Are you sure?”

“I said I’m fine.” It shut you up well enough, so much so that you began to lose the commiserations. You could always say you tried. “Now get out of my house.” 

It was the final thing he said to you before he slipped away, striding down the hallway, footsteps echoing until he reached the bedroom; the click of the door resounding throughout the trailer. 

You stared at the spot where he’d kneeled, a finger brushing softly over your lip before shaking away the self-pity and gently placing the beer bottle on the table that sat next to his chair. 

Looking one last time at the door at the end of the hallway, shadowed and guarded by snapping dogs, you opened the door, the damn thing creaking as if to shout to everyone within a mile radius that you had made no progress with the man you desperately wanted, and stepped out. Leaving your pride on the doorstep. 

© virginreprise

thanks for reading !

[hoernypie]

Marking Territory

tags: creamp!e, public, sex (p+v), au, pet names, costumes, party

wc: ~3k

"You look cute", you giggled fixing Sukuna's wolf ears from the costume, "Don't worry, nobody will laugh seeing you in that," you reassured him while caressing his chest. He only huffs rolling his eyes, regretting agreeing to your idea of putting ears on him. "Tho maybe I should get changed, just because someone had to "mark me"...", you sigh loudly looking at your reflection in the mirror, the wet patch between your legs decorating your costume was too big to be ignored by others. All of that because Sukuna quietly hated your costume, it was too revealing and he just knew some drunk idiot would try to hit on you so he just had to be sure you'd remember who you belonged to.

Taking a deep breath, you grabbed another tissue to pat down the wet spot, trying to minimize the damage. "Come on, let's go," he said with a smirk, walking out of the bathroom. The party was in full swing now, the music's bass thumping through the house, laughter and chatter filling the air. You scanned the room for a familiar face to avoid any questions they'd ask about the stain on the costume. As you both made your way through the dancing people, you couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement mixed with a hint of anxiety.  You tightened your grip on Sukuna's hand, still thinking how a while ago he fucked you in the bathroom. Despite his earlier grumbling, he wore the wolf ears without further complaint.

As you entered the crowded living room, you felt a sense of relief when you spotted your friends' table, but before you could walk to them, Sukuna grabbed your shoulder - making you stop. "I'm gonna grab a drink," he said leaning down, "Behave like a good little bunny". You nodded and made your way to the table, and leaned over it, immediately trying to joke with stoned Shoko. As soon as he was out of earshot, a tall, lanky guy dressed as a Dracula sidled up to you, checking you out in your costume. "You look like you could use a bite," he quipped with a smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes. You looked at him with disgust in response, but before you could come up with a comeback, he leaned closer, his breath reeking of booze and cheap cigarettes. "Come on baby, loosen up. Let's have some fun," he slurred, reaching for your right breast. Disgust and anger bubbled up in your chest, your mind racing as you took a step back and felt the wetness spread further on your costume. Just as your hand was rising to smack him, a big hand gripped his wrist, pulling him away. "I believe she's not interested in charity work," Sukuna said with a calmness that hid the anger in his voice. The drunk Dracula's smirk faltered, his gaze flicking from your face to Sukuna's and then down to the hand resting on his wrist. He stumbled back a step, a mix of fear and embarrassment coloring his cheeks. "S-sorry, man," he mumbled, trying to pull away, but Sukuna's grip remained firm. "Get the fuck away from her," Sukuna said, his tone leaving no room for argument. 

Sukuna disappeared into the sea of people, dragging the guy out, leaving you at the table with Shoko and the others, who were too engrossed in their own conversations and smoking to care about that situation. You took a moment trying to shake off the situation with the drunk Dracula. Just as you began to relax and reached for the blunt, you felt a hand on your shoulder. You turned around expecting it to be Sukuna, but instead, you found yourself face to face with a smirking college boy dressed as a pirate, his pants unzipped. "Hey there, little bunny," he slurred, his eyes ogling your costume. "You looked like you could use some better company," he leered, his hand sliding down to your waist. You stiffened, ready to push him away, when you heard a scoff from behind you. Sukuna reappeared, a drink in one hand and a fiery look in his eyes. He stepped between you and the pirate, his other hand gripping the back of the chair to keep himself from lunging at the guy, considering smacking him with the chair now. "Fuck off," he said through gritted teeth. The pirate's smug expression faltered, and he took a step closer, his hand tightly gripping your waist. 

The pirate smirked as he ignored Sukuna's warning look. "What's your problem, dude?" he slurred, his grip on your waist not loosening. Sukuna's eyes narrowed, his patience wearing thinner than the fabric of your costume. "I said fuck off," he repeated, his voice full of anger. The pirate's friends, noticing the tension, began to gather around, egging him on with drunken cheers. One of them snickered, "Looks like the wolf's got some territorial issues." Shoko and the rest of your friends looked up from their smokes, sensing the impending confrontation. You felt a knot form in your stomach as the pirate leaned closer, his breath hot and foul against your ear. "Don't worry, darling, I'll show you a treasure you won't forget," he whispered, his hand inching downwards while the other one moved dangerously close to your breast. Sukuna's restraint snapped like a thin twig. He slammed his drink onto the table, the liquid spilling everywhere, and grabbed the pirate by the collar. "You're going to regret this," he growled, pulling the drunk college boy away from you. The pirate stumbled, but as he tried to regain his footing, he slipped on the spilled drink, crashing into the coffee table with a resounding thud. The room fell silent for a split second before bursting into laughter seeing this goofy moron, the tension dissipating as his friends helped him up, half-dragging him away to nurse his drunk bruised pride. You let out a shaky sigh of relief, your fingers moving to brush against the stain on your costume, a reminder. Sukuna turned back to you, his eyes softening. "You okay?" he asked, his voice a gentle rumble in the noisy room. You nodded, a weak smile forming on your lips. "Fuck," he said, "Can't even leave you for a moment. Maybe I should put you on the leash next time." He squeezed your cheek before walking with you to get another drink, leaving your friends, who had returned to their huddled conversation about how cheesy is the cheesiest cheese. The party buzzed on around you, but your mind was racing with thoughts of the possessive side of Sukuna, and the wetness between your legs grew, mixing his cum with your slick.

Sukuna led you through the dancing people to an empty couch in the corner of the room. As he sat down, he pulled you onto his lap, his strong arm wrapped around your waist, holding you tight against him while in the other he had a bottle of beer. You couldn't help but feel safe in his embrace, despite the sticky mess in your costume. His lips brushed over your neck, feeling the warmth of your skin. "You're so cute," he murmured in your ear, his breath tickling your skin. "Only mine." You blushed, tilting your head a little, allowing his lips to further explore your neck. The room spun around you as he continued to leave kisses and hickeys on your neck, your breath hitching in anticipation. You nodded, your heart racing as his touch made your body burn. He gripped your cheeks with one hand, allowing his lips to claim yours in a fiery sloppy kiss that left you gasping for air. As he broke the kiss, you looked into his eyes. "Will you be a quiet bunny?" he whispered, his hips slowly grinding against you. "Wait, not here! Everyone will see and-" he immediately cuts you off, "Well, maybe then those fucking losers will get into their heads that you're only mine."

Ignoring the protest on your lips, Sukuna's hand slid on your breast, his fingers brushing the nipple. His eyes never left yours as he took a swig of his beer, watching the emotions play across your face with smug satisfaction. You squirmed in his lap, the fabric sticking to your crotch, your cheeks flushing as you tried to keep your voice low. "Sukuna, not here," you whispered again, glancing around at the people who were all too engrossed in their own conversations and dance moves to notice your plight. He just chuckled, his grip tightening on your breast as he ground his hips against you, his erection growing more insistent with every beat of the music. "You're so fucking mine," he murmured, his eyes dark with lust. You gasped, feeling his hardness press against your core, your own arousal spiking in response. The thrill of being claimed so blatantly in public sent a shiver down your spine, and you had to admit, you loved the idea of marking you as his. 

Despite your initial protests, the desire to be claimed by Sukuna grew stronger with each passing second, your hips matching his rhythm. His hand traveled down to the wet spot on your costume, his fingers sliding against the sticky mess and pressing your clit, making you moan softly before you covered your mouth. Sukuna's smirk grew wider as he felt your body respond to his touch. "I want everyone to know," he breathed into your ear, his voice low and husky, "that this tight little cunt is only for me to play with." Your cheeks burned with embarrassment as you nodded. 

Sukuna's grinding grew quicker, the heat from his body searing through the costume and into your skin, as his breath grew more ragged in your ear. "Hold it, until I say otherwise," he said before biting down gently on your lobe. The pressure on your clit grew more insistent, his fingers moving in a rhythm that had your eyes roll back from the pleasure. Your body tensed, the room spinning around you as the orgasm built, a delicious wave of pleasure nearly washing over your body. You could feel the eyes of a few nearby people flickering over, noticing what the two of you were doing. "Be a nice bunny and hold it," he whispered as teeth sunk into your bottom lip when he quickly pulled his fingers away and stopped his grinding just before you could come. "You are such a good girl." And with that, you panted looking at him with teary eyes. "S-Sukuna... meanie... bad dog..." you said poking the wolf's ear on his head.

Sukuna chuckled at your playful protest, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "Alright, my needy baby," he said, placing the bottle of beer aside, "Let's go and satisfy your tiny rabbit brain." He stood, lifting you effortlessly with him, and started navigating through the party. The sticky mess between your legs was a constant reminder of his earlier claim, and you couldn't help but squirm against him, feeling your arousal build once more. As you passed by a group of people, one of them, a blond-haired college boy dressed as a cowboy, whistled at you. "Nice costume, darlin'!" he shouted over the music. Sukuna's fingers dug into your skin before he sent a glare to that guy. You giggled despite the situation, feeling an excitement at his idea.

With an annoyed huff, Sukuna tightened his grip on you walking out into the cool night air, straight to the garden. As he walked further into the garden, the space was filled with the mix of rustling leaves and fainter sounds of the party and laughs. He found a spot where the bushes grew thick, a secluded area that offered a little bit of privacy. He pushed you gently against a large tree, his hands roaming over your body. "Let's continue our fun," he murmured, his voice sending shivers down your spine as he took off his jacket and put it over your shoulders. You could feel his hard dick pressing against your thigh through his jeans.

With an annoyed huff, Sukuna tightened his grip on you walking out into the cool night air, straight to the garden. As he walked further into the garden, the space was filled with the mix of rustling leaves and fainter sounds of the party and laughs. He found a spot where the bushes grew thick, a secluded area that offered a little bit of privacy. He pushed you gently against a large tree, his hands roaming over your body. "Let's continue our fun," he murmured, his voice sending shivers down your spine as he took off his jacket and put it over your shoulders. You could feel his hard dick pressing against your thigh through his jeans. You nodded, biting your bottom lip, and he smirked, knowing you were ready to let him do whatever he wanted. His hand reached cup your breasts, the cool air making your nipples hard. "Ready, bunny?" he asked, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "Yes, Mr. Wolf~", your heart racing, and he bit your shoulder, his thumbs brushing against your nipples.

Sukuna's thumbs circled around your nipples, teasing and pinching them gently through the fabric of your costume, sending waves of pleasure straight to your soaked core. You arched your back, pushing your breasts into his hands as a soft moan escaped your lips. His eyes darkened with lust as he took in the sight of you, panting and needy under his touch. "Sensitive little bunny," he murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through you. He leaned in, his teeth grazing your neck, leaving another bite mark. "You want me to make it feel good?" He didn't wait for your response, instead, his hands moved to pull down top of your costume, letting your breasts free. His palms cupped your bare breasts, his thumbs now flicking over the sensitive peaks. "Someone's been a very naughty bunny," he said, his voice thick with desire. He pinched your nipples a little harder, making you whine. "Look at me," he demanded, and you met his gaze, his eyes filled with possessiveness and jealousy. "Say it," he whispered, "Say you're mine.". "I-I'm yours, Mr. Big Bad Wolf," you moaned, your voice trembling from the cold and anticipation. "Good girl," he murmured before squeezing your cheeks with one hand, capturing your mouth in a passionate kiss, his tongue pressing against yours as his hand continued to explore your body, making you even more desperate for his touch when he slid your costume aside, your hand massaging his bulge.  Sukuna groaned into your mouth, not breaking the kiss as his hands moved to unzip his pants. In one swift motion, he pulled them down to his ankles, letting his aching erection free, beads of precum dripping down. The cold air kissed your exposed skin, making your nipples pebble even more. His eyes never left yours as he moved his fingers against your glistening pussy. He leaned in, his breath hot against your ear as he whispered, "You're so fucking wet, maybe you like it public?" His tongue licking your neck. 

Sukuna's fingers slipped into your wetness, curling slightly to rub your g-spot, making you whine against his mouth. His thumb found your clit and began to circle it, teasing and taunting you, keeping you right on the edge of your climax yet again. He broke the kiss, looking into your eyes with a smug smile, watching as your pupils dilated with pleasure. "If you want my dick, make sure everyone hears just how much you belong to me," he murmured. His teeth grazed the sensitive skin of your neck as his fingers worked their magic. You bit down on your bottom lip, desperately holding him. The sensation was almost too much to bear, your body begging for release. "I wanna hear it," he demanded. "I'm yours, Mr. Wolf," you moaned loudly, your eyes fluttering closed as his thumb pressed harder on your clit. With a smirk of satisfaction, he leaned back, his grip on your hips tightening as he held your leg up and filled you in one swift, smooth stroke that had you crying out as his balls slapped against your butt.

As you felt the fullness of Sukuna's cock inside you, you couldn't help but let out a loud moan, your back pressing against the tree and your eyes widely open. His hand moved from your neck to push two fingers into your mouth, pressing them against your tongue before moving them in and out, his eyes gleaming with dominance. "Shh," he whispered, the grin painting his face, "We wouldn't want to interest some morons with your sweet cries, would we?" His hips began to rock into you, setting a steady rhythm that had your legs trembling and your arms wrapped around his neck. Your eyes searched the shadows, half expecting someone to stumble upon you in this vulnerable, intimate moment, but the party remained a safe distance away, leaving you two alone. The thrill of the possibility of being busted, made your walls tighten around him and your body ached for more. The hand that had been playing with your breast moved to your neck, squeezing him, bringing you closer and closer to your orgasm.

Sukuna's pace grew more desperate, his breath hot and ragged in your ear as his hips slammed into yours like a feral animal. You tried to keep your moans quiet, his big hand over your mouth muffling the sounds. Each stroke brought you closer to the edge, and just as you thought you couldn't take anymore, his hand slipped away, allowing you to moan out his name. Your voice echoed softly through the garden. His grip on your neck tightened, as he watched you unravel. Sukuna's thrusts became deeper and faster, pushing you towards your climax. His cock plunged into you with every thrust, his own panting growing louder as he approached his peak.  You could feel the pressure in your belly growing tighter and tighter until it snapped, sending ecstasy into your brain as moans of his name echoed through the night. Sukuna's eyes blazed with triumph as he watched you come on his dick, his cum filling you as he panted against your neck, his teeth sinking into your skin in a mark of ownership. You both stood there, panting and trembling, the cool air of the garden contrasting sharply with the heat between you two as he kissed you softly. "Mine," he murmured again, his arms holding you up as your legs gave out from under you, the sticky mess of your climax joining the stains of his earlier claim. With a smug smile, he pulled out, tucking himself away before helping you fix your costume, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction at the marks he had left on your costume. “Let’s go back, baby.”

[whirlybirbs]

— BURNER CELL ; 1 ; DABI ; 荼毗

summary: you end up at the league's bar, unbeknownst to you or your drunk friends. you just want to go home. set in the early days of bnha. pairing: dabi / f!reader ; quirkless word count: a cool 1.6k tag: humor, maladjusted dabi meets normal adult woman, flirting, canon-based world building, slight au, univeristy student!reader a/n: this is silly and short but man i really want to write dabi pining over a normal, quirkless person and frothing at the mouth when she doesn't text back for an hour the tag | next →

What's the whole bit about 'secondary locations'...?

You're not sure how you even got roped into this — it's a Thursday, for fuck's sake. You have class tomorrow, and by the time you manage to shepherd the gaggle of girls back into their respective Ubers for the night, you won't be back at your apartment until well into the early hours of the morning. 

