#four hours round trip for like six hours in person

[brown-little-robin]

.

[hungermakesmonsters]

Catch Me If You Can

Chapter Twenty-Five

Plot summary : When your friend interviews for a position at Anvil, you have a chance encounter with Billy Russo. He takes you for coffee and, by the time you’re done, Billy decides he’s anything but done with you.

Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader

Story Rating : R 

Chapter Rating : R - smut

Warnings : [This is a fic for 18+ only, minors DNI] Smut and extreme cuteness. Please check the warnings on each chapter if you choose to follow this story. 

Word Count : ~5.2k

A/N : The final chapter. I really hope that this lives up to people's expectations.

CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER TWO | CHAPTER THREE | CHAPTER FOUR | CHAPTER FIVE | CHAPTER SIX | CHAPTER SEVEN | CHAPTER EIGHT | CHAPTER NINE | CHAPTER TEN | CHAPTER ELEVEN | CHAPTER TWELVE | CHAPTER THIRTEEN | CHAPTER FOURTEEN | CHAPTER FIFTEEN | CHAPTER SIXTEEN | CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | CHAPTER NINETEEN | CHAPTER TWENTY | CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Chapter Twenty-Five

The trip from the hospital to the penthouse left you feeling exhausted and, by the time Billy was helping you change into your pyjamas you were struggling to keep your eyes open. His touches were slow and delicate, treating you like you were the most fragile and precious thing in the world. And, you could tell from the little looks he shot you that he was still blaming himself for everything.

A soft sigh slipped from your lips as he helped you into bed and covered you with the duvet.

“You okay?” He asked in a quiet, subdued tone.

“Still a bit sore,” you admitted, “but I’m glad to be home.”

“Home,” Billy repeated, smiling. “This isn’t exactly how I wanted you moving in to go, but I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here too,” you sank back in the pillows a little more, “I’m glad we can just be together now.”

“Me too,” he fell silent for a few moments, watching as you struggled to stay awake. “Do you want to get some rest? I could -”

“Can you stay with me?” You asked, eyes suddenly wide open. “Can you hold me? I’ve missed you holding me.”

“Of course I can.”

You watched as he quickly slipped out of his red sweater and jeans, stripping right down to his boxers before rounding the bed and climbing in beside you. There was noticeable hesitation as he edged towards you, his arm carefully slipping over your chest so he could hold you.

“Is this okay?” He asked.

“It’s perfect, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, sweetheart,” He muttered softly, smiling as your eyes finally closed.

“Love you Billy.”

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

After a few hours of sleep, you felt a little bit better. Billy was still beside you, scrolling through his emails on his phone. When he noticed you were awake, he smiled.

“How are you feeling? Need me to get you anything?”

“A glass of water would be great,” you answered, “and something to eat?

Billy gave a nod and quickly got out of bed. You watched as he left the room, phone in hand. He was only gone for a couple of minutes, you heard him making a call, obviously ordering dinner before he came back with your drink and handed it to you. Then, after a slight hesitation, he got back into bed with you.

“Can we talk about it?” You asked cautiously, after taking a drink. “Scott, I mean...”

“Why?” He tensed.

“I don’t know, I just -” you weren’t even sure what you wanted to say to him, what you wanted to ask, “- we didn’t get to talk about it at the hospital. Are you okay?”

“He’s not the first person I’ve killed.”

“It’s not the same; you were a Marine in a warzone. This is -”

“Murder,” he filled in the blank without hesitation, without remorse.

And, maybe that should have bothered you more than it did; Billy had killed a man for you. Admittedly, not a great man, and certainly not one that you were going to miss in any way, shape or form. But a life was still a life and you were certain that neither of you should feel happy about it.

Billy took a slow breath.”Look, you don’t need to feel guilty about any of it. I would have killed him even if you told me not to.”

“It’s not guilt, it’s just - I dunno, Billy. A man is dead because of me...”

“You could have died because of him,” Billy answered back without hesitation. “He tried to kill you twice. He called you a whore, said you weren’t worth it.” There was no missing the bite in his tone, or the way his hand curled into a fist. “You are worth it. You mean everything to me -”

“Billy -”

“No, I’d kill a hundred men like him if it meant keeping you safe. I’d burn down the whole fucking world just to protect you.”

And you knew he would. With anyone else you’d think it was hyperbolic, you’d think he was just saying what he thought you wanted to hear, but not Billy. That was the wonderful and tragic thing about him, about the way he loved you; it was a lot, it was everything he had, every ounce of himself. You’d never change that about him, and you’d never want to. That  was Billy. That was the man you loved, and loving him meant accepting him.

So, you nodded and reached for his hand, gently prising his tight fist open so your fingers could slip between his. 

“Okay,” you told him, and that was that.

It wasn’t long before your food was delivered and you couldn’t help but laugh that he’d chosen to order pizza, just like he had the first night he’d brought you back to the penthouse. You sat together in bed, eating pizza and watching TV until you finally fell asleep again.

Hours later, voices outside the bedroom woke you; Billy and Sam.

“Look, I appreciate what you did for her, but I think it’d be better for everyone if she came back to Connecticut with me,” you heard Sam say. “She needs people around her to look after her.”

“She has people here,” Billy answered. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“You can’t expect me to leave my sister here with a killer.”

“And you can’t expect me to let her go with the man who allowed that piece of shit to keep breathing after the first time he tried to kill her,” Billy replied. Your breath caught, torn between listening to more and calling out to stop them from fighting. “Anyway, I’ve seen your service record, you’ve got blood on your hands too.”

“You think I didn’t want to kill that fucker -”

“I think you had every opportunity and you didn’t. I won’t let her go with anyone who’s not willing to do everything to protect her.”

“I know you think you love her, but -”

“I do love her, and there is nothing I won’t do for her,” you could hear the edge in Billy’s voice, the anger that he was barely managing to hold back. “Look around, look at the life I can give her; she’ll always be safe, she’ll never want for anything. You want to take that away from her? You want to take her away from everything that she’s achieved here? Her friends, her new job?”

A silence followed and you didn’t dare breathe in case you missed something.

