#for so long he's been the sun and heat and fire

[kimbapisnotsushi]

how beautiful and poetic is it that lucio katou looks at hinata, a character so often embodied by the sun and how it blazes, and is reminded of japan's winter. lucio katou looks at hinata and sees a flurry of snow even when the heat of brazil's sun and sand has dug its claws into them. lucio katou looks at hinata and is chilled by hinata's drive and passion and hunger, feels the wind nipping at his skin and the frost settling in between his bones, is blinded by the white glare of snow under which warmth still flickers like a candleflame being kept alive by cupped hands. and hinata, so used to being summer-bright and sun-strong, will learn what it means to be seared by a light that is not his own.

[orangeblossomsintheair]

GRIEF ASIDE (1/4) | MV33

summary : You fancied your fiancé, you realized with horror. Oh, God. You fancied your fiancé.

wc : 13k

an : this took.. a while ☹️ anyway

For as long as you could remember, you had been engaged to Max Emilian, scion of House Verstappen.

On paper, it was a triumphant match, a union to secure your house's fortunes for generations. To be betrothed to the son of a duke was a dream most could only aspire to.

Yet, no one envied House Button’s lovely heiress.

Instead, the court pitied you.

Jos Verstappen, your future father-in-law and Duke of the North, was a name steeped in infamy. Known as the Butcher of the North, his reputation was as frigid and cruel as the land he ruled. Whispers of his war crimes haunted corridors, and songs of lament cursed his name in taverns.

To marry into such a legacy meant tying yourself to shadows you could never escape.

But duty had bound you to this path as tightly as the chill of the northern wind now clung to your skin.

Raised to bridge alliances and strengthen bonds, you had no illusions about the weight of your role.

Now, you stood before the towering iron gates of the Verstappen estate, carriage behind you, your wool cloak and one of your knight’s heavy coats offered little respite from the North’s unforgiving cold.

“Keep your chin up, my lady,” Lily murmured beside you, adjusting the trunk she carried, her voice nearly drowned by the howling wind. Her cheeks were flushed from the frost, and her attempts at reassurance felt as thin as your cloak.

You nodded mutely, clenching your chattering teeth. Complaining about her poor preparation, or your shared underestimation of the northern winter, would achieve little.

The gates groaned open, revealing the sprawling estate beyond.

The fortress-like walls loomed high, their grey stone stark against the snow-laden landscape. Narrow windows glinted like ice shards under the weak winter sun.

Smoke curled lazily from the distant stables, a muted sign of life in an otherwise bleak expanse.

“Cheerful place,” Lando muttered behind you, his voice dry. He pulled his hood lower, trying to shield his face from the biting wind.

“More like a tomb,” Oscar replied, tone low. His eyes scanned the walls warily, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Crossing the threshold of the estate, you were greeted by a cavernous main hall that carried little more warmth than the outdoors. Though a fire crackled at one end, its heat barely touched the far corners of the room.

The scent of pine mingled with the cold tang of iron, likely from the spiked chandelier that loomed overhead, casting jagged shadows across the floor.

“Presenting Lady (Y/N) of House Button,” the steward announced, his voice echoing up the vaulted ceilings.

The words washed over you, irrelevant compared to your struggle to stop trembling. The knight closest to you, Oscar, shifted closer, his presence a silent bulwark, but you scarcely noticed.

A figure descended the grand staircase, drawing your attention despite the icy haze clouding your mind.

Max Emilian Verstappen.

He moved with a grace that could only be borne from years of court presence, strides measured and deliberate yet still managing to not look stiff.

Pale hair neatly combed, save for a few strands that fell across his forehead, softening the otherwise hard edges of his face. His broad shoulders were draped in a heavy black coat lined with fur, swallowing what little light the room offered.

You had heard tales of him: a skilled warrior, an even better horseman, and a temper so fierce people began claiming the Verstappen rage was a hereditary trait.

His eyes fell on you then, surprise flickering across his face before being quickly replaced by a furrowed brow and the unmistakable air of annoyance.

“Gods,” he muttered under his breath, his tone cold enough to make you flinch.

You stiffened, unsure whether to speak or remain silent.

Was that usually how the Northern Lords greeted their betrothed?

Max’s eyes roved over you, taking in your trembling form, pale cheeks, and the inadequate cloak clutched around your shoulders.

His frown deepened, and he turned sharply toward your knights, his expression hardening.

“Why in the seven hells is she dressed like this?” he demanded.

Sir Lando bristled but maintained his composure. “My lady insisted, Lord Verstappen, that we keep ourselves alive. We offered additional layers-”

“She’s half-frozen. Who cares if you're alive if your Lady is dead?” Max cut him off, already shrugging out of his own coat.

You opened your mouth to protest, to insist you were fine, but before you could utter a word, he was draping the fur-lined garment over your shoulders.

The residual warmth from his body enveloped you, burying you under the scent of pine and leather.

“Your stubbornness will kill you,” he muttered, crouching slightly to adjust the coat. His tone was still sharp, but his hands were steady and careful as they brushed over you.

You glanced at Lily, who hovered nearby, her eyes darting between you and Max. “Fetch tea,” Max ordered, voice brooking no argument.

She hesitated, clearly unsure whether to take orders from a person who was decidedly not her Lady, but a sharp look from him sent her scurrying away.

Max turned back to you, his expression unreadable as his hand brushed over your elbow, guiding you forward. “Sit,” he gestured to the high-backed chair closest to the hearth.

You sank into the seat gratefully, abandoning the appearance of grace in lieu of the warmth of the fire and the heavy coat easing the worst of your shivers.

Max crouched before you, his face illuminated by the flickering light. “You were standing in the cold far too long,” he said, softer now as though talking to an injured bird.

“I didn’t realize…” you started, but your voice faltered.

Max’s lips quirked in a faint, reluctant smile. “Not even when you were shivering like a leaf?”

He leaned back, regarding you for a moment before adding, “The North will swallow you whole.”

His words should have stung, but you found it hard to be insulted for there was no malice in them, only a hint of amusement.

The tea arrived swiftly, Lily handing it to you with a pinched expression, steam curling from the delicate porcelain as if reluctant to break the stillness of the hall.

You wrapped your frozen fingers around the cup, savoring the way the heat kissed your skin, thawing the numbness in your fingers.

Max walked to stand a few paces away, matching your knight and maid's distance, watching you with a detached sort of interest, his arms still crossed over his chest.

The flickering firelight carved sharp angles along his face, illuminating the high cut of his cheekbones and the stern set of his jaw.

“You look better now.” His voice was quieter this time. “At least you have some color in you.”

You weren’t sure if that was meant to be a kindness or merely an observation, but you offered a polite nod regardless.

“Thank you, my Lord.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Max will do.”

The correction startled you. Men of his station, sons of dukes especially, rarely made such allowances. Betrothed or not.

“As you wish… Max.”

A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, but it vanished just as quickly.

“I imagine you have questions.”

Of course, you did.

Too many, and yet none seemed appropriate to ask.

You had spent years preparing for this union in theory, but now that you were standing on the threshold of it, the rehearsed words died in your throat.

“Only a few,” you said carefully.

He hummed, a noncommittal sound. “Then ask.”

You hesitated. “Your father… the Duke… is he here?”

Max’s expression cooled.

“No. My father is at the border fortresses, inspecting the garrisons. He will return before the winter feast to welcome you.”

Relief and dread tangled in your chest. It was a reprieve not to face Duke Jos immediately, but you knew it was temporary at best.

“And your father will be joining us soon enough as well, won’t he?” Max’s tone was unreadable, though something sharp glinted beneath it.

You nodded. “Yes. My father will come north after his duties are finished. To meet with the Duke and… formalize the engagement.”

The words felt heavy on your tongue. This visit wasn’t just a quiet retreat to adjust to your future home. It was a public commitment. Before long, the entire North would know you belonged to him.

You dreaded what that would do to your public image.

Max’s jaw tightened although his expression remained carefully distant. “Of course.”

He turned slightly, gaze sweeping the cold stone hall.

“You’ll find the North is not like the South. Comfort is scarce, and the people scarcer. They will not warm to you easily.”

His words felt more like a warning than a courtesy.

“I don’t expect them to.”

That seemed to surprise him. Perhaps he had been expecting you to be one of those Southern ladies that demanded everyone to bend over backwards for their comfort.

His eyes flicked back to you, studying you in a way that made you want to shrink under his coat.

“Good.”

The fire cracked loudly, sending a shower of sparks upward. Max tilted his head toward it, the flicker of light catching in his pale hair.

“You’ll need to adjust quickly. My father won’t tolerate weakness in his house.”

“And you?” The question slipped out before you could stop it.

Max’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes hardened.

“I won’t coddle you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It wasn’t. But the way he said it made your stomach twist.

Still, you straightened your spine. “I wouldn’t ask for that.”

A tense silence settled again, though this time, it felt more contemplative than cold.

Max’s gaze drifted from you to the door behind you.

“You must be tired from the journey. I’ll have your rooms prepared.”

“I thought we would stay in the west wing,” you said, recalling the arrangements made in the letters exchanged between your families.

Max’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“The west wing is being repaired. Storm damage. You’ll stay closer to the main hall until it’s finished.”

It was a small thing, perhaps, yet it unsettled you.

The west wing was meant to be yours. A space to adjust quietly, away from the imposing grandeur of the estate.

Now, you were being denied that distance.

But what could you do? Refuse? Argue?

“Very well,” you said softly.

Max nodded once then turned to the waiting steward.

“Have the rooms near the library prepared. And make sure the fires are lit.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Oscar and Lando approached then, boots scuffing against the stone floor as they stopped just shy of your side.

Their eyes darted toward you, assessing your posture, searching for some silent confirmation that you were unharmed.

You gave them a small nod, and the tension in Oscar’s broad shoulders seemed to ease, though Lando’s hand remained near the hilt of his sword, his body coiled like a spring.

Max’s sharp gaze swept over the two knights, his expression unreadable but undoubtedly calculating.

“Your people will stay nearby,” he said, his voice firm but unhurried. “Your maid is not to wander without escort. Your men may walk around but not too far from the fortress. I'd rather not deal with the politics of a Southern knight dying in my land.”

Lily bristled at the casual remark, her cheeks coloring with indignation. “We Southerners aren't as fragile as you seem to think,” she said sharply, her words cutting the silence like a knife.

“Lily,” Oscar said quietly, catching her arm before she could step forward. His grip was gentle but firm, head shaking in a silent plea for restraint.

Max didn’t even flinch at her outburst, his cool demeanor unwavering as his gaze flicked back to you.

“Your people are bold.” His tone was tinged with something akin to amusement. “Let’s hope they’re wise enough to temper it.”

“They’re loyal,” you replied evenly, meeting his eyes without faltering. “I wouldn’t have brought them otherwise.”

“Loyalty is admirable but it doesn’t mean much if it gets you killed.”

Lando shifted beside you, jaw tight. “With all due respect, my lord,” he began without much respect at all. “We’re more than capable of keeping her safe.”

“I’m sure you believe that.” Max’s gaze settled on Lando. “But I’ve seen capable men bleed out on these stones for lesser causes. My rules are for your protection as much as mine.”

Lando’s grip on his sword tightened, but Oscar’s hand on his shoulder stilled him.

“We’ll abide by your rules,” Oscar confirmed, voice calm.

“Good.” Max turned back to you. “Come. I’ll show you the library. You should know where it is if you’re to live here.”

The offer caught you off guard. The scion of House Verstappen switched conversations so casually he seemed to slap you with his casualness.

“The library?”

“You can’t spend all your time staring at the snow,” Max replied evenly, though there was a faint lilt to his words.

Was that… humor? It was hard to tell with him.

“Well..” You tugged your coat tighter. “It is very captivating snow.”

Max’s brow arched. “And yet, I think you’ll survive without it for an hour.”

You blinked, taken aback by the dry remark.

Was he… teasing you?

Shaking off the ridiculous thought, you rose from your chair, trailing behind as he turned and strode toward the door.

You glanced at your companions, giving them a small and, hopefully, reassuring smile before stepping forward to follow Max.

Max’s pace was long, purposeful, and you found yourself scrambling to keep up without looking breathless.

(You decidedly ignored Sir Lando's small snort of laughter.)

The manor was a labyrinth of cold stone and dim corridors, the walls lined with tapestries dulled by age.

Shadows flickered where sparse torches burned, giving the place a haunted sort of stillness.

You found it hard to ever imagine yourself calling this place home.

Max moved through the halls like someone who had been shaped by this place, his presence carved into the very bones of the estate.

His stride was confident, measured, purposeful.

You, on the other hand, felt like an outsider, a stranger, each step heavy on the cold stone floor.

Finally, Max stopped before a pair of massive oak doors, their wood darkened with age. He didn’t look back at you as he spoke, his voice low, but managing to carry through the quiet hall.

“Your men stay outside. Your maid may enter,” he said, the command clear.

Your knights exchanged a brief look.

Lando’s lips curled into a smirk, clearly less than thrilled with the command. He let out a sigh, posture straightening with a resigned huff.

With a dramatic roll of his eyes, he moved to one side of the door, giving a theatrical bow as though he were playing a part in some grand performance.

Oscar shook his head but followed suit, taking his place at the other side, hands clasped with a more restrained expression.

Lando’s voice broke the silence, dripping with mock sweetness. “Enjoy the library, my Lady. Try not to get too lost in there.”

You laughed, unable to contain yourself and bid them a silent goodbye.

Without another word, he pushed the doors open, the hinges groaning in protest, and led you and Lily inside.

The library was vast and dim, lined wall-to-wall with shelves that stretched high into the shadows above.

Dust motes floated lazily in the beams of light filtering through the narrow, arched windows, painting the room in shades of gold and gray.

You inhaled deeply, the scent of aged paper and polished wood filling your senses.

“It’s beautiful…” you breathed, the words slipping out unbidden.

“It is,” Max replied, stepping farther into the room. “And it’s yours to use as I allow while you’re here.”

You followed him in, your fingers brushing the spines of the books closest to you. They were thick and heavy, their titles embossed in faded gold.

“Are these… first editions?” you asked, your voice hushed, as if speaking too loudly might awaken some slumbering beast.

“Many of them, yes,” Max said, his gaze sweeping the shelves as if cataloging them in his mind. “You’ll find original prints of histories, poetry, philosophy. Most of it quite rare. Some of the works were commissioned specifically for this collection.”

“Commissioned?” you echoed, eyebrows lifting in surprise.

He nodded. “Yes. House Verstappen has always valued knowledge. There are some volumes here you won’t find anywhere else.”

You let your hand fall from the books and turned to face him. “You must spend a lot of time here then.”

“Not as much as I should,” he admitted, his tone crisp. “But I’m familiar with the layout. If you’re planning to lose yourself, I can point you in the right direction.”

The corner of your mouth quirked up at his phrasing. “Lose myself?”

“It happens.” He shrugged, glancing away.

You laughed softly. “Is that your way of warning me?”

“A mere suggestion,” he corrected, his lips twitching in what might have been the hint of a smile. “Start with the poetry under the windows. It’s a good place for… wandering minds.”

“Poetry under the windows,” you repeated the words under your breath, glancing toward the far end of the room where a faint glow spilled across the shelves. “Any other recommendations?”

“The histories on the east wall are worth your time.” He gestured briefly. “And if you’re feeling adventurous, there’s a collection of letters on the upper mezzanine. They’re in French, though.”

“I can manage French,” you said with a small smile.

His eyebrow arched faintly. “Good. Then you’ll also find some rather colorful accounts of court scandals tucked in the back corner. A few are probably embellished, but they’re entertaining nonetheless.”

Your laughter came easier this time. “Court scandals? I didn’t expect you to recommend something so… frivolous.”

“Frivolity has its place,” he said dryly. “Just don’t let the staff catch you reading them. They might talk.”

“Noted.” You attempted to suppress your grin.

For a moment, the two of you stood in companionable silence, the quiet weight of the library wrapping around you like a cloak. You turned back to the shelves, running your fingertips lightly over the spines once more.

“This is incredible,” you murmured.

You glanced over your shoulder at his lack of a response, catching a faint glimmer of something softer in his eyes, though it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.

Max seemed to compose himself, clearing his throat. “You will be fetched come dinner time.”

The heavy doors of the library groaned shut behind him, leaving you and Lily in the cavernous stillness.

As soon as the sound of his footsteps faded, Lily let out a sharp exhale, breaking the silence. “I thought he’d never leave,” she muttered, her voice pitched low but urgent.

You turned to her, startled by her tone. “Lily-”

“He’s impossible to read!” she interrupted, her hands gesturing animatedly as she paced a small circle near the door.

“One moment, he’s scowling like the world owes him something, and the next, he’s… he’s practically pointing you toward the best books for a cozy evening! What am I supposed to make of that?”

You blinked, caught between amusement and exasperation. “I don’t think it’s meant to be deciphered, Lily.”

“But it should be!” she shot back, stopping abruptly to face you. “You’re supposed to marry him. How are you supposed to live with someone who switches moods faster than the weather?”

“I don’t think he’s as unpredictable as you think,” you said cautiously, though you weren’t entirely convinced of your own words. “He’s… reserved.”

“Reserved?” Lily snorted. “He looks like he’s trying not to bite anyone’s head off half the time.” She softened slightly, adding, “Although, I’ll admit, it was nice of him to show you this place.”

Her eyes wandered around the library, her earlier frustration melting into a quieter awe. “It really is something, isn’t it?”

You nodded, letting your gaze sweep the towering shelves. “It is. I could lose hours in here.”

“Maybe you’ll have to,” Lily said, her tone lighter now. “If he’s not going to be forthcoming about himself, you might have to dig through the history books to figure him out. Perhaps you'll even find a diary of his.”

You laughed softly, shaking your head. “I think even the books might not have the answers to that mystery.”

Lily gave you a sly grin. “Well, if anyone can figure him out, my lady, it’s you.”

With a roll of your eyes, you turned back to the shelves. “My betrothed's dour personality aside.. help me find that poetry section he mentioned.”

Lily smiled, stepping closer to follow you deeper into the quiet sanctuary of the library.

“Of course, my lady.”

—

Hours later, as the manor stirred for the evening meal, a servant was dispatched to your quarters. The boy found it strange that the two knights he'd heard his Lord's betrothed had come with weren't stationed by the door.

A sharp knock echoed once. Then again, louder, more insistent.

“My lady?”

Silence.

The servant hesitated, damp palms against the polished wood.

“My lady?” He said again, voice cracking. “My lady, may I come in?”

“...My lady, I'm coming in.”

Then, cautiously, he pushed the door open.

The room was untouched. The bed still perfectly made, the hearth’s fire reduced to flickering embers. Shadows stretched long across the walls, and a chill crept in where warmth should have lingered.

Panic tightened his throat.

He checked the adjoining rooms. The empty sitting area, the silent halls. Nowhere.

Not even your guards and maid were present.

Sweat gathered at his brow as he hurried through the winding corridors, heart hammering as he sought out Lord Verstappen.

He found Max standing near the great hall’s window, dusk spilling through the glass in muted gold.

“My lord,” the servant panted, voice tight. “She’s- she’s gone.”

Max turned slowly. “Gone?”

“I searched her chambers, the halls, the west wing-”

“And the library?” Max’s voice was sharp, cutting through the servant’s stammering explanation.

The servant faltered. “The… the library, my lord?”

“Yes,” Max said evenly, already striding toward the east corridor. “She’s there.”

The servant froze, his jaw slackening. “You… you allowed her inside?”

“Are you questioning me?” Max didn’t even glance back as he continued down the hall, his boots echoing sharply on the stone floor.

“N-no, my lord!” the servant stammered, bowing reflexively. “But should I-”

“Stay where you are,” Max ordered. “I’ll handle this myself.”

Your two knights stood sentinel by the library doors when he approached, arms crossed, their expressions a mixture of boredom and indifference.

They barely acknowledged him, their attention elsewhere as the echo of his boots rang down the corridor.

Max didn’t slow his pace. “Is she still in there?”

Lando flicked a glance toward Oscar, then shrugged. “Yep. She's buried in a book or something,” he said with a nonchalant flick of his wrist, as if it were of little concern.

Max’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t think to remind her of the time?”

Oscar raised a brow, voice dry. “A certain scion has, unfortunately, forbidden our entry, my lord.”

Max sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose, but Lando was quick to interject with a smirk. “And it’s a lost cause trying to pry our Lady away from a good book. Trust me, we’ve tried.”

Max’s frustration bubbled over into a short, exasperated laugh as he pushed the heavy doors open.

And there you were.

Curled into a high-backed chair, utterly absorbed in the thick, ancient book resting open in your lap.

A few other volumes lay scattered around your feet, their spines cracked open, as if you’d moved through them in a frenzy of curiosity.

Max’s gaze lingered on the sight before him. On the way your head tilted slightly as you read, your brow furrowed in concentration.

His grip on the doorframe loosened, but his jaw remained tight.

“My lady.”

You glanced up, startled but then smiled when you saw him. “Oh, my- Max, What are you doing here again?”

Max’s brow arched slightly at your casual tone. His irritation wavered.

He knew you were about to say ‘my Lord’ again, knew it was a mere slip of the tongue, court etiquette taking over before personal sense.

But.. my Max. Yes, he supposed he was indeed yours.

He couldn't say that though so when he spoke, it was only a disinterested, “It’s dinner time.”

You blinked, glancing toward the tall windows where the light had shifted to deep amber.

“Already? I hadn’t even realized-” You glanced down at the book in your lap, reluctant to put it aside. “I haven’t even finished this chapter.”

His gaze dropped to the title in your hands. “Faust,” he noted, tucking the information away. “You read German?”

You blinked, caught off guard. “I… only at an elementary level.”

Max's eyebrow arched slightly. You were either a liar or terribly humble.

“Faust,” he repeated dryly. “Hardly a book for someone with only elementary German. Your skills are passable, at least.”

“Just enough to get by,” you admitted, more honest now, brushing invisible dust from your skirt as you stood.

Max offered his arm, and you took it without hesitation this time.

He noticed, though he said nothing about the change, afraid that if he voiced it out you'd withdraw again.

“You might find Faust more rewarding if you read it in context,” he remarked as you walked down the hall, your knights and maid following behind.

You glanced up at him, curious. “And what context would that be?”

“Understanding Goethe’s philosophical explorations, for one. Or at least recognizing the poetic structure in its original form.”

You tilted your head. “So now you’re saying my German isn’t good enough?”

“I’m saying it’s a pity to read something monumental in fragments,” he replied. “Not a criticism.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” The corners of your lips quirked upward.

“Take it as you like.” He offered you a small shrug, though there was the faintest trace of amusement in his eyes.

A beat of silence passed before he spoke again. “Which German do you struggle with?”

“Official documents,” you admitted. “The kind that's full of overly formal phrasing and unnecessary flourish.”

Max hummed, thoughtful. Most official documents were indeed like that. “I could assist with that, should the need arise.”

You blinked at him, caught off guard by the offer. “You would?”

“If I find myself having time.”

“Thank you.”

He shook his head, brushing off your words. “And don't sit too close to the mezzanine shelves,” he added. “They’re unstable.”

Your brows rose. “Unstable?”

“I don’t need you buried beneath three hundred years of German history,” he said, his tone casual but his meaning clear.

A laugh bubbled up before you could stop it. “You’d miss me, then?”

“More likely, the servants would revolt,” he said, gesturing to the doors to the dining hall. “Dinner then, shall we?”

—

The dining hall was an expansive, imposing space, its vaulted ceilings casting long shadows over the vast table.

Candles decorated much of the available surfaces in a surprisingly tasteful way.

Their flames flickered weakly, struggling to combat the cold that clung to the stone walls like it was a living, breathing thing.

The table stretched far ahead, but only two places were set.

Max took his seat at the head without so much as a glance in your direction, and you slid into the chair opposite him.

Lily quietly withdrew to prepare for your night routine while Lando and Oscar remained a fair distance away, leaving the two of you some privacy to discuss.

Servants moved efficiently, placing the first course on the table: roast venison, honeyed carrots, and freshly baked bread that had already begun to cool in the chill air.

The earlier conversation about books had petered out, leaving a quiet in its wake.

Max ate as though entirely alone, his focus on the meal before him.

You shifted in your seat, the faint scrape of your fork against the plate feeling almost intrusive.

"You know," you began tentatively, "for someone who seems to enjoy books, you’re surprisingly difficult to talk to about them."

Max’s knife paused mid-slice, his eyes flicking up to meet yours.

There was no hostility in his gaze, but his expression was unreadable all the same. “Talking about books is rarely as rewarding as reading them.”

“That sounds suspiciously like an excuse,” you said, trying to inject a bit of lightness into the moment. “Or maybe you just don’t know how to have a proper discussion about them.”

His lips twitched slightly, as if the idea amused him, though he didn’t smile. “Do you often accuse your dining companions of conversational ineptitude, or am I a special case?”

“That depends.” You tore off a piece of bread. “Are you going to prove me wrong?”

Max tilted his head, studying you with quiet curiosity, like someone turning over a puzzle piece in their mind.

“Very well.” He set his knife down carefully. “What would you like to discuss? Goethe? Schiller?”

“Bold of you to assume I am especially fond of German authors. Perhaps I just picked up Faust in the library on a whim.” You smiled. “But if you must know, I’ve been working through Balzac recently.”

He raised an eyebrow, his expression shifting slightly, though still difficult to read. “Balzac? Ambitious. And how are you finding him?”

“Dense,” you admitted with a laugh. “Brilliant, but dense. Definitely not light reading.”

“Few worthwhile things are,” he replied, returning to his meal. “Though I’ve always found Balzac’s fascination with ambition rather… tiresome.”

“Really?” you asked, curious. “Why?”

He took a measured sip of wine before answering. “Because I’ve seen enough ambition in reality to find little appeal in it as fiction.”

You smiled faintly, tilting your head. “And yet, here you are. A product of generations of ambition.”

His gaze darkened slightly, though not in anger.

There was a flicker of something, maybe hesitation, before he spoke. “Careful,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “You’re treading close to dangerous ground.”

“Am I?” you asked, though your tone was gentler now, almost teasing. “I thought we were just talking about books.”

Before he could respond, the servants re-entered, clearing the first course and placing the next before you.

The interruption softened the tension, and you let the moment breathe.

When the room was quiet again, you spoke, this time more cautiously. “Alright, then. Enough about me. What about you? What are you reading?”

Max’s fork paused mid-motion, and he set it down with deliberate care. “Does it matter?”

“Of course, it matters,” you replied, leaning forward slightly. “How else am I supposed to judge your taste?”