You wince into your beer, hoping silently that your cat won't be too mad. Mizu can stand to skip a meal here and there, after all. He's a big boy. (Literally.)

In the booth in the back corner, there's a wave of raucous, tipsy laughter from your friends and their new acquaintances. One of those guys — the one who smells like cigarettes and cheap cologne — has his arm around Nuri. She seems totally into him despite the glimpse of yakuza affiliations painting his skin beneath his purple shirt collar. 

Worry tugs at your heart just as the door to this dour, smoke-filled bar opens. A handful of denizens enter, but you pay more mind to the rows and rows of meticulously stacked liquors from behind the bar.

This place is weird. 

Unsettling. 

It's oddly silent, with some too-quiet music coming from the beat-to-shit jukebox in the corner. The loudest thing in here is the drunk conversation from the group you came in with, and the occasional tinkering of glasses from the sparse few patrons posted up in various booths. 

You lean onto the bar, sigh, and take another long swig of your stale beer.

Note to self: Kamino Ward has the most mid nightlife imaginable. 

Suddenly, someone is shambling up to the stool beside you. 

They smell like cinder and smoke. Like a fire on a cold night. It's not entirely unpleasant, but it flicks some sort of DNA-deep warning bell in the back of your mind. Fire. Run. 

Your lashes flutter over, mid-sip. Then, your eyes widen incrementally as the dawning realization of just who's sitting there slams into you. It's the sort of realization that feels like a baseball bat to the back of the head.

You muscle down the mouthful of flat beer before your lips part in silent astonishment. 

Of all the bars they picked... It had to be the League of Villains' haunt?

Because of course, it had to be. It just had to be more than some scummy, ten-years-their-senior washed-up yakuza throwing drinks at them and promising them a good time, huh? It had to be a secondary location after a too-loud, too-hot nightclub downtown. It had to be this secondary location. 

Dabi clears his throat.

You snap your jaw shut. 

"Thought you were gonna catch flies for a second there," comes a rasped, rough chirp — wholly unbothered.

He isn't looking at you. He's looking ahead, presumably trying to discern what kind of drink he wants tonight. Piercing, turquoise eyes flick about the top shelf.

You have to peel your eyes off him.

Your tongue runs along your teeth as you nod, drumming your fingers against the bar. This is bad. Not ideal. Not great. "Sorry."

You slide a look back over your shoulder and catch Nuri's horrified expression. You follow her frantic eye movement to the other side of the room — it's a screaming look over there — where you spot the other well-known heavy hitters who have carved out their spot in recent news highlights. 

You whip your head back around, mild horror set in your face as you take another pitiful swig of your shitty, shitty, shitty beer. 

This is why there's that saying about secondary locations. 

You press your palms to your eyes as you lean onto the bar. 

"What's wrong with you, pretty? Bad break-up?"

Is he... seriously talking to you right now?

You pull your hands away from your tired eyes, your lips parted again but this time in total dejection. Your make-up is a little smeared; the dark circles beneath your eyes are mostly thanks to finals, but the running mascara doesn't help. 

You're cute.

You wouldn't usually be his type, but... Touya's in a good mood tonight. 

Your eyes rake across his face. 

He isn't entirely bad-looking. The deep, purple burns serve as a reminder of just how dangerous the man before her is. The staples digging into his flesh glint in the light. Your eyes narrow in on the trifecta of piercings on his right nostril. He's tall — lanky, even. 

The bartender, the guy who you're realizing is definitely the one and only Kurogiri from those wanted posters you saw on the outskirts of campus, must have slid him the gin soda that's in his hands. He levels your gaze with his own, punctuating it with a slow sip.

"I'm sorry...?" you ask, your brows knotting.

"Y'know," he remarks casually as he leans back in his chair and sips his drink; turquoise eyes flick back over his shoulder, to the gathered booth, "S'typical — dance the night away, try to forget that gut-wrenching heartache, get a lil' sloppy... Our buddy Giran loves the heartbroken ones."

Oh. So the smelly one is Giran. Good to know.

Great. Awesome. Super duper. 

Your eyes flit shut in quiet frustration. You shake your head. "No. No, I... No, I look like this because I have friends whohave terrible taste in men. Like your buddy Giran—"

Then: "No offense."

Dabi actually laughs. It's a raspy sound — like a wheeze and a cough and a chuckle, all wrapped into one mildly unsettling package. 

"Yer funny," he remarks, pointing with the deeply scarred finger that's holding his glass, "I like that."

"Thanks," you offer up pathetically, "I sorta feel like the court jester right now."

"That so?"

"Gotta jingle my bells a bit little more so you don't turn me into a walking ashtray."

Dabi's grin aches — the staples along his burnt jaw tug lightly and glint in the light. Oh, you're fun. He leans forward onto the bar, his forearms braced against the smooth mahogany. "So you know who I am?"

You stare absently at your half-gone beer. "Yep."

You pop the 'p'. 

"That freak you out?" he asks into his drink.

"What's the answer you wanna hear?" you ask, your brows screwed up in resignation. You just want to go home. You totally want to go home with all your skin intact and no grafts needed. 

"I wanna hear your digits. What's your cell?" 

...It's relatively smooth, all things considered. It takes a second for it to even register that he's asking you that and not some phantom apparition floating somewhere behind you. You even double-take for good measure.

"Y'said you weren't all heartbroken, so I'm assuming you're free game," he supplants, "Unless you got a boy toy or somethin' — not that I care, though."

"And what if I'm some sort of nark?"

Dabi's brow quirks.

"I mean," you shake your head as you realize how bad the mere suggestion sounds, "I'm not but, you don't even know who I am—"

"—Giran wouldnta' brought you an' your little idol group here if he didn't trust you were clean—"

"Great. Awesome," you mutter, taking a long swig of your beer, "Hold on, we're not Girls' Generation—"

"Yea, but yer all pretty," he comments casually, leaning back against the bar as he spreads his legs. He takes up a lot of space. He's dangerously close to encroaching on yours, "What're you? University students?"

You sigh. "Right on the money."

"How th' hell did you all manage to land here?" he sounds incredulous. 

"I couldn't tell you," you mumble as you finish off your beer, "Nuri is the one shacked up with Giran. She met him at the last club we were at. I'm sure it's love at first sight an' all that. Couldn't stand to part ways, so we're here." 

"Riiiiight," he rasps; the gin burns his tongue, "S'a little late for a school night, ain't it, pretty?"

"You wanna tell them that?"

"Might not have to," Dabi rumbles as he juts his jaw their way, "Looks like your little troupe is on th' move."

Oh, thank god. You catch a glimpse of Nuri kissing Giran on the cheek, and the others giving their goodbyes. You're fast to reach into your way-too-little purse, snag your phone, and then unlock it with ease. Within all of five seconds, the rideshare is called. 

You hesitate.

Then, you hand him your phone.

The contact screen is open.

The grin it earns you is mildly unnerving — but there's some charm to it. He's got pretty eyes, and his voice is nice enough to listen to. He didn't incinerate you either, and he called you pretty plenty of times to feed your ego properly. 

You watch him enter his information. It's no doubt the number to some shitty burner he might not have in a week, but... whatever. 

"Thanks for the conversation," you offer weakly as you stand; Dabi is a bit shameless with the way he rakes his eyes across your figure. His version of flirting is a little rudimentary but... it's working, "And not melting my face off, I guess."

"You leak my number," he sips his drink, "No one will ever find your body."

Right.

Cool.

Awesome.

"Didn't plan on it. On that note — my ride's here."

"Get home safe, pretty."

Dabi swigs his drink. He's tracing your figure with his eyes.

"Sounds fake when you say it," you call over your shoulder with a burst of bravery as you walk backward a few steps, hand on the door as you hold it open for your friends, "Aren't you supposed to be, like, a villain or something?"

Oh, he likes you. 

And you fuckin' hate secondary locations.

[chestharrington]

Fixation

Rating: E (18+)

Word Count: 6.1k

Warnings: SMUT (fingering, handjob, p in v). Dubious Consent (coercion, power imbalance, failure to pull out), unhealthy/probably illegal power imbalance, stripper!reader, gator is an asshole (like extremely), degradation, misogyny, sexual assault (by a non major character), brief violence, kind of stockholm syndrome if you think about it, unhappy ending

Summary: Gator Tillman’s fixation of the week just so happens to be you, for better or worse.

A/N: If you know me personally please do not read this thank u <3

The foggy clouds of your breath were painted pink by the glow of the neon sign— The Venus Lounge— with a cute little clamshell opening and closing and everything. 

You had a velour sweatsuit pulled over the skimpy costume you’d wear for your next dance, hot pink and bedazzled across the ass. It was trendy maybe fifteen years prior, so it cost just about nothing when you bought it at a bin sale. 

Sweet, strawberry-scented vapor poured from your lips as you exhaled. You hated this stupid thing— you’d rather smoke a cigarette like a goddamn adult. But the owner insisted, “You ladies gotta stay smelling nice and sweet and respectable for our clientele.” Which was fucking stupid considering they came in smelling like sweat and mud and body odor. 

From the alley, you could get a sneak peek of whoever was coming your way for the night— the big spenders, the handsy ones, the cheap ones… and Gator Tillman’s stupid entourage, who you avoided like the plague.

You made the mistake of getting cozy with him. Once. A few well-paid lap dances, then a private dance in one of the dimly lit back rooms. He’d been handsy, and you relished in it, in him. A handsome, powerful guy who looked at you like you were the hottest woman he’d ever seen. You sucked him off in the private room and he gave you a hundred to shut the fuck up about it. Like you were some sort of whore.

Gator. What a stupid fucking name. His dad was a grade-A cocksucker, so it made sense that he’d name his son something so goddamn stupid. The other girls were scared of Roy, with good reason. Their boyfriend get too rough? He’d brush it off— no domestic abuse charges on his watch. The man is the master of the house, and the woman is his property. One girl swore he came onto her, and she got a broken arm when she brushed him off. A lot of people thought that stepping to the Tillman’s meant winding up dead. 

Fuck that. 

You hadn’t wanted to wind up in this town anyway. You were married, once upon a time. You had the tattoo of his name on your hipbone, a shitty rental house in West Texas, and a wedding band he bought from a pawn shop. He found a job up north, and you followed like an obedient puppy. 

It wasn’t your fault he’d racked up gambling debts— that he owed the wrong people money he didn’t have. And it wasn’t your fault that he was fucking a waitress at the local diner— thin, blonde, perky. The divorce was settled quickly— but you were left penniless, in bumfuck North Dakota, in Tillman territory. 

Well, it was a good thing you still had your looks. 

You saw the police cruiser pull into the lot, heard the slam of the car door and the mindless chatter between the valiant boys in blue. Those assholes did about as much for the city as a tick does for a dog. Your phone buzzed against your hip, warning you that your break was up. You took one more puff from your vape and slipped back in the door to the dressing room. 

You warned everyone that Gator and his boys were out there as you slipped out of your jogging suit and adjusted your dancewear beneath— a baby blue bikini set that you’d bedazzled by hand. You slipped a sheer skirt overtop and surveyed yourself in the mirror. There was still a flush on your cheeks from being out in the cold, but it would be fine. 

You slipped out onto the floor, passing by crowded tables. It was busy, even for a Saturday, which meant more money to take home. A hand grabbed your ass and squeezed it in a meaty paw. It was some drunk old guy who probably couldn’t even get it up anymore but had maintained his pervy inclinations. You bit your cheek to keep from saying anything and kept making your rounds.

“You want a dance?” You’d ask the safe guys— the ones who looked nervous to be there, whose eyes kept flitting around like they’d get caught any moment. Their button-ups were ironed, their slacks pressed. Usually, they had a nice fountain pen in their pocket. Clerks, CPAs, any of those nerdy desk jobs. 

Most of the time they declined, too nervous to go that far, but occasionally you’d get a yes, do a bit of grinding, and walk away with a nice tip. 

You’d done a few lap dances by the time you passed by Gator and his crew. Your money was tucked into the band at your hip, concealing your ex-husband’s name. 

He called you like a dog– whistling low. You froze, and turned to face him, all smug and pleased with himself. 

“You need somethin’, Deputy?” You asked, jaw clenched, raising a brow. “Because if you do, you can ask like a gentleman. I’m a lady, not a dog.”

He laughed, glancing back at his pack of asshole cops to make sure they saw the next part. “Really? ‘Cause it seems to me you’re actin’ like a bitch.” They all laughed, because of course they did. They thought he was so, so clever. Before you could respond, he held up a fifty-dollar bill between two fingers. “C’mere, girl. I want a dance.”

Your eyes flicked between him and the fifty between his fingers. You were broke, but was it worth it? He saw your hesitation and his smug grin grew. “Aw, you need it that bad, huh?” He patted his thigh twice. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Anyone in their right mind would’ve said no, and walked away with their dignity intact, but he was right— you needed it bad. 

So you approached and tried to pluck the money from his hand, but he pulled it away, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “Nuh-uh, Sweetheart. Gotta earn it first.”

You huffed in disbelief, taking a step back. But meeting his gaze told you how serious he was. You swallowed your pride and straddled his lap, grinding to the beat. 

It felt degrading, dancing on him while his friends all leered. Your tits pressed against Gator’s shirt, his hands firm on your hips, even though he knew he wasn’t allowed to touch. If you called him out on it, he’d probably just say it was nothing he hadn’t done before.

It could’ve been one song, or maybe more. Probably more. When he finally removed his hands, he nodded for you to get off. You swallowed uncomfortably and took a few awkward steps back. 

“The money,” you said weakly.

His face scrunched slightly, like he was considering it. “Eh… I don’t think you earned it, Sweetheart. I mean, I’m not even hard.” 

He got a real kick out of that, and out of the kicked puppy look in your eyes. You swallowed it down like a bitter pill and met his gaze. “It’s not my fault that all the blow you do is killing your dick. Keep your fuckin’ money, Gator. I don’t want it.”

Which was a lie. You wanted it more than anything… but you knew you’d pissed him off. You could see the vein popping at his temple, the way his hand clenched around his beer bottle. Better to pretend you were better off without it and walk off with some dignity left.

It took about three steps to realize that there was a little less pressure on your hip than there used to be. Your hand felt along the band of the bikini and came up blank. He’d taken your fucking money. 

You heard him giggling behind you once he knew you realized, but what was the point? Who would you call to get it back? The police?

By the end of the night, you counted your meager earnings and tucked it away in your bag. Without your dancewear and the makeup and the heels, you could pass for the average citizen of Stark County. 

You bundled up in a parka before you walked to your car, a shitty, beat-up car nearly older than you were. One of the side mirrors was ripped off, and the bumper was caved in, but she ran. 

Tucked into the windshield was a tiny note, in a messy, nearly illegible scrawl— Impress me next time. You crumpled it and tossed it onto the asphalt.

  You saw him again on Monday. The club was closed on Sunday, due to an ordinance that Roy Tillman had put in place about businesses of ill repute operating on the holy day. You wondered what he thought about his son bankrolling the lives of half of the strippers who worked at the club.

He was alone, though, which scared and comforted you in equal measure. You watched him from afar, sitting at the bar, drinking a White Claw and puffing on that stupid fucking vape. 

There was a girl in his lap, one of the newer dancers who didn’t know better. Whatever. She’d figure him out soon enough. 

Mondays were slow. You did a few dances onstage, made the rounds, flirted with some of the regulars. Gator was blissfully elsewhere, which you loved. 

The night had been pretty tame until just before last call, when an overserved realtor got loud and handsy. 

“C’mon, why don't you take me back to one of those rooms without the cameras?” One asked as you gave him a half-hearted lap dance. His breath was like a punch bowl at a senior prom, and his fingers dug into the plush of your ass. 

You winced as he pulled you harder against him, and you felt the uncomfortable prod of his dick against you. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He was grinding up against you, sweaty at his temples and forehead. He was deceptively strong, holding you down against him so he could rut against you and get off. “Ya know, the private rooms for the big tippers. Better than all this over the clothes stuff.”

“You need to stop,” you said, as firmly as you could, shoving at his chest to really get your point across. He didn’t let up, and gave you a smarmy grin as he began roughly moving your hips of his own accord. “Hey, stop it, asshole.”