“You don’t know her like I do,” Sam stated and your heart sank a little but you didn’t get time to dwell on it.

“I know her better than you do,” Billy was quick to answer. “You see her as some weak little thing just because she’s your sister. But I don’t. I see a woman who’s not scared to put me in my place when I fuck up, someone who’s been through so much and has kept going. She’s carried the guilt for your sister’s death for years, even though it was an accident, a stupid mistake. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met and if you can’t see that, then you don’t know your sister at all.”

Before that moment you hadn’t thought it was possible to love him more, but you soon felt tears welling in the corners of your eyes.

There was another silence before you finally heard Sam relent.

“Fine, but if you ever hurt her, I’ll kill you myself.”

“If I ever hurt her, I’ll let you.” Billy quickly countered and you could hear just how serious he was.

There were some more muttered grumblings between the pair, but the tone had changed and both men seemed to have resolved their differences. Sam muttered something about coming back tomorrow to say goodbye before leaving town again and, then, when everything had fallen silent, you assumed that he had left.

You didn’t mention any of it to Billy when he came to bed later that night, and didn’t in the days that followed; it didn’t matter, there was no way you were going to go to Connecticut with Sam, not when everything in your life was finally perfect.

Sam insisted on staying in the city a little while longer, wanting to make sure you were going to be alright before he travelled home. He came by to see you most days and, slowly but surely, the tension seemed to ease between him and Billy, and they were able to stand each other enough to make small talk without either getting snippy.

Your heart was racing when the police arrived at the penthouse unexpectedly a week after you came home from hospital. Billy and Sam insisted that you weren’t ready to see them, that you were sleeping, but you managed to get yourself out of bed and made your way out of the bedroom.

The second you did, Billy was at your side, taking your arm.

“You don’t need to -”

“It’s okay, Billy. I’ll be fine,” you told him, letting him help you towards the sofa. “I need to tell the police that I’ve remembered what happened.”

Everyone, the police included, seemed a little taken aback by the comment, but no one tried to object. You sat, grimacing but trying not to let it show how sore you felt - the last thing you wanted was for Billy and Sam to worry about you. Before you started, Billy insisted on getting you something to drink, which in turn led to getting drinks for both of the officers, Sam, and himself.

The two officers sat opposite you, offering up their names and a few pleasantries before finally getting down to business.

“You said you’ve remembered what happened,” the younger of the two officers asked, a boyish looking man who had a friendlier face than his older partner, “would you be able to walk us through it, everything you remember from leaving Mexico right up to the incident?”

You nodded, discreetly trying to swallow the lump in your throat. Billy sat beside you and you soon had his hand in your own, held on your lap.

“We had an argument,” you glanced at Billy briefly, “Billy surprised me in Mexico and I thought - well, I thought he was there to propose to me,” at that Sam almost choked on his coffee, “but he wasn’t. It wasn’t a big argument, it was silly really, and I was embarrassed.”

Billy’s hand gave yours a gentle squeeze.

“I decided to come back to New York early because of it. I wanted to finish packing up my old apartment so we could move in here when Billy got back, and I wanted us to have a day or two apart so I could get over my embarrassment,” you shrugged uncomfortably but managed to force something of a smile to your face.

“I took a taxi home from the airport, had something to eat, then I was about to try to get a couple of hours sleep when someone knocked on the door,” your voice cracked. You tried to lean forward to grab your mug from the coffee table, but winced as pain lanced through your abdomen. 

“Here, sweetheart, let me,” Billy reached for your mug as you sat back and, when he handed it to you, you caught something almost helpless in his eyes. “You don’t have to do this now if you don’t feel up to it.”

“It’s fine. I want to tell them what happened,” you told him, taking a quick sip of your coffee before continuing. 

“You heard the knock...” the older officer prompted.

“I thought it was just a delivery or something for Tammy - Tammy was my roommate - but it wasn’t,” again your voice threatened to break. “It was my ex-boyfriend Scott Hendrix.”

“And did you talk to Mr Hendrix at all? Did he say anything to you before he shot you?” The younger officer asked, furiously scrawling in his notepad.

“Yes,” you answered without hesitation, feeling Billy’s hand twitch in yours. “He told me he wanted money, he said he owed someone money and he thought I owed him.”

“And why did he think that?” The older one asked.

“He blamed me for his life falling apart,” you gave another awkward shrug, trying to ignore the pain in your side. “He went to prison for a DUI after crashing his car with both of us in it, the judge gave him a harsher sentence because I was badly hurt but -”

“She wasn’t just hurt, he was trying to kill her,” interrupted Sam. “She wouldn’t testify because she was scared of him and his family.”

The officers looked at you and all you could do was nod to confirm the story. 

“He tried to kill me because I wanted to leave him; I’d had enough of the drinking and the drugs. So, when he showed up and demanded money, I knew that was what it was for. He got angry when I said no and pulled a gun,” you looked down for a moment at Billy’s hand in yours. “He told me they were gonna kill him if he didn’t get their money -”

“Did he say who they were?” The younger one interrupted.

“No, he just said he owed a lot of money and, he figured, because I was with Billy I could get it for him. I told him no and tried to close the door, that’s when he -” when your voice broke again, Billy decided to intervene.

“Is there anything else you need? She needs to rest,” he stated, his grip tightening but this time not loosening even a fraction.

“How did you get that bruise on your cheek, Mr Russo?” The older cop asked, eyeing Billy for a second.

“I gave him it,” Sam answered, reminding everyone that he was still in the room.

“And why was that?” Asked the older officer.

“Because my sister had just been shot and I was looking for someone to take my frustrations out on,” Sam shrugged.

There was a moment of silence as both officers glanced at each other, as if deciding what to say next.

“You should know that we found where Mr Hendrix was staying in the city, as well as recovering a gun - it’s being tested at the lab to see if it matches the weapon that was used to shoot you,” the older cop explained. “Mr Hendrix was nowhere to be found.”

“What do you mean nowhere to be found?” Asked Sam.

“You mean that prick is still out there?” Billy added. The pair of them deserved an Oscar nomination.