For a moment, you thought you saw the faintest glimmer of a smile. “If you must know, The Sorrows of Young Werther.”

You blinked, surprised. “Goethe’s most sentimental work? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Sentimentality has its uses,” he said dryly, though there was no real bite to his words. “Even you might agree.”

“Are you suggesting I’m sentimental?” you arched a brow.

“I’m suggesting you’re curious,” he replied, his tone even. “Perhaps overly so.”

“Fair.” You conceded with a small laugh. “But I’m curious.. what draws you to it? The tragedy? The unrequited love?”

He hesitated for just a moment, his gaze dropping briefly before he answered.

“The futility,” he said quietly, lifting his wine glass. “Of longing for something you cannot have.”

For a moment, you didn’t know how to respond, the honesty in his tone catching you off guard. When he didn’t elaborate, you picked up your own glass, letting the silence linger without pressing further.

“You have a rather bleak outlook, don’t you?” you asked finally, your voice softer now.

“Realistic,” he corrected, not unkindly, his gaze flicking back to yours. “Not everyone has the luxury of optimism.”

You frowned slightly, not entirely sure how to reply. “It’s not about luxury,” you said after a pause. “It’s about perspective.”

“Perspective is shaped by reality.” His eyes met yours, boring. “And reality is rarely kind.”

The conversation lulled again, but this time it felt less uneasy and more thoughtful.

As dinner wrapped up, Max glanced at your knights before settling on you, his tone lightening as he spoke. “I trust you can find your rooms?”

You nodded, standing from your chair. “Yes, I think so.”

“No late-night wandering, then?” he asked, his voice carrying the faintest trace of amusement.

Max’s lips twitched again, softer this time, as if he might actually be considering a smile. “Good. I’d hate to have to rescue you from some misstep in the dark.”

You tilted your head, feigning innocence. “What makes you think I’d need rescuing?”

“Experience,” he said simply, the faintest flicker of amusement in his eyes.

The air between you shifted slightly, the earlier sharpness fading into something more subdued.

You allowed yourself a small laugh, breaking the lingering tension. “I’ll have you know I’m quite capable of finding my way around.”

“Is that so?” he replied, leaning back in his chair. His tone had softened, the sharp edges dulling to a quiet curiosity. “Well, then. I suppose I’ll trust you.”

“Trust,” you repeated, letting the word hang between you. “A bold move, considering we’ve only just met.”

Max regarded you for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Bold, perhaps. But necessary.”

You hesitated, unsure how to respond. There was something in his voice, quiet, measured, and entirely unexpected, that made you pause. The weight of the moment settled around you like the faint flicker of the candlelight, warm yet fragile.

“Well,” you said finally. “I suppose I should be flattered.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

He rose from his seat with practiced ease, the flicker of warmth in his eyes quickly hidden behind his composed demeanor. “Goodnight, then.”

You watched him as he left the dining hall, his steps measured and deliberate, the echo of his footsteps fading into the vast, empty space.

For a moment, you sat in the quiet, your gaze lingering on the door where he had disappeared.

Finally, you stood, the faintest smile playing at your lips. “Goodnight, Max,” you murmured to the empty room.

—-

The first light of dawn crept through the heavy drapes of your room, painting the walls in soft hues of gold and silver. The air carried a sharp chill, the promise of frost lingering just outside the thick panes of glass.

Everything was still, save for the faint crackle of the fire in the hearth and the soft rustling of fabric as Lily moved about with quiet precision.

She bent over a polished wooden chair, her deft hands smoothing out the folds of the attire she’d chosen for you.

A cloak of deep crimson lay draped across her arm, its rich, heavy fabric catching the faint light. You stirred in your bed, watching her through half-lidded eyes as she worked.

“Good morning, Lily,” you murmured, sitting up and drawing the blankets closer against the morning chill.

Lily turned with a warm smile, setting the cloak on the bed beside you. “Good morning, my Lady. Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough,” you replied, your fingers brushing the thick velvet of the cloak. You tilted your head, examining it with curiosity. “I don’t recall seeing this in my wardrobe before.”

“It was delivered just this morning,” Lily explained, her tone light but tinged with amusement. “A gift, I believe, from Lord Verstappen.”

Your brows lifted as you traced the intricate embroidery along the hem, tiny silver threads woven into delicate patterns. “From Lord Verstappen?”

She nodded, folding her hands in front of her. “He must have assumed the worst given your attire yesterday.”

“It’s rather heavy,” you remarked, holding it up to feel its weight.

Lily gave you a knowing smile, her tone dry but affectionate. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that I’d rather you walk with less grace than freeze, my Lady.”

You let out a soft laugh, shaking your head as you draped the cloak over your shoulders.

It was impossibly warm, the kind of warmth that seeped through your skin and settled in your bones. “You’re not wrong. I suppose there’s no room for vanity when winter comes knocking.”

“None at all,” Lily agreed, moving to adjust the cloak, fastening the silver clasp at your throat. “Besides, the color suits you. Lord Verstappen has surprisingly good taste. I'd have assumed he’d just grab any old thing and force you into it.”

You raised a brow at the tone that laced her words, giving her a sidelong glance. “Flattery for him, Lily? Are you trying to curry favor? And here I thought you were quite ready to sock him just yesterday.”

She feigned innocence, stepping back with a twinkle in her eye. “Not at all, my Lady. But if he keeps sending gifts like this, I might just start.”

Your laughter filled the room, chasing away the last remnants of sleep. You were somewhat glad Lily saw him as redeemable after yesterday.

After all, she was usually a good judge of character.

As you stood, the cloak fell around you like a royal mantle, its weight grounding but comforting.

By the time you entered the dining hall, Max was already seated at the long table, a vision of composed efficiency.

His pale hair was still perfectly swept back, not a strand out of place, and a small stack of documents sat before him.

His pen moved steadily across the paper, his focus unbroken even as the golden morning light softened the sharpness of his features.

“Good morning, Max,” you said, sliding into the chair across from him, your tone deliberately chipper.

Max glanced up briefly, eyes meeting yours with the barest flicker of warmth.

“Good morning,” he replied, setting his pen down with the precision of a man who never did anything carelessly. “You’re up early.”

“It’s rather difficult to stay in bed when the frost feels like it's climbing up to sleep with you,” you said, grabbing a warm roll from the plate near you. “Do you have a deal with the weather to ensure I never sleep in?”

A faint smile tugged at his lips. “I’ll admit to nothing. But if the frost succeeds, perhaps I should reward it.”

“Ha! I’d like to see you try,” you said, tearing a piece of bread and slathering it with butter. “I’ve made my peace with it, though. I realized there was a charm to the winter once I got over the whole ‘freezing to death’ aspect.”

Max arched a brow, his eyes sparkling faintly with what you hoped was amusement. “A charm, you say? I wasn’t aware you were so poetic in the mornings.”

“Oh, I’m a veritable bard before breakfast,” you said. “In fact, I was just composing a sonnet about how frostbite builds character.”

He snorted softly as he reached for his tea, the sound barely audible, but it felt like a victory. “I’ll be sure to commission a copy of it for the library.”

You leaned back in your chair, feeling emboldened by his rare moment of humor

“Speaking of things worth writing about, I was thinking of spending some time in the garden today. It looks magical with the frost.”

Max paused, his teacup halfway to his lips, and gave you a look that bordered on incredulous. “The garden? In winter?”

“Yes, the garden,” you said, undeterred. “You do realize it’s still a garden, even when it’s cold?”

He set his cup down slowly, as if trying to process your words. “You are aware that nothing grows in the garden during winter, yes? Unless you count the weeds, which I doubt have much aesthetic appeal.”

“There are flowers that survive in winter,” you said with a pointed look.

He tilted his head, his expression blank. “Like what? Frozen dandelions?”

“Snowdrops, holly, winter jasmine,” you listed off, ticking them off on your fingers. “I saw some while passing by yesterday. Honestly, do you even know what’s in your own garden?”

Max leaned back slightly. “I delegate. Why bother when there are people who are willing to brave the frost to catalog it all for me?”

You rolled your eyes, unable to hide your grin. “How magnanimous of you.”

He inclined his head slightly, as though you’d paid him a genuine compliment. “It’s a skill.”

“You should come with me,” you said suddenly. “A little walk in the fresh air couldn’t hurt. Who knows? You might even enjoy it.”

He hesitated, his fingers tapping lightly against the rim of his teacup. “I appreciate the invitation,” he said finally, his tone carefully polite. “But my duties don’t often allow for such… luxuries.”

“Luxuries?” you raised a brow. “Surely even a Lord like yourself deserves a moment to himself.”

He chuckled softly, the sound low and rare, but it faded quickly. “Perhaps another time.”

You nodded, masking your disappointment with a practiced smile. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to distract you from your responsibilities.”

“Distraction,” he repeated, his gaze lingering on you longer than necessary.

Something unspoken flickered in his eyes, and though his expression remained composed, there was the faintest hint of something warmer beneath the surface.

“Perhaps,” he said again, this time softer, almost to himself.

You glanced down, heat creeping up your cheeks, and busied yourself with your breakfast.

—-

The steady scratch of a quill against parchment filled the room, broken only by the occasional shuffle of papers.

Max leaned over his desk, eyes scanning the dense columns of reports.

The study was dim, the late afternoon light barely filtering through the heavy curtains. The fire in the hearth had burned low, casting long, flickering shadows across the walls.

Yet, for all his focus, his pen paused mid-sentence.

His thoughts drifted. Again.

To you.

He could see it vividly in his mind: the garden cloaked in frost, each branch thin and brittle beneath the weight of winter.

You would be there, wouldn’t you? Bundled in that wool cloak you favored, breath curling in the cold air as you traced the icy edges of dormant rose bushes.

You had mentioned it offhandedly this morning, your plan to spend the afternoon outside despite the chill.

Max let out a slow breath, frowning at the parchment before him.

The words blurred, meaningless.

It was ridiculous.

You were likely gone by now, the cold too sharp to endure for long.

Rationality urged him to stay, to finish the reports that demanded his attention.

Yet the thought persisted.

Why did it matter if you were still there?

It shouldn’t.

And yet.

The chair scraped quietly against the floor as he stood.

He didn’t bother with his coat. The cold would be a brief inconvenience.

His steps were measured as he left the study, though there was a certain tension in his stride, as if he was trying to convince himself this was a simple walk and nothing more.

The manor’s halls gave way to the biting air of winter, and Max inhaled sharply, the cold seeping through the thin fabric of his sleeves.

The gravel path crunched beneath his boots as he crossed into the garden.

The world was quiet here. Still.

The pale sun sagged low in the sky, casting a silver sheen over frost-laced branches and brittle hedges. Even the air felt suspended, holding its breath.

He scanned the expanse, expecting, no, hoping, to see a flicker of movement among the barren trees.

Nothing.

Max’s jaw tightened.

Of course. You wouldn’t have waited. Hours had passed. Why would you linger in the cold for him? The thought was absurd.

He moved forward anyway, slow and deliberate, his hands clasped behind his back as if that could restrain the growing restlessness in his chest.

Each turn of the path yielded only more empty frost-covered stone.

Once.

Twice.

A third time around, and still nothing.

Perhaps this was a mistake.

He turned to leave.

Then, faintly, the sound of movement, a soft rustle of fabric.

His head snapped up.

And there you were.

Tucked into the curve of a stone bench, half-hidden by the skeletal branches of the hedgerow.

A book lay open in your lap, your gloved fingers idly turning the page.

Max stared.

You hadn’t left.

A strange feeling settled in his chest, something between relief and unease.

He didn’t speak, not immediately. For a moment, he simply watched you, the way your breath misted in the cold, how your hair caught the pale light.

He wasn’t sure why he’d come out here.

But now that he had, he found he didn’t want to leave.

Max exhaled quietly, letting the breath curl away into the cold.

He stood perfectly still, half-concealed by the bare limbs of the hedgerow, his figure blending into the stark winter landscape. The cold gnawed at him, a sharp wind threading through the thin fabric of his sleeves, but he didn’t move.

His breath escaped in thin, controlled streams of vapor, dissipating into the frigid air.

And still, his eyes remained fixed on you.

You sat quietly on the stone bench, bundled in the cloak he'd ordered a servant to bring to you last night come morning, its edges stiff with frost.

A book rested in your lap, your gloved fingers lazily tracing the brittle page edges as you turned them.

Every now and then, you paused, eyes lifting to watch the pale sun as it sagged toward the horizon, before returning to your reading.

Max’s hands tightened behind his back.

He shouldn’t be here.

There was no reason to be.

And yet, he didn’t leave.

He told himself it was coincidence, that his steps had simply led him here after hours of restless pacing in his study.

But even that excuse felt thin, crumbling under the weight of his own unease.

He exhaled slowly, the breath catching in the cold.

Why didn’t you go inside? The air was sharp and biting.

Anyone with sense would’ve retreated to the warmth of the manor by now. Yet you sat there still, as if waiting for something.

Or someone.

A ridiculous thought.

Max’s jaw tightened.

"You know," a dry voice cut through the stillness, "standing there staring is a bit creepy, my Lord.”

Max turned sharply, his cold glare snapping to the armored figure leaning casually against the frosted stone archway.

Oscar.

The knight stood with an infuriating air of nonchalance, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword, the other shoved lazily into the crook of his elbow. His breath misted lazily in the cold air, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re out of line.” Max’s voice was flat, the warning unmistakable.

Oscar only raised an eyebrow, entirely unbothered. “Probably. But you’ve been standing long enough that I figured someone should say something.”

Max’s glare deepened.

Oscar tilted his head slightly toward the garden. “You could just speak to her, you know. I’m half certain she wouldn’t mind.”

“I have no intention of interrupting her,” Max said coolly, though the words rang hollow even to his own ears.

Oscar made a thoughtful noise, tapping a gloved finger against his chin. “No, of course not. That’s why you’re skulking in the hedges instead of being a normal person and saying hello.”

Max’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “You have duties. Attend to them.”

Oscar chuckled under his breath. “Oh, I am attending to them. Protecting the lady, making sure her suitors aren’t lurking about. You know, the usual.”

Max’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

Oscar didn’t flinch.

“Did she not mention this morning she hoped you’d join her out here?” the knight asked offhandedly, brushing frost off his shoulder. “But maybe I heard wrong. Could’ve been the wind.”

Max didn’t respond.

Oscar let the silence stretch for a moment before shrugging. “Well. Suit yourself.”

With that, he pushed off the archway and strode casually toward you, boots crunching against the frost-laden gravel.

Max didn’t move. His gaze followed Oscar with a cold, sharp focus, but his feet remained planted, weighed down by something heavier than pride.

Oscar’s figure grew smaller as he neared you.

And then, you looked up.

Your face softened in recognition, lips curving into a faint smile as your knight approached. Max’s chest tightened inexplicably.

“You’ve been out here a while, my lady,” Oscar remarked lightly, stopping beside the stone bench.

You laughed softly, the sound carrying faintly through the still air. “Longer than I meant to. Has it gotten that late already?”

“Late enough,” Oscar said, leaning slightly against the stone edge. “Cold enough too, I imagine.”

You exhaled, watching the breath curl away. “The cold’s not so bad.”

Oscar smirked. “If you say so. Though I passed Lord Max earlier. He was out here too.”

Your eyes lifted, blinking in quiet surprise. “Was he?”

Oscar hummed. “Looked like he was thinking about joining you. Or maybe just staring at you. Hard to tell with him.”

Your gaze flicked toward the distant paths, searching the empty garden.

Oscar watched you carefully. “Still might be lurking somewhere. Shadows seem to agree with him.”

You smiled faintly, but your eyes lingered on the hedgerows, thoughtful.

Oscar nudged a frost-coated pebble with his boot. “You know… if you wanted him here, you could just call him out. Maybe the shame will make his feet move.”

You glanced at him, arching a brow.

He smirked. “Just a thought, my Lady.”

Oscar pushed off the bench. “Come on. You’ll catch cold if you stay out much longer.”

As they turned to head back toward the manor, Max stood still, hidden beyond the hedges.

His hands clenched slowly at his sides.

And then, finally, he turned and walked away.

The frost crunched beneath his boots, louder than before.

—

The rest of the month at the Verstappen estate unfolded in slow, deliberate strokes, like the steady brush of winter wind against frosted glass.

The walls of cold formality between you and Max didn’t crumble overnight, but there were cracks now. Thin, hairline fractures where something softer threatened to seep through.

Max remained composed, distant, his every word and gesture measured. Yet every so often, something flickered.

A hesitation before he spoke. A glance that lingered longer than necessary.

Small, fleeting moments that barely seemed to matter, but they did. They built something fragile and new, fragile as frost on stone.

It started with the garden.

You had grown fond of the winter gardens. Quiet, stark, and untouched. The biting air sharpened your senses, and the stillness gave you space to breathe, something you often struggled to find within the Verstappen estate's cold, towering walls.

You were seated at the breakfast table one morning, fingers curled around your tea for warmth.

Your eyes traced the frost-laced hedgerows beyond the tall windows, lost in thought.

“I’ll accompany you today.”

The voice was quiet but certain, breaking through your reverie.

Your head snapped up.

Max stood across the room, a stack of documents in hand, his expression unreadable.

“…Pardon?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “To the gardens. I’ll walk with you.”

You stared at him, caught off guard. “You want to… walk. Outside. In the cold.”

A slight tilt of his head. “Yes.”

“You?”

His jaw tensed, a muscle ticking. “Is that so difficult to believe?”

“Frankly? Yes.” You set your teacup down carefully, studying him. “Don’t you have something far more important to do than trail after me like some-”

“I hardly think safeguarding my betrothed is beneath me,” he cut in smoothly, though something in his tone lacked its usual sharpness.

You raised a brow. “Safeguard me? Max, it’s a garden, not a battlefield.”

He didn’t answer, only held your gaze steadily.

A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “Well, far be it from me to refuse the protection of a lord.”

Max inclined his head, as if the matter was settled.

—

The cold met you both immediately as you stepped into the garden.

You drew your coat tighter. Max, of course, didn’t seem to notice the cold at all.

His steps were measured, boots crunching against the frost-dusted path. He kept half a step ahead of you, his hands clasped neatly behind his back.

The silence stretched. And stretched.

Then, abruptly-

“Those are evergreens.”

You blinked.

“…Yes. They are.”

Max gave a small nod, as if confirming a fact. “They endure the winter well.”

"That is typically how evergreens work."

Silence.

You bit your lip, fighting the smile threatening to surface.

Max cleared his throat, his eyes flicking forward again. "I thought it was worth mentioning."

"It was very insightful," you teased lightly.

His jaw tightened, though you noticed the faintest flush at the tips of his ears.

The silence stretched again, but it didn’t feel so suffocating now.

"I don’t…" he started, then stopped. His hands flexed behind his back. "I’m not particularly… good at this."

You tilted your head. "At walking?”

A sharp exhale, half a laugh, half frustration. "At this. Talking. Being-" he paused, as if the word itself burned. "-approachable."

You considered him for a moment. "You’re not as terrible as you think."

His eyes flicked to yours, uncertain.

"You just talk about trees a lot."

That earned a genuine huff of breath. Not quite a laugh, but close.

"I’ll… keep that in mind.”

—

Days slipped by like soft falling snow, quiet and unhurried. And so did the walks.

The first few outings had been brittle, every step and word sharp with awkwardness. But little by little, the stiffness began to melt.

It wasn’t anything grand, no sweeping gestures or sudden confessions, but something quieter. Subtle.

Max no longer fumbled for conversation, and you no longer waited for him to.

Sometimes you spoke. Sometimes you didn’t. And somehow, the silences became easier.

There was comfort in it, like the steady crunch of frost beneath your boots or the way your breath curled in the cold air.

It started with small things.

One morning, as you walked past a thicket of frost-covered hedges, Max slowed his pace, watching you with a flicker of curiosity.

“You always stop here.”

You glanced at him, surprised he noticed. “It’s peaceful.”

His eyes followed yours to the bare branches dusted in white.

“Hm.” He made a low sound of acknowledgment, then fell quiet.

The next day, you noticed he lingered near that spot, as if waiting for you to pause first.

He didn’t say anything, but it was enough.

Another morning, you stumbled slightly on the uneven path, your boot catching on a patch of ice.

Before you could right yourself, a steady hand caught your elbow.

You blinked, looking up.

Max’s hand hovered there, his grip careful but sure.

His expression was unreadable, but his touch was steady.

“You should watch your step,” he murmured.

You stared at him for a beat too long.

“I was,” you said finally, a little breathless.

His hand dropped back to his side, and he turned away before you could see the faint pink creeping up his neck.

The next day, the path had been salted.

You never mentioned it. Neither did he.

But the air between you felt lighter.

Then, there was the matter of the scarf.

It was colder than usual that morning. Bitter wind snuck through the layers of your coat and scarf, nipping at your skin.

Max noticed.

“You’re cold,” he said flatly.

You glanced at him, defensive. “It’s winter. Everyone’s cold.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, without a word, he unwound the dark wool scarf from his neck and held it out to you.

You blinked.

“…What are you doing?”

“You need it more than I do.”

You stared at the scarf, then at him. “Max, I’m not going to take your scarf. That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s practical,” he replied, tone perfectly serious.

You huffed a laugh. “Oh, is it? And what about you?”

“I’ll manage.”

His expression didn’t waver.

After a long pause, you sighed and took the scarf from his hands.

It was warm. Warmer than yours, and it smelled faintly of cedar and something crisp, like winter air.

You looped it around your neck, hiding a small smile.

“Happy now?”

Max gave a short nod. “Good.”

The next day, he wore a thicker coat.

You said nothing.

Neither did he.

But his gaze lingered on the scarf around your neck.

And that was enough.

The silences softened after that.

Some days, Max would walk slightly ahead, hands behind his back, eyes on the path.

Other days, he matched your stride, quiet but near.

Once, as you passed a row of brittle rose bushes, you paused, brushing your glove over the thorns.

Max stopped beside you.

“They won’t bloom again until spring.”

“I know.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“They’re still... nice to look at,” he admitted.

You glanced at him.

“That’s surprisingly sentimental of you.”

A slight shrug. “They’re resilient. Even now.”

You smiled, soft and secret.

Another day, you caught him watching you when you laughed at something small. A small squirrel darting through the snow, slipping and scrambling back up a tree.

Max didn’t laugh, but something flickered in his eyes.

Not amusement.

Something warmer.

He looked away when you caught him, but you didn’t tease him for it.

The walks stretched longer. The conversations grew softer.

There were no grand declarations, no sweeping changes.

Just the slow, steady thaw of winter.

And for now, that was enough.

—-

It happened on an ordinary day, so ordinary that you couldn’t have guessed it would stand out for any reason at all.

You were sitting in the common room, absentmindedly flipping through a file, your thoughts half on the task and half on the cup of tea cooling beside you.

You were aware of Max nearby, as you always seemed to be. The two of you had taken to spending your quiet moments together for some reason.

He was seated at the far corner, half-hidden behind a stack of papers, his focus presumably locked on his work.

Or so you thought.

It wasn’t until you reached for your tea, your eyes lifting momentarily, that you noticed it. His gaze.

Max was staring at you.

It wasn’t a casual glance or a quick flicker of attention. His eyes were fixed, steady, like he was studying you without even realizing it.

There was something almost unreadable in his expression, his usual guarded demeanor softened by a hint of… curiosity? Thoughtfulness? You couldn’t quite place it.

For a moment, you froze, unsure what to do. Should you look away? Pretend you hadn’t noticed? Confront him?

The options raced through your mind in a tangle, but before you could decide, Max blinked, as though snapping out of a trance.

His gaze shifted back to the papers in front of him, his movements abrupt and uncharacteristically awkward.

He cleared his throat quietly, shuffling the documents with more focus than necessary.

You felt your cheeks warm, a faint heat creeping up your neck. It wasn’t like Max to lose his composure, even slightly.

You wondered what he’d been thinking. Or if he’d even realized what he was doing.

“Everything alright?” you asked, breaking the silence before it could stretch uncomfortably long. Your voice was casual, light, as though the moment hadn’t happened.

Max didn’t look up immediately, his jaw tightening for a fraction of a second. “Fine,” he said, his tone clipped, but there was a faint edge to it, something almost defensive.

You tilted your head, studying him for a beat longer. “You sure? You looked… distracted.”

He finally met your gaze, his expression unreadable again, but this time you thought you caught the faintest flicker of something.

Embarrassment, maybe, or irritation at being caught.

“I’m sure,” he said, his tone more even now.

“Alright,” you said lightly, turning back to your file with a small shrug. But your heart was still racing, and you couldn’t stop yourself from wondering what had just passed between you.

As the moments ticked by, you resisted the urge to glance at him again, but you couldn’t shake the feeling of his earlier stare.

—

The two of you found yourselves in the library again, a rare moment of calm amidst the usual chaos.

Max sat across from you, his attention drifting between the book in his hands and the room around him.

For once, he wasn’t buried in paperwork or fielding endless questions from others, and the quiet was almost comforting.

The soft rustle of turning pages and the muted hum of your own reading filled the air.

It was a stillness that wrapped around you both, unspoken but shared, a silence that felt like an unacknowledged truce.

Until the peace fractured.

A faint groan of wood sliced through the quiet, subtle at first but growing louder, sharper. You frowned, your eyes flicking upward from your book.

Max noticed the sound too, his head tilting slightly as his attention shifted.

“What was that?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

Max didn’t answer right away, his eyes narrowing as the groaning intensified. “Stay here,” he muttered, already rising from his chair.

But before either of you could move further, the source of the noise revealed itself.

The tall shelf in the corner swayed unnaturally, its weight shifting in a way that made your stomach twist.

“Max-” you started, panic creeping into your voice.

And then it happened. The shelf gave way.

Books tumbled from its upper shelves like a cascade of water, filling the air with dull thuds and sharp cracks.

The massive structure pitched toward you, and you froze, your feet rooted in place.

“Move!” a voice yelled.

You barely registered the shout before a strong hand grabbed your arm, yanking you back with such force that your book flew from your grasp.

Your back slammed into something solid. Someone’s chest.

A deafening crash filled the room as the shelf slammed into the ground, its impact sending vibrations through the floor.

Books scattered in every direction, some sliding to a stop at your feet.

“Are you okay?” Max’s voice was sharp, edged with panic. His hand still gripped your arm, his knuckles white from the effort.

You turned toward him, your breath coming in short, uneven gasps. “I… I think so.”

His eyes darted over you, scanning for any sign of injury. “Did it hit you?” he asked, his voice quieter but no less urgent.

“No,” you managed. “I’m fine. Just… shaken.”

Max exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging as some of the tension left him.