“Hey, you’re the one offerin’ me a dance,” he said. “I sold a nice big house today, got a real good commission. I could tip ya real good if you’re nice.”

“Let me go!” You shoved at his chest, slapping at him, but he just grinned. You were just wondering if biting his ear off would do the trick when you felt yourself pulled off him and tossed aside on the floor like a rag doll. 

Then there was the soft sound of blows landing against a stomach. Then the crunch of a broken nose. The wheezy rattle of the realtor’s breath once he started spitting up blood and teeth. Each punch made you flinch until finally, it relented. 

“Should’ve let her go, asshole.” Gator’s knuckles were bloodied, and you realized he was holding out a hand to help you up. You took it, nervously, and readjusted your costume where the realtor had tugged at them. “You hurt?”

You shook your head. “I’m fine but is— I mean, is he gonna be okay?”

Gator’s brows furrowed as he spared a glance toward the bloodied pile of meat on the floor. He spat in his direction and shrugged. “Who fuckin’ cares? Goddamn lowlife.”

You wondered if he could sense the irony. His face lit up in recognition, then he knelt beside the realtor, patting him down, searching for something. He stood and held up a fancy, monogrammed leather wallet. 

He sifted through, retrieving bill after bill. “Here. Y’earned it.” It was more cash than you brought home in a week. More cash than anyone should carry on themselves at once. 

“I’m not taking that,” you said weakly. “I can’t.”

He rolled his eyes, tucking the money in your bra. “Such a fuckin’ bitch, you know that? Can’t even say thank you or nothin’.”

He left you standing there over the broken body of the asshole realtor, who may or may not have been dying. Either way, you figured the Tillman’s would handle it. For better or worse.

  “I didn’t fuckin’ do anything,” you argued, which was a lie. And it’s not like anyone would listen even if it wasn’t. Police are on their way, they said. They’ll deal with thieving filth like you.

Well… they didn’t have to get quite so personal. You sat outside the Manager’s office at the stupid fucking sex shop, picking at your cuticles until you heard the police cruiser roll up outside. You heard the door slam, and muffled chatter until you saw him walk in.

“Well… look who got herself into some trouble. And here of all places too.”

Fuck. Gator Fucking Tillman. 

You glanced up at him for a moment before returning to your nails. The shop owner was talking the deputy’s fucking ear off until you heard the question you dreaded. 

“What is it she was tryin’ to steal? I mean… there’s a lot to choose from, I’ll tell ya that.”

You watched with a thin sense of dread as the shop owner laid out your would-be haul of lingerie that had been stuffed into your purse. Gator grinned as he glanced over at you, then back at the lingerie. 

“Can I have the office? I need some privacy to interrogate the perp.” The manager complied, bending to the will of the law or whatever. Gator grabbed you by the arm and tugged you inside, closing the door firmly behind him. 

You watched as he strode towards the nice armchair behind the desk, then sat down, legs spread wide. He unzipped the stupid police vest and shrugged it off, so it landed in a pile on the floor. For a moment, it was quiet as you stared at him dumbly, then he snapped his fingers. 

“What? You want me to tell you why did it? Three fucking guesses.”

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “No, I want you to try it on.” 

You swallowed, and when you spoke your tongue felt dumb and heavy. “What?”

“You heard me. Try it all on, and tell me if it was worth the trouble.” He looked at you expectantly, and when you didn’t move, he sighed. “It’s this, or I take you to the station, get you booked, and all that. I doubt anyone’s gonna pay your bail, so that’s a few days before arraignment. Then it’s a court case for larceny, and let’s be honest, you’re guilty.”

You stared at him, speechless. He stood up suddenly, grabbing his things before you interrupted— “Wait! Wait. Just… sit back down.”

He grinned. “There’s a good girl. Make it good for me, yeah? You know how.”

You huffed, heart pounding as you grabbed the first set and turned around to change. You had just pulled off your shirt when he cleared his throat behind you. Your hands shook as you turned around, barely covering your tits. 

“C’mon, I said to make it good, Sweetheart,” he said with a thinly veiled sense of amusement. “Nothin’ I haven’t seen before.”

The fucking asshole. But you took a breath and steadied yourself. “Okay,” you whispered, more to yourself than anything. 

His gaze was intense, tracing each curve and dip of your body as you moved. You slipped the bra on, clipping it shut with shaking hands.

“Alright, now you can turn around,” he said, nodding towards the panties in your hand. “And do it nice and slow for me.”

Your face burned with embarrassment as you turned around, working the buttons of your skirt so you could slip it down your legs. It fell into a pile around your ankles and fanned out like a flower. You hooked your thumbs into the panties you were wearing, pink with little flowers spotting the fabric. As slowly as you could manage while terrified and pissed, you slipped them down your legs. 

When you spared a glance at Gator, he was smirking right back at you. “Give those here,” he said, holding his hand out expectantly. 

“What?”

“Geez, you’re fuckin’ dumb. Lemme see ‘em.” He more or less snatched the panties from your grip, smiling like the cat who got the cream as he held them up. “Might have to keep ‘em. Evidence.”

You swallowed down your annoyance and pulled the lacy panties up your legs. When you were finished, you turned, arms crossed over your chest protectively. Shockingly, he was quiet as he looked at you, eyes raking over your tits, and every bare piece of skin he could see. It felt like you stood there under his gaze for hours before he finally spoke up. 

“It’s not doin’ much for ya, sweetheart. I mean, you don’t look very fuckable.”

It landed like a blow to your gut. He was an asshole, so it should’ve meant nothing… but he knew exactly where your soft spots were, and just how hard to dig his fingers in. “Fuck you, Gator.”

“Aw, c’mon, sweetheart,” he cooed, patronizing and smug. “So fuckin’ sensitive, huh? Can’t take a joke. C’mere, lemme see you.” He grabbed your wrist in the tightly packed office and tugged you forward, so you practically stumbled on top of him.

You flinched as his hand moved up the back of your thigh, warm and calloused. When he gave your ass a rough squeeze, you closed your eyes and shivered. 

“Ya know, I saw your husband the other day.” His finger traced along the name on your hip— Jack. Every loop and whorl of the cursive claimed by his touch. “Looked real happy with that girl of his. Sarah, right? The waitress he was fuckin’ behind your back?”

You swallowed hard and said nothing, but he was more than happy to keep running his mouth. “Well, she’s not special. I’ve fucked Sarah too, and she just laid there like a dead fish the whole time.”

“Maybe you just weren’t that good.” You smirked as you replied, unable to resist being a bit of an asshole right back. 

“You gettin’ smart right now?” He gave your ass a quick slap, making you squeak. “I was trying to give you a compliment, but you don’t fuckin’ deserve it. You’re so fuckin’ used up that you don’t even know what good is.”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m sure you think that. It’s easy to blame it on the girl when you can’t make ‘em cum, right?”

His jaw clenched, anger painting his features. “Wouldn’t you fuckin’ like to know, huh?” He caught sight of the smirk on your face and shoved you back. “Put on the next one.”

Fucking dickhead. You rolled your eyes and quickly stripped off the lingerie, throwing it in his general direction once it was off. You weren’t as graceful in dressing in the next set. Why give him a show and let him win? Once it was on, you crossed your arms and looked at him expectantly. 

“Well?”

He cocked his head to the side, a smirk playing on his lips. “Well, I like it better than the first, but I don’t think your heart’s quite in it. Gimme a twirl.”

You gave a slow turn, then met his gaze again, raising a brow. He ran a hand over his mouth, looking you up and down. You caught the slightest movement as he spread his legs a little wider. It only served to highlight the bulge in the front of his stupid fucking cargos.

“You’re really enjoyin’ yourself, huh?” You snapped, eyes narrowed. He laughed, following your gaze to his lap. 

“Well,” he began, lazily moving a hand to cup his growing hard-on. “I could always find a way to enjoy myself more. Bet you’d like that, huh?”

You ignored him and began trying on the last set you’d attempted to steal. A bright red set, skimpier than the others, which you were sure he fucking loved. Before he could ask, you gave a slow twirl. 

“Atta girl,” he cooed. He was blatantly stroking himself over the fabric, eyes half-lidded. You swallowed hard, watching the sight before you. It was like something out of a bad porno. Or a really good one. Jury was out. He patted his thigh, nodding you over. “C’mere, I won’t bite.”

A moment of hesitation passed through you, wondering if this was really what you wanted. It was like you could hear his voice in your head, asking if you could do any better. You sighed and slowly settled onto his lap. He looked at you with a funny sort of expression— not so much that he was smug, just… a bit pleased. 

“You gonna give me a dance?” His hand rested on your thigh, fingers tapping erratically. You shook your head and he rolled his eyes. “Is this ‘cause I didn’t pay the other night?” You scowled. “I mean, I think you owe me now. I paid ya back a hundred times over thanks to Mr. Realtor from the other day.”

   You stayed silent and still, looking anywhere but his face. He took your chin between his fingers and turned you to face him, so close you could taste the fruit flavor from that goddamn vape on his breath. 

“Remember how turned on you got just from havin’ my cock in that pretty mouth of yours?” He said, voice barely above a whisper. He ran a thumb along your bottom lip, tugging at it slightly. “I still remember the way you had to slip a hand between your legs to play with yourself.”

You made a weak sound in the back of your throat as you remembered it— that desperate, all-consuming need. Maybe it’s because he was an asshole, or maybe it was all of the authority. Maybe that’s why you shoplifted anyway. Because you knew he’d be the one to show up. 

“You ever been with someone as big as me before?”

You shivered. “No.”

A wide smile spread across his lips. “Since?” You just shook your head. “Betcha been dreamin’ about it too. Stuffin’ that greedy little pussy full of your fingers whenever you think about me.”

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t quite deny it. It wasn’t a frequent fantasy, but it was there. “You’re a real narcissist. You know that?”

He grinned. “That’s not a no, is it?” He leaned in closer, nuzzling against your throat, his breath hot. “Bet if I slipped my hand inside those panties, they’d be fuckin’ soaked.”

And despite your better judgment, you fucking whimpered. All but confirming it. 

“Yeah, I thought so,” he cooed. His hand found purchase on the small of your back, and when he applied the smallest bit of pressure, you found yourself giving in. Slowly, your hips ground against his, making a soft sigh escape your lips each time your cunt met his clothed dick. 

“Want me to find some music?” He asked with a boyish grin. “I bet I have Pony somewhere on my phone.”

You shook your head before he could even try to grab it. “I’ll kill you if you even try.” He laughed, just a bit. It was rare to hear him laugh and have it not be at your, or anyone else’s expense. 

You grabbed his hands, moving them to your waist, just at your ribcage. The tips of his fingers brushed against your tits, and he smiled.

“Takin’ charge now, are ya? You could’ve just put ‘em right here.” He moved his hands up, cupping your breasts in his large hands. You moaned softly as he gave a slight squeeze, arching into his touch. “ See? That’s much better, huh? Just take what you need, baby. I’ll give it right to ya.”

Take what you need? You could do that. You moved your hands along his chest, fighting the urge to just tear off his shirt and reveal the white tank top you knew he always wore beneath. Instead, you slipped your hands to his goddamn cargos and made quick work of the button and zipper. 

He sat back and watched as you spit into your palm, his eyes hazy with arousal. You slipped your hand inside his pants and slipped beneath the band of his plaid boxers. A low groan escaped his lips when you wrapped your hand around him and squeezed.

“Fuck, sweetheart. Just like that.” His head fell back, leaving the plane of his neck for the taking. Your lips pressed against the skin there, leaving a mixture of soft kisses and bites as you worked him in your hand. 

Gator’s stamina was absolute dogshit. You could tell when he was close from the way he’d pulse in your hand and whimper like a fuckin’ girl. You’d just have to squeeze him at his base to stave it off, give him a few seconds to cool off before you kept going. 

“You want me?” You asked, lips brushing against the shell of his ear. 

“So fuckin’ bad.” He was bucking up into your fist, chasing the sweet pleasure of your soft hand around him. 

A smile spread across your lips. “Then earn it.” You pulled back, meeting his gaze as you removed your hand from him. 

He sat there, panting and staring dumbly as you sat atop the desk and spread your legs invitingly. “C’mon, Gator. You’re a smart boy, you’ll figure it out.”

He huffed with annoyance as he stood, towering over you as he pulled off his shirt to reveal that fucking tank top. He leaned down just slightly, so his arms were caging you in. “I’ll fuckin’ earn it, alright. I’m gonna own this pussy by the time I’m through.”

He knelt between your legs, kissing his way up your thighs. You cried out as his teeth dug into the plush skin, leaving an indentation that would probably turn purple the next day. 

“You’re such a fuckin’ asshole.” He just grinned, clearly pleased with himself. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of your panties and tugged them down. 

He was quick to drag his fingers through your slit, coating them in your arousal. The wet sounds of him playing with you, spreading you open for him, made your cheeks burn with embarrassment. 

“I’m an asshole, but you clearly fuckin’ like it, huh?” He said, holding up his fingers, glistening with your juices, as proof. His smirk made annoyance and arousal bubble up within you, tangling in an utterly infuriating way. “Relax for me, yeah? Gonna stretch you out, make you feel real good.”

You moaned softly as his fingers pressed against your entrance, teasing you with the idea of being full. A gentleman would start off slow, work you up to two fingers gradually. Gator Tillman wasn’t a fucking gentleman, but you didn’t care. 

“Shhh… open up for me,” He said, speaking not to you, but to your cunt. “That’s it, atta girl.” A low whimper escaped you as his fingers pressed inside, thick and stretching you just right. Your walls fluttered around the intrusion, needing him deeper, more, more.

“Jesus Christ, Gator,” His fingers flexed at just the right spot, making you cry out desperately. He grinned, then pressed a kiss to your thigh as he began fucking you with his fingers, acutely aware that the slightest twitch of his fingers could make you fucking sing for him. 

It’s a funny thing he does with his fingers— not quite jackhammering them in and out like most of the other guys you’d been with but not exactly too far away. And you were fucking whining for it, your hips canting against his fingers until he finally had to throw his arm across your pelvis to just, in his words, keep you fuckin’ still.

It felt good, but you were also very aware that he was purposefully, or, worse, unknowingly avoiding your clit. The more you considered it, the more convinced you were that it was the latter. He was homeschooled, apparently, by his religious nut father, which meant his sex ed was probably just porn, and not even the decent kind. 

You squirmed slightly. “Gator—”

“’M busy.”

You rolled your eyes and huffed. I mean, sure, he was good with his hands, but you would also appreciate that skill applied elsewhere. Whatever, you weren’t helpless. 

His eyes narrowed as you moved a hand between your legs, circling your clit in time with his fingers. Your head fell back as a string of moans escaped your lips. That’s what you needed. 

“God, you’re desperate,” he muttered, but he didn’t bother to redirect your hands. “I coulda done that.”

You would’ve laughed if you weren’t already so close, the pressure and attention to your clit exactly what you needed to fall over the edge. 

“I feel you squeezin’ my fingers,” he said, voice low and dripping with satisfaction. “Wanna cum that bad, huh? Can’t even take what I give ya? Are you that fuckin’ needy?” When you didn’t think to answer, he leaned over and bit your thigh again. Harder.

“Fuck!” You shouted, annoyed that you’d have a second set of bruises to cover. But your annoyance melted right back into the siren call of pleasure. 

Moans tumbled from your lips before you could bring yourself to answer. “Yes, I’m that needy,” You gasped as his fingers moved deeper, harder with every thrust in. Your fingers moved faster on your clit, making your legs twitch on either side of Gator’s shoulders.

He let you teeter there on the precipice for a little longer, until you were sure you were going to tumble straight into sweet ecstasy. So close you could taste it, sweet and heady on the back of your tongue. 

And like that, Gator pulled away, slipping his fingers from your cunt and leaving you wanting. You sat there, panting and frustrated as he wiped his fingers off on your thigh. “Too fuckin’ bad. Bend over.”

He slapped the side of your thigh as he stood and looked down at you expectantly. Your legs wobbled as you stood in what little room he provided you, tits brushing against his chest for just a moment as you turned and bent over the desk. 

“Isn’t this a pretty sight?” He grabbed your ass, kneading the plush skin roughly before landing a rough smack. You winced at the sting as you spared a glance over your shoulder. He landed another slap on the opposite cheek, then spread you apart with his thumbs. “You’re fuckin’ killin’ me, you know that?”