“There was evidence found at the scene to suggest that Mr Hendrix had been badly injured, though we won’t know for sure until we hear back from the lab but, I can give you my assurances that the NYPD are looking for him.” The younger cop told you, offering a soft smile, as if he wanted to try and make you feel better about the thought that Scott could still be in the city.

“We’d offer to put a uniform on your door, but it seems like Mr Russo already has that covered,” added the older guy with a glance in Billy’s direction which, in turn, led to you looking at him.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Billy offered.

“Anyway,” started the older cop, draining his mug of coffee and placing it down before reaching into his jacket for his card, “I think we’ve got everything we need. If you remember anything else, my number is on the card. And if Mr Hendrix tries to contact you -”

“He’ll wish he didn’t,” Billy stated, letting go of your hand and getting to his feet. “We appreciate you stopping by, officers, but she really needs to rest now.”

The officers stood, muttering their goodbyes and telling you that you didn’t need to see them out, but that didn’t stop Billy from following them and making sure they got on the elevator.

“What the fuck that?” Sam asked around twenty seconds after the elevator doors had slid shut.

“What was what?” You asked, feigning ignorance.

“That - lying to the cops,” he sounded annoyed. “Have you got any idea how much trouble you’ll be in if they figure out you lied?”

“What was I supposed to do? Wait until they find something that might lead them back to Billy?”

“Sweetheart -” Billy tried to interrupt.

“No, you protected me, now I’m protecting you. Scott took enough from me, he’s not going to take you too, Billy. I won’t lose you,” you told him.

“You won’t, sweetheart, I promise you won’t,” he told you, sitting beside you and placing a soft kiss on your cheek.

“We protect each other,” and that was how it was going to be from now on.

You felt a little better with each passing day but Billy continued to dote on you, barely leaving you alone for a moment, even after Sam had decided you were well enough for him to return to Connecticut. He did his work from home, hadn’t been to the office in over two weeks, but as much as you loved having him around, something was missing. 

Him.

All of him.

He was treating you like some fragile thing with delicate touches and the sort of softness that felt like he was barely there at all. Of course, you understood he was being careful because he loved you, because he didn’t want to risk hurting you or causing you any sort of pain, but you knew it wasn’t doing either of you any good. He sated some of your longings with his fingers, and you’d given him more handjobs in the last few weeks than you had in almost eight months of being together, but you needed more.

You both had needs, but you were coming to realise that Billy wasn’t going to be the first to act, so you decided to take the initiative. You slipped out of the bedroom in nothing but a silk robe, finding him on the sofa. His eyes followed you as you approached and grew wider as you dropped the robe to the floor and climbed onto his lap.

Before he could even think to question you, you were kissing him desperately, pressing yourself against him and slowly starting to rock your hips. Billy easily lost himself to you for a few wonderful minutes and you felt him start to grow hard in his pants, but it didn’t last.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he muttered against your lips, sighing but not pulling back. 

“Then be gentle,” you retorted before capturing his lips again.

For a few moments he was content to kiss you, his hands running up your bare thighs to your hips, then your waist, but the feel of the dressing over your injury caused him to pull back again.

“I - I don’t know if I can be gentle.”

“You can,” you told him softly. “I don’t want you to fuck me, Billy, I want to make love.”

His breath caught and, for a few seconds, all he could do was stare at you awkwardly, as if he wasn’t entirely sure what you were asking him for, like something about your suggestion worried him. Your hand found his cheek, and you held his gaze.

“I don’t -”

“You do,” you told him softly, reassuringly, before taking his hand and slowly getting to your feet.

Billy rose slowly and let you lead him to the bedroom, where you slowly undressed him, running your hands over every inch of skin that you exposed. Once he was naked, his fingers lifted your chin and he just stared at you for a moment before, finally, kissing you. He held you close and carefully moved you onto the bed, placing himself on top of you, keeping his weight on his arms at your side.

Hesitation was etched on his features as he broke the kiss and stared down at you.

“You won’t hurt me,” you told him. “I trust you, Billy.”

His hips lowered and you felt the tip of his cock graze your clit and, after weeks of nothing but his hand between your legs, it made you shiver. He hesitated for a few seconds, but the moment he was pressed against you, the moment he could feel how wet you already were, he knew he couldn’t stop.

A long, relieved exhale escaped you as he finally started to move. The feeling of his cock pressing into you after so many weeks without it felt heavenly, and Billy’s soft groan told you he felt the exact same way. He moved so slowly that you could feel every inch as he filled you, and once you’d taken him all, he lingered long enough that you could feel him throbbing inside you.

Any discomfort you felt was forgotten the moment his hips started to draw back, your body already trembling beneath him.

“Billy -” you moaned, your fingertips pressing into his back.

Once he was certain that you weren’t in any sort of pain, he started to move with a little more purpose, not in his usual fast or rough way, but in a way that let you experience every single sensation.

“I love you,” he muttered breathlessly against your ear, lingering there and letting you feel every shallow breath against your skin, hearing every time his breath caught and every little groan.

“I love you too, Billy,” you moaned, angling your head so you could capture his lips in a kiss.

Your moans got louder, swallowed by Billy’s lips. Everything about it was perfect, everything was Billy. Fingers slipped into his hair and you heard him groan his approval, his lips pulling into a smile against yours.

“Mine,” you told him when your lips finally parted.

“Yours. Always,” he told you. “You feel so good...”

“So do you,” you moaned as he filled you again, your walls trembling and squeezing around him the closer you got to climaxing. 

It was like nothing you’d ever felt before, a level of connection with him that made you feel like nothing existed outside of you and him and the moment you were sharing. His movements got a little faster the closer you got and, from his barely restrained groans, you could tell he wasn’t going to last much longer either.

You moaned his name as you came, your whole body shivering with a pleasure you didn’t even know how to completely process. A few seconds later, he was following, twitching inside you as he emptied himself.

“Fuck -” he grunted, the movements of his hips turning awkward before finally stilling.

He leaned, his forehead against your and his eyes shut tight. You ran your fingers through sweat-damp hair, smiling and waiting for him to open his eyes. When he did, you could tell he was at a loss for words.