He dropped his hand from your arm, stepping back to give you space, but his gaze stayed locked on you.

“I should’ve seen it coming,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I knew it was old..” He trailed off, his jaw tightening.

You shook your head, still trying to steady your breathing. “You couldn’t have known it would fall like that.”

His brow furrowed, frustration flickering across his face. “I should’ve checked it. What if-” He cut himself off, his jaw working as he looked away.

“It didn’t,” you said firmly. “You pulled me out of the way. That’s what matters.”

Max’s expression didn’t soften. If anything, his frown deepened. “This shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I should’ve-”

“Stop,” you interrupted, your voice firmer than you expected. “Max, you can’t blame yourself. You didn’t push the shelf. You didn’t make it fall.”

He met your gaze then, his eyes dark and filled with a storm of emotions. “But I could’ve stopped it,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

You hesitated, unsure how to respond. The raw guilt in his voice surprised you. It was rare to see Max shaken. You didn't even think it possible.

“You did stop it. At least for me,” you said softly.

He stared at you for a moment, his expression unreadable.

Finally, he sighed and stepped toward the wreckage. “This is a mess,” he muttered, his tone shifting to something more clipped, controlled. “I’ll get someone to clean it up. You should go sit down. Get some air.”

You followed his gaze to the pile of broken wood and scattered books. The sight made your stomach twist, but you forced yourself to speak. “I’ll help. I was here too.”

“No,” Max said quickly, holding up a hand. “You’ve had enough of a scare for one day. Just… take a break, alright?”

You hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “Fine. But only because you asked.”

Max gave a short, almost reluctant nod in return. “Good. I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

As you turned to leave, you glanced back at him. He was already moving toward the debris, his focus shifting entirely to the mess. But the tension in his shoulders hadn’t eased, and you knew he’d be carrying the weight of what could have happened for a while.

And so would you.

—-

The realization that you fancied Max struck with all the subtlety of a thunderclap.

You fancied your fiancé. Oh, God. You fancied your fiancé.

The thought struck you like a bolt of lightning, the weight of it settling heavily in your chest as you paced back and forth across your room.

With each step, the walls of the room seemed to shrink around you, the air thick with the suffocating pressure of your own spiraling thoughts.

How had this happened? Why him? Of all people, why Max?

Stoic, distant Max, the man you barely even knew.

“It’s a trick of the mind. A reaction to circumstance,” you whispered, the words directed at your own reflection in the mirror.

Your face was pinched, your brow furrowed, and your eyes wide with a mixture of dread and something… else.

You rubbed at your temples, as though the act might banish the errant thoughts swirling in your mind.

“It’s admiration,” you said aloud, as if hearing the words would make them true. “Respect for his… demeanor. His resolve.”

You faltered, the image of Max flickering to life in your mind.

His measured gaze, the faint crease at the corner of his mouth when he was deep in thought.

The way his presence seemed to command the air around him.

Stop it.

“Lily!” you called out suddenly, your voice higher than you intended, panic rising sharply in your throat. “Lily, please, come here!”

The door creaked open, and Lily entered with her usual composed air, her eyes softening as soon as she took in the sight of your distress.

“My Lady, what’s wrong? You look...” she trailed off, hesitation in her tone as she glanced at you, clearly noting the unease written across your face.

“Don’t even say it,” you interrupted quickly, pressing your palms to your temples in an effort to stave off the rising panic. “I’m losing my mind, Lily. I think... I think I have feelings for Max.”

Lily regarded you for a long moment, her expression unreadable, but there was a subtle shift in her eyebrow.

A hint of intrigue that you couldn’t quite place. She did not seem surprised.

“Max?” she asked, her voice calm, though the faintest hint of something stirred in her eyes. “As in, your betrothed, Lord Max Verstappen?”

“Yes! That Max!” you exclaimed, turning toward her with wide, frantic eyes, feeling the chaos inside you deepen with every word you spoke. “What other Max would I be talking about?!”

Lily paused for a moment, her eyes assessing you, the soft lines of her face betraying no judgment, only careful understanding.

Finally, she spoke, her tone even, but with an edge of something like amusement.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I’m glad it’s not hatred you’re feeling.”

You blinked, surprised at her response. “What?”

She gave you a small, wry smile, her hands folding gently in front of her. “I’m glad you don’t detest the man you’re engaged to. That’s a start, isn’t it? At least you’re not loathing him.”

You gaped at her, your mind still reeling from the gravity of your own emotions. “But this isn’t nothing, Lily! This isn’t just some passing fancy. I can’t stop thinking about him. Every time he’s near, I feel like I’m going to lose my mind. I don’t know how to act around him. It’s like- like he’s too close and I’m too far from myself.”

Lily’s gaze softened, but she did not rush to soothe you with easy words.

She tilted her head slightly, her voice measured but firm. “Feelings like these don’t appear overnight, My Lady. They don’t disappear either. But you’re right. You don’t know him very well yet. You’ve got time to work this out, slowly. You don’t have to have it all figured out now.”

You nodded, but the knot in your stomach only tightened as a new wave of uncertainty washed over you.

“I don’t know what to do with all of this, Lily. What if I say something wrong? What if I act like a fool in front of him? What if... what if he doesn’t care at all?”

Lily stepped closer to you, her presence steady, constant.

“Then he doesn’t,” she said simply. “If he doesn’t care, then... then you’ll be no worse off than you are now, My Lady. But know this: no other woman is taking him from you. He’s already yours. That’s settled.”

Her words settled over you like a weight.

He was already yours.

There was no escaping the finality of it, the truth in her calm tone.

The idea that you didn’t need to chase after him, that he was already tied to you in ways you couldn’t control, both unsettled and reassured you.

“I’m not even sure I want him, though,” you murmured, the words tumbling out before you could stop them. “I don’t even know what this is. What if I’m just... confused? What if it’s just... attachment? I mean, he’s always there, he’s my betrothed, but- he’s not-”

“Stop,” Lily’s voice sliced through your spiraling thoughts. “You don’t need to understand it all right now. You don’t need to be sure of your feelings just because you’ve realized them.”

You took a slow breath, your chest tight as you tried to keep your composure.

Her words were soothing in their simplicity, but they didn’t change your feelings. “I just... I don’t know what to do with all this. It’s too much. Too fast. I can’t keep up.”

You let the words hang in the air, unsure if you were speaking to her or to yourself.

Lily gave you a small, understanding smile, though it was tinged with a trace of amusement.

She didn’t speak for a moment, as though carefully weighing her response. “Then take it slow, my Lady. You’re allowed to feel all of this, in your own time. You don’t have to rush to make sense of it. No one’s going to force you to figure it out on anyone else’s schedule.”

A tiny sense of relief swept over you, but the knot in your stomach still refused to loosen.

You glanced at the door, as though the mere idea of being near Max would send everything crashing down again.

“So... you’re saying I can avoid him... for a while?”

Lily raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed with the suggestion. “Avoid him?” she repeated, the edge of disbelief creeping into her voice. “My Lady, if I may-"

“But I can?” you pressed, cutting her off, eyes wide with urgency. “You said I could take my time, right? Well, avoiding him sounds like taking my time to me.”

Lily sighed, the sound long and heavy, as though you were testing her patience. “Yes, My Lady, your free will does indeed allow you to avoid him, if that’s truly what you wish.”

A spark of triumph flickered inside you.

“Perfect.” You stood straighter, a plan forming in your mind. “Call for Sir Lando and Sir Oscar.”

Lily’s eyebrows furrowed as she eyed you suspiciously. “What for, My Lady?”

You gave her an almost manic grin, feeling the tension in your shoulders ease slightly as your plan took shape. “They’re going to help me.”

“Help you... with avoiding your betrothed?” Lily asked slowly, a hint of disbelief creeping into her voice. She crossed her arms, studying you with a bemused expression.

“Yes,” you replied firmly, not an ounce of hesitation in your voice. “They’ll help me stay away from him. They’ll distract him, tell him I’m busy with... other things.”

Lily opened her mouth to respond but stopped herself, narrowing her eyes at you as if you had just suggested something ludicrous.

“My Lady,” she said, her voice dipping into a tone of mild reproach, “I must say, I don’t think that’s the most productive course of action.”

“Oh, please.” You threw your hands up dramatically. “I’m just trying to buy myself some time here. I can’t face him, not with these... feelings…whatever they are…bubbling up every time I even think about him. If I can just avoid him for a little while, I can breathe again.”

Lily shook her head, a small, resigned smile playing on her lips. “I don’t think this is the solution you’re looking for, My Lady. But if you insist on this... strategy, I can’t stop you.”

You raised an eyebrow, suddenly intrigued by the shift in her tone. “You can stop me, can’t you? You’re my lady’s maid. You’re supposed to stop me from making poor decisions.”

Lily raised an eyebrow right back at you. “I’m also supposed to help you navigate poor decisions, not prevent them entirely. And right now, this is just one of many decisions I’m going to let you make on your own.”

She paused, eyeing you carefully. “But just know, avoiding him isn’t going to give you the answers you need. It’ll only prolong the inevitable.”

You smiled sweetly, still not convinced. “Sometimes, a little delay is exactly what I need. Besides, it’s not like he’s going anywhere. We’re betrothed, after all.”

“That you are,” Lily replied, her tone becoming slightly sharper. “Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be avoiding him. You’ve got time, but you also have a responsibility to work through your feelings. Even if it’s uncomfortable.”

You glanced toward the door, already plotting the next phase of your plan. “I’ll figure it out. But in the meantime, I’m going to need some assistance.”

Lily sighed again, louder this time.

She didn’t speak for a long moment, her gaze flicking to the door as though she were silently debating whether or not to humor you.

Finally, she gave a small nod. “Very well. I’ll fetch Sir Lando and Sir Oscar. But I’m warning you, My Lady, this avoidance strategy won’t last long.”

You grinned triumphantly as she turned to leave. “Thank you, Lily. You’re the best.”

As she stepped out of the room, you sank back into your chair, letting your mind wander to the next step of your plan.

You weren’t entirely sure what you were doing, but it felt better than facing Max and trying to make sense of the chaos swirling inside you.

For now, avoiding him was the only option that seemed remotely manageable.

When Lily returned with your knights, they each looked at you with varying degrees of confusion and amusement, but you gave them a firm, confident look.

This plan was going to work.

You could make it work.

“Alright,” you said, standing tall, as though the sheer gravity of your decision had transformed you into a seasoned military strategist. “Here’s the plan. We’re going to make sure Max never sees me again.”

A pause hung in the air, heavy and expectant.

“Or at least… not for a while.”

Lando and Oscar exchanged a glance. Lando’s lips twitched upward, the beginnings of a grin playing at the corners of his mouth, while Oscar’s furrowed brow and pursed lips betrayed his confusion.

“Right,” Lando said finally, leaning back and crossing his arms. His tone was equal parts incredulous and amused. “This ought to be good. What, exactly, do you want us to do, my Lady? This sounds like it’s going to be excellent for my boredom.”

Oscar’s expression tightened further. “You can’t be serious,” he muttered, half to himself, his arms now folded.

You straightened your back, summoning all the confidence you could muster. “I am entirely serious. From this moment forward, I have suddenly become… extremely busy.”

Oscar blinked. “Busy,” he repeated flatly.

“Yes, busy,” you replied, the words tumbling out with an exaggerated air of importance. “So busy, in fact, that I won’t have a single moment to spare. And I need you two to help make sure that’s… believable.”

Lando arched an eyebrow, a grin now fully blossoming on his face. “Wait, let me get this straight. You want us to..what? Fabricate your life for a bit?”

“Exactly,” you said with a flourish of your hand, as though the absurdity of your request was irrelevant. “A little misdirection here, a well-timed excuse there. Between the two of you, I’m sure you can come up with something convincing.”

Lando let out a low whistle, shaking his head in mock disbelief. “So, you’re asking us to keep Max, the man who has been running this house like a clock, distracted? To throw him off the scent entirely?”

“Precisely,” you said, lifting your chin.

Oscar looked less amused and more concerned, his practical nature coming to the forefront. “And what exactly is this plan supposed to achieve? You think if we keep him occupied for long enough, he’ll just… forget about you? You do realize who we’re talking about, right?”

“I don’t need him to forget,” you replied quickly, your voice rising slightly in pitch. “I just need him to be… preoccupied. Thoroughly distracted. He can’t be allowed to think about me, let alone come looking for me.”

Lando, who had been quietly observing, suddenly burst out laughing. “This is incredible. You’re trying to dodge the one man who could probably find you in his sleep.”

Oscar sighed again after a moment , clearly reluctant. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Excellent,” you said, clapping your hands together. “Now, let’s get to work.”

As Lando leaned back in his chair, still grinning, and Oscar reluctantly nodded his agreement, you couldn’t help but feel a surge of triumph. Surely, this would work. How hard could it be to outmaneuver Max Emilian Verstappen?

You tried to ignore the nagging voice in the back of your mind whispering that you might have just made a very, very big mistake.

—-

Permanent tag list:

@papichulomacy

[runa-falls]

FREE USE WITH MIGUEL? LIKE ANYWHERE ANYTIME?

a/n: YES NONNIE, ANY--FUCKING--TIME. AND HERES ONE OF THOSE TIMES :^) idk if this is free-use or feral!reader or both. anyway, just enjoy it lol. like every time, this got away from me

special thanks to mona (@whatthefishh) for letting me scream this shit to her over discord + for helping me figure out exactly what 'free use' is lol

cw: smut (18+), free use kink, small very small bit of somnophilia (CAN'T ESCAPE IT), non-explicit oral (m-receiving), afab!reader, mentions of ovulation (+ period) horniness, fingering, cockwarming, fucking w/ multiple orgasms, the same Spanish pet name used over and over, reader is basically a bothersome cat, writer is so all over the place it's confusing.

wc: 2.4k (this was supposed to be a quick thot but wtvr)

---

miguel is a gracious boyfriend, he practically lives to please you. so when you approach him in the middle of the day with nothing but his shirt draped over your figure, he has a hard time rejecting your advances.

sure, he tries, but every time he gives you what he wants.

you're spoiled, really.

miguel works at home as much as possible. he hates having to leave you before the sun rises, walking away from a perfectly cozy bed and wet cunt (😳).

miguel convinces himself that Spider HQ can survive a day or two without him on site. he has several capable Spiders that do most of the heavy lifting for him and LYLA isn't afraid to take charge, sitting her holographic ass in the boss' chair.

he can set up mission plans and keep track of everything from his laptop, and he's always on call if he is needed for anything. the only issue is that working remotely doesn't work when he can't get anything done.

he's trying to go over notes from a meeting that was held earlier this morning.

he was supposed to be there, but you physically wouldn't let him out of bed. he swears you're a Spider yourself with the strength you have when you're especially needy and sleepy.

he smelled it when he woke up in the middle of the night to you mouthing over his boxers, that decadent sweetness that indicates you're ovulating.

you were desperate to get a taste of him, to fill that unbearable emptiness inside of you, whimpering with relief when you finally feel his fingers bury themselves in your hair to push your further against his bulge.

he learned early in your relationship that your insatiable appetite for him increases tenfold during your window of fertility (don't even mention your period). and so does your need for sleep. so he caters to your needs accordingly.

you passed out after convincing him to fuck the heat out of you, to snuff out the fire until your neediness recedes. apparently, the only time you aren't horny is when you're sleeping (though that isn't true... you wake up horny all the time??).

you've been sleeping soundly ever since, utterly exhausted by his thorough support, but he knows that once you wake up, you'll be crying for him again.

he crawled back into bed with you after telling LYLA to take over for the day, but after a few hours of almost suffocating because of the way you curl up on his chest like a cat, he got up to get some coffee and finish some computer work.

as soon as his warmth left you, you fussed. eyes still closed as you whined and moaned for his body. he shushed you, gently smoothing down your bedhead until you settled.

it didn't last for long.

you padded out of bed with bleary eyes, clearly looking for him when you walked into the living room. he offered you a quick "morning, cariño." before focusing back on his computer. he had to limit as much contact with you as possible if he wanted to finish his work.

just a few more pages and a couple of emails, and then he can give you all the attention you need.

his shirt brushes against your thigh like a summer dress as you make your way through the room.

he looked adorable with his loose white long sleeve on and black dad-glasses. his hair is still curly and fluffed, telling you he wasn't planning on leaving you anytime soon.

you shuffle over to the couch, sitting next to him with a sigh.

he doesn't react.

somehow, the minimal recognition that you're there, his adamant refusal to look at you, turns you on as much as it irritates you.

he's really trying his best to be a good boss, hm? trying to resist a temptation that's barely a foot away from him.

it makes you feel dirty and deprived. you blatantly rub your legs together, urging him to look. your gaze washes over his sharp jawline watching as it clenches at your soft coos.

"...baby."

"'m working, amor." his voice is still soft, despite the efforts he's taking to ignore you.

you huff.

"but--"

"not right now."

you scoot closer to him, strategically allowing the hem of his shirt to ride up on your thighs. so he's really going to make you do it...

you tug at his sleeve, taking his arm away from his work (though it doesn't look like he was working on much at all, he's been sitting on that exact page for 5 minutes now).

"not right now, mi vida..." he protests lightly, but he doesn't move away. he's not even trying, you think.

you smirk at his empty words. you can see the way he's looking at you: your messy hair, bare legs, the shadow of his shirt hiding away your most sensitive spot. his breathing grows heavier and so does his stare.

"i have work--" miguel is always so soft and sweet to you, melting in your hand though he has all the power to stop it.

"please, miguel? just one, for me?" his lips part as you place his hand against your bare thigh, slowly dragging it upwards until it meets your center.

he doesn't take his hand away, doesn't even pull back a single inch, instead, he instantly complies, cupping his warm hand over its entirety. he chokes out a low groan. you're not wearing anything underneath.

"ok, i guess if it's only once..." he whispers, already breathy. he's leaning over you, almost on top of you, forcing your legs to spread impossibly wide.

he watches as his finger rubs against your slick center, spreading your wetness until you're glistening for him under the late morning light. he pushes in slowly, so slowly, eyes flicking up to your face to witness the small o your mouth makes as he presses in deeper.

his mouth waters as he fingers you, he wishes he had enough time to go down on you, and taste your slick straight from the source. he knows how much you love it when he fucks you with his tongue and suckles on your clit. but no, he has work to do. he needs to get you off so he can finally focus.

"this what you needed, cariño?" it's all but growled into your space, his voice low and taunting. all you can do is nod with bleary eyes as your hands grip onto his thick bicep for support.

he adds another finger and thrusts them into you quicker, angling them just so his palm can gently nudge at your clit. he can feel you tightening around him already, fluttering with each pass that he makes against your g spot. he presses harder, drinking in your choked gasp and shaking thighs.

you're so wet, spilling over his fingers and dripping against his hand. the noises between you are deafening. a mixture of sopping thrusts, heavy breathing, and quiet mewls fill the still silence of the living room.

he's so good at this, too good at this.

how can he make you fall apart with just his hands, caress every sensitive nerve with a single stroke?

you're at the cusp of euphoria. your body, filled to the brim with pleasure, urges you to let go, to take what you want. but you don't want to. you want to stay at the edge forever with his hands on you, to be at the center of his affections, always just one breath away from transcendence.

you're not ready for him to stop touching you anytime soon, you realize. you still need it and after you'll need it again. you need him.

his glasses start sliding as he looks down at you, dropping until they're barely at the tip of his nose. he's focused, eyes locked on how he fills you again and again.

his fingers speed up, expertly aiming against that special spot inside of you. your hips rise from the couch, needing him as deep as possible. then it all falls apart.

you cry out, back arching and eyes rolling. your body is barely touching the couch under you and it feels like you're being lifted up by unknown forces as you reach your climax. white fills your vision and heat thrums through your limbs. you can't hide your one orgasm from him, it's too intense.

before you could recover, he slips his fingers out of you.

"alright, honey, we're done." he casually sucks your essence off of his fingers before propping his glasses back to the arch of his nose.

"ok, ok, i get it. you're busy." you pant, still pulsing from your high. and...he's already back to work. he wasn't kidding when he said he had stuff to do. "i'll just...be sitting here."

so you watch him get back to work, or you try to. the incessant scrolling, typing, reading, and muttering thoughts that accompany his work is usually enough to put you to sleep. it's an unusual lullaby that's attached to him. one that brings you the comfort of knowing he's near.

but he's hard.

he seems so relaxed, so content to work, but his erection presses so desperately against his sweats, outlined perfectly by the grey fabric.

so how could you not touch him? he clearly needs your help... and if he doesn't, then you need it.

you want to be good, you do, but when he types so effortlessly like that with the fingers that were just stuffed in your cunt, or when he looks over his dad-glasses to look at something like a hot fucking nerd, you can't help it.

it's been, what, 12 minutes? that's enough work for the day in your opinion.

you start slow, hesitantly, watching to make sure he's not looking at you (though he can clearly see you from his peripheral vision). you stand up on the couch right next to him. you're a bit unstable on the squishy cushions so you use his shoulder for support.

he looks over at you, confused as to why you decided to walk all over the furniture like a toddler.

you carefully maneuver over his arms to settle yourself on his lap. you're a koala around him, holding your torso to his, looping your arms around his neck and sharing your shimmering lustful body heat. he grunts when you scoot even closer to him, your bare pussy pressing entirely against his covered cock.

but he ignores it.

he doesn't say anything, barely even moves, and just continues to work. you pout a bit, but let him. you convince yourself that you're content with just sitting here and enjoying his company (despite the large distraction that pulses against your pussy, pressing so sweetly under your needy clit).

you listen to his steady heartbeat and slow breaths, the occasional sound of tapping keys. you nuzzle against the soft shirt that stretches over his chest. you're fine.

it's not like you're leaking all over his sweatpants, leaving a puddle at the apex of the fabric. you're not crying on the inside, so empty and fluttering around nothing. you're fine.

until you arent.

you lazily lift your hips above his, nearly head-butting his chin in the process. his arms lift to help you get settled, hands resting on your waist, as patient as ever.

you reach below you and he stiffens. he wasn't expecting you to--

your hand buries itself under his sweats, delicate fingers brushing over his erection. he breathes out your name when you squeeze him teasingly before pulling him out.

"what did i say?" he grunts, hand swiftly wrapping around your wrist. the words are lost on your ears as you caress the silky steel in your fist. it pulses at your touch. he needs this.

he says your name once more.

"you're working."

"then why are you trying to fuck me?!"

"i'm only going to sit on it." you give him an innocent look. you slowly lower yourself so your dripping center meets his before sliding your glistening lips over his hardness. "won't move or say a thing, promise!"

"cariño..."

"just wanna warm you, baby." you position him right against your entrance. "is that so wrong?" you lower yourself before he can say anything else.

you take him easily with how wet you are, and he fills you perfectly. he sucks in a breath at the feeling then growls out, "don't move."

well, you do move (is anyone surprised). you move a lot. but he moves too. harsher and more competitive. who the hell fucks competitively?

you moan over him, bouncing on his cock eagerly. his hands hold your waist, guiding your movements just how he likes it: fast and hard. his laptop, somewhere on the other side of the couch, is forgotten and probably long dead by now. so much for working at home.

you've cum at least four times already, but who's keeping count (you're not. you're so fucked out, you have to manually breathe now.)

he won't let up anymore. you asked for it and you're getting it.

"do i gotta fuck you to sleep, hm? is that the only way you'll leave me the fuck alone and let me work?"

you only admit now that you're eyes were definitely bigger than your stomach. you're practically drooling as he takes control once again, snapping his hips from under you, harsh and punishing. as if this is a punishment.

he has to carry you back to bed that afternoon. he couldn't just leave you on the couch, naked and shivering. plus you'd be a distraction with your bruised hips and fucked out cunt.

you murmur adorably in your sleep as your body unconsciously nuzzles further into his arms. he places you lovingly on the bed and you immediately curl up. he sighs, brushing your hair out of your face because he knows how much you hate it when it gets in your eyes or tickles at your nose during the night.

you look so cozy and comfortable. but so alone in this huge bed.

he debates laying down with you, only until you're in a deeper sleep.

maybe just a few minutes?

LYLA had a few choice words when he woke up in the morning....

[swordsandholly]

Cherry Bomb - tattoo parlor anthology

MDNI | poly 141 x fem fat reader | masterlist

Part 6: Where…?

The first thing out of your mouth when you wake is a low, discontent groan as your hands fist the blankets around you. Your head and eyes throb. For a good several minutes, you remain completely still - no motivation to move from your semi-comfortable position. You really can’t drink like you used to, huh?

Eventually you work up the courage to crack your eyes open. At least the curtains are closed. The room takes a minute to focus, and the first thing you notice are the incorrectly colored sheets - lacking the usual floral print. You frown, grunting as you sit up. The second thing you notice is the t-shirt and sweatpants you’re currently wearing - not yours and easily a couple sizes too big. They have to belong to someone wide and tall to not be fitted on you. You don’t remember going home with anyone…

You take a moment to look around. It’s a decently sized room with minimal decor. A few art prints line the walls and the closet is in perfect order - separated by type and color. Though, most of it appears to be black. The bed is huge. Tall, too, you realize as you slowly slip your way out of it, nearly tripping on the long fabric of the sweatpants you’ve been dressed in. Glancing at yourself in the small mirror on the wall, you realize your makeup is gone and your hair is braided. There’s a dark wooden dresser and a matching desk with a laptop and sketchbook neatly placed on top. You wander over nosily, squinting down at the book. Oh shit! Oh shit, that’s Simon’s sketchbook. You’d recognize that collection of skull pattered stickers anywhere.

The sound of clinking pans and the scent of bacon slowly registers. Did… did you somehow end up going home with him? There’s no way, right? You remember asking him to dance, you remember him being surprisingly good and… and… that’s about it. On top of the dresser is your outfit from the night before, neatly folded with your bra tucked underneath. Your face heats and you cover your chest.

After a quick self inspection (and a nervous check for condoms in the trash) you decide you’re pretty sure you didn’t fuck anyone. Probably. Hopefully. What happens if you did? Would Simon tell John? Should you tell John? Will it make things awkward? Will he fire you? Oh, you really don’t want to lose this job. It’s the best you’ve ever had and you really, truly love all your boys so much. You press the heels of your hands into your eyes both to soothe the ache in them and to bite back tears.

You’ve always been such a stupid girl.

After giving yourself a few minutes to sit on the bed and properly freak out, flapping your hands in an attempt to get that nervous energy out of your system, you decide it’s time to face the music.

You slip your bralette back on before slowly cracking open the bedroom door. The short hall is mostly shadowed, lights off and the sun drifting in from what you assume is the living room. The door across from you is closed and to your left is a rather nice, spotless bathroom.