He was quick to free his cock from the confines of his cargos and boxers. Over your shoulder, you could see the heap of clothes he’d made on the floor. In the back of your mind, you noted the very careless way he treated the gun in his thigh holster, but said nothing. It was hard to focus on improper gun handling when he had his length in his hand, stroking it slowly as he took in the sight of you. 

“You’re gonna pull out, right?” You asked, chewing your lip as you looked at him.

He rolled his eyes, the tip of his cock notched right at your entrance, making you arch against him. “You’re such a fuckin’ bitch. I’m not stupid, I’ll pull out.”

The prettiest groan escaped him as he rocked against your cunt, coating himself in your dripping arousal before the head of his cock nudged at your entrance. 

“You want me?” He asked, his breath coming in pants. Your body felt like a fucking live wire, hyperaware of the feeling of him, just barely outside of where you craved him.

You nodded. “Uh-huh. I want you. So bad, Gator.”

He sank into you, nice and slow, so he could relish in the warm, soft feeling of your walls around him. A sappier man would’ve said it felt like heaven. Gator wasn’t sappy. 

“Goddamn, you’ve got the tightest fuckin’ pussy,” He managed once he’d bottomed out, every inch of him fully sheathed inside. “Forget what I said about you bein’ used up.”

What a gentleman. You whined softly, pushing back against him to silently beg for more. He put a hand on the small of your back and pushed down so your back arched even more. Then he fucked you in earnest. 

The noises you made should’ve been illegal— some form of indecency or something. Loud and whiny, desperate for more. Your nails scratched at the laminate of the desk, seeking something, anything to hold onto for purchase as he fucked you within an inch of your life. 

He was so big you could’ve sworn you felt him deep in your stomach, even though you knew physically that was impossible. Each thrust punched out a keening moan from your lips, a swear, a breathy whine, or just his stupid fucking name over and over again. 

He reached a hand beneath you, so his rough fingers could play with your clit. “This is what you wanted so bad, yeah?” He asked, voice breathy as he quickly rubbed your clit. “Say thank you.”

“Thank you, Gator.” You were practically babbling. Thank you thank you thank you. 

Over your shoulder, you watched him using your body, chasing his high. Every slap of your ass was for his own gratification, just to see it jiggle. He was only rubbing your clit so he could feel you squeeze him even tighter. 

You didn’t care. You fucking loved it. Even as he manhandled you, lifting your thigh and placing it on the desk so he could fuck you deeper, you just laid there and took it like a fucking champ. 

“Woulda fucked you sooner if I knew it’d be this good.” His voice wavered slightly with the effort it took to maintain the relentless pace he had set. He slapped your ass hard, making you yelp and clench around him. 

What you’d said earlier was right— you were needy. You rocked back against him, meeting him with each thrust. The sounds of his hips hitting your ass with each thrust were nearly as pornographic as both of your moans. 

Gator didn’t shut up most of the time, but when he was buried inside of you he could mostly only manage pretty moans. 

“F-fuck, sweetheart. You’re… you’re really workin’ for it, huh?” His words were interrupted by low moans and grunts. “C’mon. Give it to me.”

He let you do most of the work, rocking back against him, making you fuck yourself on his cock. And he looked fucking smug about it too. 

The switch snapped suddenly when he grabbed your hips and fucked you without abandon, skin slapping against skin as he roughly bullied himself inside of you again and again. 

“That’s it. Just lay there and take it, sweetheart.” His voice was breathy and strained. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “Fuck! That’s it. Just like that.”

He came suddenly, thrusting deep and hard as he spilled within you. It annoyed you that he looked pretty when he came— his mouth ajar, eyes fluttered shut, his body trembling just slightly. 

And then you were annoyed because he fucking lied. He pulled out after he had ridden the aftershocks with a few shallow thrusts and quickly redressed. 

“You didn’t pull out,” you said, your voice was strained with annoyance and anger as you looked back at him. He was getting dressed, making sure he looked alright. He didn’t even care to get you off. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He shrugged, trying to appear unbothered by it all. But you saw the annoyed tick in his jaw, the anger beneath it. Like a rattlesnake all coiled up, ready to strike if you made the wrong move. You were never on equal terms. You were no better than prey. And you should have known better, right?

Annoying, hot tears welled on your lashline, and you prayed to any higher power that he wouldn’t notice as you wiped at your eyes. You stood, doing your best to redress in silence, doing your best to remain small. He slapped a fifty on the desk and you flinched. “Buy some Plan B if you’re that fuckin’ worried about it. Jesus Christ.” He paused as he reached the door. “I’ll tell the manager we got it all sorted out. Isn’t that good enough for ya?”

You stood there, unsatisfied and used, with his cum leaking out of you, and stayed silent. It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t anything at all. 

You walked out with fifty dollars, streaked mascara, three sets of lingerie you’d throw in the trash, and a newfound desire to get the fuck out of Stark County. And, maybe, some misplaced hope that next time might be different.

[lalunanymph]

BLACKMAIL KISS — h. ran

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 ─── a single night of rebellion against your husband, the mayor of Tokyo, in an underground Roppongi club, traps you right in Haitani Ran's web of blackmail and deceit—where every move you make could potentially be your last one.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 ─── a bonten!haitani ran miniseries inspired by hametsu no itte

𓆩ꨄ︎���� ─── bonten timeline, fem!reader, wife!reader, reader is feminine coded (wears dresses, heels, makeup), heavy tones of cheating/infidelity, DARK CONTENT, blackmail, political drama, public play, b/d/s/m, collaring, b/allgags, d/addy kink, n/ipple play, s/quirting untouched, mentions of cigarettes, mentions of alcohol & drugs, e/dging training, tease and denial, o/rgasm control, body writing, d/ildos, throat training, petnames (princess, good girl, whore, slut), b/reathplay, s/pit kink, coercion, mentions of pregnancy, non-con recording, HEAVY TOPICS PROCEED WITH CAUTION

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 ─── bittersweet blackmail with this playlist

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 ─── masterlist

#2: the way you bend, the way you break

“Have you ever been tied up before?” was how Ran Haitani greeted you the moment you stepped into the back of his Lamborghini. 

His hired driver in the front was trained to tune out his superior’s words, focused on beating Roppongi’s 7PM traffic. 

There was a red light blinking on the car’s dashboard, and you barely paid it any attention, too focused on restraining yourself from reaching over to choke Ran for asking such a perverted question. 

He eyed you up and down in your billowing black trench coat and shades, a flimsy attempt to avoid the public’s recognition. But, you didn’t have to worry. Ran had made you walk down an empty promenade about 200 metres away where he was waiting for you, careful to idle away from Mayor Tsunake’s residence.

Your husband had no idea where you were headed to or who you were meeting tonight, only aware that you had a dinner to attend with another trophy wife. Without warning, Makko’s expression swam in your mind, your husband’s greying hair and deep wrinkles a contrast from this younger man before you with his bleached-lilac locks and fitted expensive suits.

As if he could sense your ruminations, Ran changed his tune. “Has your husband noticed anything unusual lately?” 

You shook your head mutely. Last night flashed in your thoughts—Makko’s bigger body hovering over yours, thrusting deep into your slick pussy as you fought off the sensitivity from days of edging and denied releases. His thickset brows had knitted together, mouth falling open in a small ‘O’. 

You were so lewd tonight, Makko had murmured, smoothing his palm down your belly after he was done fucking you, looking both bewildered and delighted. Your expressions, your sounds… it’s like you’ve never been touched before. 

Swallowing hard, you peeled your eyes to your clenched fists on your lap. “Makko said I’ve been… more expressive lately.” 

Ran slid one hand down your thigh, feeling the soft satin of your coat give way to his touch. You hardly reacted when he dragged the hem up, a smirk spreading across his handsome face when your bare thigh appeared like a fleshy delight. He didn’t have to hike up your coat’s skirt further to chance a peek at the dark triangle between your legs; his attention immediately on the plush fat of your thighs chafing together. Satisfied that you had followed his orders, Ran straightened the hem back in place, giving you back your modesty with a curt nod. The blood roared in your ears, and you almost didn’t hear his soft, prodding question. 

“More expressive?” He reached for a cigarette in his breast pocket, lighting it up. Your nose crinkled from the smell of cheap tobacco, but you didn’t reprimand him for smoking in close proximity to you. Noticing your expression, Ran chuckled. “You don’t like the smoke, huh? Too low class for you?”

Just because you were being blackmailed by a Bonten executive didn’t mean you had to play nice with him or protect his ego. 

“Cigarettes are filthy. I hate smokers.” 

Ran hummed, absorbing your dignified profile. Your head was tilted at a haughty angle, your gaze resolutely on the road ahead; pretending to not pay attention to the man beside you. But, your efforts were futile—his citrus cologne and musk pierced your nose, you felt his body heat radiating even from your end of the seat. His steady breathing filled the silence and you tasted his cigarette smoke on the tip of your tongue.

“Fair,” he snorted, flicking the excess ash onto the car floor. “But, you still haven’t answered me about what your husband meant. I hate asking questions twice, Y/N.” 

You trailed your eyes back down to your hands set primly on your lap. “I… felt repressed. Before.” For a woman who spent most of her marriage doing what her husband wanted in bed, it felt strange to voice out your innermost desires. “But now, I’m more open. I feel him better. I—” you struggled to elucidate your words. “—it’s almost as if I’m a new person he’s… sleeping with.” 

Ran inhaled the cigarette down to its nub, putting it out against the car door and flicking the butt down to the floor. “You’re more free with him is what I understand. You’re more lewd and open for him because of your training. Denial is a strange thing like that—” his hand was back on your thigh, lifting the hem up. You flashed one, quick, panicked glance at the driver who had a prime view of you in the back seat. 

The Bonten executive shook his head. “Dayo is trained to not say a word about my affairs unless he wants a bullet in the back of his head. Isn’t that right, Dayo-kun?” 

“Yes, Sir,” the driver automatically retorted.

To you, Ran dipped his head closer, lips almost brushing your heated earlobe. “It’s okay to be lewd with me here, Y/N.” His hand reached further up your thigh, exposing your bare pussy to the cool, car air. “You don’t have to pretend with me, okay, my slut? Let’s see that pretty naked body. Pictures can’t compare to the real thing.” 

With his hands on you, Ran stroked your thighs, parting your legs and dragging you onto his lap. Your gasp was swallowed by his mouth hungrily lapping at yours—it wasn’t a kiss as much as it was an attempt to devour you. His hair was stiff with pomade, but your fingers sank into them, tugging those purple locks with wild fervour. 

A tongue tasting of tobacco and musk plunged past your mouth, running across your teeth, the rim of your lips; licking your YSL lipstick off, sliding back in when you gasped to play with the twitching pink muscle—leaving a plasticky aftertaste on your tastebuds. 

Ran gripped your jaw in his steel grip, moving those intense stamps down your neck. After days of not feeling him, you were incredibly sensitive. 

A-ah mhmh! Your moans reverberated around the car when he sucked a mark onto your pulse point, and against your better judgement, you cradled his face closer to your neck like a mother letting her child feed from her. Ran was greedy indeed, trailing those bruising kisses and nips down your neck. Feverishly hot and large hands pried the panels of your coat aside to show off your collarbones and shoulders. 

The coat was barely hanging off your frame, your thighs wide and exposed, splayed on either side of his generous lap. Ran wasn’t a bulky man per say, but his height added a girth which made you feel dwarfed next to him in comparison. 

Those ring-clad fingers sent chilly jolts that tasted of metal pinches when they roamed down your bare thighs. He touched you everywhere except the place where you were dripping for him the most, continuing to kiss down your neck and between your breasts to tease you. 

“This coat is so thin,” he whispered against your skin. “I could tie a rope harness around you and your nipples would show up underneath this flimsy old thing.” He fingered the thin satin, smirking. “Should we test that theory out? After all, you didn’t answer my first question.”

His first question—?

Your thoughts were rudely interrupted when you felt him shift you aside, reaching underneath his seat to remove a coil of ropes.

“W-wait,” your squeak of protest was quelled by one elegantly groomed brow raising in question. Your mouth clamped shut, and you eyed the red bindings with open trepidation. 

“Remove your coat until your waist. You can keep the rest on.”

You dared not defy him. Ran’s voice was hard and cold—a hint of steel behind the civility. This was a man who had no qualms destroying your life if you let him. Slowly, like you were told a death sentence and were walking to the gallows, you shrugged off your coat, leaving the open panels at waist level while you tried to uncomfortably cross your legs together—hoping to not flash the poor driver whose eyes fell intermittently on your flushed face. 

As if he did this every single day, Ran looped the first coil underneath your heaving breasts. He circled it around your torso, careful to move your hair out of the way so it wouldn’t get caught, and tightened it enough till you were gasping for breath. Taking the two ends, he curled it under your arms, taking them behind your back and tying them together. Your limbs effectively out of the way, he tugged the ends back underneath your rib cage, criss-crossing it over your shoulders to form a tight cage around your torso. 

Finishing off a knot behind your neck, the excess rope slid against your bare body, and he took the other coil, this time intentionally grazing the entire length over your right nipple. He repeated the same movement on your left one, the sudden burn of rope on your most sensitive peaks leaving them throbbing and hard like little fleshy stones. 

The outside world faded into a monotony, your entire attention stolen from the rope wounding in between your legs. Ran was quick to tie a knot, and before you could wrap your head around it, he had connected the length of rope with the one binding your hands together.

You were effectively caught in his trap with nowhere to go; red diamonds patterning across your entire torso and belly. Every breath you inhaled felt like you were trying to strain your breath past a sieve, your entire body rigidly straight and tingling. Your breathing came out shallow—your mind going dangerously blank. You felt his lips under your ear, his hands massaging your hips.

“I won’t hurt you, trust me,” he crooned, hypnotising you with his smooth baritone. “You look so pretty with my ropes on. I think we should go for a walk.” As he spoke, he straightened your coat lapels, tightening them back to your front to cover up his jute masterpiece. Once he fixed your hem and slid his own coat over your shoulders, no one could tell you were all tied up for him under two layers of warmth. 

“A walk,” you whispered, your ears ringing. “W-where?” 

As if he had planned this entire scene down to the last minute detail, Ran tapped on the driver’s shoulder, signalling for him to stop. You looked out past the heavily tinted windows, finding a stretch of beach greeting you. It was empty, but you spotted a few families dotting the shores, and suddenly felt lightheaded. 

“R-Ran—I-I can’t—”

“Ssh,” he rubbed your shoulder, surprisingly tender in his reassurances. “I’ll be here. Don’t worry. Let’s take it one step at a time.” 

You were far away from the city, close to the beach, with a dangerous man who had the power to humiliate you with one single flick of his wrist. He had re-tied your coat sloppily and loosely, probably on purpose to hammer in how vulnerable you were without him beside you. 

Ran wisely didn’t say another word as he helped you out of the car, his hands steady on the small of your back. The first thing you noticed was the chill—your nipples instantly stiffened, but the cold wasn’t the only reason why. You had barely noticed the knot above your clit—too caught up with your own nakedness underneath the coat to notice how it rubbed against you with every step you took. 

“S-shit…” your soft whimper drew his smirk. 

Ran led you by the elbow, turning back to nod at the driver who obediently stationed his ostentatious Lambo by the curb. The day was pleasantly chilly, and it would’ve been the perfect time for a walk if you weren’t dying from every step.

“Fuck…” The knot moved no matter how mincing your walk was; everything you tried to alleviate the firm tension right on your aching clit was useless. Your thighs were burning, your breaths coming out in heated pants. You were sure you were going to pass out, your brain going fuzzy. 

“Hey, stay with me,” Ran’s low voice beside you caught your attention. His arm wrapped around your shoulders, and he drew you to his side. He was wearing a pair of large Versace shades, covering those teasing purple eyes lingering on your flaming face. “Do you need a hand?” 

Laughing at your mutinous glare, you would’ve kneed him in the nuts if it wasn’t for the crotch rope digging up your folds. Your arms were starting to tremble in their locked position, and you swore every breath you took felt like you were struggling to inhale through molasses. Your lungs were fighting to inhale a deeper breath, and the mild choking sensation wrapped entirely around your body was making you feel like you were floating on air.