“That was amazing,” you decided to break the silence.

“I love you,” was how he chose to respond, pressing his lips to yours in a brief but wonderful kiss.

The room was slowly turning dark around you and, as much as you’d wanted everything that had happened, you felt exhausted. Billy slowly pulled out and moved to lay beside you, gathering you in his arms so you could rest your head on his chest while his hand gently stroked your hair.

Your eyes closed and you let out a slow breath as everything turned still and silent around you. Minutes ticked by, the steady drumming of his heartbeat almost lulling you to sleep. His hand in your hair had fallen still and you assumed that he’d fallen asleep. Everything about the moment was perfect, it was how you wanted to spend the rest of your life.

Then you heard it.

“Marry me,” he whispered softly. 

It sounded like he was testing the words, like he was trying them out to see how they sounded. You wanted to answer him, but the words wouldn’t come; he wasn’t asking, not really, he thought you were sleeping. So, you kept your eyes closed and, eventually, drifted off to sleep.

The next morning you woke to find Billy in an infectiously happy mood - obviously he’d needed last night just as much as you had. He made you breakfast in bed before surprising you and telling you that he was finally going to go back to the office. It felt like everything was going back to how it should be; you were feeling much better, he was going back to work, and in a week you’d be starting your job with The Bulletin. It was perfect. 

Billy left for work and you spent the day relaxing with a book, before throwing together a casserole in the kitchen for the pair of you to have for dinner - as much as you’d been enjoying Billy taking care of dinner since you’d gotten home, you were starting to get bored of take out. Once everything was ready, you returned to the armchair in the bedroom, alternating between reading your book and watching the sun set over the city.

He was later than expected getting home and, when you heard the elevator, you expected him to call out. Instead there was silence. It was enough to have you anxiously getting up from your chair and heading out to see why he was being so quiet.

You found him standing awkwardly, looking at the floor, a serious expression on his face. Your heart skipped a beat and dread started to coil in your stomach.

“Billy, what’s wrong?” You dared to ask, making your way towards him.

The suddenness of your voice startled him, and he looked at you like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

“Nothing,” he managed in the most unconvincing tone, making you panic even more.

“Is it Scott? Did the police find something?” You stopped in front of him, worry written across your face.

“No, it’s not -” he looked at you for a moment before forcing a breath. “It’s not that. It’s - I need to ask you something.”

Your heart stuttered, remembering his whispered question the night before, and all you could do was nod, not knowing what you could possibly say. Billy took a moment and, for a second, you thought you could see fear in his eyes, like he was scared about what was about to happen.

“I know we haven’t known each other very long,” he started, his eyes fixed on yours, “but this last few weeks has shown me that I can’t go back to living without you. I don’t want a life that doesn’t have you in it.”

Despite his obvious nervousness, you felt your lips pulling into a smile as tears started to well in the corners of your eyes.

“I love you,” he continued, “more than I thought I’d ever be able to love anyone, and that’s never gonna change.” 

Your heart almost stopped when he slowly got down on one knee and pulled a ring box from his pocket. His trembling hands opened the lid to reveal the ring inside; simple, delicate and elegant. Perfect.

“I know I fuck up sometimes and I piss you off, but I’m willing to spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy,” he looked up at you expectantly, even though he hadn’t actually asked.

Wiping your eyes, you smiled down at him. “Ask me the question, Billy.”

“Sweetheart, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” the word was instant, not even needing to think about it or consider any of it. Maybe it was crazy, but you’d been through more with Billy in the last eight months than most couples went through in a lifetime.

“Really?” His question, the confusion and relief in his voice, was enough to have you dropping to your knees in front of him, taking his face between your hands.

“Yes, Billy.” You told him again. “I will marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

His hand took yours, sliding the ring onto your finger. A perfect fit. You leaned forward to kiss him, tears of joy streaming down your face.

“I love you,” he told you softly. “We don’t have to marry straight away, we can have a long engagement, we can do whatever -”

You pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him.

“Take me to bed, Billy.”

A blink of an eye later and you were on your back in bed, Billy’s greedy lips and tongue on your pussy, driving you insane. Your fingers tangled in his hair and you could see the diamond ring every time you looked down at him. Crying out as sank his fingers inside you, and trembling as he sucked your clit. Even though Billy tried to take things slow, with teasing and measured movements, it had been so long since he’d gone down on you that you came after only a few minutes.

He lifted his head and smiled up at you, his lips and chin glistening, though he seemed hesitant and you could guess why.

“Don’t you dare ask me if I’m okay,” you warned playfully. “Just get up here and fuck me.”

Billy didn’t need to be told twice. He moved up your body like a predator and, when you reached for him, you could feel his taut muscles beneath your hands. God, you wanted him. You’d never stop wanting him. And just one look from him told you that he felt the same. 

He kissed you as he slid inside you, and you held him tight, moaning against his lips. When hips started to move, you could tell that he was still holding back. You moved beneath him, meeting his thrusts, silently begging him for more with every shift of your hips.

“Billy -” you moaned against his lips, you fingers curling in his hair again, “- I said fuck me.”

He started to move a little faster, sinking himself deeper with every stroke, his cock filling you in a way it hadn’t for weeks.

“Such a needy little pussy,” he muttered against your lips. “It’s all mine now.” 

His lips moved to your neck, sucking and nipping at your skin, driving you wild. And still - still you wanted more. Everything. You could hear him muttering and grunting against your neck, the word ‘mine’ leaving his lips, over and over. 

“I’m yours, Billy,” you moaned breathlessly, “forever.”

You pulled at his hair, causing him to lift his head from your neck so you could kiss him as you came for him, moaning into his mouth as your wall clenched around him. It was enough to drive Billy over the edge and soon you felt the steady pulse of his cock as he filled you.

“Fuck, that feels so good,” you moaned as he came, holding him tight as he stilled deep inside of you.