You peak your head out into the living room. It’s large and open, flowing into the kitchen as hardwood becomes tile and an island with stools between the two. Simon is the source of the clinking, apparently, moving around the stove like it’s second nature. You suppose you shouldn’t be surprised he can cook - he’s a grown man - but there’s something about the way he arranges the plates, the from-scratch ingredients, that tells you he does actively enjoys it.

It’s cute.

Johnny and Kyle sit on a well loved couch just a few feet from you, both focused on some TV show you don’t recognize. A slow frown forms on your face, turning into shock as the door beside you opens. You nearly jump out of your skin as John appears beside you in a robe and plaid pajama pants.

A soft smile splits his face. “Mornin’, dove.”

“Och, she’s awake!” Johnny grins, throwing an arm over the back of the couch as he turns to face you.

You blink dumbly, head pounding and gut churning as you step closer to stand beside the couch. Without thinking you blurt, “You all… live together?”

“Course.” Kyle pipes up, looking at you as well. As if you were supposed to have known that already.

You melt to the floor in a hungover heap. “Oh, thank god!”

Johnny laughs. “Why thank god?”

“I was so scared I did something stupid…” Your voice cracks as you press your cheek to the cool hardwood. You didn’t fuck anyone, you didn’t embarrass yourself, you were simply taken care of. The relief alone almost makes you want to cry. Though, that’s probably the hangover more than anything.

“Oh, love.” Kyle reaches down to soothe a hand over your hair. “We wouldn’t have done anything like that, yeah?”

You nod.

“Sorry it scared you.” John murmurs, crouching to set a mug of coffee on the floor beside your head. “We didn’t feel comfortable sendin’ y’home alone.”

You nod again, slowly pushing yourself up to grab the mug. The bitter taste of black coffee makes you cringe, but it wakes your system up and seems to push your hangover down to a tolerable level.

“I should go home…” You sigh, not moving a single muscle off the floor where you currently sit.

“Not before you eat somethin’.” Simon calls from the kitchen.

You take the opportunity to look around the living room. The sun has been mostly blocked out by barely cracked curtains. There’s a little bit of each of them in it - artwork scattered across the walls. A few photos - one of John and Simon that looks like the opening of the shop. The leather pride flag sticker stuck on what looks like a toolbox doesn’t escape your notice. Probably John’s. You’ve never seen another man with such well cared for boots and leather coats. Maybe that’s assumptive. There’s a game boy and a PS5 behind the 4K television. Your eyes follow the rather extensive sound system to a massive CD organizer. There’s a short hall on the opposite side of the apartment where you assume the other two rooms are. Everything is so… homey. Comfortable.

“Wait, who’s clothes are these?” You ask suddenly, staring down at the oversized t-shirt and tightly tied sweatpants that pool at your feet awkwardly.

“Mine.” Simon shrugs, setting a plate on the coffee table for you before handing two more off to Johnny and Kyle.

“Comfy.” You hum, eyes zeroing in on the large breakfast in front of you - plate piled high with bacon, sausage, and waffles.

“Ye can sit up here wit’ us.” Johnny pats the empty couch beside him.

You think for a moment before shaking your still aching head. “Don’t think I should stand up yet.”

The food is even better than it looks. For a Brit Simon actually knows how to handle his flavors.

You groan as a particular rough throb stabs at your temple. “I don’t remember drinking enough to be this hungover…”

“Johnny can be very convincing.” Simon rumbles, stabbing a piece of sausage.

“What do you remember?” Kyle leans forward a bit to reach for his coffee.

You shrug. “I remember dancing. That’s kind of where it stops.”

“At least you got to skip the part of the night where Johnny starts rantin’ about chemistry math.” Kyle rolls his eyes.

“Och! Ye love my chemistry talk! It’s the structure of the universe! It’s-“

“Yap yap yap.” Kyle opens and closes his hand in a mocking ‘blah blah blah’ motion.

Kyle helps Simon clean up. You try to insist to let you help as well, but they won’t hear of it. John offers to let you stay the day and sleep off your hangover but you shake your head, wanting nothing more than to take a burning hot shower in your own bathroom - as fun as hanging around with them all day sounds. So, you slip into Simon’s room to change back into your own clothes.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Kyle rest a hand on Simon’s lower back. A light touch, but solid. You don’t have the wherewithal to think about it.

You peel off Simon’s clothes and put yours back on with a wrinkled nose. There’s something so gross about it, not that you’re clean right now anyway. Thank god you had the foresight to not wear underwire. You order yourself a car on your mostly dead phone as you wander back out to the living room. Your skirt suddenly feels far too exposing for the daylight.

You chew your lip. “My driver’s five minutes out… so, I’ll see you guys Wednesday?”

“I’ll walk you down.” John grunts, pulling himself up out of the arm chair.

“Oh, you don’t have to-” You pause when he gives you that look you’ve come to recognize as ‘don’t argue, I’m doing it anyway.’

You give a round of goodbyes to the others who make no movement to get off the couch, fully sunken in. Johnny has sprawled over the L part of the couch with an arm over his eyes and a water bottle in hand.

“Thanks for letting me stay over. Sorry if I got too, uh, sloppy or whatever.” You murmur as the elevator makes for the lobby.

John chuckles. “No more than Johnny ever does. I’m glad you came. Lookin’ forward to the next one.”

You heart skips as you nod. “Me too.”

John leans forward just as your driver pulls up, pressing a light kiss to your forehead. Your back stiffens and your stomach flutters - face hot as he pulls away.

“See you at the shop.” He nods, sauntering back into the building like he didn’t just give you a heart attack.

Bonus:

“No, ye need an oil cleanser first.” Johnny slurs. “Tha’s how ye get the - hic - the makeup off.”

“Don’t act like I didn’t teach you everythin’ you know about skin care y’muppet.” Kyle snipes back as he digs through the drawers under the counter.

“Workin’ on yer John impersonation, I see.” Johnny snickers. Kyle bats at his arm.

You just giggle, seated on the toilet in Kyle and Johnny’s shared bathroom and swaying back and forth. Simon leans in the doorway, watching as the two drunkenly try to help you get your makeup off. All three of you bursting out into another fit of giggles when Kyle squeezes your round cheeks to make a fish face. It occurs to him that he’s never seen you bare faced. None of them have. Not that you come in everyday with a full beat but even so, there’s something intimate about it. To him, at least. Something about you perched in their apartment, in his clothes, having Johnny smudge moisturizer over your face while Kyle braids your hair to keep it from tangling overnight.

The three of you fit together so well…

John puts on a stupid action movie. Something to distract everyone as you wind down and sober up before bed. You snuggle up to Johnny, unsurprisingly, tucking yourself under his arm with your head on his chest. He’s practically Pavlov’d you into constantly touching each other. Just like he did with the rest of them. He jumps a bit when you press your socked feet to his thigh, humming comfortably. There’s a stupid grin plastered across your face.

“Alright, off to bed with you.” John chuckles as you snore comfortably on Johnny’s chest. The Scot is equally asleep, your chests rising and falling in an asynchronous rhythm. John loops his arms under your back and knees, just as strong as he’s always been, carefully cradling you against his chest as he takes you to Simon’s room.

Simon follows, glancing sideways at your clothes in his dresser. You groan as John lowers you but don’t wake up - well and truly passed out.

Simon pauses for a moment before following John out, staring down at you. He’s no better than the others, the alcohol numbing his inhibitions. So, he reaches down, and swipes a thumb over your slightly parted lips. Just as soft as he thought…

He settles into John’s bed, the frame creaking under their combined weight. Neither of them are particularly slight, after all.

“Glad y’danced tonight.” John mutters, reaching over to turn off his lamp.

Simon just grunts.

“She’s good for you.”

“She’s good for us.” He blurts, immediately wanting to shove the words back down his throat.

To his surprise, John just nods, turning to sling an arm over Simon’s waist. “She is.”

A/N: Thank you all so much for enjoying this series with me, it means a ton! I’m sorry I’m not very good at responding to replies/asks but I really do love and appreciate you all!

Hope you’re pumped for the next part bc I am

[imaginedisish]

Heart to Heart (Logan Howlett x F!Reader)

A/N: Okay...here's that car sex request. This one is like pure smut with some exposition. Like...plot...what plot? Listened to "Heart to Heart" by Mac DeMarco while writing this one. Kinda fits. Not quite sure how I'm churning these out so quickly...so I hope this doesn't suck. And! Most importantly: I hope this lives up to the requester's expectations. Enjoy guys!

Summary: Logan doesn't seem like himself on the car ride up to Lake George to meet the other X-Men for the weekend, and you're not going to leave him alone until you find out why (it's car sex, the whole fic is basically just rough car sex).

Warnings: 18+ SMUT MINORS DNI, Unprotected PIV (WRAP IT UP!), Oral (f!receiving), fingering, rough sex, fem!reader, AFAB!reader (no other major physical descriptions that I can think of), cursing, cocky!Logan, softdom!Logan, feelings, pre-relationship (I am a sucker for writing first times), probably some grammatical errors, think that's everything.

Word Count: 3124 this was supposed to be a blurb im not joking

Logan’s hands firmly grip the steering wheel, white-knuckling, fingers wound around the curved leather. Your eyes flicker between his face and his hands.  

He had been like this since the drive to Lake George started. You and Logan were meeting the rest of the X-Men up there—Charles arranged some sort of weekend getaway. You and Logan would be the last ones to arrive, having just gotten off from a mission. 

But something was off about him. He was silent, eyes dead set on the road. The sun had long set, but you still had two hours of the drive to go. You look out the window to a world asleep, lights out, families in beds. You look back at Logan; his face is completely unchanged. 

“Logan?” You mumble, shifting in your seat to face him. Your already-short shorts hike up your thighs, revealing more of the skin underneath. You don’t think twice about placing your hand on his bare shoulder, brushing his exposed skin with your thumb. “You okay?” You ask, but he ignores you. You’re not letting this go. He’s been like this for far too long, and you’re sick of not knowing why. “Are you mad at me?”

“What?” Logan finally lets go of the wheel a bit, his eyes flickering briefly to you and then back to the road. “No, of course not.”

“Then what’s the matter?” If he was going to be stubborn, you were going to be stubborn, too. “You can tell me, Lo.”

He shakes his head, his grip tightening on the wheel again. Your hand trails down to his bicep, lingering for longer than you should before stroking back up to his shoulder. You draw circles into his skin, hoping to relax him, but it only seems to work him up. His throat bobs, and you catch him peeking at you out of the corner of his eye. 

You’re not sure where the confidence comes from, but before you can even think of stopping yourself, your fingers gently glide up to the nape of his neck, your nails digging into his hair lightly. Logan groans softly, the sound sparking a fire in your belly. You push it down, reminding yourself that this is just an innocent moment between friends—nothing more. 

“You gonna tell me what the matter is now?” You chide, smirking, thinking you have him exactly where you want him. You lean over a bit more, the air conditioning blasting against your bare legs. Your fingers are still buried in his hair. 

You see the moment when his expression shifts, when his head finally turns towards yours. His nostrils flare. You search his eyes frantically, your hand dropping back to your lap. “Logan I—” but you’re cut off by the feeling of his palm—of his long fingers—on your inner thigh. He keeps one hand firmly on the steering wheel as he swerves into the shoulder of the highway and off into the grass. 

He puts the car in park, keeping his eyes straight ahead, tightening his grip on your thigh and working his jaw as he thinks of what to say. You can feel the heat growing between your legs, a feeling you’ve long denied yourself while alone with Logan. Silence fills the air, the tension of it absolutely suffocating.  

And then Logan cuts through the quiet like a knife. “You have any idea how you make me feel?” He’s turned his body completely towards you now, as if he’s ready to pounce.  

You swallow harshly. “So, you are angry at me. Logan, I have no clue what I did, but I—”

“I’m not mad at you, sweetheart,” he mutters, lifting himself up slightly to maneuver closer to you. He’s practically climbing over the center console as his lips find the shell of your ear. “It’s just when I can smell how much you want me, and you start touching me like that…” He trails off, kissing your ear lightly. “Do you know what you fucking do to me?”

“Logan—”

He’s not finished. He’s cutting you off again. “I can’t concentrate when you’re around.” His hand slips further in between your thighs, and you shudder under his touch. “Can’t do anything except think about fucking you.” He’s slipping his hand up your shorts, feeling your folds through your panties. “Fuck, you’re soaked already, pretty girl.”

You moan as he teases you, playing with you, taking his time. “W-want you,” you stutter, grinding into his hand, searching for more friction. 

He’s got that familiar, cocky smile spread across his face. “I know you do, beautiful.” Even that lilt in his voice is cocksure. He’s teasingly pulling your panties to the side. You can feel the ghost of his fingertips against your folds, but he’s refusing to give you the relief you need. He’s the one driving you insane now. “You gonna let me fuck you in the backseat of this car?” 

“F-fuck,” you stutter as his fingers finally brush against your bare cunt. You throw your head back as he strokes languidly, lazily. Your words are caught in your throat. You can’t enjoy his touch for long as he pulls away from you. “W-wait,” you whine, sitting up and grabbing his hand. 

He smirks, that teasing grin still spread across his face. “Didn’t answer my question, pretty girl,” he says, bringing your hand to his lips and pressing a gentle, chaste kiss to your knuckles. He repeats himself: “You gonna let me fuck you in the backseat of this car?” You nod as he brings himself back to hover over you. “Use your words, darlin’.”

“Yes,” you choke out. “Please. Need you so fucking bad.”

He doesn’t let a second go by before he’s wrapping his arms around you and shoving you into the backseat. You fall into the leather and watch as Logan opens the car door and briefly disappears into the darkness before opening the door next to you. He climbs inside, slamming the door behind him. 

He crawls over you, and you use your hips and forearms and back all the way into the door on the opposite side. 

He grabs your hips, keeping you in place, lowering down over you. “’Can hear that little heart beating all the fucking time,” he whispers, his lips inches from yours. His forearm rests by your head, while his free hand slips underneath your shirt and under your bra. His fingers graze over the swell of your tits as he settles his palm above your heart. “Need you, pretty girl.” His hand trails over to a nipple, pinching softly.

Logan swallows your moans with a desperate, starving kiss. His stubble is rough against your cheeks. His tongue slides across your bottom lip, asking for permission to come inside. You open up immediately for him, meeting his tongue with your own, savoring the taste of him. 

You bring your hands up to the nape of his neck, keeping his lips close to yours. You dig your nails into his scalp, raking through his hair. He groans into your mouth before briefly coming up for air. His chest heaves against yours. He’s a panting mess. You’ve never seen him this worked up. 

There’s something different in his eyes now. You can see the lust, the desire, the longing. But there’s something else there. Fear? Desperation? Hunger? He’s yanking your shirt and bra up and over your head before giving you the chance to think about it. He’s taking you in, his hot, solid, fervent hands exploring your body. He’s palming your breasts, pinching your nipples and messaging the pain away. You wrap your legs around his waist, keeping him tight against you. 

He instinctively recognizes what you’re doing. “’M’not going anywhere, I’ve got you.” He presses a chaste kiss just under your jawline. His nails trail down the side of your stomach, sending a jolt of electricity up your spine. 

You can feel his erection against your core, rutting needily into you. You push your hips up to meet his, grinding against him, impatiently searching for more friction.

His hands finally land on the hem of your shorts, his fingers working at your button, and then your zipper. He hooks his fingers into your shorts and your panties, and yanks them down your legs, casting them to the floor. You think he’s going to come back up, but he crawls in between your legs, his eyes locked on yours. 

You can feel his hot breath fan over your aching cunt. His mouth is just centimeters away from where you need him most. 

“Wanna taste you,” he mumbles, his face inching closer to your core. 

You moan as he licks a stripe through your folds, and then another. “L-Logan.” Your hips come up and off the seat. One of his arms latches across your hips, holding you down. 

“Stay there,” he murmurs in between laps. “Tastes so fucking good.” You can’t stay still, squirming under his touch, he presses down harder, forcing you to stay in place. You can feel him smirk against your pussy as his mouth latches on to your clit, sucking the bud in roughly. 

You’re already close as his fingers start to swipe through your folds. “So fucking wet for me.” His words vibrate against your swollen clit. Two fingers prod at your entrance, slowly pushing inside. You’re squirming again, your pussy stretching out to fit around his long fingers. He chuckles against you, the feeling pushing you closer to the edge. 

“C-close,” is all you can stutter. 

Logan doesn’t slow down. “’M’not done with you yet, pretty girl,” he husks between desperate laps. His fingers pump in and out of you, your walls fluttering uncontrollably around him. “Doing so good for me, taking what I’m giving you.”

His words are making it harder to hang on. “C-can’t…” You trail off, your chest heaving. His face is buried deep inside your cunt, each flick, each suck, each thrust more feral and starving than the last. 

“You gonna come on my tongue, sweetheart?” He teases, knowing full well now what his words are doing to you. You clamp down on his fingers, his name a chant hanging in the air. “Let go for me, pretty girl. Wanna know what it tastes like.” 

You’re a stuttering mess, his words piercing that fire in your stomach, the heat flowing freely as he pulls your orgasm from you. The release feels so good, so right. Logan works you through it, his laps slowing down, becoming languid, like he’s savoring the taste of you. The thought sends a shiver down your spine. He pumps his fingers in and out a few more times before carefully pulling out of you. 

He sits up on his knees, sweat glistening on his chest, his hair a tussled mess. He holds out his fingers—covered with your come—and shoves them in his mouth, sucking hard. Your breath catches in your throat at the sight. He lazily pulls them out, swallowing, his throat bobbing. “So fucking sweet,” he soothes. “Can’t get enough of you.”

And then he’s hurriedly ripping his beater off, undoing his belt, shoving his jeans and boxers down his legs. Your eyes widen at the sight of his cock springing up to his stomach. You knew he’d be big, but fuck. 

“You sure you want this?” He whispers, his lips back at the shell of your ear. You bring your hips up to meet his and mumble a yes. 

He lines himself up with your entrance, nudging against you. You can tell he’s holding back, doing his all to take his time, to let this moment last. But you want him. You need him. Now. You arch your back, your chest rising to meet his, your pebbled nipples brushing against his bare skin. The contact feels so good, so warm. “Fuck me, Logan,” you beg. 

He curses under his breath, and suddenly he’s thrusting into you, sinking all the way in, bottoming out. He stays there, unmoving, letting you adjust to the length and girth of him. He’s so big, stretching you out so good. He’s deep already, pushing against your walls, hitting that spot where you need him most. 

“F-fuck.” His composure is melting. “Knew you’d feel perfect. So fucking beautiful like this, always so beautiful.” He pulls out and pushes all the way back in. You cry out his name, and he muffles it as his mouth comes crashing down onto yours. 

He lowers down onto his forearm, closing the gap between the two of you. His other hand grazes over your nipples, trailing down your stomach, slipping in between the place where your bodies connect. His fingertips find your clit, ghosting around the bud lightly, toying with you before drawing long, languid circles around it. 

His thrusts start out slow as he rolls his hips against yours, but he quickly builds up speed. He bottoms out with each pump, plunging deeply, working you open for him. 

“Could stay inside you forever,” he gasps between kisses, sweat coating his brow. “You still have no fucking clue what you do to me,” he whispers, his hips snapping into you. He’s fucking you into the leather, pounding harder, knocking the wind out of your chest. He flicks your clit again and again. He’s losing control in the best way. “Watching you all the time, not being able to touch you, to be with you.” His vulnerability contrasts deliciously with how rough he’s fucking into you. “Think about you all the time.” 

He swallows your whines with another starving kiss. “Always thinking about you, too,” you whimper. 

He smiles against your lips. “Can feel you squeezing me, sweetheart. Want you to come on my cock.” It’s a command, the bass of his voice rumbling through his chest. You hum in affirmation, your eyes fluttering closed as pleasure courses through your body. “Want you to look at me when you come.” There’s that demand in his voice again, and so you force your eyes open. “Good girl,” he husks. “So fucking good.”

You’re crumbling underneath him, fighting to keep your eyes open as he pounds roughly into you, his fingers pinching your clit, then circling rapidly. You’re coming undone in his arms, digging your nails into his biceps as you let yourself go. He keeps rutting into you, his pace faltering as he nears his own orgasm. 

“Wanna come inside you,” his lips press against your forehead as he whispers the words. “Don’t wanna leave this pussy yet.”

You shiver underneath him, wrapping your legs tighter around his waist. “P-please,” you mumble.  “Fuck,” he trembles, painting your walls, filling you up. “So perfect,” he whispers, his head coming down to rest on your shoulder, pumping slower as he finishes. “So beautiful.” He kisses your shoulder as he stills, staying inside you for a moment. 

He carefully slides out of you, the sudden emptiness a shock to your system. You want him back, buried deep inside where he belongs. You involuntarily whine at the loss of him. He lifts himself up, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Later. We’ll do more later. ‘M’nowhere near done with you yet.” 

Logan separates from you, the hot, stuffy air of the car suddenly turning cold without him on top of you. He searches the floor of the backseat for your clothes. He worries about you first, helping you get back into your bra, panties, shorts, and top. You sit cross-legged once you’re done, watching him as he dresses himself. 

He smirks, sensing your eyes on him. “Still like what you see?” 

You can feel heat rise to your cheeks, suddenly embarrassed despite everything that just happened. “Always liked you.”

“Think what we just did warrants a little more than ‘like’ darlin’.” He’s right. It does. 

Once he’s dressed, he grabs your hand, opens the car door, and guides you out of the backseat and towards the other side of the car. He opens the passenger door for you, and you slip inside. He’s opening the driver’s side door and getting in a few seconds later, turning the key into the ignition, maneuvering the car out of the grass, and back onto the empty highway. 

He’s got his left hand on the steering wheel as his right comes down to your inner thigh, gripping tightly and pulling it closer to him. 

The rest of the drive is quiet, calm, Logan’s thumb occasionally brushing against your bare skin, reminding you of what he promised: later. 

You finally pull up to the cabin, surprised to see that some of the lights are still on. Logan gives your thigh one more squeeze before popping the trunk and exiting the car. You step out, and Logan already has your duffle bags in his hands. You walk shoulder to shoulder up to the porch of the cabin, your hand coming up to twist the doorknob and stepping inside. 

Storm, Charles, and Scott are in the living room, sitting around the fire, their heads snapping toward you and Logan. 

“What took you two so long to get here?” Storm asks, her brows raising incredulously. 

“Traffic.” Logan spits, his voice firm and unwavering. You hope the room can’t read the embarrassment on your face. 

“Yeah, sure, traffic, at one in the morning on a Thursday,” Scott teases. To your left, you can see your and Logan’s reflections in a nearby mirror. You’re disheveled and messy, but not terrible. And then, it suddenly dawns on you that Logan’s tank is inside out; you can’t help but grin at the sight. 

Charles smiles softly—knowingly. “You two can share one of the rooms upstairs, down the hall, last door on the left.” 

You watch as Logan catches his reflection in the mirror, his gaze quickly focusing on you instead, cocking his head up towards the stairs. 

His steps are hurried, and you try to catch up to him. He beats you to the top and leans in close to you as you finish the climb, his lips brushing the side of your head. “You’re in some massive fucking trouble, sweetheart,” he whispers, now holding the bags in one hand so that the other can snake around your waist. He shoves you down the hall with him. 

“What did I do?” You giggle as his fingers dig into your side. 

“You let me put my shirt on inside out.”

You smirk. “And what are you gonna do about it, bub?” You know he won’t like that last bit, but you want to see what he’ll do about it. 

“Remember when I told you I wasn’t done with you yet?” Your breath catches in your throat at his words. “Well, it’s later, darlin’.”

[youryanderedaddy]

When Life Gives Lemons

tw: female reader, technically non con because of stealthing, baby trapping, breeding, obsessive behavior, reader being a bit rude

You couldn’t believe the irony of your life. You were about to break up with your immature boyfriend, and he still managed to be grossly late to the date, unconsciously digging his own grave deeper. You had put on your best white shirt and the tightest skirt you owned, and you even went through the trouble of booking the latest hipster coffee shop close to the centre. He had been fifteen minutes late, to be exact, and when you brought it up, he simply shrugged a long sleazy smile, dragging his skeleton - shaped metal rings against the edge of the table.

“All in due time, princess.” He took a sip off his coffee - a single shot of espresso with no creamer, as always. “All in due time.” He repeated, reaching in his pocket for a pack of off - brand cigarettes. He really couldn’t afford any of the fancy ones. Once the cigarette was lit, he slowly brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply, letting his head relax against the chair. His thick neck tightened as he swallowed the deadly smoke, and even the sun seemed to avoid his messy dark locks, instead keeping the man in the shadows.

“What does that even mean?” You threw your hands around helplessly, sinking into your chair. “Don’t you want to know?” Axel teased, taking another puff. Although his expression was one of mild amusement, his sharp blue eyes were carefully following your every movement - wondering what will tip you off the most. “You know, you’re so fuckin’ hot when you’re mad, mami.” He smiled in a playful boyish way that once would have made you melt, but now only served as a reminder of his unserious nature.

“Stop playing around. I need to discuss something imp–”

“Shhh, don’t talk, babygirl. I need to show you something.” Axel interrupted, gripping the big guitar closer to his lap. ”I wrote you a song.” His thin fingers grazed the delicate transparent strings, forcing a catchy, although not fully polished melody out of the old thing. He took a deep breath, wetting his lips so the lyrics would come out softer. 

My girl knows how to set me

on flames she goes through 

the motions of the wind she

is a fireball, a fireball, on fire

“What the fuck, Axy.” You pounded your fists at the table, shaking the glasses and spilling coffee all over the wooden surface. You could feel everyone’s judging stare across your back, all of the other patrons were jeering and whispering about the two of you, and your cheeks were heating up by the moment. “I’ve told you countless times to stop writing those shitty songs. They don’t even rhyme, for fuck sake.” You whined, suddenly overwhelmed by helplessness. He was never going to change, was he? “This is exactly why I want to break up.”

The music stopped entirely. His dark sunglasses ended on the ground. 

“You wanna break up?” The musician repeated slowly, suddenly appearing awfully composed - so composed it made you look crazy. After that question he remained silent for a very long time, taking long drags off his cigarette while studying your face for any sign of your true feelings bleeding out. “Real’ funny, babe, real’ fun joke.” He forced a crooked smile, reaching in to squeeze your hand all the way through the table. “Now tell me, what’s wrong with the song? I stayed real’ late to compose it just for our date today.” He winked, which only made you feel worse.