It’s too tight, you stumbled a little and Ran caught you. I feel like I’m completely trapped.

It didn’t help that you were wearing heels, your steps wobbling on the pavement. A woman was approaching hand-in-hand with an older man, and she locked eyes with you. 

Panic slithered down your spine—your nipples were fully pressing against the thin coat, and you were limping to avoid squeezing your thighs in front of her. You saw it on her face, that single look of concern and confusion. Hot shame tore through you, and you thought you would cry out if it wasn’t for Ran tightening his hold on you, that easy smile never slipping off his handsome face. 

Struggling to mimic his grin, you fought off the urge to squeeze your thighs in front of the poor, unsuspecting couple, nodding uncomfortably when they passed by you. Ran’s arm was a warm weight, offering you both support and the pretence of a loving boyfriend in front of these innocent strangers when you knew otherwise.

The steel grip. The tightening fingers on your shoulder. He was holding you tightly in his reins; keeping you from dissolving. His control over you never wavered, not for a split second. 

“How do you feel?” Ran spoke close to your ear. You couldn’t help the shiver from his warm breath touching your neck, struggling to find the right word which encapsulated your tense emotions. 

“Restrained,” you whispered back, unable to look him in the eye. You trailed your gaze to the brilliant blue sea, hunching your shoulders closer to your chest to keep your hard nipples semi-hidden. Anyone who saw you would assume you were curling inwardly from the cold. 

Ran tsked and nudged your lower back, reminding you to stand straight and tall. You reluctantly walked with your chest pressed out, the light coat covering your entire body feeling like a flimsy see-through cloth. 

Almost everyone who walked past you stared at your pinched expression in open curiosity. You felt like the entire world held a spotlight under your clothes—that they could tell a naked, tied-up and submissive woman was fighting off the cresting pleasure right under their noses.

“Ran, please,” you whimpered, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down your neck. You had both been walking for the past ten minutes, and the pavement continued stretching ahead with no end in sight. “I-I can’t anymore.” You were breathing heavily, forehead and chest covered with a light sheen of sweat. Ran made you stop in mid-stride, and you set your foot down with a quiet whimper.

The closest sensation you could describe burning through you was as if your entire body was sore from struggling in towering heels all day. 

You didn’t know what was worse—the pain of constantly being in motion or the agony of coming to a halt to fully feel the throbbing ache crashing into you.

You shifted from one foot to another, but nothing you did could stop that pesky knot from rubbing your clit. 

Ran had tied it tightly, making sure it was stimulating you even when you moved your weight. 

“Do you want to sit down?”

The thought of bending and struggling to perch yourself on a bench while the rope continued to rub and stretch across your pulsing clit almost made you cry.

“Please,” you nearly sobbed. “I-I can’t take it anymore. It b-burns.”

Ran slipped his arm around your waist, and drew you closer to him—letting you sag against his side, like how a boyfriend would let his tired girlfriend rest on him. You closed your watery eyes, fighting to keep calm. 

“Good girl,” Ran whispered, rubbing your back, your shoulders in broad daylight. Your brain was in a constant humming state of panic and arousal, you almost forgot you were in public before releasing a hushed, unsteady moan. “Fuck,” he chuckled, and the smell of his citrus cologne under your cheek was driving you quietly insane. “I think we need to head back. You’re a few strokes away from cumming and I can’t have that.”

The agony resumed again, this time nearly consuming you as you traced your way back to his car. Ran was patient with your mincing steps, and you were sure your palms were bleeding from how hard your nails dug into them. 

One, two, three—you tried to count your breaths, casting your eyes towards the ocean to take your mind off the strain in between your thighs and the bondage around your arms. 

The car loomed in the distance, and you were so grateful you actually cried out softly when the driver stepped out to open the door for you. Ran made sure to watch your head as you tumbled into the backseat, sprawled on the luscious cushions as he climbed in after you. 

“Drive,” Ran murmured tersely the second the driver returned back to his front seat. “Back home, Dayo-kun.”

“Yes, Sir,” the young man retorted, tipping his head and putting the car in motion. You sank back into the seats, releasing a groan of relief, tilting your hips up so the knot loosened its pressure on your throbbing clit. Ran took his coat off your shoulders, and unwound the twist in front of your body. 

Your roped torso appeared, your nipples hard enough to cut through steel. Ran played with the right one for a bit, rolling it between his long fingers and tugging. He exhaled a laugh through his nose when you squeaked, taken back by the sudden strike of sensitivity. You pinned your watery eyes to Dayo in the front, who was pleasantly driving like there wasn’t a woman teased and tied behind the car. 

Tattooed and ring-clad fingers played with your other rock hard nipple, cruelly pinching them to elicit your mewls, your hips ticking uncontrollably.

“So sensitive,” Ran whispered, smoothing one large palm down your sternum. His other hand was still busy stimulating your blushing bud—twisting, pinching and tugging it until you swore you felt every pang of pleasure deep in your cervix. 

“Ran,” you gasped, your body lurching forward to escape from the almost painful arousal. “S-stop—”

“Take it,” he murmured, tone barely fazed. “I think you can hold out longer than that.”

Stuffing your lower lip between your teeth, you keened, arching your back deeper into his arms, thrusting your breasts further up for him to play with. 

Bastard, bastard, bastard. You thought back to the couple who looked at you with polite concern, the older woman who turned her head the second you passed by her. Their stares. Their parted mouths. The question flashing in their eyes. Like they knew you were tied up—like they had known you were cresting on the edge of the strongest orgasm in your life.

Something wet slid down your thighs, and you gasped, prying your eyes open in time to find a small stream leaking out to drip down the carpeted floors. “Ran—”

He noticed your body betraying you, too, and growled, “That’s fucking right, baby—squirt for me.” Ran didn’t stop pinching your nipples, rolling them harshly between his calloused fingers. “Make a mess in my car, you little whore. Show the world who owns you—show Daddy how good this slutty pussy is for him.”

“A-Ah—!” Shamelessly, your back bowed, your thighs clenching together, but nothing could staunch the flow dripping down your legs; the well of shame finally overflowing. 

What is happening to me? 

Panic soused through your entire body, your thoughts going haywire. 

Fuck am I pissing in a car? I’m too old to piss in a car. Am I squirting? Oh God, Dayo can smell me. I’m squirting in the car. In public. I’m squirting—

“R-Ran!” you cried out, shaking the tinted windows with the decibels of your scream; your thighs fell open, hips pathetically pulsing in the air. Circling around. Trying to find a cock to sink down on. But, Ran didn’t even give you his fingers, greedily milking your nipples—flicking them, pinching them hard enough until they throbbed. They were fully distended, so sharp and pointy you could see them from a mile away.

Everything in front of you went blurry—the roads, sky and sea melting into a melange of colours. 

“R-Ran…” You sagged back into his chest, eyes sliding close in both exhaustion and surrender. The wetness trickled down to your ankles, staining your coat. His fingers ceased tugging on your poor, abused nipples, running down the dips of your hips instead.

“Good girl.” He hummed into your hair, “Good fucking girl. I’m so proud of you.”

Despite yourself—all of your reservations—your chest glowed warmly at his praise, your poor tits throbbing like dying embers. You felt your limbs loosened to your side, and the ropes melting to the floor. Strong arms gathered you closer to his chest, his face pressed into your neck, rocking you side to side like you were a child coming down from a tantrum. 

“Good girl. Did so well for me. I knew you could do it—I knew a slut like you had it in her. I’m so proud of you.” 

Your torture didn’t end there. 

Ran had driven you to one of his many penthouses around Tokyo, letting you grip onto his bicep as he led you up the elevator to his home. The doors opened to a grand decorated living room, gilded with expensive furniture and topped with an ivory piano in the middle of the cavernous space. You barely had time to admire the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Akasuka bay before he was dragging you into the bedroom. 

A large king-sized deck in silky white sheets immediately caught your eye. The second thing were the mirrors installed on the ceilings. On the walls, you noticed notches, and on the ceilings above were eye hooks which you found out what they meant the second he told you to strip and stand near the bed. 

Ran removed a coil of jute rope from underneath his bed, and you didn’t fight him off this time when he started to tie you up. Worn out from your bizarre release, your limbs were jelly when he lifted your arms overhead, securing them to a lowered hook. Tilting your head up, you noticed a double of your worried stare reflected back to you.

“You still scared?” He hummed, taking the ends of the jute coil and tucking it under your thighs. With a single tug, your right leg lifted off the ground, leaving you wobbling on your unsteady left one.

“Ugh—” You staunched a low groan, refusing to admit how much the sight of your own bound body in the mirrors above was turning you on beyond belief. The orgasm you experienced in his car left you completely unsatisfied, your hips ticking whenever he so much as grazed your pelvis. 

You needed more; you wanted more from Haitani Ran.

“I took some pictures of you, y’know,” Ran commented breezily, curling the rope around your heaving breasts, flicking your left nipple playfully as an afterthought. “The little dash camera beside Dayo-kun. I’m sure you noticed it.” 

Dimly, the recollection of a red blinking light came to mind. “N-no…” 

It was no use protesting. Ran chuckled like he hadn’t committed a violation against you, straightening up to stare you down the line of his angular nose. “You should know better than to underestimate me, Mrs. Tsunake. I always keep a track record wherever I go.” 

Once more red ropes kept you tethered to this sick game he was playing with you.

Ran hummed, taking one step back.

The rope harness was back around your torso, your arms tied overhead with the same devilish red coils. This time, your right leg was fastened to your waist, leaving your flushed folds and clit out in the vulnerable open. His bed yawned like a white mouth behind you, and from the windows stretching ahead, the city looked up at this lewd spectacle, twinkling lights like the tiniest flashes of cameras catching your flushed expression.

Your chest heaved, nipples circling, and you suddenly felt too exposed to the world. Anyone could peek past these windows at your bound form; someone could take a photo and send it right to your husband.

“It’s missing something.” 

Ran tapped a slim, manicured finger to his chin, and hummed. Disappearing from your view, you struggled to listen after his footsteps, the blood pounding in your veins. 

What more did he have up in store for you? 

He had already made you squirt without even putting his cock inside of you. He had already made you walk naked with nothing but ropes under your coat in front of innocent strangers. The flashing red light on the dashcam had probably taken multiple photos of you spilling all down your thighs like an untrained animal. 

You had nothing left to give him—you were wrought dry. Ran had reached inside of you and scooped up your deepest shame, weaponizing your own pleasure to ensure your downfall if you ever decide to come clean to Makko. 

He was disgusting; the scum of the earth. 

Those soft footfalls returned, and you were halfway turning around when you felt his hand on your neck. 

“I have a gift for you.” 

A gift? Before you could verbalise your question, you felt a stiff circle around your neck. Ran moved your hair to the side, fastening it with one click. Then, he tilted your head up, where you caught your own bewildered gaze in the reflective mirrors above, in time to watch him slot a red ball in between your teeth. He strapped it tight enough to smush your cheeks, leaving your mouth uncomfortably stuffed with the taste of rubber.

“Mmh—!” 

“Relax,” he cooed. “Do you know what this is?” He didn’t wait for you to answer, chuckling deeply. “It’s a ball gag. Feels strange, right? Like your jaw is stretched wide open. No one will ever hear you scream.” 

Fear flashed deep in your core, making you flinch away from him. “Mhm!” 

You could barely form words behind the gag, every plea coming out garbled and twisted.

Ran laughed again, his handsome face barely fazed in the reflection of the window. “I’m kidding. Told you I’m not gonna hurt you… not too much, at least.” 

He let the threat hang in the air, and left you alone to stew in your thoughts—your body swaying slightly in your bonds. You feared making any sudden moves; if your left leg accidentally gave way or you bent forward too much, you could pull your right hamstring—balanced as you were in such a precarious state.

Chewing on the rubber ball gag in frustration, you eyed your bound body through narrowed eyes. The strip around your neck looked to be made out of leather, and there was something written on it. You struggled to decipher the kanji, and when you finally made it out, you felt like you could’ve burst into an inferno of shame. 

Slutty hole for use. 

Tears pricked in your eyes, and you flexed your arms overhead, bringing more attention to your heaving tits. Ran, as if he had sensed your distress, returned back, now dressed down in a pair of black sweatpants, half of his dragon tattoo out in the open; pomade-free locks naturally hanging loose around his face.

“Do you like your collar? I had it custom made for you. It’s a gift.” As he spoke, he crept a hand on your waist, kneading your hip. Ran took one look at your sour expression and had to laugh. “Oh, don’t look so angry. At least I didn’t call you a ‘worthless fuckbitch’ didn’t I? I have more class than that, and you are an elegant woman, Y/N. I think ‘slutty hole for use’ suits you, don’t you think?” 

You turned your face away, chest heaving in angry shudders. 

“Hey—look at me.” 

Try as hard as you wanted to defy him, your body’s sudden instinct was to listen to everything he said. You dared to look him in the eye, and if the ball gag weren’t lodged in your mouth, you would’ve worn a twisted glare. Those lilac eyes went soft around the edges, his smirk holding just a twinge of satisfaction from your instant compliance.

“Good girl. You’ve been so good lately, huh? Any more good and I would have to let you cum.”

Your heartbeat tripled in speed, and without a single shred of control, you let slip a soft moan. 

“Yeah?” Ran grinned, both hands now on your body, roaming up your back, gliding over your shoulder blades. Every single careless touch left behind a trail of shivers. “I bet you’d like that, huh? How long has it been since you last came—two weeks ago? That paltry squirting in my car barely covered the itch, huh?” 

Without a second thought, you nodded. Your brain was filled with cotton, every defence you had left in your arsenal stripped away to leave you broken and vulnerable. Ran descended on your helplessness like a predator to a crippled prey, his grin more knives than teeth. His mouth touched the juncture of your neck, inhaling your perfume like a starved man. 

Your eyes rippled closed, and you let out a shaky mewl, feeling his grin grow against your sensitive strip of skin. 

“Pretty, pretty girl,” he murmured, nuzzling his face deeper into your neck. “So pretty. Bet you’d cum so nicely for me.” 

Large, warm hands caressed your hips, stopping just short of your mound. Brushing his fingers through the soft, downy hair, Ran’s ghost of a chuckle filled your heated ears. “I was wondering how’d this pretty pussy look tattooed with my name.” He smirked, as if the idea itself was downright depraved and enticing. “Why don’t we find out?” 

He left your side for the third time tonight, and your soft whine of protest was met with another sardonic laugh. “I’ll be back, slut.” You tongued the rubber ball gag trying to push it out of your mouth, but it was in vain. You twisted in your ropes, shifted your hips, and despite knowing how desperate you looked right now humping the air, you couldn’t help it. 

The ropes, the gag, his words… they were piling onto your already taut patience, stoking the heat of desire deep in your lower belly till you felt like you could cry out in frustration. As it was, tears beaded in your lash line, and you tried to wiggle out of the ropes, but barely moved an inch.

“Getting impatient?” 

Ran returned, and he held what looked like a pen in his hands. Except when he uncapped it, the familiar scent of dry erase marker wafted straight to your nose, filling you with trepidation. Without another word, Ran got down onto one knee, at eye-level with your pussy. “So pretty,” he cupped your mound, middle finger dangerously close to your clenching hole. You watched, as if in a trance, as he pressed the marker to your pelvis. 

Slowly, Kanji started to appear on your skin, the colour contrasting vividly against your tone to stand out in sharp attention. 

Ran Haitani’s slut. Needy bitch. Cum in here (with an arrow pointed straight down to your now leaking pussy). On your inner thighs—’lick me’ and ‘bite me’ were playfully written onto your skin. 

Your lover (fuck—you didn’t think you would ever refer to a Bonten yakuza executive with such an intimate title), stood back up, his smirk widening at your chagrined expression. The ink itched on your skin as it dried, and he didn’t wait for the words to literally sink in when he moved the marker’s nub to your breasts. 

On the plush fat, he painstakingly wrote a number of degrading words you had trouble deciphering through the window’s reflection. But, once their meaning was uncovered, you made a little sound of dissent in the back of your throat. 

Whore. Slut. Cumhole. Ran Haitani’s stress reliever. Property of Ran Haitani.