“I love you,” he told you between panted breaths, lingering inside you long after he’d finished, not wanting to sever your connection. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Epilogue

END NOTES :  I don't know what to say. Honestly. When I started this I expected maybe three of four people might take an interest but I've honestly been overwhelmed by all the likes, the reblogs, and the comments; it's really made this a joy to write. While this is the lat main chapter of the story, I will be posting an epilogue next week and, in future, I might do some one shots with with reader and Billy. But, ultimately, after everything I wanted them to have a nice, happy ending and I hope you all enjoy that.

Thank you so so much for for those who have been following for the last five months! ... I know, it really has been five months and my mind is blown. This is the longest, consistent writing project I've ever undertaken - for context, altogether, this fic is about 110000 words and 220 doc pages, which just sounds insane.

ANYWAY. I'm rambling. Tune in next week for the epilogue. And thank you again, whether you like/comment/reblog or just read along every week. You all made this such a wonderful and fun experience for me!! I will have a little update next week after the epilogue when I decide what I'm going to do next on this blog. Have a great weekend!

If you want adding/removing from the tag list let me know (I know it’s not working for everyone - if it’s not working and you don’t want to miss a chapter, I post every Friday around 7:30pm gmt)

TAG LIST

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[adore-laur]

HIM

— a flashback of the moment sawyer realized she was in love with harry 🩶

——

Sawyer, a devoted hopeless romantic and lover of stories intertwined with strings of fate, knew Harry was her lifelong companion in May of 1989.

In a way, she felt guilty about it. She was already in a relationship with Jordan, a man she settled for and could be comfortably mundane around. There weren't fireworks shooting off in her heart every time she was with her boyfriend, but she was enticed by his mellow demeanor and how he bragged about her beauty to his friends. At the end of the day, she was loyal to him over everyone else until a puppeteer called Fate played with the strings of Sawyer's life path and made things a bit complicated.

Enter: Harry. There was no need to retell the tale of how fate had brought the two of them together in the form of a volleyball. That day had just been the beginning of Sawyer's world tipping on its axis because with someone like Harry—charming, chivalrous, and exuberant—the more time she spent with him, the harder it became to vanquish certain feelings.

After almost two years of friendship, Sawyer began to experience funny little pulses of attraction toward him. They started in her heart—if he had simply walked into a room, hugged her hello, or smiled in her direction, it was as if someone was rapidly poking her heart while chanting, him, him, him. Then her gut joined the party. Giddy flutters and delicious swirls of temptation danced around whenever Harry touched her. Ever the gentleman, the touches were always innocent—a heavy palm on her shoulder, a teasing noogie on the top of her head, and sometimes a comforting kiss on her cheek when their otherwise lighthearted conversations turned serious.

It became dangerous when those sensations traveled even lower. When Sawyer started to feel pulses in places that should never be elicited by a friend, she knew she had to draw a boundary line and slap herself upside the head.

Yet in those vulnerable moments, a problematic thought circled her brain. Could she possibly be in love with two people at the same time? Was what she felt with Jordan even considered love? He never called her on the landline and talked to her for hours like Harry did. He never surprised her with trips to the mall or a movie night. He rarely asked her questions about herself. Had her idea of true love been skewed all along? Or was she a terrible person for liking Harry more than anyone else?

A single day in May had given her clarity. It all started with a sprained ankle and an almost-kiss in a hospital bed.

——

Sawyer was beginning to believe playing volleyball on Cocoa Beach was a cursed activity. Something always went awry when she stepped foot on the silky sand and ducked under the net to get in her designated setter position.

Maybe it was because the usual participants forwent the standard girls versus boys system and opted for teams based on nothing other than the order of arrival. It was two p.m. when Sawyer was dropped off at the beach by Harry before he headed to baseball practice. She was immediately placed on a team with four boys and one other girl around the same age. They were large men with linebacker shoulders and bulging biceps. Probably jocks, considering how they grunted and slapped each other's butts and heads whenever they scored.

Sometime during the second round, Sawyer prepared to set the volleyball for the man beside her to spike over the net. She bent her knees and elbows while watching the ball soar on a perfect path toward her. The man, without warning or team communication, flung his body into her to reach the ball first, just like any egotistical male playing a competitive game often did.

Suddenly off balance, Sawyer felt her left ankle twist in the wrong direction as the man finished his fall against her, knocking her to the ground. Their collective tumble was cushioned by soft grains of sand, but it still stunned her as the weight of a sweaty, six-foot body rolled off her.

"Sorry about that," he said, dusting his hands off and casually walking away like he hadn't body-slammed her into another dimension.

"Jerk," Sawyer mumbled. She inhaled shallow breaths and winced when she moved her ankle, the pain registering fully. The twinge was sharp, and she instantly knew she had done something to it. Or, rather, the man did. Was volleyball really that serious to him? Had he even noticed her standing there, ready to assist him like the good teammate she was? Ugh, boys and their lack of spatial awareness.

The girl on her team raced over, with a lifeguard following closely behind. "Are you hurt?" she asked in a Southern drawl.

Tears brimmed Sawyer's waterline. "I twisted my ankle," she said uneasily, reaching out to touch it. The skin was tender and swelling already.

The lifeguard kneeled and examined her with hooded blue eyes. He looked like a teenager, with lanky arms and a red whistle lying against his freckled chest. "Can you move it at all?"

"No," she whimpered, her voice thick with fear.

"Yikes. I'll send over an ambulance."

She shook her head vehemently. "That's very kind of you, but I think I'd feel more comfortable being driven by someone else." It wasn’t a total lie, but the actual reasoning behind her answer had to do with the fact that an ambulance ride was a cost she simply could not afford. The dent it would create in her unimpressive savings account made her nauseated.

"Sure," said the lifeguard. "Is there someone in particular we can call for you?"

Sawyer closed her eyes against the blinding sun. Harry. A rush of relief accompanied his name. She needed him. When she called, he always came. The pain would fade within a single second of basking in his sunshine.

But when Sawyer's eyes opened, logic pounded her brain and took charge. "Jordan. Um, he's my boyfriend. I'd like to speak with him myself if that's possible."

The lifeguard shrugged. "I guess we can allow that. We'll have to carry you to the community center, though."

"That's fine."