“I am being serious, Axel. Let go of me.” Your tone turned icy and your ex boyfriend quickly released you, eyes filling with raw fear. “Wait, baby, we can talk about–”

“There is nothing to talk about. You’re such a child!” You blurted out, too frustrated to spare energy on fluttery words and sweet apologies. “I want to do my masters soon. You know I’m applying to Metwyorth - I can’t be seen hanging around with a high school dropout who does Saturday gigs for a living.” You continued, pursing your lips together. You knew you were being harsh, cruel even, but this was the only way to push him away. The musician could be awfully clingy, so you needed to be firm.

“A highschool dropout who made you scream your brains out.” Axel responded bitterly through clenched teeth, eyes growing dark with anger. You shook your head bashfully, avoiding his fiery gaze. “Sure, we had our fun,” You gestured vaguely at nothing in particular, trying to hide the shame blossoming on your sides. “But it’s time to wake up. I mean, be realistic. We live in different worlds.” You began to collect your things quickly, standing up to leave.

“Y/N!” He called out to you, causing you to turn back just for a second - you owed him that much for all the good memories you knew you both would have trouble forgetting. “You’re making a mistake. Please, think it through.” The man took a hold of your hand, caressing your fingers gently. “I know I can’t offer you much right now, but I really love you!” His eyes dilated, honest and clear like an untouched sea on a quiet day. 

“Goodbye, Axel.”

***

You meet him sooner that you’d like.

Two weeks later you’re drunk off your mind, dancing the night away with some of your girlfriends when you catch a pair of familiar eyes fluttering across your body from the other side of the room. It makes you feel hot all over - despite what you said back then, you felt each agonising moment of the break up. Even if the logical part of your brain knows you have no future with such a man, your body needs him, craves him. 

Axel keeps staring at you intensely, burning holes through your neck, your thighs, your lips. His yearning gaze lingers, completely miserable, and yet as lustful as the night he first wrapped his arms around you and claimed you as his. He can still feel your nails scratching his back red and bloody, sending shivers down his spine and setting fire in his loins. This staring game of yours lasts for approximately thirty minutes before he gives in and comes over to your table. He doesn’t say anything - doesn’t look at you or greet your friends, doesn’t even pretend to have any reason to approach you. He simply grabs you, swallows an airy pant, and drags you inside the bathroom.

You’re all over each other in no time. His hands are tangled in your hair and your nails are sinking into his warm flesh once again. You can’t breathe for a second, suffocated by a deep, longing kiss that he only spares you of once your lips start to turn blue. He licks your neck and bites at any spot vulnerable enough to steal a gasp out of you - and you return it by sucking on his collarbone until a purple hickey adorns his skin. You swiftly unzip his loose pants and start taking your dress off, but as you try to spread your legs, he turns you around facing the wall. 

“Fuck, I wanna do you from the back, princess.” Axel mumbles, one strong hand gripping your throat as the other gropes your breasts freely. You nod weakly, too turned on to comprehend any of the words he’s saying. “Ngh, wanna be able to pull your hair n’ shit.” His fist wraps around your ponytail, pulling slightly so you expose your neck to his teeth. You can already feel his throbbing manhood prob at your thighs, slowly moving towards your entrance. “Y-you have a condom on, right?” You manage to whimper through the little electric bursts of pleasure running through your whole body as he plays you like an instrument. He mumbles something like “yeah”, and in this state of mind that’s enough for you.

He starts sinking into your heat slowly, letting you adjust to his hard length inch by inch, then once you’ve settled, practically begging him to just give it to you, he begins thrusting painfully slow - really making you feel it going in and out, in and out in a perfect rhythm. Each time his cock brushes against your most sensitive spot, you’re reduced to a slick, desperate mess, but just as your thighs begin to go numb and you slip down, Axel catches both of your wrists and pins them to the wall, keeping you in place. You’re so wet you can hear the slap of skin on skin every time your gummy walls hug his member, but you’re too far gone to care about the nasty sound.

“F-fuck, baby, you’d be so fucking hot as a mother. Have you ever thought about it?” Your ex whispers against you, picking up the pace. You shake your head - kids have never been your priority, since you’re still so young and your education would always come first. “I thought about it. A lot, ‘n fact, when we were separated.” His heartbeat fastens. “Ugh, you’re still so tight, god…” His free hand dances at your hips, ogling and caressing any curve it can find. “When you dumped me, I was completely lost, ya know? Didn’t sober up for three days. But then I dreamt that I knocked you up accidentally. S-shit, did you just tighten up?”

Your whole body stiffens at his words. Your stomach fills with unexplainable dread - this whole conversation is turning you off, but somehow your body seems to have a mind of its own. 

“Q-quit it with the small talk, asshole.” You groan, pushing back so you’d get more friction between your legs. “Just fuck me, okay? I don’t need to hear your weird fantasies.” You hear yourself saying confidently despite the provocative position you’re currently stuck in - you can’t even see his face, but you know he’s probably laughing at your bossy comment. But instead he keeps blabbering on as if you’re not even there. “You were so beautiful, princess. So big and–” He bites his lower lip. “So fucking needy for me - just like now. You were dripping everywhere. You were so excited for our little baby.” He grunted hoarsely, reaching in to stroke your clit - and despite your best efforts, you let out a soft moan. 

“And we were a family - just you, n-ngh, me and the little guy.” Axel utters through clenched teeth, trying to hold out for as long as possible - savouring you in tiny little bites. “No stupid degrees or anythin’, just us two against the world.” He slows down further, now barely moving inside of you. It’s driving you crazy with anticipation - both his story and the way he’s fucking you. “And it made me think, we could really have all that - if it wasn’t for your stupid pride. All I need to do is knock you up. Just think about it.” The man grips your hips roughly, impaling you on his thickness. 

“Your tits will swell, your thighs will thicken; you’ll be so tired you’ll have to lay down all the time. You won’t even be able to touch yourself because of your belly.” He smiles at you gently, although you can’t see it. At this point you’re already so close to climax you can’t break through the cotton cloud haze that’s taken over your mind to truly focus. This is one of the reasons you had to break up with the musician - he could get you cockdrunk with a simple touch, and that vulnerability felt terrifying.

“And I will take care of you through every-” He kisses your cheek. “single–” He kisses you again. “step of the way.” He inhales deeply, thrusting in one final time before he spills inside you. “I love you, baby. I really can’t let you go.”

[woso-dreamzzz]

Run, Run, Run II

Leila Ouahabi x Reader

Summary: Your new life

Your feet pound on the concrete of the pavement, rain drip-dropping down your skin.

The rain of Manchester had been difficult to get used to when you originally moved, used to the sun of Spain and the warmth on your skin as you completed your morning run.

The rain wasn't something that you were surprised about but it was still something that you've had to get used to.

You've had to get used to a lot actually but one thing, for better or for worse has stayed that same.

Your damned attraction to female footballers older than you.

You'd been burned by Alexia. That was all you could think about those first few weeks. How every memory with her was stained with fire and flames and an overwhelming heat that made you lose your mind.

But she had cheated and you had promised yourself to never be like your mother - to never stay with someone that disrespected you like that.

Your father was a damned near perfect father. He took you to all of your track meets and he'd never missed a parent-teacher evening in his life. He bragged about you to his co-workers.

But he had never been a perfect husband, cheating on your mother multiple times but she had still stayed, happy in the relative normalcy she has with your father.

You'd promised to never be like her so the decision to leave Alexia and flee the country didn't take as much thought as you thought it would.

And now you're in rainy Manchester, drying off your hair with the handy towel that hangs up in the entrance hall for you to use exactly for these moments.

"You're back?"

You smile as you rub the towel over your hair.

"I said I would before you left me."

"Left you? I'm only going to camp."

You sigh dramatically, pressing the back of your palm to your still damp forehead. "And leaving me here, all alone! Locked in this prison!"

"You were the one that decided on this apartment? You said you liked the open plan arrangement? We have a balcony?"

You press a soft kiss to Leila's lips. "You knew I was only joking. But I will miss you when you're at camp."

"I'll miss you too. Are you sure you can't come to the match?"

You nibble on the inside of your cheek.

Your life with Leila was practically perfect in every way. She was so in tune with you and your needs. She knew when you needed a break from cooking dinner or doing the grocery shop. She knew exactly when you needed a little pick me up like flowers or chocolates or even a long cuddle session in bed.

Everything was perfect but you just can't bring yourself to go back to Spain in that way, to put yourself in a situation where you'll be so close to Alexia again, the woman that you had once thought would be your wife some day.

"Baby..." You say, looking up at Leila," You know I wouldn't put you in that situation. Alexia...I don't want her to try to ostracise you from the team."

Leila sighs. "She's never done such a thing. Even...Even during...you know..."

"I know but it might be different. I mean...with me and her, it was...I don't know. I don't want you be at risk."

"I understand," Leila says, forehead pressed against your own," But if you did want to come, I've got a ticket reserved for you, alright?"

"I'll...I'll think about it. I promise."

Leila thinks about it too, all throughout camp. It circles through her mind like a dog with a bone. She wakes up thinking about. She goes to sleep thinking about it.

You've watched plenty of her matches at City, where you've become a favourite of the fans without even meaning to. You're a constant presence in the stands with a cup of whatever warm drink you poured yourself before leaving the house.

She's lost count of how many of her Panini stickers you've signed for fans before coming down onto the pitch to greet her.

But you've never come to one of her matches for Spain, not with Alexia on the team, the ever lurking looming presence of your relationship.

Leila's never really seen her captain in the same way since. She's a good captain, an amazing player but Leila's learnt how to separate those aspects of Alexia to the one that she knows you experienced, the one that had tried to manipulate you into staying in a relationship, the one that had tried to promise you everything to stay with her even after cheating.

Leila can separate the Alexia on the pitch to the one off of it but she knows that is something you can't do.

The Alexia on the pitch and off the pitch has always been the same Alexia to you. There is no separation of who she is and Leila can accept your decision to stay away for that reason.

But it still doesn't stop her from wishing you would come to see her play.

The option is open for you but Leila would never hold it against you if you decided not to.

There were plenty of other games for you to go to.

"So..." Codi wheedles during breakfast before the match," Where's the girlfriend?"

Leila almost chokes over her cereal. "At home."

"She isn't coming?"

"She has the option if she wants. She's busy."

Codi rolls her eyes. "She's always busy during international break. She's got to come at some point."

Leila rolls her eyes. "She's her own person. I won't force her to do anything."

"You've got a new girlfriend?" Alexia asks, looking up from her phone.

Leila looks back down at her bowl, swirling the milk around with the back of her spoon. "I...Yeah, I do. She's great..."

She bites her tongue, swallowing back what she actually wants to say, all of the things she wants to spit at Alexia on your behalf.

But she doesn't.

Leila stays silent, swirling her cereal around as the conversation moves on.

The pass is perfectly weighted from her on the pitch a few hours later, speeding through the legs of opposition players for Alexia to slot neatly into the net.

The rush of an assist runs through Leila as she turns to look into the stands.

You're sitting there, amongst the cheering of the fans.

Leila had seen you earlier, a surprise in a hoodie to cover your hair but your girlfriend could just see the Spanish jersey poking out from under it.

She suddenly finds herself praying that it's hers.

She'd even take it being blank.

Because Leila knows Alexia noticed you earlier, had seen you when the big screen focused on the crowd during the warm ups. She had seen Alexia stare at you. She had seen the aborted movement Alexia made towards you, like she was about to abandon the warm ups to go up to you - sweetly saccharine tone at the ready to convince you to go back to her.

Leila hopes that if you do have a name on your shirt, it's not Alexia's.

[lokisgoodgirl]

Breaking Fast [Loki x Reader]

A Link to my Masterlist is HERE Summary: Loki breaks a self-imposed sexual fast with you, of course. (w/c 1.6k) Warnings: 18+ only. Smut. Language. Asgardian Loki x Female Reader.

Loki was acutely aware of each thud of his boots against stone, each swish of the leather cape which brushed his knuckles as he ignored the hungry eyes following him.

He had one goal; one objective which would consume him with black, maddening fire if he didn't sate it before the need reached crescendo.

'A sexual fast', he'd told his brother loftily. 'To counteract the tolerance from centuries of overindulgence.' And his brother had laughed. But the scepticism had only made him more determined, and Loki had kept the promise to himself not to break until it was a necessity. And now, you'd left him no choice.

As the ache in his hips tightened, he couldn't recall why he'd tried to resist the coy glances for so long; the calculated shift of your body against his during feast days and court balls. Desire ran hot and hard in his veins. It was decided. He would have you—and his fast would be broken.

He wanted to feel your gasps of pleasure fresh and needy on his face, the moans of surprise as he knocked the air from your lungs with his legendary cock. He wanted to own you; mark himself on your supple thighs between wet, indecent pleasures and wring the tantalising lilt from your voice until it was rasped and rusted with his name.

He would fuck you like another never had, and like another never would. Until your dying breath, it would be his prowess that made your cunt glisten in the dying of the light.

Loki's leathers tightened furiously.

The messenger would have arrived to your quarters one hour ago, bringing his command. You would be waiting in his expansive wing used exclusively for entertainment. His nest of debauchery and hedonism, such as it was; dust gathering on its silks and scattered pillows.

Not for long.

He smiled as the bronze doors bearing his emblem drew closer. He could see it now: your naked body spread on the furs, draped out for him, driven half mad by anticipation. A dizzying pulse of excitement soared in his chest. Two guards stationed outside rose their spears in salute and brought them sharply to the marble floor. Loki waved a hand, and the doors spread as smoothly as he would part your legs.

"Open it to no one."

The guards exchanged a worried glance.

One of them cleared his throat. "Not even....her...Prince Loki?"

Loki's eyes narrowed as he spun slowly towards the one who'd spoken. The fear in his eyes made Loki's cock throb despite the swoop of irritation forcing up his throat. "Do you mean to tell me she isn't here yet?"

"N-No, my—"

"And miss your theatrical approach?"

Loki's gaze snapped in the direction he'd come, heat flushing immediately through his chest. You stood straight and regal, delicate hands clasped in front of you and your chin tilted up with an air of imperiousness that made his scalp tingle. Silk chiffon, barely opaque, fluttered in outrageously alluring folds down to your ankles.

"It's foreplay, watching you storm around like a conqueror. I thought that was the intention."

Loki opened his mouth and closed it again as you passed, shooting a last warning glare at the guards.

The doors slammed behind him.

Loki watched with uncharacteristic silence as you wandered to the window, casting a cursory glance over the sprawl of Asgard’s golden turrets glittering in afternoon sun. "Everyone has been so invested in your sexual fast, Loki." His name teasing on your lips made his manhood twitch riotously against leather. Norns, he'd never wanted anyone more. And yet he couldn't move. The silhouette of your body was outlined against a halo of thin, pale fabric. "Although I must confess, your public have been rooting for its end. The gossip well is positively dry without you."

"Is that why your temptations have been so flagrant?" His voice was forced; strained. You glanced over your shoulder with a wicked smile.

"It's a game we play. Me and my Ladies."

"I only saw you playing it."

"As intended. On my part, at least. I can assure you it was quite competitive."

Loki's feet moved of their own accord, crossing the sun-slatted room in several long strides. And then your hands were in his hair, fiddling at the clasps of his cape, tangling your bodies and feet and mouths in a liquid rush of desire. He slipped the material from your shoulders, fine as spider web, devouring kisses rushing down the long column of your neck. You smelled like crushed florals, spices: tingling inside his nostrils and making his hips snap against your abdomen.

"I want you to ruin me, Loki Odinson..." Your smile grew against his ear. "All the depraved, filthy fantasies you've run through your mind as you fucked yourself like an animal in your lonely bed. I want them all."

Loki's mind folded in on itself as lips crushed together, bodies moving to the nearest pile of furs as his tunic was shed, belts skittered across the floor and tangling in the dress discarded beside it.

He crawled on top of you: naked, resplendent, his pale cock flushed with raging, animal anticipation. "I will not be gentle," he murmured, it tenderness shifting to a savage purr as he grazed his nose up yours and punctuating it with a hungry nip of your bottom lip.

"Neither will I."

He brushed a thumb slowly over your lips, teasing the bottom one down, parting willing beneath his touch, and pushing his thumb further inside that hot, sweet mouth.

He felt a flicker of tongue against it, and then, you began to suck, your head tilting back ever-so-slightly; eyes fixed on him. His thigh pressed up between your legs and a brief grin dawned on his lips at the gasp that followed.

Your fingers fastened around the meat of his length, guiding it inside you. Loki's ragged groan would be heard in Muselheim. But he didn't care. All he cared about was the tight, hot grip of your pussy as it absolved him of any doubt, lighting up the deep, dark, dormant pockets of his mind.

His biceps tensed as he fell to his forearms, caging your impossibly perfect face. He bottomed out, dragging himself back, and the hideously primal ripple of pleasure that coursed across your features made him want to burn the world for you.

Words were lost in the slap of skin and the tight smack of his balls as he plunged deeper. Your hand fisted in his hair, edging him on with each slam of your hips.

Orgasm exploded like magma, searing from his belly and coating his limbs in electric, juddering ecstasy. He slid down the furs, dripping as he went, and burying his face between your legs.

The taste of cunt was heaven. Gods, how he'd missed it. What was I thinking? As Loki's fingers tightened around your hips, reacting to each rise and fall of each breathless moan, he resolved never to deny himself again.

The taste of your sweetness arrived like sunrise through the tang of his cum. He dove deeper, careful to keep the methodical lap of his tongue away from your swollen clit. Too soon. He wanted to feel the madness in your twists against the sheets; to feel you come undone like boneless prey. He wanted to hear you beg. He wanted—

"Loki," you pleaded, and he met your eyes over the swell of your stomach. There was more than lust in them—it was devotion— and the god groaned deep in his throat as he suckled your clit.

Your back arched, and his hands slid up your spread thighs, tips sinking into soft flesh.

He made you come four more times—each leaving you with more sweat glistening on the spill of your breasts. As the fourth ebbed, as he massaged his jaw, you flipped upward and slid onto his lap.

He fucked you like that: slow, intimate, benevolent, for as long as he could bear.

The careful scratch of nails on his shoulders, the soft caresses of your pretty moans in his ear. His hands slid to your waist before raising and twisting your body in one fluid motion to all-fours.

"Do you know you are honoured?" he asked with all the imperiousness he could muster. He had a sudden, blinding need to cover every inch of your body with his seed. Your profile appeared, locking eyes with a rabid determination he’d only ever seen reflected in the mirrors above his bed.

The words from your lips were ambrosia: low and smooth. "Honour me, God of Mischief," you commanded; and so he did.

Loki slid inside your wet slit with a guttural choke.

His large hands grasped at your hips, fucking you like a dog, the slap of his skin against your flesh filling the air like hail. He was conqueror and king; ruler of every pitched whine of pleasure from your lips as your fists tightened against the furs and you panted his name like it was the only word rattling around your skull.

Fresh, milky cum welled at your sex, spreading up the thick of his cock as he slowed and pulled out, dipping the tip leisurely before slamming to the hilt like the starving dog he was. "Turn around," he ordered against your spine, acutely aware of something shifting urgently inside him; the urge to fuck, and fuck, and fuck.

You complied, eyes sparkling. He watched them track from his spread thighs, cum glistening; the flushed cock in his hand, the tight, taut nip of his waist. Your gaze rested on his ropes of tense shoulder muscle, the shift of his right bicep as his fingers toyed with the leaking crown of his manhood.

Shameless.

He loved it.

Your hands cupped your breasts, massaging gently. Loki couldn’t look away. His hand moved faster, jolting at the scratch of your nails on the underside of his balls. They tightened.

"F-Fuck," he rasped, head falling back and curls of damp hair sticking across his forehead.

He groaned a final time, cum forcing up so fiercely it might rip him in two. His neck snapped forwards at the moment it exploded, landing at the hollow of your neck, dripping in thick, white tendrils over the sweat-pearled gleam of your skin.

He panted, mouth open, dazed as you drew a finger up the mess and sucked it clean. You rose to your knees, kissing him deeply, one tilt sliding into another; the taste of him strong in your mouth. "Welcome back, Prince Loki," you whispered. And between the flush of your bodies, Loki’s cock twitched.

Tags in comments! ❤️Come say hiii (please) 🤭 x

[threadbearsweater]

one warm day is all i really need | arthur morgan

When you find yourself taken in by a gang of outlaws, the last thing you expect is to grow sweet on one of them- and have the feelings reciprocated. Arthur Morgan doesn't have time for romantic nonsense, but a few memebers of the gang want to make sure that he gets to indulge in his obvious affection toward you. Tags: 3.9k words, an unlikely romance, meddling gang members (with the purest of intentions, one might suppose); female reader, alcohol use, smoking, emotional smut. A repost from a (regretfully) deactivated blog.

Arthur first notices your eyes on him one evening around the campfire at Shady Belle. He won’t accuse you of staring– Lord knows he’s been known to look at you with the same foolish grin you’re wearing now– but he tips his hat to acknowledge you. The heat in your cheeks is suddenly warmer than what the fire has already provided; your grin only grows until your teeth are showing, and you duck your head into your shoulder to hide. Arthur takes a long swig from his whiskey bottle and grimaces as it goes down. He hasn't had a drop of anything in days, and the burn takes a little while to grow numb to now.

“Think she's sweet on you, Morgan,” Sean says in his Irish lilt, giving Arthur an elbow in the ribs.

“Naw, she's lookin’ at you,” Arthur deflects, though he hopes he's wrong. He thinks he knows.

“She told me last week to keep my eyes on my own work,” Sean continues. “I really don't think it's me she wants, Arthur.”

You turn to whisper something to Sadie, who laughs out loud with her face tilted toward the stars. You dare a glance back at Arthur, who is, in fact, looking at you.

Maybe there's some truth to what Mary Beth told you yesterday.

“Arthur's been awful quiet lately.”

The sun shines through the trees and dapples the table where you're seated with bright spots of pale yellow. It's your third round of dominoes with Mary-Beth, and she's whooping your ass, as usual. You don't know how she does it, but each game you play, you're a little more privy to her prowess.

“You think so? I don't know him as well as you.” You hope it isn't obvious that your heart started beating a little faster at the mention of his name. It leaves you breathless.

“Oh yeah,” Mary-Beth continues. “He's been scratchin’ away in that journal of his a lot more, too.” She leans closer, conspiratorial, her eyes twinkling with the gossip she's about to share. “Karen said he went to town twice last week to have a hot bath. If you knew Arthur like I know Arthur, why…you'd know that's highly out of character for him.”

“But you said he'd been quiet. Is that unusual for him, too?”

She hums and purses her lips. “Well you see, Arthur isn't usually a man of many words on a good day. But it's been real bad lately. He don't even give John a hard time like usual.”

You ponder the dominoes for a moment and then make your move. It doesn't earn you any points, but at least you didn't have to draw. “What do you think the problem is?” you ask, nonchalant as possible.

Mary-Beth smiles. Big and bright and sparkling. “Oh, it's not a problem at all.” She lowers her voice and cups her hand to her mouth. “Arthur's in love.”

You gasp, then giggle behind your hand, and Mary-Beth follows suit. Hosea looks on and shakes his head, so you quiet down, reaching across to grab Mary-Beth's hands. “Who do you think it is?”

Her cheeks are tinted pink, and she looks around to make sure there aren't any ears to hear. Word travels fast around camp if one isn't prudent. “I think it's you.”

A thunderstorm rips through Shady Belle a little over a week later. Your little tent that you share with Sadie is ripped straight off its supports in a terrible gust of wind, and you and the others hightail it inside the house to take cover just as it begins to hail. There's quite a ruckus as everyone huddles inside, windblown and rain-soaked. A few of the men hold up lanterns to illuminate the darkness while you watch the lightning and feel the thunder shake the old bones of the house.

“Everyone just calm down,” Dutch calls, descending the stairs, wearing some ridiculous robe with his arms spread wide. “Are we really gonna let a little old thunderstorm keep us from getting a good night's sleep?”

“Says the man with a bed inside the house,” Arthur bites, rounding the corner from what used to be the kitchen, holding a lantern up high in front of him. “Dutch, you better allow these ladies to take cover in here for tonight, or I'll–”

“Or you'll what, Mister Morgan? Pray tell, what kind of man do you take me for?” Dutch's eyes are fiery as he stares Arthur down; a display of dominance. A veritable cockfight.

Arthur's jaw twitches, but he doesn't back down. “The kind of man I should hope would have some goddamn respect for his family.”

There's a tense moment or two where everyone is quiet, then Dutch relents. “Fine, fine! But I expect everyone out there pitching in to clean up in the morning.” He points at Arthur and raises his voice again. “That includes the other man with a bed inside the house,” he sneers.

Arthur shakes his head, then looks away only to catch sight of you, shivering in your wet undergarments, huddled close to Mary-Beth for what little warmth the two of you can share. For a minute, he forgets to breathe, then composes himself enough to cross the room.

“Come on in here. Get yourself warm and dry by the fire.” His hand on your elbow is rough but warm as he leads you toward the fireplace. You nod and look back at Mary-Beth, who shoos you away with a flick of her wrist and a wink; you notice that her teeth are chattering. Despite the humidity that hangs heavy in the air, the temperature has turned chilly with the storm.

Arms crossed over your bosom to preserve any shred of modesty you might have left, you allow yourself to be led away by Arthur. Dutch and some of the others head upstairs while Charles and Javier keep watch from the front porch.

“You alright?” Arthur asks. He covers your shoulders with one of his heavy winter coats, and you pull it around you, grateful for the weight and warmth of it. Another clap of thunder shakes the house and you jump. Arthur chuckles.

“You laughin’ at me?” you quip, placing your palms flat in the direction of the fireplace. You don't even bother to hide the grin you feel curling on your lips.

“No madam, I am not,” Arthur says earnestly, taking a seat beside you on the old wooden crate he's set up as a makeshift bench.

“Then just what do you find so funny, Mister Morgan?”

He scratches the back of his neck, looking into the flames. “Aw, I dunno. I'm sorry. It's just that you're…”

You bump him with your hip, unable to stop the giggles that bubble up from your chest. “I'm what?” you pry.

There's a clatter of something falling on the front porch, and Arthur uses it as a good excuse to get out of this hole he's dug for himself. “I better go see what's going on out there. Charles might need my help.”

“I'm what, Arthur?!” you call, to no avail. He's gone before he can see the proverbial hearts in your eyes.