Ran. Ran. You were his—all of his. 

I belong to him now, your woozy mind procured. Ran was making his mark on you—literally and figuratively. He was treating you like the scum under his shoe while pushing the biggest orgasm of your life onto your bound, willing body. 

It was fucking insane how much it turned you on; to be tied up with such care while a litter of derogatory words blemished your skin. Your brain was slipping into a blissed out, white space—no thoughts existed between a single need to cum, cum, cum. 

Ran took one look at you, at the hazy look in your eyes and smiled knowingly. He tossed the marker aside, unbuckling the ball gag, letting you flex your jaw. “I’ll be back,” he murmured, and left you to stew in your humiliation. 

I’ve never felt this way before, your eyes slipped closed, breaths coming out in laboured pants past your aching mouth. I have never been this aroused in my life. This feeling was wrong; it was borderline abhorrent. You should be screaming for help, trying to punch the living daylights out of Haitani with your free leg. Not sway from side to side, biting on your lower lip while you tried to staunch the pressing need growing heavier and stronger in between your exposed thighs. 

While in the throes of your deepest self-loathing, Ran came back, and you squeaked in surprise at the sheer size of the flesh-toned dildo he held in his grasp. The fucking thing looked entirely too realistic—veins running down the entire length, with a girthy base. Unbidden, your pussy throbbed, but unfortunately, it wasn’t where Ran was planning to use it on you. 

“Open up,” he murmured silkily. A strong hand clamped around your neck, and your lips parted on instinct. The taste of silicone invaded your mouth, dripping into the back of your throat. Your gurgled moans resounded throughout the room, drawing a sadistic grin on his placid features. Ran fucked your throat with the dildo, coming close enough to make you gag, but he always pulled back when you started to struggle.

Tears smarted in your eyes, slipping down your cheeks. Your mouth bulged with the weight of the plastic cock, cheeks hallowed and trying your best to deepthroat it. But, you could tell Ran wasn’t impressed.

“Is that the best you can do?” He arched a brow, gazing at you quizzically. “I’m disappointed, Y/N. Your performance is abysmal.”

You were about to spew a colourful insult at him when he stuffed the thick cock back down your throat, easing it up and down your gullet. 

“I know you can do better than this,” he cooed, eyeing a trickle of saliva dripping down your chin. He pried the dildo from your mouth, silvery strings of spit connecting your swollen lips to the plastic tip as you gasped and sputtered.

“Ra—unhg.” You choked back on your words as he slid the dildo back into your mouth, shallowly thrusting it from the end of your throat right to the parting of your lips. 

“You should see yourself,” Ran whispered, leaning close enough that you could feel his body heat seeping into every inch of your bare skin. “Wearing my collar, decorated in such pretty words, sucking on a thick cock. You’re the very picture of a well-used whore, Y/N.” You dolefully hollowed your cheeks, fighting back the urge to jerk your head back violently and accidentally hurt yourself.

“In fact, I think I need to take a picture of you—hold that for me, will you?” Ran left the dildo dangling from your mouth, and you bit down on it hard to keep the toy from tumbling to the ground in a mess of spit and more of Ran’s disappointment. 

With his phone in hand, Ran recorded you, flashlight searing through your eyes as he plucked the dildo out from your mouth. His camera trailed down from your head to toe, starting from your desperate expression, down to the filthy words smeared on your skin and then to your glistening pussy dripping obscenely onto the tiles. He stuffed the fake cock back into your mouth, the camera lens like an obtrusive third eye witnessing your defilement. 

The flashlight burned as it trailed onto the eager curve of your mouth taking the dildo down your throat like a good girl. Everytime you gagged, all Ran did was coo softly at you, telling you to breathe in deeply before plundering the well-soaked toy back down your throat. Your body was completely on fire, singing straight from the tips of your hair down to your curling toes.

Every thrust bruised the back of your throat, and you wondered if you could even speak after this. 

“Good girl, take this like a champ,” Ran praised, cradling your right breast in one hand, thumb gently circling your stiff nipple. “I should give you my cock after this. It’s longer than this toy. You might hurt yourself.”

The mere thought of Ran’s cock—the abstract idea of him fucking you in any way or form—made your back arch and nipples hard enough to chew. For all of the humiliating things he had done to you, Ran hadn’t yet stuffed his length into either your pussy and mouth. 

Why? You thought as you licked the dildo from base to tip, trying to imagine it was his cock. Why would he go through all these lengths only to not give me what I truly want? 

You wanted this. You wanted Ran to put his foot right into his smug bastard mouth and fuck you so hard and good, you’d be ruined for your husband. Those thoughts alone were enough to make you clench down on thin air, wishing you had something buried deep into your pussy so you could get yourself off quickly. 

“I can see your hips moving,” he observed quietly, eyeing your tight nipples. “And those perky tits—fuck, you’re really getting off to this, huh?” 

You gurgled your assent. 

“Most women would cry in your position—trust me, I’ve had them do that to me. But, you’re just enjoying every single second. You really are sick in the head—you like being treated like a fucktoy, don’t you?” 

Ran pulled the spit-soaked dildo from your mouth, smiling cruelly when you gasped at the sudden loss of cock down your throat, your whines both pitiful and impure.

“Say it,” he mumbled, dangling the toy in front of you like a literal schoolyard bully. “Say: ‘I love being treated like a fucktoy, Daddy’.” 

To humiliate you was one thing, but to have you parrot it back to him was downright debasing. You felt your insides pathetically pulse, craving whatever contact Ran was willing to give you—even if it was entirely undignified and injured your ego. 

You licked your lips, biting down on the plump lower one as you tried to find the courage to muster up the words. Those lilac eyes seemed to taunt you, glassy and prodding as if saying—are you brave enough to even try? 

“I… I love…” you faltered, throat bobbing in nerves. The camera was still pointed at you. Heaving in a breath, you pinned your watery eyes onto the bright light, blinking like a literal doe caught in headlights. “I love being treated like a fucktoy, Daddy.” 

If it was even possible, his smile turned even crueller. “Good girl.” Switching off the camera, your entire body sagged forward the second the harsh light was out of your face. Dark spots played around your vision, and you almost missed his featherlight touch on your clit. 

Tap, tap, tap. With every deliberate light slap on your swollen nub with his index and middle fingers, Ran made your entire body jolt. You cried out, eyes screwed shut and head thrown back. 

“Feels good, huh?” He murmured, spreading his hand across your bare belly, never ceasing his callous slaps onto your poor, denied cunt. “You poor, poor thing. So eager and desperate to cum. Daddy’s been so mean to you, huh? That even slapping this cute little pussy has got you all desperate and needy. Aww.” 

“R-Ran—” you choked when he increased the speed and impact, the wet sounds of flesh hitting flesh loud in the electrifying quiet. Your watery eyes pinned onto your reflection—as much as you tried to ignore your crushing need, it seeped through with increasing urgency. 

You bit on your lip to focus on not cumming without his permission—but Ran was making it entirely impossible not to. 

Every stinging slap went straight to your core, jolting you, turning you delirious. You were close enough that your walls started to spasm, your eyes rolling back into your skull.

“Ran—!”

As if understanding your predicament, he laughed. “Cumming already? Gonna spill all over my hand? I haven’t even fucked you yet. You’re so impatient.”

Every breath you took felt like drops of dew in your lungs, condensing right in front of your parted mouth, each gasp more fervent than the last.

“Ran, Ran, I-I can’t—” you choked off when he clamped one hand around your throat, tipping your head back. His lips hovered over yours, and instead of kissing you like you thought he would, his throat bobbed, and a globe of spit trickled from his open mouth into yours. 

You swallowed him down desperately, messily. Opening your mouth for more. And Ran gave it to you. 

More trickles of spit flooded your mouth, and his tongue teasingly rimmed your lower lip, making you whine and fester even more in your unending agony. His fingers were now slowly rubbing your clit, focused on edging out your release. You were so close, you felt like you could spontaneously combust.

Swallowing another wad of saliva, your parched body twisted this way and that, aching to find relief or escape from his steady circles on your clit.

“Ran—”

He kissed you this time, sensual and deep, tongue curling with yours, lips tasting of bourbon and sin. 

It was enough to completely break your entire resolve.

Every pore in your body tensed, mind going blank with one singular primal instinct rearing through. 

Like he could sense your impending release, the slow circles on your clit ceased—your entire world crashing down as the coveted orgasm he stoked for close to two hours dissipated, leaving a gnawing itch in your entire body.

“I think that’s enough for today,” he murmured decisively, unclasping his hand from your throat. 

Ran didn’t say a word as you gathered your thoughts, though he did shoot a few meaningful glances at your crushed expression. Ultimately, you couldn’t find your voice, too caught up in the denial trampling all your hopes to form a single coherent thought.

You were livid, sad and disappointed all rolled in one, but if there was one thing you couldn’t refute? 

How every single cell in your body unceasingly—unwaveringly—hungered for more of his touch. 

Back home, you barely responded to the maids who bowed as you passed them, focused on cleaning up before Makko got back from the office. 

You stumbled into the bathroom, hyper aware of the words still written on your body, feeling them branded into your skin. Shrugging off your coat, you were mortified to find those degrading names still latched onto your body, unable to be washed off even with soap and a loofah. With the sleeves of your coat hanging off your arms, you scrubbed at your body, frustrated to find the words barely feathering away. 

After minutes of scrubbing until your arms were hurting, you gave up, tipping your head back with a resigned sigh. Once the panic had ebbed away, you decided with grim finality to not let Makko take a look at your naked body until all the words were washed away—which was a feat considering how erratic your husband’s libido could be. 

Shuddering at the mental image of his shocked expression when he found another man’s name deep on your body, you shrugged the coat back on, but not before skimming your fingers lightly over some of the words.

The Kanji neatly spelled out your unwilling bond with Ran Haitani, the derogatory actions he committed onto you earlier today flashing through your mind. Your pussy went slick again, the sick moments edging the heat inside of you back into a simpering flame. 

Ran’s tongue in your mouth. The scent of dry erase as it appeared on your skin. His fingers on your clit. How tight the ropes felt around your body; how he curved his bigger build around you protectively as you were all tied up and vulnerable for him. 

Instinctively, you touched your mound, inching your fingers in between your drenched seam. Finding your clit, you tapped on the swollen bud, feeling the same shocks Ran’s fingers gave you coursing through your body for the second time today. But, it was different from his touch—Ran was rougher. Coarser. 

He loved to touch you like he wanted to destroy you. 

Your own fingers could never—would never—suffice. As much as it tore you up on the inside, you needed him. You needed Ran to touch you, tease you. It was etched into the bone-deep desire in your deprived body. 

Only Ran Haitani could quench this crippling desire coursing through your entire veins.

Only he could put out the fire he started first. 

And you were the poor soul hungering for every bit of his heat, yearning to feel his warmth again at the expense of your complete destruction. 

“Where are you heading out to?” 

Makko’s voice shocked you from your motions of putting on your sunglasses. 

The entire mansion was empty today, the maids given a rare time off to celebrate this public holiday. Offices were shut down, and almost every minister took this opportunity to indulge their wives’ whims of flying out to Hokkaido for spa retreats—taking this moment of sparse freedom to rejuvenate their minds and bodies before another arduous week of political campaigning began. 

Almost everyone, except for your workaholic husband who refused to entertain the thought of leaving his home office.

So, when Ran had texted you, telling you to come over to his penthouse with nothing but your coat on, who were you to resist the alluring thought of a few moments in pleasurable torture? 

You flashed him a sweet smile, nodding towards the door. 

“Just running some errands. I’ll be back soon.”

Your husband was a robust man, standing close to 6 feet. His grey speckled hair and stern eyes had once completely enthralled you when you were a young woman still new to the marriage game. But, after years of sticking by his side, feeling stifled to hide the truest version of yourself, you needed a breather. 

You needed a brief respite to reveal another side of you which only a certain Bonten executive had seen.

Makko’s brow furrowed, and his lips turned down into a frown. “I thought we were supposed to visit my mom today?” 

Shit. You had completely forgotten about your promise to accompany him to Azabu to meet up with your equally snide mother-in-law and Makko’s sister. Plastering on a regretful look, you felt the shards of guilt scrape your bruised conscience. 

Ran had to understand. He would know your marriage came first and not this shitty game he was playing with you. 

Bowing your head, you exhaled deeply. “Of course. I’m sorry, I forgot. I’ll go get changed and we can visit oka-san today. Just let me cancel my appointment.” 

Makko’s lower lip twitched, and he spared you an inscrutable look.

“You’re getting more forgetful lately. And you seem more tired. Is something the matter?” 

Without waiting for you to speak, Makko approached you, his large palms spreading out on your hips. Your husband pulled you closer by the waist, and for a split second, you panicked, thinking he would loosen your coat and pull it down only to find that you were already naked underneath it. 

The words Ran had written on your body days ago had already faded after numerous rounds of rigorous scrubbing while your husband was at work. But, the guilt and shame still persisted. 

You still felt the indelible stain on your skin—tasted the silicone of an impossibly large cock down your throat when you swallowed back on your remorse. Makko was a good man—despite his stolid nature and strict ways, and you didn’t want to hurt him. 

His bushy lip grazed your ear, breathing in your perfume. 

“Or, are you finally pregnant, my love?” 

You felt a jolt go through your entire body at his suggestion. Laughing uneasily, you pried his hands off your waist, fixing him with what you hoped was a sweet, disarming smile. “I would never do anything without your knowledge first, darling, you know that. I’m not pregnant so you have nothing to worry about.”

Makko breathed out deeply, his eyes softening. “Good. I don’t think a baby would be right for us now, yeah? I know my PA said the family man angle would work, but I’m worried about what this means for future campaigns. I can’t run for office fully if I have you at home with a child.” 

A child. Not even my baby. Your husband’s callousness would always take you aback, but after years together, you weren’t caught off guard anymore. 

Your smile was brittle, as thin as tissue. “I understand. Let me change, and follow you out. We can’t keep your oka-san waiting for us.” 

Usually, whenever Rindou appeared at his doorstep, it could only mean two things.

One, he had unfinished business with Bonten that his little brother wanted to talk over. 

Or, two—he was in deep, deep shit. 

From the look etched in Rindou’s somnolent eyes, Ran guessed it was the latter. Resigning himself to an afternoon of boredom after his favourite toy was busy entertaining her husband’s whims, Ran didn’t anticipate his little brother’s arrival to perk him up.

“And to what do I owe this pleasure, Rin?” Ran’s voice was even, smooth. But, underneath it was a layer of curiosity waiting to be unearthed. 

Dressed down in some grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt, Rindou tracked his older brother’s face, the purse of his mouth looking off with his usual blase attitude. “Mikey’s orders. Can I come in?” 

Ran cocked one lilac brow, but stepped aside for his only brother to enter. “Mikey? He’s not gonna make you lodge a bullet in my brain, right?” 

In answer, Rindou shrugged, further agitating Ran. “Depends. Do you have a lighter?”

Tossing Rin his vintage S.T. Dupont, Ran sauntered over to his velvet couch, draping himself on it. Rindou fumbled with a white stick, lighting it up and joining his nii-san on the couch opposite of him. 

“Mikey heard something and wanted me to check with you,” Rin murmured past the smoke pouring from his mouth.

Ran laced his fingers together over his crossed knee, tilting his head to one side. “Well? Get it over with. Does he think I’m a traitor or sum’n?” 

Truthfully, Ran anticipated Rindou would at least roll his eyes or crack a smile. Not look at his older brother with something like grim curiosity in those similarly hued purple orbs. 

“He heard rumours. Of you and the mayor’s wife. Someone saw you two down in Roppongi together. Are you seeing some poli-tick’s missus? You know better than that, nii-chan.” 

Rindou was completely serious, his mouth set in a hard frown. How did Ran know? It’s been years since his younger brother called him ‘nii-chan’ and to hear that honorific dripping from Rin’s mouth made Ran feel an iota of shame. 

But, instead of admitting to his faults, the older Haitani brother slapped on a grin. 

“Give me a second.” 

Tapping into his phone, Ran looked like he was casually sending a message. Not a minute to spare later, his text tone went off—confirming Rindou’s suspicion—and a smug smile graced the older man’s lips.