The girl and the lifeguard lifted her carefully and walked toward the little brick building by the beach's parking lot. It was quite humiliating. In a private office area, they set her down on a metal chair. There was a bureaucratic desk with paperwork, nondescript folders, one too many succulent plants, and other miscellaneous office supplies scattered on the sleek mahogany surface. Unfortunately, the room smelled like mildew and rotten banana peels. The noisy air conditioning unit rattling in the corner made it waft around rather unpleasantly.

After offering her an ice pack and pointing at an outdated telephone system, the lifeguard lingered by the door. "You can hang in here until you get picked up." He smiled awkwardly. "Hope you feel better."

"Thanks."

The girl beside him cleared her throat and said, "The guy who knocked you down is my brother. I'll make sure to kick his ass later."

Sawyer only managed to laugh weakly before they both left her alone, the creaky door shutting behind them.

With an exaggerated groan, Sawyer picked up the phone and dialed Jordan's number. Hopefully, he had his Motorola on him, but an awful part of her secretly wished he wouldn't answer. She hoped she would have no choice but to try her second option. God, she hoped Harry would barge into the room, demand who caused her such pain, and then kiss her ankle better. And then he would kiss—

"Sawyerrrrr. Why're you bugging me?" The slurred greeting obnoxiously sounded against her ear. Lively chatter was muffled in the background, and a phantom smell of beer made her crinkle her nose. She had encouraged him to hang out with his friends from college. Apparently, day drinking was their idea of fun. Jordan had asked if she wanted to come with him, but she had said she’d rather be outside soaking up the May sun than inside a dark, stuffy bar. He didn't seem to care.

"Hey, Jordan. Are you able to pick me up from Cocoa Beach?"

"What, right now? I'm not even in Orlando, babe."

Rolling her eyes toward the ceiling, she asked, "Where are you?"

"Uh, I think we're in..." he trailed off before yelling, "Yo, Tanner! Where are we?" A few seconds of deep, unintelligible voices boomed before he said, "We're in Zellwood."

Great. He was over thirty minutes away. There was absolutely no way he would drive back to Orlando through early summer traffic. Plus, he sounded hammered. Double whammy.

"Okay," Sawyer whispered, knowing her voice would crack if she spoke any louder. "Never mind. Have fun."

Jordan tutted. "You miss me, dollface? Is that why you're calling?"

"You caught me," she lied, trying her best to sound lovesick. "But I'll see you tonight, right?"

"Maybe," he said distractedly. "We might go to Daniel's party later and crash at his place."

She racked her brain for any recollection of Daniel. Nope, nothing. "Sure, that's cool with me."

"Good," he replied, like her answer was the only one he would accept. "We're starting another round of beer pong, so I gotta bounce."

If Sawyer mentioned her ankle, there would be a pointless argument about the situation. She could practically predict it: You have to pay attention to your surroundings, Sawyer. Don't let men push you around, Sawyer.

So, she didn't. Slouching in the rigid chair, she released a long, anxious breath and said, "Bye, J."

"Adios!"

She rammed the phone into the cradle and pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead. She glared at the square buttons, her eyes darting around the numbers in the order of a phone number she knew by heart. There was no way she would bother him. There had to be another option, but regrettably, her parents worked an hour outside the city, and she honestly couldn't remember any of her friend's numbers off the top of her head.

Her ankle throbbed with agonizing heat, and the increased blood flow was circulating there with heavy pressure. Whimpering, she quickly picked up the phone again and pressed the ten digits. She had false hope that Harry would answer, considering he was occupied with practice and most likely didn't have his bag phone near him.

As Sawyer twisted the spiral cord around her pointer finger, the line rang monotonously. Three times, four times, five... When an automated voice directed her to leave a voicemail, she felt tears fall to her chin. She just wanted to go home, shower, crawl under cold sheets, and curl up next to Harry while he iced her ankle and played with her hair until she fell asleep in his embrace.

"What am I going to do?" she whispered to herself. The last resort was calling for an ambulance, but she really didn't want to sit in the back of a scary vehicle surrounded by strangers.

In a sudden moment of desperation, Sawyer searched the room for a phone book, all while hopping on one foot. After opening and shutting several filing cabinet drawers, she finally found one and flipped through the thin yellow pages until she landed on the "T" section. Her gaze slid down the directory before stopping at Tinker Field.

She dialed the venue's number and patiently waited while sitting down again, the cool metal of the chair washing over the back of her thighs. She was still in her bikini, and stray grains of sand were accumulating all over the floor. She was a hot mess.

"Hello, this is Kathy at the Tinker Field Ticket Office," said a cheerful voice on the other line. "How may I help you today?"

"Hi, my name is Sawyer Clemente. I was wondering if you could get Harry Styles on the phone, please. He pitches for the SunRays and is at practice right now on the field. He's my friend, and... I'm having a little emergency. I need his help."

"Oh, dear," Kathy replied with genuine concern. "Well, the team is quite busy practicing, but I can try my best to reach him. I can give you a call back and let you know. You said your name is Sawyer?"

"Yes. But if he's too busy, don't bother." She looked down at her ankle, grateful it still had all its bones intact. "Tell him it's not a matter of life or death."

"No problem, sweetheart. I'm going to put you on hold and then get back to you shortly."

"Thank you so much." Insufferable hold music played, adding more misery to the pain in her ankle. The skin was even more swollen, and a faint purple bruise stained her protruded ankle bone. The ice pack was barely numbing it.

Sawyer thought back to when her volleyball serve had knocked Harry to the ground two years ago. She had been so worried, but he’d taken it like a champ and dazzled her with the brightest smile she had ever seen. He had made her blush within five minutes of meeting him—it was an effect he had on every woman, but he always brushed their attention off like an insignificant piece of lint. No one could quite capture his attention for long enough, and she was unsure why he had chosen to stick with her in particular.

While Harry was easily distracted by the world around him, Sawyer never had to beg for his attention. Whenever they were together, he devoted his time and energy to their plans—relaxing beach days, goofing around at the local arcade, cracking up over episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and relishing whatever other random activities Harry hatched in that spontaneous brain of his.