The saloon in Rhodes is a little nicer than the ones you visited in Valentine, though it's a far cry from the ones you used to frequent in Saint Denis. Still, when Sadie and the other girls decide that it's high time you have a little fun in town, you throw on your best dress and let Karen curl your hair and even apply a little of the makeup you snagged from a homestead up north. For the first time in months, you feel like a proper woman. There isn't time to be melancholy about the past, though, when the boys start whistling and cat-calling upon the sight of you and the other girls.

“Aw, knock it off!” Sadie hollers. She's decided to dress up a little tonight, too, much to everyone's surprise. But she hikes up her skirts to hop into the wagon, calling for the rest of you all to hurry it up. “I've got a bottle of rum with my name on it that's waiting for me to come drink her all down!”

You catch the sunset on the way to town. It's dazzling over the meadows, all golden light and warm, blazing oranges and reds that settle into a brilliant pink by the time your reach the main road into Rhodes. You wish you could see Arthur's eyes, but he's got a handle on the reins next to Charles in the front of the wagon. You've seen him watching the sunset before; he always looks so peaceful those evenings at camp, and you often wonder what he thinks about in those few minutes before the horizon is painted in pastel hues.

Karen starts singing a song that everyone eventually joins, and before you know it, you're pulling up in front of the Rhodes Parlour House. You can already hear the piano and a few voices from outside; the sound of it stirs something in your soul that makes you long for the familiarity of home, but you quickly shove it aside in favor of the company of your new family.

“Madam.” Arthur's voice brings you out of your thoughts and back into the present, where he waits at the back of the wagon with his hand extended to you. You beam at him, and he feels dizzy. And when your soft hand fits into his, he straightens his knees so they don't buckle and betray him.

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” you say, lifting the hem of your skirts to step out onto the dirt road.

Arthur leans in, dangerously close to your ear. You can smell the whisky and cigarettes on his breath, along with the faint tang of gunpowder and hair pomade. “You sure do look nice in that dress.”

You demure and fan yourself with your hand. “Just how much have you had to drink already tonight?” you giggle.

“Ahh, just a little nip to take the edge off.”

“Mm-hm. Sure, Arthur. Whatever you say.”

The night starts off relatively calm, as most nights do. You and the other girls find an empty table to sit and pick up on the town gossip, and the men start a hand of poker. It grows loud and crowded sometime around midnight, and it's hard to have a conversation without shouting over the din of voices, the clink of glass bottles, and the slow drag ragtime music from the piano. The ambiance is charming and lighthearted, and there are even a few couples drunkenly dancing on the porch.

You push back in your chair and find that when you stand, you're a little more wobbly than you thought you would be. The alcohol has loosened you more than you realize, and you grip the table for support until you feel a firm arm around your waist. “Whoa there.”

It's Arthur, who has won the last round of poker and has come to check in on you and the other ladies. You're pulled tight against his chest for one fleeting moment, and you look up into his eyes. He, too, seems drunk, with his eyes gleaming and drooping at the corners, his smile easy and his cheeks flushed.

“My knight in shining armor,” you slur, pretending to faint in his embrace. He only pulls you tighter against him, both of his broad hands splayed across your back. You laugh, and he smiles.

“You weren't getting another drink, were ya?” he questions with a raise of his brow.

“‘m thirsty,” you whine, lifting your empty glass entirely too close to his face. It knocks against his nose, which sends you into another fit of laughter.

Arthur takes your wrist– gentle but firm– and lowers the glass away. “Think you need to drink something that's not whiskey,” he drawls. You can't help but watch the way his lips form around the words; the slip of his tongue between his teeth, the way his mouth turns up into the hint of a smile when you pout. Before you can think too long and hard about it, you lunge forward and kiss him. Hard and clumsy and impulsive. You don't give him time to react. You're far too involved in the kiss to notice, but the girls at the table behind you have all gone silent. Arthur slides his hand along the side of your face and presses his fingers upon the nape of your neck, kissing you back like he really means it. (He really does.)

You pull back suddenly, breathless and reeling, swiping the back of your hand over your mouth. You're still held firm in his embrace, but the playfulness in his gaze has been replaced with an intensity that makes your knees weak all over again.

“What'd ya do that for?” he asks.

“Could ask you the same thing.”

“Well, you started it.”

“And you finished it.”

“Oh, I ain't finished with you, yet.”

“That a promise or a threat?” Your pulse is thumping wildly in your ears.

“Ya know, they got rooms upstairs for that!” Sadie shouts. There's a ripple of laughter across the table. Arthur's hand on your cheek feels like a brand, his arm about your waist an anchor. The rest of the room comes back to you in a woozy blur, and you look around, a little lovestruck and a whole lot drunk. Arthur's lips at your temple make your eyes flutter shut, and the room fades to black as tIt'weight of you slumps against him. He staggers only slightly, but holds you firm, chuckling softly.

“It's a promise,” he whispers.

You come to some hours later. Your mouth is dry as the desert, your head feels like lead, your skin broken out in a cold, uncomfortable sweat. At some point, it seems you were covered with a downy soft blanket, and the pillow at your head is much more fluffy than the makeshift one you made out of a bedroll at camp. At first, you think you're dreaming. Then, you wonder very briefly if you're back at your childhood home in Saint Denis. You almost call out to your mother when you hear a soft snore from the other side of your bed.

The room spins when you turn your head, and you rub your eyes until Arthur comes into focus. He's sprawled in an armchair a few feet away. His arms are crossed over his chest while his chin is tucked into his chest. Off to the side, you spy his boots; his big toe pokes through a hole in his sock and you smile at how vulnerable he looks.

“Arthur,” you whisper, shifting slightly as you pull the blanket up around your chin.

He grunts and lifts his head slowly. He frowns a little at first, but when he focuses on you lying there, so close he could reach out and kiss you again like he did last night, there's a slow, easy smile that spreads across his face.

“Hey there, party girl. You feeling alright?”

You could kick yourself for all the giggling you've done around him lately, but you can't help it. He brings out something giddy and downright foolish inside you, so you toss a pillow at him and bury your face in the sheets.

“Aw, come on now. I'm just messin’ with ya.” He leans forward and rubs your head affectionately. “I'd say you were feeling pretty good last night.”

It's in that moment a white-hot jolt of sheer panic shoots down your spine. Quickly, you check to make sure you're still wearing clothes. Aside from your breasts being a little lopsided in the confines of your bodice, you're relieved to find that your dress is still intact and– more importantly– on your body. You dare another peek at Arthur and notice that his shirt is unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest and he's discarded his vest somewhere, but he, too, is fully clothed. Thank the good Lord above.

You must've said that last part aloud, because Arthur laughs. “Don't worry, nothing happened. Though it weren't for lack of tryin’ on your part,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “Thought I was gonna have to lock you in here like some feral cat till you settled down.”

Oh. Oh Lord. You try to recall what happened that led you to this room, but all that comes to mind is a lot of loud conversation, some dancing, a spilled drink across Sadie's lap, and Arthur's hand on the side of your cheek. “Oh…”

Now you remember it in vivid detail.

“Didn't know you cared for me like that,” he says. It's earnest and tender, a few shades less intense than the kiss you now recall, the one where it felt like he wanted to eat you alive right there in the middle of the saloon. Now, he thumbs your cheek and looks at you so fondly you swear your heart jumps right up in your throat. “I mean, I'd been hoping. Wasn't sure you was looking for a romance.” He huffs a short sigh, frustrated with himself. “Aw, hell, what am I saying? ‘Course you weren't. You're just looking to survive, just like the rest of us, and here I–”

“Shut up,” you say, taking hold of his hand and tugging him closer. He resists until you pull even harder, watching the fire in your eyes blaze to life. “You talk too much, Yankee.”

“I ain't no damn–”

“Kiss me.”

He's over you in an instant; you're pressed flat against the bed, completely and totally at his mercy. This kiss feels different than the drunken one last night. It's sober and honest, if not a little hesitant, as if he's holding himself back from devouring you wholly. The warmth of his body against yours takes your breath away. Or maybe it's the way his tongue laves heavy into your mouth, unashamed of how badly he craves the taste of you. You grip his hair at the roots and tug him down to kiss him harder, lifting your upper body to meet him until he presses down, his chest flush with yours.

Things get heated quickly.

His mouth moves across your cheek, down your neck, and he groans against your skin, rutting his cock against your thigh. You fleetingly wish that he had managed to get you out of that dress before he presumably tucked you into bed and passed out in that chair, because there’s a whole lot of fabric between you and him that really pisses you off right now. Arthur must feel much the same, because he’s bunching your skirts up past your knees while you’re fumbling with his belt buckle, desperate to feel him against you, inside you. It’s clumsy and crazed, rushed and rough, but you manage somehow to shuck off every last bit of your clothes and his until you’re breathless and so, so eager beneath him.

“Need you now,” you whine. You feel insane. Dizzy and dehydrated, impossibly turned on, every nerve ending on fire when his callused hands grip the fat of your thighs and open you to him.

“Greedy little thing, ain’t ya?” One of his hands slips between your legs to find you wet and swollen. He presses the pad of his thumb against your clit and pushes a finger inside you; the sound you make nearly has him finishing there on the sheets, so he wastes no time in getting himself as close to you as humanly possible.

“Never wanted something so bad,” he murmurs into the dip of your shoulder. He wants all of you– all at once– wants to fuse his hands against your skin and sink himself into you so deep that it would be impossible to tell where he ends and you begin. The heat from his body takes away what little breath you have left, his mouth on each part of your body building the buzz in your chest until you feel like you might just burst open. You grabbed at each other like it was the first and last time you might have this opportunity, as if you wanted more than what the other of you was able to give.

Considering the kind of life you’ve both led so far, it’s a good possibility that you might never get to do this again.

“Give it to me,” you plead, opening yourself further to him, fingers wrapped firm around the base of his cock. “Please.”

Arthur Morgan is a man of incredible strength and self restraint, except when it comes to a woman like you.

There’s nothing gentle about the way he takes you. It’s primal, sweaty, filthy, rough. Arthur pushes as far inside you as he can go, then pushes further when you beg for more. He cups your knees with slick palms and presses you open as far as you can bend; you tug roughly at his hair and bite down on his shoulder when the pleasure builds to a blinding ferocity. The wooden bedframe knocks angrily against the wall with each thrust, but you can’t bring yourself to care if anyone hears. You can’t focus on anything beyond the feeling of him filling you with every stroke of his cock, of the taut, corded muscle in his back and shoulders as you grapple to hang on as tight as you can. Your orgasm hits your hard and fast, and he encourages you through it, taking his time to give you long, controlled strokes. It’s as pleasurable for him as it is for you. “‘Atta girl,” he rasps, lips moving against your ear. Your hand flies to your mouth to muffle your cries, but he pulls it away and threads his fingers with yours, pressing it onto the pillow. “I wanna hear it.”

Your moans are what drive him over the edge.

He buries his face against the side of your neck, panting heavily as he comes, driving into you so hard that you can almost feel the mattress beneath you begin to sag under the weight. You cradle his head in your hands and link your legs around his waist, boneless and languid in the aftermath of your own pleasure. When he moves, you move with him, riding out the waves together until you’re both too tired to move another muscle.

Neither of you speak for a while. He lies on his back with an arm around your shoulders while you curl against him, tuned into his heartbeat and swirling little patterns into the hair on his chest. It’s comforting to feel him next to you, to watch his chest rise and fall as he steadies his breathing, to soak up the warmth of his skin against yours.

You’re the first to break the silence. “Did everyone else go back to camp last night?”

Arthur nods slowly. “Something tells me they planned all this.”

“Planned it? You mean…” You lift your arm slowly and flick your wrist to acknowledge the room you’re laying in. “This?” You lift your chin and grin at him. “Or getting us together?”

“Room was paid for before I even had a chance to ask if they had one,” he explains. “Think it was Mrs. Adler.”

You vaguely recall her shouting something about a room after you kissed Arthur last night, and you shake your head. “You complaining?”

He turns to his side, draping an arm across your hip. “Me? Never.” You’re suddenly pressed beneath him once again; from the looks of it, you won’t be getting out of this bed anytime soon. “Specially when I’ve got you here to help me keep warm.”

[girlsloveupdates]

GL airing in 2025 (so far)

Only You (original plot)

The series mixes action and adventure, with Tawan, a bodyguard in charge of protecting Ira. The romance between them grows amid threats and dangerous situations, creating a plot full of action and emotion. (summarised by @lesbicine)

Watch the official teaser here.

The Dragon House (novel adapted)

The Dragon House tells the story of Fei Long, heiress to the feared Dragon Fire Gang, who needs to form an alliance with Wang Li Ming, the successor of the Jade Lion Gang. Together, the two face rivalries and tensions, and the chemistry between them promises to heat up the plot. (summarised by @lesbicine)

Watch the official teaser here.

Buy My Boss (novel adapted)

Recent graduate Manfan is facing numerous problems: her family's bankrupt; she's been dumped; everything's gone downhill, dragged down to the abyss. Wanting nothing more than some release, she hires an enchanting escort named Araya who reassures her that good things are coming. Who would have thought that later, when she takes on an important job, would she meet her boss Issara, and would come to learn that Araya and Issara are one and the same?

Watch the official teaser here.

Us (novel adapted)

Dokrak decides to take a gap year to find herself after finishing high school. She has a part-time job at a coworking space coffee shop. It's here that she crosses paths with dentistry student Pam who’s a regular at the café to hit the books. As she gets to know Pam, Dokrak develops a crush. When her brother, however, meets Pam, he falls for her at first sight. Kawi turns to Dokrak, asking her to play matchmaker. Because she loves him and wants to see him happy, Dokrak begins coaching him. As time goes on, however, she finds herself unable to ignore her growing feelings for Pam. Before she knows it, she's fully in love and Pam is Kawi's girlfriend.

Watch the official teaser here.

Reverse With Me (novel adapted)

Amid the intricate waltz of time, Kliaokhluen's life was spared seven years ago by a mysterious medical student Karan who possesses the power to manipulate time. Saved from the brink of death, Kliaokhluen found her life purpose, yet the only remnant of her savior was a name. Haunted by an unfulfilled connection, Kliaokhluen embarks on a relentless quest for Karan. She pursues a medical degree to follow in the footsteps of her enigmatic savior until fate takes an unexpected turn when, amidst the frantic urgency of the emergency room, their paths converge once more. Karan emerges, not as a fellow student but as a cold and distant cardiothoracic surgeon. Kliaokhluen, now a seasoned sixth-year medical student, struggles to bridge the gap, yearning for acknowledgment and understanding. As the lines between past and present blur, secrets unfold, revealing a complex accident from years ago and the icy demeanor of the woman who holds the key to Kliaokhluen's unanswered questions. Will Karan remain indifferent, refusing to recognize her unique ability to control time, or will their intertwined destinies finally unravel?

Watch the official trailer here.

Shades (original plot)

The series takes place in a chaotic all-girls school. The students, who are expected to be well-behaved, are rebellious and break the rules.

Watch the official teaser here.

No Romeo (original plot)

The series follows two friends. As their feelings evolve, financial and family issues come into play, bringing complication and depth to their relationship.

I’m Your Moon (novel adapted)

In the Buddhist year 2456 (1913), social rank and tradition bars the love between two princesses. Her Serene Highness Princess Phiangrawi and Her Serene Highness Princess Sasinapha are like sun and moon; they may never exist side by side. Nevertheless, their unfulfilled love and heart's wishes weave them a path back to each other. By the Buddhist year 2564 (2021), a new era has dawned when they fall back into one another's orbits. Katsakorn and Athitthan happen to meet and love blossoms in their hearts once more. The path to love, however, is never easy. The two must join hands to fight for it. Even without the veil of tradition barring them, the treacherous tale from the past still has a hold on their present.

Girl Rules (original plot)

The series follows the messy lives of six women. These women all follow different career paths, however are all still intricately linked with each other. Some are friends, ex-lovers, soon-to-be lovers, rivals or are in a situationship.

Watch the pilot trailer here.

Whale Store XOXO (novel adapted)

A repair girl meets the owner of a grocery store owner who needs help saving her business from going under, and they end up falling in love.

Watch the pilot trailer here.

Let’s Kick This Love (original plot)

The plot follows two main characters in an action-packed, adventure-filled story, with Senam in the cast, playing an important role in the plot. (summarised by @lesbicine)

Stuck With Me (novel adapted)

The plot revolves around Maitree and ManMek. One of them has the ability to stop time for 10 minutes. The plot mixes romance and mystery, with a good dose of tension, as the professional issues of both generate emotional complexity and the control of time can bring dramatic twists and turns. (summarised by @lesbicine)

Clairebell (novel adapted)

Belle Lalita was arrested on drug possession charges, even though the drugs weren’t hers. However, with the overwhelming evidence against her, her lawyer argued that there was no chance of winning the case, even if they fought it. Reluctantly, the young woman accepted her fate and stepped into prison, sentenced to fifteen months. However, life inside prison for Belle was far from peaceful as she had expected. She became a target of a powerful group within the prison, a group so influential that even the warden turned a blind eye to their actions due to mutual benefits. Belle had no other choice. Her last hope for survival lay with Claire, known as "Nineteen Scars," a notorious inmate whom no one dared approach. Amidst the storm of her life, while being confined and stripped of her freedom, Belle gradually began to feel the kindness hidden within Claire. Similarly, Claire started to learn how to empathize with others through Belle. "Love" slowly blossomed behind the towering prison walls, despite the increasing obstacles from both the powers within the prison and the outside world that had not been completely severed.

Somewhere, Somehow (novel adapted)

A hilarious and heartbreaking love story about a talented female engineer and her beautiful, fierce, and brutal female vice president that will make you smile, laugh, and cry with it.

[hyukascampfire]

𝑯EART 𝑊ORM ⸺ hueningkai ℘˒´ˎ˗

  ⨾𓍢ִ໋ ˒˒ 𝚑𝔢art𝚠𝔬rm

[𝑛]. a relationship or friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

⸺ listen to the playlist .ᐟ ‧˚

〝﹙ 📼 ﹚“I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”  ˛ ､､

wc ➛ 17.9k

𝔭airings childhood bsf!kai x reader (lowkey soulmates?) ⤷ ft. asshole!yeonjun x reader

𝒢 ‎; smut ˒ angst ˒ some fantasy

𝔴arnings angst, family issues, fingering, jealousy (i’m sorry i just love ts), yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex (they're stupid!), strength kink a lil bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking... i think that's all, lmk if i missed any

✎୭ ashlynn's note omg. this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! yeah. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted TSFAWC, but…. here you areee (^^;; this is not proofread, so if you see a mistake... give me a sec. i'll get to it. hehe

Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit slumped back into it. You suffer it though—you’ve gone too sluggish to move.  

You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.  

You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.  

When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.  

He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you? 

You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?” 

He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.” 

The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat. 

“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.

Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?

Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?” 

Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.” 

“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them. 

It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?” 

He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.  

Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.  

Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.” 

Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.  

Can’t things just stay like this? 

“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.  

“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.” 

An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.” 

He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.” 

Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.  

Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.” 

“I just... don’t know.” 

Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.” 

You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?” 

He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says. 

An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.” 

“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.  

A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.” 

His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.” 

Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”  

His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.  

His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you. 

“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.” 

Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.  

“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.  

“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? This girl’s heart just can’t take it!” 

Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.” 

“That’s how you sounded,” you say. “I only reacted accordingly.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands. 

As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.  

⚝⭒ 

Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.  

This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit. 

You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened. 

Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.  

This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home. 

“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was. 

When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.  

“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed. 

“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.  

You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him. 

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.” 

That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones. 

The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty. 

When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you. 

It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go. 

Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands. 

He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd. 

Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.  

But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready. 

“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him. 

You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.  

⚝⭒ 

Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.  

Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.  

So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever. 

Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs. 

“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?” 

With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.  

“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.” 

“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.” 

Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”  

There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.  

Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you. 

Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.  

He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.  

“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee. 

“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.  

His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin. 

“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.” 

Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.  

“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.  

He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?” 

Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?” 

Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up. 

But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.” 

“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again. 

It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.” 

Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?” 

It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—” 

He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.” 

That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.  

⚝⭒ 

Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.  

It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...” 

Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.  

The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you. 

You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.  

And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.” 

With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”  

Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.  

“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms. Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?” 

His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.” 

You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.  

The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?” 

He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...” 

Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?” 

Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.” 

That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.” 

“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”  

Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.  

Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway. 

“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”  

An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket.��

Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.” 

You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button. 

Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips. 

The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?” 

The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.” 

His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.” 

Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.  

“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?” 

Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.” 

“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.  

“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.  

It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.” 

“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.” 

But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face, though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?” 

His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.” 

“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches. 

“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.” 

“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.” 

The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.  

“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”  

“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up. 

Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.  

Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.  

Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though. 

⚝⭒ 

Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely. 

You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope. 

Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered. 

“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.  

With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on. 

“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?” 

Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.” 

Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.” 

Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest. 

He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.  

“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.  

“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.” 

Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?” 

“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.” 

The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.  

“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.  

Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.  

⚝⭒ 

You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable. 

Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this. 

Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you. 

Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it. 

“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting. 

His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?” 

No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.  

That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.  

You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.” 

His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands. 

Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?” 

Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him. 

And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this. 

“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.  

Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.  

String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.  

“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.  

Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.” 

In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.  

A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap. 

You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap. 

But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.  

Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.  

“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his. 

The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you. 

Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there. 

Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.  

Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs. 

You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you. 

He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need. 

“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?” 

And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that? 

Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.” 

Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.  

“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.” 

An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.  

He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?” 

The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.  

Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?” 

Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could he ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.  

Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.  

About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt. 

“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?” 

His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit. 

Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.” 

His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright. 

“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.  

“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind. 

Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up. 

“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure. 

And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.  

He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened. 

That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you. 

How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.  

⚝⭒ 

A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out. 

It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.  

Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.  

You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.  

And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt. 

“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”  

“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?” 

He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with. 

But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him. 

“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.” 

Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.” 

He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.” 

“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest. 

Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.” 

Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.” 

“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.” 

Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.” 

Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.” 

And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it. 

⚝⭒ 

The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it. 

But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls? 

You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel. 

Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place. 

Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here? 

You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know. 

It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness. 

“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes. 

The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo. 

“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt. 

He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring. 

You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that. 

“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.” 

Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder. 

Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.  

Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.” 

“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”  

“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.” 

“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says. 

That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.  

“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.  

⚝⭒ 

Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.  

For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.  

It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore. 

You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time. 

It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then. 

You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore. 

The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest. 

Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.  

You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them. 

So you do. 

Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow. 

A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer. 

You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you. 

“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.  

His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you. 

In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again. 

“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled. 

“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?” 

“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.” 

He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.” 

Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.” 

There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard? 

He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?” 

There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.” 

Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.” 

Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.” 

He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.” 

He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...” 

“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths. 

Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.” 

Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes. 

The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.” 

“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.” 

Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did. 

“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.” 

So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once. 

But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too. 

When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered. 

“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.” 

You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.  

“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.” 

⚝⭒ 

Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed. 

Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping. 

With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.  

“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.” 

His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?” 

It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.” 

His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.” 

And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks. 

Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.” 

When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.  

Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior. 

He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.” 

Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."  

He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy. 

And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.” 

He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you. 

Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.” 

Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.” 

Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?” 

Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage. 

The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.” 

Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine. 

The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.” 

You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound. 

“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?” 

“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.” 

He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.” 

You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought. 

The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half. 

Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.” 

A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up. 

And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it. 

Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest. 

The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again. 

“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life. 

“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.” 

You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam. 

Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core. 

“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—” 

Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?” 

His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.” 

A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there. 

When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?” 

Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat. 

Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”  

You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth. 

His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.  

Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck. 

Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there. 

“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.” 

The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai. 

He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him. 

“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.” 

Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.” 

The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten around him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?” 

Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!” 

“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?” 

With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples. 

It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt. 

He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair. 

Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever. 

“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips. 

You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.” 

Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says: 

Home. You are home. 

✎୭ ashlynn's note how do we feel about this pair? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.

﹙🏷️ ﹚@lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

[dazed-and-confused23]

Quickie

Summary: You, a wondering trader, and he, a ghoul bounty hunter, cross paths and decide to camp together. Nights in the wasteland were dangerous on your lonesome, after all.

Pairings: The Ghoul | Cooper Howard x Female Reader

Warnings! smut, face sitting, cowgirl position, coming inside

Fluffy part 2 -> HERE

Link to my other fallout works on ao3 -> HERE

Masterlist

The fire illuminates the harsh features of the ghoul across from the flickering flames. He is handsome by ghoul standards, and you feel an ache in your core you've not felt in a long time. You cock your head to the side and debate with yourself, before shrugging in a matter of a couple of seconds. You'd never been picky.

"Wanna fuck?"

Cooper jerks his head up from where he'd been studying the waves in the sand that the wind left behind. He locks eyes with you across the flame, gives you a once over, and then smirks deviously.

"Ain't ever been propositioned in such a way, but why not. You got any rad-away? I'd hate for such a pretty thing to end up lookin' like me," Cooper drawls and leans back on his hands, legs man spread and cocks his head at you when you nod.

"Come 'ere then, Darlin'."

You stand, reaching for the button of your pants and popping them open as you amble over to his side of the camp. You stand before him, and Cooper reaches out to hook his thumbs into your jeans, jerking them down and past your knees. The ghoul tugs one of your shoes off and tugs the jeans off one leg so that they are out of the way. You raise a brow when he stays clothed, confused for a beat before he pats his chest.

"Let's get you wet, Doll. Then you can ride me til the sun comes up."

Your cheek warm, but you aren't about to argue, and so drop to your knees, one leg one on either side of his head. His hands find your hips and guide you forward, and a hiss leaves your throat when his tongue meets your mound. Cooper eats you like this is his last meal, obscene wet noises coming from where he is buried between your thighs.

Cooper smirks when he sucks your clit into his mouth, sucking harshly and causing you to fall forward, hands hitting the sand and destroying the waves. The ghoul doubles his efforts, tongue swirling around your sticky folds and slurping down the mess you make, a groan of his own fading into the night when he tastes you.

Electric heat coils tight in your belly, and you are seconds away from having one of the best orgasms of your life when the ghoul lifts you by the waist and tugs you down. A shout breaks through when his cock drags across your folds and then slams home, his length deep and perfect inside of you.

"Heh, that's it, ride my cock, cowgirl," Cooper rumbles below you and grips your hips, bouncing you up and down, fucking up into your tight cunt every time he drags you back down. Your hands find his shoulders and dig in, holding on for dear life as the ghoul fucks you silly.

Coop drags a hand down from your hip and to your clit, pinching the pulsing bud between two fingers. You snarl silently, pleasure singing up your spine and making you curse colorfully. Cooper laughs under you, and knows you are close by the way your pussy flutters around his dick.