Without giving Rin any context, Ran held out his phone, showing his younger brother an impressive set of tits taken by a woman in front of a fancy, gilded mirror. The seductress in question who had sent his brother that racy picture had great collarbones—dainty and poised even as the sleeves of her modest, silk dress were hanging off her arms. Strangely enough, her face was cut out of the picture, leaving the younger Haitani curious as to who this was. 

The smooth, stretch of bare skin topped with perky, suckable nipples, made something in Rindou’s lower gut twitch, but he focused his half-mast eyes to his brother who set his phone down, a bastard grin lighting his expression.

“I’m blackmailing her,” Ran started to explain. “Stupid bitch came to my club trying to make a drug deal with some small fish. I got the photos. She was drunk enough to cream on my fingers so I got those vids, too. And now she does everything I ask of her. With absolutely no hesitation. If she doesn’t, those videos and photos go straight to the mayor’s office. Impressive, right?” 

Rindou sat back, blinking rapidly. The cigarette clamped between two fingers was dripping ash onto the ground, neglected by the man who was completely stupified by what his brother had just said.

“So, let me get this straight,” Rindou pieced it together in a slow drawl. “You’re fucking the mayor’s wife, and blackmailing her at the same time? But, what power does she have?” 

Ran shrugged, his eyes drifting shut for a split second before they fluttered open. “I don’t know the extent, but let’s find out. I mean, raids have been popping up near our turf lately, and if she can sway Tsunake to focus on Black Dragon territory instead, we might get away free. Also,” Ran added, “I’m not fucking her. She’s my denial slave. Fucking gets off to me being mean to her—you should come by once in awhile when I have her all tied up and dripping. Bet she’d love it.”

Rindou snorted, stubbing out his barely touched cigarette and lighting up another. Pulling in a deep inhale, he puffed out his next callous words with barely any conscious thought. “Mina will fucking kill me. I’m not a manwhore like you, Ran. One woman’s plenty enough of a handful for me.”

At the mention of Rin’s fiancee, Ran shook his head. “So typical of you to be whipped for the first woman who lets you cum all over her face. I guess I raised you wrong.”

“You raised me right,” Rindou countered, running a hand through his fluffy, purple cut. “Mina wants to meet my family. Says it’s about time she claps her eyes on your fugly mug. But, I told her you’re a private guy.”

Ran hummed, stealing one cig from Rindou’s stash on the table. “She’s right,” he spoke through the smoke. “I am incognito. Don’t need any more women throwing themselves at me.”

“Ha fucking ha. I’ll kill you if you ever touch her.” 

The older Haitani exhaled a genuine laugh. “Is that how you knew you were in love with her?” 

Though the conversation had taken an unexpected turn, Ran knew his brother well enough to sense that any mention of his precious Mina would get his mouth running. Rindou was just whipped like that. 

“Nah. Knew I fucked up the moment I looked at her and felt all warm and gooey without riding the high of a nut. Love hits you harder than a motherfucker, Ran. You’ll know when you know.”

Though Ran doubted he would ever look at a woman and feel light-headed unless his balls were thoroughly drained by her, the idea was entertaining enough to consider.

“I want you to meet her one day. Mrs. Tsunake. Maybe if she knew Bonten was real, we could get a bigger deal out of her blackmail.”

Rindou considered it. “Fine. Call me up the next time she’s here. But, she can’t see me or hear me. I don’t want Mina to find out.”

“Deal. Also, you can’t fuck her. My rules. I want my cock to be the first thing she cums on after we hit the one month on her denial training.”

“Denial training? But, what about the husband? You sure she ain’t sneaking around a good nut with him?” 

Ran was absolutely confident when he shook his head. “Nah. I would know. Besides, no woman who acts like a bitch in heat the second I touch her would be breaking my rules. Give me more credit—I know how to leash them well.”

At the mention of his brother’s… deeper proclivities… Rindou sighed. 

“Fine. What do you want me to tell Mikey, though? He’s waiting for my answer.”

Ran deliberated for a second, flicking more ash onto the mahogany coffee table.

“Tell him this, and tell him this exactly, Rindou—’You don’t have to worry about her, boss. I’ve got it under control. Sumida territory will be ours by next Sunday. You have my fucking word.’”

a/n: ran leash me challenge i would say thank you <3

© all works belong to lalunanymph. do not copy the concept, sentence structures and scenes without prior permission from the creator.

[rad-roche]

Pulp Covers And How To Paint Them

With the rise of cheap printing in the early twentieth century, mass-marked paperbacks swept the world, each offering lurid thrills for obscenely low prices. Sex, sadism, and incredible violence for as little as ten cents. An easy purchase to slot in between fifty cigarettes a day and enough bourbon slugs to kill a small garden.

Pulp fiction is where some of the greats of American literature cut their teeth, including the big three, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald and Dashiell Hammett. The contents of these stories, both the dizzyingly good and astoundingly terrible, have been absorbed and digested and remixed and regurgitated in nearly every permutation imaginable, fuelling pop culture some one hundred years on. This isn't an essay on that. Nobody likes to open a tutorial and be greeted with a wall of text. The history is for another time.

But it is about how to paint it.

Don't let the pre-amble intimidate you, it's not as hard as it sounds. You will need:

Painting software with some image editing capabilities. You don't need all the bells and whistles of Photoshop, but I wouldn't recommend something like MSPaint, at least not to start with. I'm using Clip Studio Paint.

A really beat-up paper texture. The grungier, the better.

A lightly-textured brush. Here are the specific brushes I use, 99% of which is the well-named rough brush. Try and avoid anything with any impasto elements.

Go to your colour-picking tool and use the 'select from layer' option. Doing all the painting on a single layer is going to make your life easier.

A complete willingness to make mistakes and, instead of erasing, painting over them. It generates much more colour variation and interest! Keep your finger off the E key.

Good reference! That painting is a master copy of Mitchel Hooks' art for Day of the Ram. Find a style you really love and want to learn? Have no clue where to begin? Do direct studies!

Let's not worry about whatever is happening in the background. It's probably fine. Let's get started! Pulp magazine art is a lot more varied than you might first think, so don't agonize over having a style that 'fits' or not. I'm also specifically aiming for something you'd see on the cover after printing, not the initial painting they would use for printing. The stuff I'll show here is a pretty narrow band of it, but here are some general commonalities. This is a painting by Tom Lovell.

Let's dig into this.

The colours are very bright and saturated, but the actual values, the relative lightness and darkness of them, are actually grouped very simply! You can check this by filling a layer full of black, putting it on top and setting its mode to colour. If the value of a painting looks good, you actually get a lot of leeway with colour. But here's what I think is the most important thing to keep in mind.

The darks aren't that dark, and the lights aren't all that light! Covers are paintings reproduced on cheap paper. Anything you wouldn't want to happen in the printing process, you lean into. Value wash-outs, lower contrast, colours getting a weird wash to them, really gritty texturing. So let's get painting! Here's my typical setup.

That bottom folder is the painting itself. The screen layer is the grungy paper texture. To get the effect you want, put it down, invert its colour, then set it to screen. That washes out your painting far, far too much, so to compensate, I put a contrast layer up on top. Fiddle around with the settings, but this is where mine ended up sitting.

Note I'm saying this before even starting the painting: you want to do this as early as possible. This is where the 'select from layer' colour picker comes in handy. You can paint without worrying about the screen or contrast layer. Something not looking right? Enable your value check layer and keep painting. When you turn it off, it'll still be in colour. Here's a timelapse so you can see what that looks like.

And when you check the values...

They're pretty simple! This isn't a be all and end all, but I hope it serves as a decent primer. I want thirty dames on my desk by Monday!

[typingcorgi]

can't quit you

rating: e (minors, please shoo. you will be blocked) word count: 4.1k+ pairing: joel miller x f!reader warnings: mention of age difference, tipsy sex, mutual pining, emotionally unavailable but totally fuckable joel, oral sex (f receiving), p in v, creampie, praise kink makes brain go brrr, taylor swift references if you squint, porn with plot, moody-ish joel, no use of y/n summary: joel miller isn't able to tell you what you mean to him, but he can show you. author's notes: this is probably the fic I'm most proud of (not that I've written very many) and if you read, i would absolutely love feedback, reblogs, or comments. tell me what you like! tell me what you hated (kindly pls lol). i am open to feedback and love praise can't you tell so enjoy reading your thoughts. now enjoy getting dicked down (respectfully) and thank you to @foli-vora for letting me pick your brain on some of the plot devices; truly appreciate it (:

Right now, you have two things on your mind: cheap whiskey and Joel Miller.

The former comes from the promise of your smuggler who’d agreed to deliver an unopened bottle of Rittenhouse in exchange for three or four cigarettes you’d hand-rolled that morning. Quality tobacco is a thing of the past, so you’re fine with offering up one lackluster product in exchange for another slightly less lackluster product. There’s a good chance the bottle will be half-empty by the time your visitor makes it to your meeting spot. No one is ever as good as their word anymore, and their word means virtually nothing.

You hold Joel Miller to his promises, though. He said he’d run out to barter for his own offering of supplies—he’s low on ammo for his shotgun, and he needs to find a good number of batteries for the two-way radios he’d stolen off a sleeper last night. He figures it might be a good insurance plan, a good backup just in case either of you split up in this next leg of the trip to Jackson. And while you don’t like the idea of him traveling alone—despite knowing he can very much take care of himself—you don’t fight him on it. He’s not wrong, and more significantly, if you try and argue with him, you’re probably going to be disappointed. 

You used to bicker more when you thought he hated you; when you were the annoying neighbor and not the escort out of Boston and downstate. You fought like cats and dogs when you lived next door to him in those mangy apartments, never liking the way you looked at each other—like both of you knew the other had an ulterior motive to force yourself out of the QZ, and you picked up on it, tapped into this common secret you hadn’t planned on sharing with anyone else. And while the proverbial walls with which Joel shields himself are crumbling at a painfully sluggish pace, it’s something. You’ll take something over nothing.

You’re hiding out in the basement of an abandoned convenience store on what was probably a main street in this New York suburb. There isn’t much by way of furniture; just a couple of rust-ridden folding chairs, a worn green couch, empty, dusty shelves, and a sink that probably hasn’t run clean water in fifteen years. Small privacy windows along the top of the walls offer little by way of natural light, and the angle of its golden rays tells you that it’s time to go. Your connect is waiting for you on the street’s southern corner. Or at least, that’s where you planned to meet right before sundown.

Joel’s left you with his smaller, quicker shot, a semi-automatic that he usually entrusts you with while you’re apart. He doesn’t say it, but you can sort of tell that he doesn’t like leaving you. And it’s probably not personal because yes, while Joel Miller is slowly coming out of the shell he’s lived in for the last twenty years, it’s not as though he’s developed some sort of overt attachment to you. In a life like this, attachment is almost as dangerous as the Infected. There’s no room for him—or for you—to seek anything beyond a sort of temporary comfort with one another.

Get him to Jackson. That’s it. And then you’re on your own again on your route back home.

You switch the safety on the rifle, then keep it tucked in the front pocket of your jeans while you head up the dilapidated stairs and push open the cellar doors. The sunset meets you right in your eyes and you squint, and then the same thought you have at almost every beautiful encounter sweeps through your mind. Am I seeing another sunset tomorrow?

With any measure of hope, yes.

You close the cellar doors behind you, careful to avoid stepping on any overgrown grass along the cracked sidewalk toward the street corner. You’ve been unusually fortunate to not run into any runners or clickers today, but that streak would come to a dreadful end if you’d stepped on any patch of cordyceps fungus hidden along the green. They’d come charging at you in an instant, and if their overbearing strength didn’t kill you first, the brain parasite would. Eventually.

A quick death sounds better. You can’t fathom slowly losing your mind as many have. You can’t fathom losing the memory of Joel.

Fuck. You’ve really got it bad for him, you’re fucking thinking about him when you should be on guard, when you should be looking out for—

“Girl,” a voice calls out from behind you. You don’t know this smuggler that well; it’s not as though he has a voice you’d recognize. Your shoulders jump and you try to downplay it as you turn around, rifle now held in your dominant hand.

“Yeah,” you say, unimpressed with his greeting. You notice the edges of a paper bag crumpled in his strong grip, and as you eye him, you take out a tin-wrapped package of cigarettes, holding them out for him to take. He accepts your barter and unwraps the foil, inspecting each product to ensure you’re not ripping him off.

“Yeah,” he echoes, then hands you the paper bag. It’s heavy, containing the glass bottle that he’d promised, but right away, you can tell its contents aren’t completely full. You don’t mention it. Some things aren’t worth the energy. And you’re fairly confident you’d start feeling it after a swig or two, considering your last drink feels like ages ago.

When you return to the cellar, you’re alone again. Concern and disappointment flood your veins as you realize Joel hasn’t returned. Fuck, now would have been a good time for those fucking walkie-talkies. Hey, Joel, you dead? No? Great, get back here in one piece.

You dig around your pack for something to eat, eventually settling on something that you think was a protein bar at one point in time, but now just tastes of slightly sweet dust. It’s unappetizing. It’s all this end-of-world can offer you, and while getting good and drunk on an empty stomach sounds like it would be a fan-fucking-tastic idea, you can’t afford to slow down tomorrow. You can’t afford the hangover.

It feels like hours have passed within the span of minutes, and you take a swig of Rittenhouse before you hear a clang at the cellar door. FEDRA wouldn’t wait for you to open up—they’d just bust the door open without hesitation. Joel. Maybe. It could be him, or it could be your smuggler coming back to collect, realizing now your flimsy cigarettes weren’t worth the trade.

Your shotgun is again in hand—someone told you long ago that alcohol and firearms aren’t a wise mix, but that was probably before they realized the world was eventually going to end—and after carefully walking up the wooden stairs, you push open the door, gun ready to fire.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel mutters, lowering your aim away from the space between his tired eyes. “You really are ready for anythin’, aren’t you, honey?”

He says it almost sarcastically, like he doesn’t mean it. Like he’s teasing you in an aloof sort of way that only makes total sense for the Joel Miller. And you know he doesn’t intend for your stomach to twist like it does when he says it—honey, fuck, you could just melt onto the cold cement floor—but it does.

“In times like these, you have to be,” you offer, leading you both down the stairs.

You sink into the couch, finally able to exhale that long-awaited sigh of relief as it hits you: Joel is back, and from what you can tell, he’s unharmed. He’s alive. You don’t give yourself much time to relish in the silent celebration of it, though. 

“How was it out there?” You ask. “Run into anything? Anyone?”

“Couple’a stalkers,” he replies, shrugging. “Shot ‘em before they could get close. Got the batteries for the radio, along with some other crap.”

Your smile is small but genuine. “That’s good. Anytime you don’t end up maimed or dead is a win in my book.”

He almost chuckles, and it makes your heart squeeze. “Yeah.”

—

The “other crap” Joel has brought back to you includes a used, but functional woolen blanket and a stash of beef jerky that’s likely way past its expiration date. “I don’t need you passin’ out from hunger,” he says as he hands one of the pieces to you. Your fingers brush and it feels fucking electric, but likely only to you, since you know Joel has shut himself off to any sort of emotional electricity long ago.

He sits next to you on the couch, and honestly, takes up a considerable amount of space. His legs are splayed open, his broad back resting on the cushion behind him, and the full extent of his intimidating size begins to sink into you. It’s not like you ever thought Joel Miller was small, but you’ve been with him long enough that sometimes you forget how he might appear to others: menacing. Threatening.

You’re passing off the whiskey bottle between you, taking swigs every couple of minutes to fill the silence that’s fallen between you. Your conversation started benign enough (if benign could be used to describe the next leg of your runaway route, now that FEDRA knows two of its civilians have escaped the Boston QZ), but then it’d taken a more personal turn. Suddenly you know a sliver more of Joel Miller’s past; you know he’d been separated from his brother since Outbreak Day. You learn he had a daughter.

“I’m sorry,” you say lamely. It doesn’t feel strong enough. I’m sorry is what you might have said had you accidentally closed the cellar door on Joel’s pinky finger. He doesn’t say anything back for a while. He just takes another swig of whiskey as he leans back into the couch, as though it fully catches the weight of his grief.

“Was a long time ago,” he says finally. “She would’a been close to your age by now. Maybe a little younger.”