Jordan, who’s on the other end of the personality spectrum, was too busy with work or partying to spend much one-on-one time with her. During the rare times they did, she was usually dragged along to some unfamiliar bar or frat house filled with strangers who reeked of alcohol. Despite being jaded by all the tagalongs, she dealt with it because it made Jordan happy. And, in a twisted way, it often meant she could see Harry the following day while Jordan recovered from a hangover that left him bedridden and chronically cranky.

Debilitating guilt consumed her whenever she compared the two men. There was a clear difference between the two—boyfriend and boy friend. If the line with Harry began to blur, she would have to...

Her cerebral spiral was thwarted when the hold music abruptly stopped mid-saxophone solo. Kathy's kind voice returned. "All right, I have your friend here on the—" Muffled static interfered, causing Sawyer to perk up in concern.

"Sawyer?" Harry interrupted, out of breath and panicked. She could picture him sweaty, tanned, and tired from practicing in the humid Florida air. "What's going on, angel? Tell me what's the matter."

Her face crumpled with sweet relief. Hearing her favorite voice made more pathetic tears trail down her cheeks as she said, "When I was playing volleyball, some guy bumped into me and knocked me over. I'm pretty sure I sprained my ankle." She combed her fingers through her frizzy, sun-warmed hair, finally able to breathe a little easier. "I need someone to drive me to the hospital." And the universe wants it to be you.

"Fuck, okay," he said frantically. "Where are you? I'll get you right now."

She sniffled. "Aren't you tied up with practice?"

"Sawyer, where are you?" he repeated more firmly. Her attempt at being reasonable died a quick death.

"Um, you know that dingy community center right on Cocoa Beach? I'm in an office room there."

"Isn't that place abandoned?" he asked. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I'll be there in ten. Hang tight."

"Harry—" The line went dead, and Sawyer blankly stared at the wall covered with flyers and corkboards. As much as she felt culpable for stealing him from a cardinal moment in his new career, a small, grateful smile tugged at her lips.

Deep in her soul, she had known he would drop everything for her. He always did.

——

The door opened, revealing a curly head of hair and gentle, curious eyes that were the shade of sage in bloom. Harry slowly walked into the room and assessed her predicament. He wore a baseball uniform she hadn't seen him in yet—he had been recently drafted to Orlando’s rebranded minor league team. Blue and white striped pants and a jersey with matching colors tucked into the waistband caught Sawyer's attention first. The garments hugged his frame well. The body he maintained when he was nineteen had changed slightly, with thicker biceps straining against the sleeves of any shirt he wore due to strength training. Same with his thighs.

Get a grip! She mentally scolded herself before her imagination dove into treacherous waters.

"Sawyer," Harry whispered, solace rasping his voice. "Where's your towel? Aren't you freezing in here?"

She had been so stressed that the constant goosebumps rising across her skin went completely unnoticed by her. "I don't know," she whined. "Just get me out of here, please."

Harry reached his hand around the back of his neck and tugged his shirt off. Sawyer almost gasped but was relieved when she saw he had a white tank top underneath. She went to grab it, realizing her nipples were noticeably pebbled, but Harry insisted on pulling it over her head.

"Sorry it smells grody," he said, "but I'm not letting you walk into the hospital in just a bikini."

"It's okay. It smells better than whatever died in this room."

Harry grinned at her, his eyes sparkling like those of a captivated cartoon character. He laughed quietly before giving her a noogie and crouching to study her ankle. "Looks like someone took volleyball a little too seriously."

"It wasn't me," she said defensively. "You should've seen the dude—he was massive."

"Then you're lucky he didn't break twenty of your fragile bones." His expression turned serious. "Kathy had me worried when she said you were having an emergency."

"What did you think happened?"

"Well, my first instinct was that you left your curling iron plugged in and your house went up in flames."

"Really?"

"Yeah. But you getting hurt is somehow worse."

Sawyer pouted her lips, and Harry's rapt gaze briefly locked on them. Before she could figure out why her heart fluttered at the subtle motion, he lifted her in his arms and carried her out the door. The hem of his shirt draped down to her knees as she rested her cheek against the beautiful column of his neck, breathing in his natural masculine scent. Summer. Pines. Home. Instantly, a sense of safety covered her like a treasured childhood blanket.

Before long, she was gently set in the passenger seat of Harry's Audi. He settled behind the wheel and patted his lap. "You need to elevate your ankle," he said while starting the engine.

She awkwardly shifted and laid her ankle on his sturdy thigh. He repositioned the ice pack, which was stolen property now, and steadily looked over at her. "You okay?" he asked, his smooth palm curving around her shin.

She blinked back tears and murmured, "Yes. Thank you for getting me. I'm sorry for cutting your practice short, but I tried calling..." She clamped her mouth shut and shook her head dismissively.

"Who did you try calling?"

Sighing, Sawyer peered out the open window and watched the glimmering teal ocean become more distant. "Jordan, but he was busy."

A stretch of silence hung thickly in the car. Sawyer distracted herself by grabbing the small bag of potato chips in the glovebox and ripping it open. Harry always kept food stored in his car for both him and her. She munched on a few, waiting for a snide response. Jordan was always a sore subject, which was why she often refrained from bringing up his wrongdoings. Too late now.

"Yeah? Busy doing what?" Harry flipped the sunvisor down, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek. "Being too much of an asshole to care that his girlfriend is injured?" He muttered the last part bitterly, probably hoping the wind would carry his words away and sock Jordan right in the jaw.

"No, he... I told him he could hang out with his college friends today, so he's been bar-hopping since noon." Sawyer groaned, realizing defending him wasn't helping her case. "He's drunk, okay?"

And Harry left in the middle of his first minor league practice for you, she thought to herself. He was the one you thought of first when the lifeguard asked who to call.

Harry looked about two seconds away from blowing a gasket as his hand squeezed the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip. "Interesting," he said in a flat tone that pushed her over the edge.

"Don't even start. Jordan had a valid excuse."

"Sure, but he didn't want to go to the beach with you? Why would he pass that up?"

"Stop." A burst of anger flared in her chest. 