"Come on, baby. Come all over my cock," He snarls and you tip over the edge when he snaps his hips up, pulling you down and burning himself as deep as he could go. Coop rocks into you, and seconds later, you feel splashes of hot cum fill you up, so much that it begins to leak down your thighs.

You take big gulps of air to catch your breath, looking down at the Ghoul with a grin as you rock your hips back and forth.

"Think you can keep it up, old man?" You quip and are rewarded with Cooper rolling the two of you, the ghoul shifting to his knees and grinning meanly down at you.

"Well now, how about we find that out, Darlin'?"

[celestialowlbear]

🌿 ♡ Halsin NSFW Headcanon Drabble ♡ 🌿

Pairing: Halsin x Reader (GN)

WC: ~600

Warnings: 18+, NSFW. Smut. Mentions of marking, possessiveness, some fluffiness. Reader/Tav not described besides having soft skin.

A/N: I’ve been having major Halsin thots and had to get them on a page (hence the bulleted list). Enjoy, my fellow big Druid lovers. 😊

You are like nothing else he has ever experienced in his long life. 

He craves you, an insatiable hunger that burns his body from the inside out, and only you can tame that raging fire within him.

Your lips, your gentle touch, your sounds…

You are the rising sun, the soft glow of the moon, the peaceful breeze on a summer’s day, and life at the onset of spring.

Sometimes he wondered if he was a dead man walking, a specter of some sort, because being with you was heaven, or what he imagined it to be.

Halsin has to continuously control himself around you, at least while others are around.

When the camp was quiet and he had you all to himself, was when he could absolutely and utterly devour you, show you just how much he longs for you.

You let him lose control, wanting it, craving it yourself. 

You want to feel his fingers dig into your thighs, hear his louder and louder moans as you take more and more of him so, so willingly. 

When you are very much warmed up by his tongue and fingers, he finally fills you, sinking himself into you inch by inch, careful to never harm you and checking that it was never too much.

Halsin loves praising you, breathlessly comparing you to everything extraordinary and exquisite in nature and beyond.

His honeyed words spur you both on as his pace increases, the head of his cock caressing that spot so deep inside you it leaves you boneless and seeing galaxies.

You know he still holds back, the bear desperate to claw its way out, the primal urge raging under his skin as he pounds into you.

Halsin always wants your pleasure before his, making sure to get multiple orgasms out of you before he finishes. 

The way your body reacts, the way his name from your lips transforms from breathy whimpers to guttural moans of pure ecstasy is seared into his memories until the end of time, and that will still never be enough.

When you are finally spent, flushed and sweaty and thoroughly loved, is when Halsin takes what is his.

He loves flipping you on your stomach, gripping your thighs and pulling you up toward him, sinking into you with one thrust.

He mounts you, caging you in with his body, his bulging forearms on either side of your head, his lips at your ear, his broad chest pressing to your back.

You love it, feeling protected by him, encapsulated by everything that was Halsin.

The man, the bear, your lover, your mate. 

He is always able to get deeper in this angle, his fingers digging into the grass and dirt beneath you, his hot, growling breath on your neck as he finally loses his control.

Your soft body beneath him, the trust you have in him, the love in your eyes even as he fucks you relentlessly like a beast in heat, always brings him to his end, intense and blinding and all-consuming.

When you bask in the afterglow, Halsin carefully maneuvers you, checking you for any wounds he may have accidentally inflicted in the height of passion.

There’s usually a bruise or bite-mark or two, and you have to convince him it’s fine. 

You can tell he always feels bad after losing a bit of control, but part of him loves the fact that he’s able to see the marks on your body, reminding you and anyone else that you were his.

Then you lay in the grass, gazing up at the stars, your head on his chest.

He loves telling you stories about the constellations, and his deep timbre always lulls you into a peaceful sleep, with him following soon after, content in one another’s embrace.

-ˏˋ⋆ Thanks for reading, comments and reblogs are always appreciated! ⋆ˊˎ-

[urdreamydoodles]

X-Men x Fem!Reader (Part.1)

You leave them speechless with your bikini (Part.1)

You arrives at a private X-Men beach in a stunning bikini, instantly capturing the attention of your crush who struggle to maintain their composure

Characters: Logan Howlett, Remy LeBeau, Kurt Wagner, Scott Summers, Erik Lehnsherr, Warren Worthington III, Pietro Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff, Jean Grey & Ororo Munroe

Logan Howlett (Wolverine)

The sun beats down on the secluded stretch of beach where the X-Men have gathered for a rare day off, the sounds of the waves lapping gently at the shore. Logan stands near the bonfire pit, his sharp eyes watching as his teammates laugh and splash around in the water, but his mind isn’t really on their fun. He’s more focused on the horizon, trying to find peace in the familiar scent of the ocean, but that all changes when you step onto the sand.

He glances over, and there you are, walking across the beach in a bikini that leaves very little to the imagination. His breath hitches slightly at the sight of you, all sun-kissed skin and effortless beauty. The way the sunlight plays off your body makes his throat tighten, and suddenly, Logan has to clench his fists to keep his composure. His sharp senses can pick up on everything about you—your scent, the warmth radiating from your skin, and the way your soft laughter reaches his ears.

You’re walking toward the water, completely oblivious to the effect you’re having on him, and for a moment, Logan’s mind goes blank, his usual cool exterior crumbling as he watches you. He can feel the animal inside him stir, the raw attraction that he tries so hard to keep in check roaring to life. His heart races, and it’s taking everything in him not to let his eyes linger too long, not to show just how much he’s affected.

"Whoa, Logan, you might wanna close your mouth before you start droolin'," comes a teasing voice from beside him. Logan turns to see Bobby grinning like an idiot, clearly enjoying his discomfort.

Logan growls low in his throat, but it’s more embarrassed than angry. "Shut it, Drake," he mutters, trying to ignore the way his face feels like it’s on fire. He can feel the heat rising in his body, a mix of frustration and longing swirling inside him, but he can’t risk losing control. Not here, not now.

Bobby snickers and pats Logan on the shoulder. "She’s somethin’ else, huh? Can’t say I blame you. If I had your senses, I’d probably be in trouble too."

Logan clenches his jaw, his eyes flicking back to you for a brief moment before he forces himself to look away. "Ain’t your business, Drake," he grumbles, though his tone lacks its usual bite.

But Bobby’s words only make it harder for Logan to push the thoughts away. Every time he catches a glimpse of you out of the corner of his eye, his chest tightens. He wants to go over to you, wants to say something, but the tension between you two has been building for weeks, and he’s not sure how much longer he can hold back.

As the day wears on and the sun begins to set, Logan finds himself standing closer to you, the unspoken connection between you two almost tangible. You glance over at him, a soft smile on your lips, and for a moment, it feels like the rest of the world fades away. The temptation is too strong, the desire too overwhelming. He’s not sure how much longer he can pretend he’s not completely drawn to you.

Remy LeBeau (Gambit)

The day is hot and humid, the perfect weather for a beach trip. The X-Men had chosen a private stretch of sand, far away from prying eyes, and everyone was in high spirits. Remy, as usual, was the center of attention, making jokes and tossing cards into the air with casual grace. But when you step onto the sand in your bikini, his usual charm falters.

His red-on-black eyes widen slightly as he takes in the sight of you, walking toward the water with the sun hitting your skin just right. You look effortlessly stunning, the curves of your body accentuated by the swimsuit, and Remy can’t help but stare for a moment too long. He’s never been the kind of guy to be at a loss for words, but right now, he feels like someone just knocked the wind out of him.

"Mon dieu," he mutters under his breath, running a hand through his hair as he tries to regain his composure. But it’s no use—his heartbeat quickens, and his usual confidence wavers.

"Remy, you okay there?" Rogue’s voice breaks through his daze, and when he turns to look at her, she’s smirking, clearly enjoying the way he’s struggling to keep his cool. "Didn’t think I’d ever see you look so flustered."

Remy shoots her a playful glare, but there’s no hiding the flush creeping up his neck. "Ain’t flustered, cher," he says, but his voice lacks its usual smoothness.

Rogue chuckles, folding her arms across her chest. "Sure, sugar. Whatever you say."

Remy turns his attention back to you, watching as you laugh with some of the other X-Men, completely unaware of the effect you’re having on him. His chest tightens, and for the first time in a long time, Remy feels nervous. He’s always been confident, always known exactly what to say to charm someone, but with you, it’s different. There’s something real between you two, something that’s been simmering just below the surface for a while now, and it’s starting to drive him crazy.

The way your hips sway as you walk, the way your hair catches the sunlight—it’s all too much. He swallows hard, feeling the urge to go to you, to say something, to finally make a move. But he hesitates, unsure if now is the right time. The tension between you two is thick, and he’s not sure if pushing things further right now would be a good idea.

But then, you glance over at him, your eyes locking with his for just a second, and that’s all it takes. His heart skips a beat, and without thinking, he starts walking toward you, his usual swagger returning as he closes the distance between you two.

"Chère, y’ lookin’ like trouble today," he says, his voice low and smooth, though there’s a hint of nervous energy beneath the surface. He flashes you one of his trademark smiles, but this time, it’s a little more genuine, a little less playful.

You smile back, tilting your head slightly as you look up at him. "You sayin’ I’m too much for you to handle, Remy?"

He chuckles, his hand reaching out to gently brush a strand of hair away from your face. "Ain’t no such thing as too much when it comes to you, mon amour."

Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler)

The beach day was meant to be relaxing, a break from the chaos that usually surrounded the X-Men. Kurt had been enjoying himself, teleporting from spot to spot around the beach, sometimes splashing in the water with his teammates and other times just relaxing in the shade. But all of that changes the moment you step onto the sand in your bikini.

Kurt’s yellow eyes go wide, his tail twitching nervously as he watches you walk by, the sun making your skin glow in a way that makes his heart race. You look stunning, the curves of your body making it hard for him to focus on anything else. His usual calm demeanor falters, and he suddenly feels a little self-conscious. He’s always been drawn to you, but seeing you like this, so effortlessly beautiful, is almost too much for him.

He quickly teleports to the edge of the beach, trying to collect himself. His body is burning with a mix of desire and embarrassment, and he’s not sure how to handle it. Kurt has always been shy when it comes to you, his feelings never fully spoken aloud, but the tension between you has been building for a long time.

"Having a hard time there, Kurt?" Kitty’s voice comes from beside him, and he jumps slightly, his tail curling in surprise.

"Nein, nein," he stammers, though his cheeks are darkened with a deep blush. "I-I’m fine, really."

Kitty raises an eyebrow, a teasing smile on her face. "Uh-huh. Sure. It’s not like you’re staring or anything."

Kurt groans softly, running a hand through his hair. "I wasn’t… staring," he mutters, though he knows that’s not entirely true. He had been staring—he couldn’t help it. You were just so… beautiful. And the feelings he’d been trying to keep under control were getting harder to ignore.

Kitty pats him on the back. "Good luck, Kurt. Looks like you might need it," she says before walking away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Kurt takes a deep breath, his tail flicking nervously as he watches you from a distance. He wants to go to you, to say something, but he’s not sure how. The attraction between you two is undeniable, and he knows he can’t keep hiding how he feels forever.

Scott Summers (Cyclops)

The beach was calm, a private retreat for the X-Men to take a rare day off from their usual chaotic lives. Scott had found a spot under the shade of a large umbrella, sunglasses in place, enjoying the peaceful sound of the waves. He liked the quiet moments, where he could allow himself to relax. You, on the other hand, had been excited from the moment the trip was planned, eager to embrace the sun and sea.

Scott wasn’t prepared for what happened next. When you stepped out from behind one of the large rocks, wearing a bikini that hugged your curves in all the right places, his thoughts came to a screeching halt. He tried to maintain his usual calm, controlled demeanor, but it was difficult. His jaw tightened as he watched you move, the sunlight highlighting your figure as you walked toward the water. You hadn’t noticed his reaction yet, your carefree laughter blending with the sound of the ocean.

He adjusted his sunglasses, glad they were hiding the way his gaze followed you. A part of him wanted to stand up, walk over, and say something clever, but he could feel the heat rising in his body, his usual control slipping. Scott’s hands clenched into fists, trying to focus on anything else, but it was no use.

"Havin’ a little trouble, Summers?" Logan’s gruff voice came from beside him, and Scott immediately stiffened, his head turning sharply to the side.

Logan was smirking, arms crossed, clearly enjoying Scott’s discomfort. "Didn’t think you’d be the type to get rattled over a swimsuit."

Scott let out a slow breath, his jaw clenched. "I’m not rattled," he replied, trying to sound composed, though his voice was a little too tight. He glanced back at you, who was now wading into the water, your body shimmering under the sunlight.

"Right," Logan said, his smirk widening. "Just… y’know, if you’re havin’ trouble keepin’ your cool, maybe it’s time you make a move before someone else does."

Scott didn’t respond, but Logan’s words stuck with him. The tension between you two had been building for months, and Scott knew it. He’d kept his distance, not wanting to complicate things, but seeing you now, so carefree and beautiful, was making it harder and harder to stay composed. He couldn’t help but feel protective, the thought of anyone else stepping in to win your affections gnawing at him.

As you swam further out into the water, Scott stood up from his spot under the umbrella, his heart racing as he made a decision. It was time to stop holding back.

Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto)

The beach wasn’t Erik’s usual scene. He preferred the cold steel of his lair or the sharp angles of his machines, but at the insistence of Charles and the others, he had agreed to join this rare moment of relaxation. He stood off to the side, watching the waves crash against the shore with a distant expression, his mind far from the present.

That is, until you emerged from one of the beach cabanas, dressed in a bikini that immediately drew his attention. Erik’s breath caught in his throat as he watched you walk across the sand, your beauty impossible to ignore. The way you carried yourself, the way the sunlight seemed to embrace you—it was enough to stir something deep within him, something primal.

You weren’t aware of his reaction, of the way his gaze followed you with an intensity he rarely allowed himself to feel. Erik prided himself on his control, on his ability to maintain a façade of indifference, but this… you… were making that increasingly difficult. His hand clenched at his side as he fought to maintain his composure, the magnetic energy around him humming softly in response to his heightened emotions.

"Quite the sight, isn’t she?" Charles’ voice broke through Erik’s thoughts, the familiar, calm tone both irritating and grounding at the same time.

Erik didn’t bother turning to look at his old friend, his eyes still locked on you as you dipped your toes into the water. "She always is," he replied, his voice lower than usual, filled with a tension that Charles undoubtedly noticed.

Charles chuckled softly, sensing the depth of Erik’s feelings. "You know, it wouldn’t hurt to let her know what she means to you."

Erik’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t a man prone to sentimentality, and yet, when it came to you, his defenses always seemed to waver. There had been an undeniable connection between you two for a long time, a mutual understanding of the world’s cruelty and beauty. But Erik had always hesitated to take that step, knowing the dangers that came with loving someone as fiercely as he wanted to love you.

"Sentiment is a weakness, Charles," Erik muttered, though even he didn’t fully believe it this time.

Charles shook his head, a small smile on his face. "Or perhaps, it’s the greatest strength of all."

As you turned and smiled in Erik’s direction, his heart skipped a beat. Maybe Charles was right. Maybe it was time to stop pretending that he didn’t feel anything. He wouldn’t allow the world to take this from him—not this time.

Warren Worthington III (Angel)

The sun was high in the sky, casting golden rays across the secluded beach where Warren had flown the X-Men for a much-needed break. With his wings stretched wide, Warren lounged on the soft sand, the sound of the waves providing a perfect backdrop to the otherwise peaceful day. He was the picture of relaxation, at least on the surface.

That all changed the moment you walked out of the changing cabana in your bikini.

His heart nearly stopped in his chest as he saw you, your skin glowing under the sunlight, your every movement graceful and captivating. Warren had always found you beautiful, but something about seeing you like this, so free and confident, stirred something deep within him. He tried to play it cool, lounging back as though he hadn’t just been struck dumb by the sight of you, but it was no use. His wings twitched, betraying his nervousness, and he felt his pulse quicken as you strolled toward the water.

Bobby, who had been building a sandcastle nearby, looked up at Warren with a wide grin. "Dude, you’re staring."

Warren blinked, snapping his gaze away from you as a flush crept up his neck. "I’m not staring," he said, though his voice didn’t quite carry the usual confidence.

Bobby snickered, leaning back on his hands. "Yeah, sure. Your wings are practically shaking, man."

Warren shot him a look, folding his wings a little tighter against his back in an attempt to regain control. "Mind your own business, Bobby," he muttered, though his eyes flicked back to you as you splashed playfully in the water, your laughter carrying on the breeze.

The truth was, Warren was having a hard time keeping his composure. The tension between you two had always been there, an unspoken attraction that neither of you had fully addressed, but seeing you like this, so effortlessly stunning, was making it impossible for him to ignore. His usual smooth charm faltered, and for the first time in a long while, Warren felt… vulnerable.

He wanted to go to you, to say something clever and sweep you off your feet the way he always imagined, but instead, he stayed rooted in place, unsure of how to approach the situation. His wings twitched again, and Bobby’s teasing laughter only made it worse.

"Come on, man," Bobby said, still grinning. "You’ve got wings. Just fly over there and make a move already."

Warren rolled his eyes but couldn’t deny the urge growing inside him. He wasn’t used to feeling this uncertain, but for you… it might be worth the risk. Standing up, he brushed the sand off his shorts, his wings unfolding as he glanced in your direction again. Maybe today was the day he’d finally stop hiding how he felt.

Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver)

The beach was a blur of activity, mostly thanks to Pietro zipping around the shore, never able to sit still for more than a moment. You were used to his constant energy by now, but today, his focus seemed a little... off. It wasn’t until you stepped out of the changing room, wearing your new bikini, that you realized why.

Pietro froze mid-sprint, which was a rare occurrence for him. His eyes widened as they took you in, the gentle breeze tugging at your hair, the sunlight casting a warm glow on your skin. You smiled at him, completely unaware of the way his heart was practically racing even faster than usual. He cleared his throat, trying to play it cool, but his usual cocky smirk faltered, replaced by a look of genuine surprise and awe.

"Wow," he muttered, more to himself than to you. "That’s... I mean... you look—"

Before he could finish, a sharp whistle came from nearby. You didn’t notice, but Pietro did. Logan, leaning against one of the palm trees, raised an eyebrow at the speedster. "You gonna stand there gawking all day or actually do something about it, kid?"

Pietro shot Logan a glare, his usual confidence slowly seeping back into place. "Mind your business, old man," he grumbled, though he could feel the tips of his ears burning. Logan chuckled, clearly enjoying the younger mutant's discomfort.

Pietro’s gaze returned to you as you walked toward the shoreline, blissfully unaware of the exchange. He could feel his pulse quicken as he watched you, his usual bravado faltering just a bit. He knew he should make a move, say something, anything to let you know how he felt, but for the first time in a long time, he found himself at a loss for words.

With a deep breath, he decided to make his move—faster than you could blink, he was at your side, the usual teasing grin back on his face. "You know," he said, his voice low enough for only you to hear, "you’re making it really hard for me to concentrate on anything else right now."

Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch)

Wanda Maximoff had always been intense, her emotions simmering just beneath the surface, controlled but always present. You knew that better than anyone, and today, as you stepped out onto the beach, you could feel that intensity directed at you in a way that sent shivers down your spine.

The beach was quiet, only a few of the X-Men scattered across the sand, but the moment Wanda saw you in that bikini, it was like the world fell away. Her eyes darkened, her lips parting slightly as she watched you walk toward the shore. You could feel her gaze on you, and it wasn’t just casual. It was hungry, a heat that made your skin prickle with awareness.

You waded into the water, letting the cool waves wash over your ankles, and when you turned back to look at her, you caught the moment she tore her eyes away, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. Wanda wasn’t one to lose control easily, but around you, it seemed she couldn’t help it.

"You’re staring," Pietro’s voice cut through the quiet, and you saw him lounging nearby, his usual smirk plastered on his face. "Not very subtle, sis."

Wanda shot him a glare that could have melted metal, but it didn’t stop him from chuckling. "Shut up, Pietro," she hissed, but the damage was done. Her composure was shaken, and now, she knew you had noticed.

Wanda stood up, brushing sand from her legs as she made her way toward you, her steps purposeful, but you could see the slight hesitation in her eyes. She was powerful, confident, but when it came to you, she seemed almost unsure, as if she wasn’t entirely certain how to handle the way she felt.

"You okay?" you asked, a small smile playing on your lips as she stopped beside you, her eyes locking onto yours.

"Fine," she replied quickly, too quickly, and you raised an eyebrow.

"Wanda..." You took a step closer, your voice soft. "You don’t have to hide how you feel."

Her breath hitched, and for a moment, the tension between you was thick, almost suffocating. Wanda's fingers brushed against yours, and the simple touch sent a spark through you both. She didn’t say anything, but the look in her eyes said everything. You could see the desire, the need she had been trying to keep under control, and you knew it wouldn’t be long before she gave in.

Jean Grey (Phoenix)

The beach was serene, with the waves gently lapping at the shore and the soft hum of the wind weaving through the trees. Jean was sitting on a towel, a relaxed smile on her face as she watched the others enjoy the rare day off. She hadn’t expected you to take her breath away, but that’s exactly what happened when you strolled down the sand in your bikini.

Jean’s eyes followed your every movement, her usually composed demeanor shaken for just a moment. You were stunning, the sun reflecting off your skin in a way that made her heart skip a beat. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, though she tried to keep her expression neutral.

As you waded into the shallow water, Jean’s thoughts raced, and she struggled to maintain her usual control. The tension between the two of you had been growing for some time now, an unspoken attraction that was always there, simmering beneath the surface. She had always tried to keep her feelings in check, worried about the complications that might arise if she let them show. But now, seeing you like this, it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the pull.

"She’s beautiful, isn’t she?" Scott’s voice broke through Jean’s thoughts, and she blinked, turning to look at him. He wasn’t teasing, just observant, and Jean felt a pang of jealousy twist in her chest. She quickly pushed it down, forcing a smile.

"She is," Jean replied softly, her eyes drifting back to you as you laughed, splashing in the water. "But it’s more than that. She just... has this energy."

Scott nodded, though he didn’t say anything more, leaving Jean alone with her thoughts. As you turned back to glance at her, your smile radiant, Jean felt her resolve begin to crack. Maybe it was time to stop hiding behind her fears and take a chance on what she truly wanted.

Ororo Munroe (Storm)

The air around the beach was warm, with just the right hint of a breeze to keep things comfortable. Ororo had spent the morning making sure the weather was perfect for the outing, her powers ensuring a clear, sunny sky without a cloud in sight. She was standing near the water’s edge, her feet sinking into the sand, enjoying the peace of the day when she saw you.

The way the sunlight kissed your skin as you stepped onto the beach in a bikini left Ororo momentarily speechless. She had always known you were beautiful, but seeing you like this, so effortlessly confident and radiant, stirred something deep within her. She wasn’t the type to be easily rattled, always so in control of herself and her surroundings, but for a split second, she felt a crack in her calm exterior.

Your laughter reached her ears as you splashed into the water, completely unaware of the way Ororo’s gaze lingered on you. She could feel the tension building in her chest, a mixture of admiration and desire, though she maintained her poised stance. Ororo prided herself on her ability to remain level-headed, but the sight of you was testing that self-control.

"You okay, ‘Ro?" Rogue’s voice came from behind her, and Ororo turned, her serene expression back in place.

"Yes," she replied with a small smile, though her thoughts were still focused on you. Rogue followed her gaze and raised an eyebrow, clearly amused.

"Looks like someone’s got you a little distracted," Rogue teased lightly, nudging Ororo’s arm.

Ororo’s lips twitched into a soft smile, but she didn’t deny it. The truth was, she had been distracted by you for some time now, the connection between the two of you growing stronger with each passing day. She had always kept her feelings close to her chest, not wanting to let them cloud her judgment, but seeing you here now, so carefree and beautiful, made it harder to maintain her usual restraint.

As you waded further into the water, Ororo took a deep breath, her eyes softening. Maybe it was time to let go of the careful distance she had been keeping.

[sematarygirls]

        COWBOY!RAFE x FEM!READER

WARNINGS .ᐟ oral (m! receiving), reader is kinda sheltered, mommy issues, parental death, running away from home, getting picked up by a handsome stranger

NOTES .ᐟ this was pretty fun to write tbh. i started this like a year ago and recently found it in my drafts, which led me here, so i hope yall enjoy it as much as i do.

Your worn cowboy boots thudded against the asphalt as you walked down the deserted country road, dragging your suitcase along. The summer sun shone brightly overhead, heating the atmosphere and causing a thin layer of sweat to coat your body. Your daddy's old cowboy hat sat atop your head, shielding your face from the sun's unrelenting, unforgiving rays. A loose white sundress swished softly with every step you took, slowly making your way farther and farther from your old life.

The death of your beloved father sent your already troubled mother into a state of disrepair. You watched as the mother that had sung you soft lullabies and stayed with you until you fell asleep transformed into someone you didn't recognize.

Most nights, you weren't sure where she was or if she was even alive until she inevitably came stumbling home in a drunken stupor through the front door of your little farmhouse in bumfuck nowhere, the screen door slamming behind her and startling you awake.

On the rare occasion that you saw her, she seemed to look through you. Her eyes were sunken with dark circles underneath them that greatly contrasted how bright and full of life they once had been. She was a shell of the woman she once was.

You tried your best to be there for her, but eventually, you realized that she wasn't going to change. She didn't want to get better, and you couldn't force her to.

On your eighteenth birthday, you made a difficult decision. You had been weighing it for a long time, wondering if you were doing the right thing. You wondered if your dad would be disappointed in you, if he would've wanted you to stay, but eventually, you knew that you had to do what was best for you.

You couldn't handle the constant worrying, only to be greeted with a cold shoulder the few times you did see your mother. You felt like you'd never have a life of your own in that house, suffocated by the memories of the happy family that once lived within the walls. You needed to start fresh—to give yourself the opportunity to be something more than a small town drunk like your mom.

You were leaving, and you were never coming back.

And for the first time in a long time, you had something to look forward to. You had a future that didn't revolve around taking care of someone else. You had hope that you could find something better out there, something more than this lonely life you'd grown so accustomed to.

You grabbed an old suitcase from the basement and threw it onto your bed. Opening it, your heart ached as you saw your name written in black sharpie on the light brown fabric. It was written in your father's handwriting, little doodles of stars and hearts surrounding it. For a moment, you had second thoughts about your decision, but ultimately, you pushed them away. you knew he would've wanted you to live a life worth something. He wouldn't want you to be confined to this house, worrying whether your mother would make it home every night.