You nod and immediately feel a little guilty. You’d somehow survived, against all odds, against losing your family—if not to the outbreak itself, to the violence it’d caused. Your family was collateral damage in a devastating blow. It could have been you instead of her—Joel would still have his daughter, and you’d be with your family in a place hopefully much better than this hell on earth.

“Still,” you try, still not feeling as though your words convey your true meaning. “I’m so sorry. Thank you for trusting me with that.”

Joel’s eyes flicker towards yours as if he’s only now realizing that’s what’s happening here: he’s trusting you. And whether it’s an effect of the whiskey, it’s something. Neither of you is full-on drunk, just loose enough to take the edge off, to put aside some of the overwhelming weight that comes with surviving the literal plague. It’s just enough to let some of the walls built between you begin to chip away, bit by bit.

You don’t leave him hanging out to dry, though. You can’t. Joel just exposed one of his deepest wounds, so the least you can do is mirror the gesture.

You tell him everything. You tell him about your life in New York, your escape out of before you’d barely begun to drive. You tell him about your family and the hit it took to your life to lose theirs. You tell him about your connection to the Fireflies (although you’re pretty sure he’d already picked up on that, considering your frequent interactions with Marlene and Kim). You tell him you’d needed a light to cling to in the everlasting darkness until you’d realized even the light was no good, even then, you’d come to accept the only risk worth taking was one that ensured your security and yours alone.

And now, as it happens, his, too.

He doesn’t say anything afterward. He doesn’t come out with a line like thank you for trusting me with that or anything gooey or empathetic. How you have the emotional space for such reactions is beyond even your understanding, so you understand why a complete stoic like Joel Miller just…sits there. Stoic, nodding his head a bit in an effort to communicate he hears you. He doesn’t say he’s sorry. Everyone is expected to live like this.

“You know,” you continue, the whiskey warming the blood swimming in your veins. “When you didn’t come back as quickly as I thought you would, I got worried.”

Joel exhales through his nose. “Yeah,” he replies. “What else is new.”

You turn your body to face him, legs crossed over one another as you adjust your seat. Your eyes widen with meaning. You’re like a kid with a secret to spill, a story to tell, and you’ll be damned if Joel Miller doesn’t hear it.

“I mean it,” you push. “I’d been thinking about you all damn day. You just come and go as you please, or at least, you think you do. You’ve only just started telling me where you plan on going, or how long you think it’ll take. And I stick by you despite it all. You know why?”

“Yeah, and why’s that?” Joel presses, but the sarcasm dripping from his voice signals that he doesn’t actually want to know. Wanting to know what you mean—and then actually knowing—translates to pain. And this sort of added pain, the one that comes from wanting too much, is just not something either of you can manage at a time like this.

Your pointer finger gestures between the two of you, and with a bolt of whiskey courage, you finally say what’s been plaguing your mind for months. “It’s you and me,” you admit. “That’s my whole world. I got nothing else worth saving or fighting for anymore. So when you leave, half of my world walks out on me. Half of my fucking reason for being here is just—”

He cuts you off, and you don’t fucking believe what’s happening. His kiss is harsh, biting, bordering on punishment for you to shut the fuck up and he knows yelling at you won’t work (when has it ever?) so he kisses you. He lunges for you, his broad palm and dirt-coated fingers covering your entire cheek, the pads of his fingers pressing slightly into the flesh of your face.

Stop.

He pulls back, and both of you are met with the heavy breathing of the other. Your eyes open, slow and dreamy. You wish you had something more articulate to say.

“What the fuck?”

He says nothing.

“No, really, Joel. What the fuck was that?”

He pulls back, observing you. The weight of his gaze is nearly paralyzing.

“Don’t make me say it,” he concedes. You lean back against the arm of the couch, waiting for something more satisfying.

“Had too much to drink,” he tells you, but you know for a damn fact that you’re the one that put most of that liquor away. You’d had a head start, after all, waiting for him to get back to you.

“Not buying it,” you argue, shaking your head. “Just admit to me that you feel something between us, too?” And there’s your index finger again, flicking between your two bodies, tracing a line over the invisible string that binds you to the other. “Admit to me that this isn’t just about getting to Jackson. That you need someone here with you, because you can’t carry the damn weight of the entire world on your shoulders anymore.”

He can’t tell you that. It’s as though the words simply don’t exist in the Joel Miller lexicon. Your gaze drops, casting downward at his thigh, though you’re not exactly looking at anything.

Finally, he says your name. It’s low and pleading. Stop.

He’s leaning into you again, and this time, you meet him halfway. It’s agonizing, the painfully short distance between your mouths before he kisses you again. He’s slow and hesitant this time, almost seeking permission for a kiss as biting as your first. Your tongue sweeps along the seam of his lips, and when he parts them, you kiss him like the world is ending.

You can’t fucking believe what’s happening. It’s as though you’ve manifested this moment within your dreams. On the nights you’ve fallen asleep alone, you’ve touched yourself thinking of this. You’ve played your own body like a harp, imagining every stroke and rub of your fingers belonged to him instead. Joel is kissing you, and you’re kissing him back. Joel’s hands are running up through your hair, and your hands are on his chest, bracing yourself for him to pull back when he inevitably realizes this is a bad fucking idea.

It doesn’t come. He pushes you down, a gentle press of his hand to guide your back along the couch. His lips move from yours toward your neck, his kiss a brand, declaring you as his for as long as he’ll have you.

For as long as you survive.

Your bodies dance between wanting to savor the moment and needing to feel the heat of the other. Joel’s fingers toy with the zipper of your jeans, eventually pulling them down your legs and discarding them toward the cement floor so he can better focus his energy on you. On pleasing you, of course, but maybe to also give into the desire he’s been repressing for so long.

“Joel,” you whisper. “Are you su—“

“Don’t,” he interrupts, and then his mouth is on your cunt.

It’s sudden and harsh, but fuck, your body needs this. Nothing about this man is subtle, and now you learn his sex isn’t either. His tongue traces patterns against your clit, eventually probing deeper to taste you from the inside. Maybe if you’d been a little more firm in your inhibitions, you’d tell him this was a bad idea. Maybe he wouldn’t be fucking you with his goddamn perfect mouth like this. But he is, and you’re here, beneath the twitching overhead light in this decayed basement until it flickers once, twice, and goes out.

You learn Joel is braver in the dark.

Your hands grip his hair while he eats you out. His fingers press so deeply against the flesh of your hips that you know it’ll bruise, but it’ll be a pleasant ache to remember a night like this. It’ll be proof that even for a moment, Joel Miller felt something for you, and he could show you even if he couldn’t tell you.

“Fuck, darlin’,” he mutters, pulling back to catch his breath. You crane your neck to glimpse at him. His lips and beard glimmer with evidence of your arousal, and he sighs into the flesh of your thigh. “Too—too old for this.”

“Fuck that.” You actually laugh at his unexpected comment. “Keep going.”

For a rare moment in your relationship, Joel listens to you. His head dips back between your legs, mouth returning to deliver your pleasure. He’s slower this time, but just as deliberate. His hands hold your legs apart to give his tongue the perfect space against your clit, and when you feel your body begin to crest in relief, you give a sharp inhale through your mouth.

“Joel, I’m—I’m going to—“

He doesn’t need to hear anymore. He drinks you in while you climax, your limbs tensing while stars explode behind your closed eyes.

You kiss him when you push yourself up, needing to taste your own lingering flavor—needing confirmation that all of this is real. Joel fucking Miller just ate you out in this dingy little basement, and you can’t be sure, but you think it’s because he might actually have developed some sort of feeling for you. Something beyond the need to run or hide or defend. And you reciprocate it, eagerly.

How inconvenient for you both.

He’s breathing heavily against your mouth, and you smile in the earnest afterglow.

“You’re really good at that,” you praise into your ear, and he offers something between a growl and a moan in response.

His jeans are dirty and stiff, but you’re just as impatient to pull them off his thick legs and experience him as he’s delighted in you—the weight of his body, the feel of his cock. You hold his length in your hands and immediately notice he’s fucking huge. You practically gasp at the realization, thankful that the dark room hides your growing blush.

You’re laying on your back, and Joel’s fingers slide against your entrance, priming you for his next move. He speaks again, and while you’d normally have a little internal celebration at any ounce of vulnerability he’d be willing to share with you, this time you immediately cut him off.

“You sure abou—“

“Never more about anything else,” you confess.

It’s all too damn much, the amount of immense sensation that comes from Joel teasing briefly with the head of his cock. He pushes into you, and it’s almost as if you can see the way his eyes roll back into his head. Your own body has to adjust to his size, and you bite your lower lip as you brace yourself through the sweet pain of his length filling you with all he has.

He groans against the warmth of your neck, eventually building up his slow thrusts to a rhythmic pace that causes your blood to dance.

“G—god damn it,” you choke out, your ankles hooked around each other along his spine.

In the darkness, you can make out the slight reflection of his tired eyes. His breathing turns ragged quickly and he hisses once or twice—whether out of pleasure or plain you can’t determine (especially because you’re certain you heard him grumble something about his damn knees while he slid out and pushed forward, but honestly, you’re so fucking spent that it’s hard to be sure).

“Feels good?” You ask, clenching your walls as he thrusts home. 

He groans. “Uh-huh.”

He pulls you to sit up on his lap, and it’s only then he realizes you’re both still too damn clothed. He hurries to pull your white t-shirt overhead, then pushes your bra straps off your shoulders before managing to unhook the thing with both hands. Hs teeth nip and lips suck at your nipple while he fucks you, while you softly bounce on his damn cock, and shit, you want this night to last for fucking ever. 

You’re fucking ecstatic. Your heart sings with the knowledge that you’ve managed to bring Joel pleasure, if only for tonight. Your body thrums like a guitar string plucked by his experienced fingers, and you pant against his lips, sweat forming along the hairline at your temples.

“I’m c—close,” you warn him. “I’m going to—”

“M—me too,” he stammers. “Let me feel you, honey. Just l–let go.”

And you do, you really fucking do. You feel his heat begin to spill inside you and it only intensifies the blinding orgasm Joel coaxes out of you. It reverberates within you, spanning from your fingertips down toward your toes, turning your spine to liquid.

He fucks into you slowly while you both come down, humming into your ear during the aftershocks.

“That’s it, darlin’. Did so fuckin’ good.”

The praise alone is nearly enough to send you over another edge. You suddenly want to bury your head into the crook of Joel’s neck, hiding any evidence of vulnerable relief along your expression. But Joel doesn’t let you. Instead, he holds your chin between his thumb and the crook of his index finger, and kisses you through it.

Joel falls asleep on the couch in his jeans and an old t-shirt. He lets you wear his flannel (though he tries telling you it’s dirty and bloodstained, but mostly everything you own is, so you don’t care).

He falls asleep with you resting behind him, trusting you to hold him while you keep each other safe. He kisses the inside of your wrist, lips lingering at your pulse point.

When you wake in the morning, he’s already gone. And your heart would completely sink had you not realized one of the two-way radios standing upright on the shelf across from you, low static playing through its speaker. There’s a little red light next to its antenna.

You feel as though you can breathe again.

Padding across the basement floor, you grab the radio with both hands, press the call button, and speak into the receiver.

“Joel?”

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

E like enigma

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles August warm-up round. Prompt: college AU.

Rated: G

CW: none

Tags: Secret admirer, not actually unrequited love, no UD AU

"Oooh," Robin croons and hands him a book from the stack of returns. "You've got another!"

"Oh yeah?" 

Steve's stomach does a funny little flip, but he tries to keep his tone casual. He fails. Knows it. Knows that she knows he tried, and knows he failed. Robin wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. 

"C'mon, have a look! What does it say?" 

Steve steals a glance at the part of the college library that's visible from their desk. As is to be expected on a Friday night, there aren't many people around. Just some students frantically studying for exams or pouring over last-minute papers.  

Robin nudges him impatiently. He sighs and flips the book open.

The name scrawled at the bottom of the lending card in narrow, scratchy handwriting is the same as always. 

E. Munson 

As always, there's a sheet of cheap notebook paper tucked next to it, folded in half. 

The first time this happened, Steve didn’t put much meaning to it. Students will use all kinds of things as bookmarks. Candy wrappers, restaurant bills, hell, even a condom wrapper on one particularly noteworthy occasion. (Robin gagged so hard at that one she had to excuse herself to the staff room for a solid ten minutes.) 

So, the first time he emptied the returns box and found a note in one of the books, he assumed E. Munson had simply forgotten to take it out.

There was a little heart doodled on it, and the words You’re really cute underneath. It had to be from E.'s girlfriend or boyfriend, surely. Steve wondered if they'd miss it.

Ever since, the notes have gotten more specific and, lately, more and more frequent. Some will compliment his hair or his clothes or his smile. Those make him preen a little, even though he denies it to Robin’s grinning face. Others are soft and thoughtful, telling him to drink enough water when it's hot outside, or asking if he's resting enough when he's stressing over exams. Those make him feel a different kind of happy - all warm and fuzzy and light. 

The books with the notes only ever show up on Steve’s shifts, and only ever in the returns box. Whoever E. Munson is, they're pretty damn sneaky. 

They're also driving Steve low-key insane. Because the notes are lovely, don't get him wrong. He kind of already has his eyes on someone else, though. Even if it's silly, even if he's sure nothing will come of it …

Robin is looking like she's about to explode with anticipation, so he sighs and folds the note open. 

Wanna take you out for drinks after your shift. Meet me at the back entrance? 

*

The back entrance is illuminated only by one dim streetlight and he is a little sorry he turned down Robin's offer of standing guard around the corner. There's a lonely figure standing just outside the keg of light, smoking a cigarette and- 

"Oh. Hi, Eddie." 

Eddie looks up at him and his face breaks into a delighted, dimpled smile. And maybe it's the lamplight or the foggy air of the early fall afternoon, but his face looks uncharacteristically soft. 

"Steve, hey. Hoped you'd show up."

"Y-yeah?" Steve stutters, stomach swooping with something that's half joy and half horror. 

See, the thing is, he likes Eddie. They're majoring in different subjects, so they've only had two or three classes together. Hell, he doesn’t even know the guy's last name. 

They've talked a few times, though. Maybe even flirted a bit. 

But he has no delusions about this turning into anything more. The flirting and the furtive glances over the tops of textbooks are one thing, but there's no way that Eddie - with his rings and his leather and his chains and his unruly mop of dark curls that Steve itches to bury his hands in - would actually be into preppy ex-jocks in pastel colored polos.

Still, Steve can't help but feel drawn in by Eddie’s quick wit and smart mouth, that bold bark of a laugh. Not to mention his smile. How the corners of his eyes crinkle with it. How it makes a gentleness poke through that intimidating facade that Steve would like to learn more about. 

He's smiling like that now, and Steve feels his heartbeat quicken and has to bite back a curse. Just his luck that Eddie would show up now, of all times. Now that the mysterious note writer is actually making their move and Steve has decided to try and give them a chance. 

"Erm, listen man …" he starts to say. The collar of his sweater is suddenly too scratchy and too warm on his skin, so he reaches up to tug at it. 

Eddie hums and the smoke of his cigarette mingles with the fog. 

"Yellow suits you, y’know? You should wear it more." 

And shit, if that isn't exactly what one of the notes said, only last week. Steve screws his eyes shut and heaves an aggravated sigh. 

"Yeah, thanks. Listen, I'm sorry Eddie, I really am, but this is kind of a bad time? I'm meeting someone here and-" 

"Ah, the elusive E., right?"

Steve nods. "Right. They'll probably show up any-" 

And wait. 

Wait. 

Hold on a goddamn, motherfucking second. 

He never told Eddie about the notes. 

When he opens his eyes to gawk at Eddie, that smile has turned about one-hundred-and-twenty-three percent more smug. 

"How do you …?" he starts to say. 

One of Eddie’s eyebrows disappears under his fringe. 

"Steve?" 

"Yeah?" 

There's a beat of silence. Something slots into place, and- 

"Oh." 

They both snort matching laughs as Eddie swoops into a bow and offers his hand. 

"Eddie Munson, at your service. Now, are you still game for those drinks?" 

Steve is. 

The next time Eddie slips a note into his returns, he drops the books off in person. 

[bucksfoot]