You packed an assortment of clothing and little items that held sentimental value to you. You knew you had to choose carefully because there was only so much you could bring. Rifling around in your closet, you discovered your father's old cowboy hat. You stuffed it into the way back the day of his funeral, never wanting to see it again, but now, you knew you needed it more than ever.

It served as a reminder of home—not the house you were running away from, but the home that had once been filled with life and love. It reminded you of cold winter nights spent huddled by the fire and spooky stories told during thunderstorms. It reminded you of dancing in the kitchen while the three of you prepared dinner and listening to the rock station with a popsicle in hand as you curiously watched your dad work on his truck. It reminded you of a time before forehead kisses and goodnight stories were replaced by slamming screen doors and absent mothers.

You placed the hat atop your packed suitcase and went to sleep, your plan for tomorrow already set in motion. You woke up before your mother, quickly getting dressed and gathering your things before creeping into the living room. She was nowhere to be seen, probably having actually made it to her bedroom that night, but her purse was laying on the kitchen counter, a couple items spilling out from the way she had haphazardly thrown it when she got home.

Careful to not make any noise, you rummaged through, looking for her wallet. You didn't expect to find much, but you would take what you could get. After stuffing the cash you could find into your bra, so in the event that your suitcase was stolen, you'd still have something to your name, you took one last look around. You admired the height markings your father had made on the doorway, and the hole in the wall that he always swore he'd get around to fixing after bringing in a new couch went terribly wrong. A sad smile graced your face as you said goodbye to the place that had been your only home for as long as you'd known, turning the page and getting ready to embark on your journey to a new life.

Walking through the front door with your suitcase trailing behind you was like a weight had suddenly been lifted from your shoulders. For the first time in a long time, you didn't know what would happen next, and it frightened you in a way that was exhilarating.

The sound of a car approaching made you jump a little, the sound cutting through the quiet atmosphere that had previously only been filled with the light swishing of your dress, the sound of your suitcase wheels and boots on the asphalt, and the occasional chirp of birds. It was rare to encounter people on the deserted road you were traveling down since the area you were in was secluded and a good few miles from any houses or towns, so you knew to be cautious.

You turned your head, tilting the cowboy hat up to get a better look at the approaching vehicle and it's driver. It was an old grey-blue pickup truck with a white roof, a thin layer of dirt and grime built up along the exterior. You squinted your eyes to try and get a better look at the driver as they got closer, but the glare from the sun on the windshield hindered your view.

Hesitantly, you looked away from the truck, your gaze returning forward as you waited for it to pass, but to your surprise, it didn't. You clutched your suitcase tighter as the man pulled up beside you, not stopping completely, just rolling along to keep pace with you.

When the driver rolled the window down, you turned your head to face him, continuing to walk as you studied his face. He was a handsome man; you couldn't deny that. He had bright blue eyes that shone with intrigue, his pale pink lips pulled up into a smirk that had you torn between being deeply unsettled and utterly smitten for him. His brown hair was buzzed short, and he had a bit of stubble on his chiseled jawline along with a mustache on his upper lip—something you usually wouldn't have been privy to, but he made it look effortlessly good.

"What's a pretty little thing like yourself doing out here all alone?" He asked with the faintest hint of a southern drawl, looking you up and down. It should have disgusted you—a random man hitting on you in the middle of nowhere—but for some reason, it made butterflies erupt in your stomach.

You debated on what to say. At first, you were gonna say that your mama always told you not to talk to strangers, but that sounded so childish that you immediately pushed it away. You weren't really great at talking to people. You'd often spent more time alone than with others. You simply shrugged, deciding against saying anything at all and making yourself sound foolish.

His gaze darted to your suitcase, finding himself intrigued and undeterred by your lack of an answer. "Where you headed, sweetheart?" He asked, continuing to drive beside you.

Truthfully, you didn't have a destination. You were just sorta planning to go wherever the wind took you, which admittedly, wasn't a very solid plan. "Anywhere but here," you said cryptically. It sounded a bit cheesy, but it was true. You just wanted to put as much distance between yourself and your childhood home as you possibly could.

His smirk widened into a full-blown grin as he leaned across the seat to throw open the passenger door. "Well, climb on in then. I can take you wherever you'd like to go," he offered, eyes glinting mischievously.

You didn't notice this, however. You weren't all that great at reading people due to your sheltered upbringing. You had gone to school, but it was a small one that you'd dropped out of at sixteen to try and take care of your mother.

You looked over at him, your eyes filled with hesitance as you nervously chewed your lip. You may have been a little naive, but you weren't completely stupid. You knew how unsafe it could be to catch a ride from a stranger. "That's awful kind of you, but... well, I don't think I should."

His demeanor didn't falter, an air of confidence surrounding him—like he was used to getting what he wanted, even if it took a little convincing. "I get it, darlin'," he nodded understandingly. "A pretty thing like you can't be too careful nowadays, but I promise you I ain't gonna hurt ya. Can't say the same for others, though."

Your eyes widened a bit at his words, and for the first time, you seemed to be able to look past your rose-colored glasses. You were a young woman walking alone in the middle of nowhere—an easy and vulnerable target to anyone that could have wanted to hurt you.

"Look, I ain't tryna scare ya," he said, seeming to notice the fear that his words had ignited within you. "But... well, there's a whole lotta bad people out here, sweetheart. I'd hate to go home and find that pretty face on the news or somethin'."

"Well, how do I know that you ain't some serial killer?" You asked, quirking an eyebrow. You stopped walking to face him fully, to which he abruptly stepped on the breaks.

"Serial killers don't usually offer their victim's rides now do they?" He grinned wolfishly, leaning back and draping his arm over the passenger's seat. "I reckon they usually take by force, but I s'pose I wouldn't know since I ain't one."

A frown tugged at your lips, your eyebrows furrowing in thought for a moment. "I guess you're right..." You didn't really know much about serial killers either if you were being honest. Well, not enough to know how they rounded up their victims anyway.

He grinned wider, as if he could tell that you were doubting yourself, and he found it amusing. "So, how 'bout it then? You gonna get in?"

"Promise you ain't gonna like kidnap me or somethin'?" You asked softly, apparently trusting that he would tell the truth.

His grin softened into a warm smile, and he chuckled lowly as he brought his free hand up to place over his chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

You nodded, seeming to accept this as an accurate description of his intentions or rather, lack thereof. You picked up your suitcase and put it into his truck bed, all the while he watched you intently, his gaze lingering on the tantalizing view of thigh that your dress provided.

You climbed into the passenger's seat, pulling the cowboy hat off your head and placing it on the dash before closing the door and buckling yourself in. You weren't really sure where this handsome stranger was going to take you, and that's when it dawned on you that you had gotten into his car without even knowing his name.

You looked over at him, finding him already staring intently at you. You offered a shy smile, your fingers playing with the hem of your dress as you softly told him your name.

"Pleasure to meet you," he said, his deep southern drawl causing your name to roll off his tongue with a warmth akin to the way the summer sun had heated your skin. He put the truck in gear, the engine purring as he continued down the desolate highway. "Name's Rafe," he introduced himself, his gaze darting to you.

"The pleasure's all mine Mr. Rafe," you said politely. The man was not that much older than you—maybe two or three years—and thus was probably nowhere near old enough to regard as Mr, but you were taught that it was respectful to do so.

He grinned at the title, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel. "Just Rafe's fine, darlin'," he insisted, casting you a sideways glance, his gaze lingering on your lips as you smiled shyly.

"Okay," you nodded, looking down at your lap as you fiddled with your dress. Rafe was awfully handsome, the hottest guy you'd ever seen by a longshot—not that that was a huge feat—and you found yourself extremely nervous with the fact that you were alone with him.

"So, what are you doin' out here all alone?" He asked, casting you a questioning glance as he took his eyes off the road briefly. "You didn't say earlier." His gaze fell to your lap, watching as your fingertips brushed the edge of your dress repeatedly, the fabric having ridden up due to your sitting position and revealed even more of your soft looking thighs.

You shrugged in response, just as you had earlier. You didn't really know how to explain your situation, and you hardly wanted to trauma dump on someone you barely knew, especially when you'd be in such close quarters for God knows how long. "I'm just... travelin'."

"Travelin'?" He echoed curiously, quirking an eyebrow. His grip tightened on the steering wheel as his gaze dropped to your thighs once more, the fabric of your dress inching up even more as you absentmindedly fiddled with it. He knew he shouldve been focused on the road and not his pretty passenger, but you were making it hard—in more ways than one. "What's got you on the road by yourself?"

"It's a long story," you mumbled, looking up and casting your gaze out the window, watching the scenery blur by as he did 80 on the interstate.

He hummed, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel rhythmically as he looked back at the road. "You runnin' from somethin', sugar?" He asked curiously, your evasive nature leading him to believe that there was more to the story.

You rubbed your sweaty palms on your dress, something your father would have scolded for being unladylike. Your gaze darted to the cowboy hat on the dash as you spoke. "More like runnin' toward somethin'."

"Toward?" He asked curiously. "So, where you headed then?" He prompted, his fingers stilling their movements as he looked over at you again, trying to read your expression.

A smile pulled at your lips as you turned to him, your eyes locking for a moment. "It's more of a... metaphorical somethin'."

His eyebrows raised, intrigued by your cryptic response. Everything about you seemed to intrigue him. You were one big mystery wrapped up in just about the prettiest package he'd ever seen. "Metaphorical, huh?"

"Yknow, you got this tendency to just repeat what I say back to me in question form," you grinned, your tone slightly teasing as you settled more comfortably into conversation with the man. You examined his side profile carefully as he turned back to the road.

"And you got a tendency to talk in circles," he replied with a grin of his own, his eyes flicking back to you briefly before returning to the road. He liked looking at you, even if for a brief moment.

You thought for a moment, deciding that perhaps Rafe deserved a bit of an explanation, given that he was nice enough to give you a ride and all. "I ain't going nowhere specific," you shrugged, your eyes finding the cowboy hat again. "Just... looking for somethin' bigger, somethin' better, I s'pose."

"Bigger and better than what?" He prompted, casting another sideways glance at you. His gaze lingered on the way your lips parted as you spoke, feeling himself twitch in his jeans. He was a man that liked understanding things. He didn't like being on the outside looking in. He wanted to know everything. He was curious; it was in his nature.

"The life I had before," you said, your tone growing solemn, gaze never wavering from the worn cowboy hat as memories flashed before you.

He noted your shift in demeanor and the way you were staring at the hat like you were willing it to turn into something. "What's the deal with that?" He asked, feeling like he needed to know.

"It was my daddy's old hat," you smiled reverently. "He um- he died a couple years back," you explained, clearing your throat and tearing your gaze away to look out the window.

"I'm sorry, sugar," he said sympathetically. He wasn't the best at comforting people, but he wanted to try. He took one hand off the wheel, placing it atop one of yours on your lap, and as much as it was not the time, he couldn't help the way his dick hardened further at the feeling of your soft skin under his rough, calloused hand.

"'s fine," you felt your cheeks warm at the feeling of his large, warm hand on yours. Despite yourself and the topic of conversation, butterflies erupted in your stomach.

He left his hand there, feeling a bit like he was taking advantage of the situation but unable to pull himself away. He liked the way your lips parted and your eyes widened ever so slightly when he touched you. "So you're both runnin' toward and away from somethin' then?"

"Yeah, I s'pose," you nodded. He reluctantly pulled his hand back to the steering wheel, readjusting himself in his seat to find a more comfortable position for his hard-on. You found yourself missing his touch, his skin leaving a lingering sensation on yours.

He was hyper-aware of every little movement and sound you made. The way you shifted in your seat, the little hitch in your breath, the way your thighs pressed together. He swallowed thickly, trying to focus on the road, his jaw clenching as he tried to get a handle on his body's reaction to you.

"So, what about you?" You prompted, glancing over at him. You had told him a bit about yourself and thought it only fair you got some information in return.

"Me?" He asked, his voice a bit gruff. He cleared his throat, trying not to let his gaze wander to the way your dress's neckline dipped, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of your chest. "Well, I'm headin' home. I've been away for a couple months, workin' on a ranch up north." He said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he continued to drive.

You hummed in acknowledgement. "Did you like it?" You asked awkwardly, not really knowing what else to say. You weren't awfully good at carrying conversations.

"It was alright. Good money, good people, but it ain't home." He said with a small shrug. "'Sides, I got a lot of responsibilities back home. Family 'n all that. Couldn't stay away forever."

You nodded, listening to him explain. You were a little intrigued. You'd never been anywhere outside your home town. You yearned to travel, to see what the world—or at very least the country—had to offer beyond small town gossip and local church services.

He glanced at you, wondering what was going on inside that pretty little head of yours. He wanted to know more about you, wanted to know everything. He wanted to know what you were planning to do now, why you'd actually run from home, what you tasted like, how you'd sound moaning his name, how tight you'd be wrapped around him.

You pondered your next steps during this beat of comfortable silence. You were starving, so food seemed like it needed to be the first stop on this little roadtrip of yours. Then, you figured you'd find a bus stop and hop on the first bus outta town, letting fate decide where to take you.

As you sat there lost in thought, he was watching you intently between bouts of watching the road. He noticed the way your gaze would occasionally drift out the window, the way your hands would fidget with the hem of your dress, the way your lips would purse slightly as you seemed to be debating something in your head.

"You can just drop me at the next town," you finally spoke up, turning to look back at him as you seemed to have made up your mind. A semblance of a plan was better than no plan at all. Besides, what would this new life be without a little of the unknown. You had no idea when you left that morning that you'd run into a handsome cowboy, and that had turned out to be incredibly thrilling for you.

He frowned at the prospect of you leaving him so soon. You'd only just met, but he found himself wanting to spend more time with you. "The next town?" He repeated, echoing your words back to you again like he'd done before. "And, what's the plan when you get there, huh, sweetheart?"

"Gonna catch a bus," you shrugged noncommittally. "Go wherever the wind takes me."

He let out a short, humorless laugh, clearly expressing his disproval for your so-called plan. "You ain't never been nowhere before, have you?" He asked, already knowing the answer. You seemed so innocent, so naive. He couldn't just let you wander off alone, could he?

"Well... no," a small frown tugged at your lips. "But that's kinda the whole point of goin' where the wind takes me," you said, crossing your arms over your chest.

He shook his head, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. "That's a fool-proof way to end up in some real trouble, you know. A pretty little thing like yourself, wanderin' 'round alone. You could end up anywhere, with anyone."

"Well, thus far, I've ended up here, with you," you pointed out with a small smile. "So, I'd say my plan is workin' pretty well so far."

"That's only 'cause I'm a gentleman," he said, his eyes flicking briefly to yours. You couldn't help but wonder what if he wasn't such a gentleman. You weren't completely naive. You knew about sex and had always wondered what it was like, and now, with this incredibly sexy man before you, you found your thoughts particularly impure.

He watched the way your tongue flicked out to wet your lips, the way your breathing picked up ever so slightly. He could practically see the wheels turning in that head of yours. "What're you thinkin' 'bout, sugar?"

"Oh, um, nothin'," you said softly, your body heating up as his voice, so low and husky—definitely not helping your situation—tore you from your thoughts.

"Nothin', huh?" He drawled, not believing you for a second. He had been with enough women to know that look on your face, and he was pretty sure he had a good idea of where your thoughts were headed.

You bit your lip nervously. You knew he had at least some attraction to you because you had eyes. You could see the bulge in his jeans but had done everything you could to resist staring at it, despite the growing urge to reach out and touch it. You wanted to see him, feel him, maybe even taste him, but you were completely out of your depth here.

"You're thinkin' 'bout somethin' that's makin' you bite your lip and press them pretty little thighs together," he said, his voice low and sultry. "So, why don't you just tell me what it is, hmm?"

You looked over at him, your eyes widened a bit at his forward words, also at the fact that he had noticed. Though, it wasn't exactly like you were being discrete. "Wh- I- well, it's not very ladylike," you replied sheepishly.

"Sugar, there ain't nothin' ladylike 'bout the way I'm feelin' right now either," he said, his hand moving from the steering wheel to rest high up on your thigh.

You couldn't help but laugh at his choice of words, looking up at him through your lashes as you tried to find the words. "I don't know how to um- say it." You said, your heart beating nervously in your chest at a speed that doctors would probably find concerning.

"Then show me," he encouraged, his hand slowly inching higher up on your thigh. "You can do that, can't you? Show me what you were thinkin' about?"

You hesitated before nodding. You couldn't believe you were about to give a man you'd just met head for the first time in your life, but your body was moving quicker than your brain, unbuckling your seatbelt. You pulled your legs onto the seat underneath you, kneeling on the worn leather with your body facing him. You looked at him for confirmation before you made another move.

"Atta girl," he praised, his voice husky with desire. His hand moved to the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair encouragingly. "Go on, sugar. Show me what that pretty mouth can do." He shifted in his seat, spreading his legs wider to give you better access.

The lack of center console in the old truck was a blessing as your fingers fumbled with his belt. You were already nervous, and you knew you didn't have to tell him that you'd never done this before because it was written all over your face.

He watched with an amused smirk as you struggled with his belt for a moment. He found your inexperience endearing. After a beat, you finally managed to undo his belt, your shaky hands moving to his jeans, popping the button and unzipping them with much more ease.

"That's it, baby. You're doin' just fine," he encouraged, his voice strained with barely contained desire. His hips lifted slightly to help you tug his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his hard cock, the tip flushed and glistening with precum. You took in a sharp breath, your eyes widening a little. You'd seen one before but never in person and never quite that big.

"Wrap your hand around it, sugar," he instructed, his voice low and commanding. His hand tightened in your hair as you wrapped your hand around the base tentatively. "Just like that. Now, stroke it. Nice and slow." You followed his directions, slowly running your hand up and down his hard length, coaxing a low groan from his throat as his hips jumped just a little at the feeling of your soft hand on him.

"Fuck, that feels good," he groaned, his head falling back against the headrest and his grip on the wheel tightening. "Now, put that pretty mouth on me." You wrapped your lips around his hot tip, sucking gently and coaxing his precum onto your tongue.

"Mmmm... That's it, sugar. Just like that," he praised, trying to keep his eyes on the road and the truck in the correct lane. His hand guided your head, his hips gently bucking forward as he slowly pushed himself deeper into your mouth. "You're doin' so good, baby."

Your fingers flexed around the base of his cock, your grip tightening ever so slightly as yoy took more of him into your mouth, your brows furrowing in concentration while you did. "Relax your throat, baby. You can take more of me," he coached gently, his hand tightening in your hair. You did as he said, trying to relax and take more of him into your warm, wet mouth. "That's it, sugar."

The combined sounds of your heavy breathing mingled with the wet noises his cock was making as it slid in and out of your mouth. You gagged a little as the tip of his cock nudged your uvula, triggering your body's built-in safety feature against choking.

He felt you gag and knew he should have pulled you back, reassured you that you could go as slow as you needed to and that there was no need to rush, but shit, you felt so good and seemed so eager; he couldn't bring himself to stop you.

He kept pushing forward, his cock hitting the back of your throat, forcing you to swallow around him. He could feel your throat constricting around his length, and it was the most incredible feeling. You whimpered around him, your nails digging into his thighs and eyes watering, but still, you didn't pull away.

Your little whimper only spurred him on, sending a vibration through him that had him moaning, his grip on your hair bordering on painful. "You're taking it so well, baby," he praised, his voice strained with pleasure. "Shit, I'm so close."

Not long after, his hips jerked forward, and he held you in place, his cock buried in your throat as he came hard with a groan, his hot cum shooting down your throat in thick, salty streams. The unfamiliar taste clung to your tongue, even after you forced the warm liquid down your throat and pulled off of him, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

He sat there for a moment, trying to catch his breath and calm his racing heart before he tucked himself back into his pants with one hand, his other keeping the truck steady. "You did so good, sugar. Real good." He murmured, his voice still husky from his orgasm.

You felt a wave of satisfaction roll over you at his praise, but you didn't know exactly what to do from here. Your plans hadn't changed just because you decided to expand your sexual horizons in the front seat of a barely-stranger's truck. Though, it felt a little awkward still asking him to let out you out at the nearest town after what you'd just done.

"We'll be comin' up to the next town soon," he said, as if reading your mind. "How 'bout you let me take you out for a bite to eat, and afterwards, if you still want me to drop you at the bus station, I'll oblige," he proposed, willing to do anything to spend more time with you.

You smiled, nodding. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to you. Besides, you had already planned on stopping for food before heading to the bus station anyway. "Okay, that sounds nice," you agreed softly, buckling yourself back in because safety first.

"I know a real good diner in town. They serve the best burgers and milkshakes this side of the Mississippi," he said with a grin, placing his hand back on your thigh, his thumb brushing back and forth across your skin. Your smile widened, stomach doing flips at his touch, and you found yourself thinking that maybe your adventure could wait just a little while if it meant spending more time in the handsome cowboy's presence.

tags .ᐟ   @starkeysprincess / @cometmultiverse / @iheartjjmaybnk / @all4l0vee /

[valyriandreamer]

𝔇eformed 𝔇og

summary: in a strained marriage of political convenience, you and Jacaerys Velaryon are often at odds. But when Jacaerys brings a small creature as a peace offering, something the ladies at court seemed to all enjoy, apart from his stubborn wife.

paring: jacaerys velaryon x reader

The sun had long since dipped beneath the horizon, casting the Red Keep in the soft hues of evening. The large stone walls of your chambers were bathed in the warm glow of flickering candles, but their gentle light did little to soothe the irritation that simmered just beneath your poised exterior. You sat on the edge of a chaise, your hands fidgeting with the intricate embroidery of your gown, your thoughts tangled in the heated exchange from weeks prior.

It wasn’t unusual for you and Jacaerys to argue. From the moment you were wed, it had been clear that your marriage was one of convenience, not affection. You, the daughter of a powerful magistrate from Pentos, had been brought into this foreign land with the expectation of securing an alliance. Jacaerys, heir to the Iron Throne, was burdened with the weight of responsibility and political machinations. Love, in this case, had never been part of the arrangement.

Your differences—cultural, personal, and otherwise—had been apparent from the start. Where you were bold, confident, and unapologetically sassy, Jacaerys was serious, driven by duty, and far too level-headed for your liking. You had been raised in the courts of Pentos, where wealth and power meant indulgence, and you had never been denied anything. The transition to life in Westeros had been jarring, to say the least.

A small sigh escaped your lips as you stared at the fire, the memory of your latest argument still fresh. It had been over something insignificant, as most of your disagreements were, but the wounds it left behind lingered. Jacaerys had tried to apologize, of course, sending flowers and trinkets to your chambers, but you had not been so easily swayed this time. You were stubborn, after all, and you were not one to let him off the hook that easily.

Just then, a knock at the door pulled you from your thoughts. Before you could answer, the door creaked open, and Jacaerys stepped inside. In his arms was the strangest creature you had ever seen—a small, fluffy animal with large eyes and a squashed face. You narrowed your eyes at it, unsure whether it was meant to be some kind of dog or a rabbit.

“Is.. is that some sort of deformed bunny?” You asked, head tilted to the side as you state at the small mutt in the prince's arms.

Jacaerys’ smirk was apparent as he closed the door behind him. “A deformed bunny?” he teased, his voice rich with amusement. “I expected something more creative.”

You huffed and crossed your arms, refusing to meet his gaze. “I still think it looks more like a bunny than a dog,” you muttered, glancing at the animal in his arms. The creature gave a soft whine, wiggling its nose.

“I think you know very well that it’s a dog, and you’re just trying to annoy me,” Jacaerys countered, taking a few steps closer. There was a certain charm to the way he moved—graceful yet deliberate, as if he knew exactly how to play the game of diplomacy, even in your marriage.

When he reached you, he gently lifted the puppy toward you, but his other hand moved to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. The intimate gesture caught you off guard, but you refused to let it show. Instead, you shot him a pointed glare, though your heart stuttered at the sudden closeness.

“Or,” Jacaerys continued, his tone softening slightly, “perhaps there are no small dogs in Essos? You might be unfamiliar.”

You snorted, finally allowing yourself to look at him. “We have dogs in Pentos, Jacaerys. Large, beautiful ones. Not whatever this is,” you motioned to the puppy, though there was no real bite in your words. The creature was, admittedly, quite adorable.

Jacaerys chuckled, setting the puppy down on the chaise beside you. “This is a gift. I thought it might cheer you up since flowers didn’t seem to do the trick.” His voice was sincere now, and though you were still annoyed, you couldn’t help but soften a little at the thought. He was trying, at least.

The puppy immediately wriggled toward you, its tiny paws tapping against the velvet of the chaise. It nuzzled into your side, letting out a soft whimper as if begging for attention. You stared down at it for a moment, then reached out to scratch behind its ears.

“You think this will fix everything?” you asked, though your voice lacked its usual sharpness.

Jacaerys sighed, his smirk fading into a more serious expression. “No. I know it won’t. But I don’t like it when you’re angry with me.”

For a moment, you didn’t respond. The room was quiet except for the crackling of the fire and the soft sounds of the puppy. Your fingers continued to pet the small creature, and your eyes focused on the flames as you mulled over his words.

“I don’t like being angry with you either,” you admitted quietly, though the words felt foreign on your tongue. It wasn’t easy to admit vulnerability, especially not with him.

Jacaerys knelt in front of you, his brown eyes searching yours. “Then let’s stop fighting like this. I know we’ll never agree on everything, but I don’t want to spend our marriage at odds. We’re supposed to be a team, aren’t we?”

You raised an eyebrow, still hesitant to let go of your stubbornness completely. “A team?”

He nodded. “Yes. I know our marriage wasn’t exactly our choice, but that doesn’t mean it has to be miserable.”

For the first time in weeks, you felt a flicker of something other than frustration toward him. Perhaps it was the honesty in his voice or the way he looked at you now, as if he truly wanted to bridge the gap between you.

With a sigh, you finally relented. “Fine,” you muttered, though a small smile tugged at the corners of your lips. “But next time, don’t bring me a deformed rabbit.”

Jacaerys grinned, his eyes lighting up at the sight of your smile. “I’ll make a note of that.”

You reached for the puppy, lifting it into your lap as it licked your hand eagerly. “What is its name?” you asked, your tone now more playful.

“I thought I’d let you name it,” he replied, standing and moving to sit beside you on the chaise.

You hummed, considering for a moment. “How about... Bunny?”

Jacaerys groaned, though there was a laugh in his voice. “Of course you would.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, the tension between you eased, replaced by a sense of camaraderie. You still had your differences, and you probably always would. But at that moment, with the puppy—Bunny—in your lap and Jacaerys beside you, the future didn’t seem so daunting. Maybe, just maybe, this marriage could become something more than just an arrangement.