"No, please tell me why your boyfriend chose to spend another one of his days off at a bar instead of with you. Entertain me, Sawyer. Is there something I'm missing? Because—"

"Knock it off!" Overwhelming emotions tightened her throat, and she took a moment to regain control of them. "You're better off pretending he doesn't exist when we're together."

Harry pressed on the brakes roughly, and Sawyer assumed he was going to pull over so they could both cool off. Instead, he accelerated to the speed limit again with nothing but a clenched jaw and a cold demeanor. She hadn't meant to dim his sunshine.

After a minute passed, he said, "Don't put that thought in my head" before turning on the radio.

The rest of the drive to the hospital was as tense as her sprained ligaments.

——

In the hospital bed, Sawyer drifted in and out of consciousness. The nurse had taken X-rays and wrapped her ankle with an elasticized bandage. The good news was that it was only a minor sprain with no tearing. A couple of weeks of resting and icing the area would help her fully recover.

Her ankle was propped on a stack of three pillows with a cold compress lying dormant on it. She was allowed to be discharged after ten more minutes of ice treatment. In the corner of the room, a basketball game was playing on the TV. The early evening sky was gloomy past the large windows—they were designed not to be opened, leaving her to inhale stuffy and sterile air.

Harry was sitting in a chair butted up right beside the bed with a metaphorical storm cloud looming above his head. The brief argument in the car had escalated far beyond normal. The discomfort she was feeling had caused her to get defensive. Harry, though, got accusatory for whatever reason. There was just something about Jordan that rubbed him the wrong way.

Sawyer would have felt weird gossiping about boyfriend problems with Harry—that was more reserved for girl talk. But time and time again, Jordan's name managed to slip into their conversations with no precedent. She was a failing mediator, and she hated feeling like the referee of an endless tug-of-war match, each boy vying for her heart. Platonic versus romantic, of course. No winner would be crowned.

"Harry, are you mad at me?"

His eyes tracked the fast-paced NBA game on the TV screen. "No," he said mildly.

"Okay." Sawyer twiddled her thumbs and sighed loudly. "Can we go home now?"

"No." The restless bounce of his leg contradicted his supposed nonchalance. "Five more minutes."

"Can I try to change your mind?"

"No."

She huffed and squirmed on the rock-hard mattress, dearly missing her comfy twin bed with its puffy pink duvet. "Can I have a hug?" she asked, softening her voice.

Harry finally glanced over at her, albeit suspiciously. "Do you really need one? Are you going to use your brown-eye sorcery to persuade me?"

She stretched his shirt over her bare knees and rested her chin between them. Purposefully widening her eyes, she said, "Yes to both."

He hummed, stood, and invaded her space with a warmth that temporarily soothed her pain. His arms wrapped around her as he snuggled close on the one-person bed. "Better?"

"Much." Sawyer placed her head on his shoulder and asked, "How was practice?"

"The whole hour I was there?" he replied teasingly. Sawyer grumbled in good nature, and he laughed fondly. "I'm kidding—it was great. I felt right at home."

"I'm proud of you, sunray."

With his brows furrowed, Harry smiled down at her. Those lovely dimples begged to be kissed. "Sunray? That's a first."

A bashful blush heated her cheeks. Sometimes she said things around him without thinking about their implications. "Well, you play for the SunRays now," she said quietly, her nose mere centimeters from his. "And... you make the dreary days a lot brighter."

Harry's lips parted, but no sound poured past them. Riveted eyes danced over her face, and his pupils dilated like a drop of black ink in water. "You're my best friend," he said, absentmindedly rubbing a golden strand of her hair between his fingertips. "I would do anything for you."

But would you kiss me if I asked you to?

Sawyer slid her palm up his chest and cupped his stubbled jaw. Their calm breaths mingled, and she let the sweet scent of bubblegum swirl around her hazy mind. She was sleepy, and her desire to capture and caress his pillowy bottom lip wasn't making any sense. Strange feelings blossomed in her stomach when she looked at him—a wild garden of serenity, obsession, and... love. But not the love she usually felt for him. This was a revelation made known by her rapid heartbeat and his strong, familiar body pressed against her.

The pad of her thumb pressed against the corner of his pretty mouth. One inch forward, and she could change the course of her life. What sensual sounds would he make? Would he sigh into the kiss, knowing it was wrong, or would he inhale her soul and ruin everyone else for her? Even entertaining her fantasies felt like cheating. They were just silly thoughts elicited by exhaustion and pain medication. She would never gamble with someone's heart while betraying another.

"Sawyer, I—"

"Miss Clemente? You're all set to go home now." A nurse appeared in the room, unknowingly interrupting their private moment.

Inhaling a tiny gasp, Sawyer decided to kiss Harry's cheek to eliminate any awkwardness, making it seem like that had been her plan all along. Just a chaste, friendly kiss on the cheek with no romantic intentions behind it at all. There was only a rousing physical response when she pulled away that she would suppress, like every other time she touched him.

When Harry carried her to his car again, she stared at his hand, which held her thighs up with a tight, protective grip. He took care of her without needing a reason to. He made her forget about the pain just by gracing her with his lucent presence. He was doing every tender thing her boyfriend should have done.

Sawyer yearned for Harry, and while exhilaration ignited in her veins at the fact, she knew she was in deep trouble.

It was him she was in love with.

——

[badasmuse]

“Neighbors Know My Name”

Kim Seungmin x Reader

Warnings: 18+ (MDNI), lowercase intended, oral f!recieving, secret sex?

Summary: your boyfriend comes over every night and you guys gave sex almost every time. living in an apartment, what could go wrong?

Listen to this here

living in an apartment building was fun. your neighbors were great. they always invited you to a cookout or gathering. maintenance and management were angels. you’ve never met anyone better.

you were a very private person. sure you were friendly with your neighbors but you don’t go out of your way to tell them your business. with that being said, they don’t know about your boyfriend.. or so you thought.

he works from seven am to seven pm and you work four pm to midnight so he usually meets you at your apartment around one am. just like now.

“hey baby.” he says, picking you up.

“i missed you so much.” you whisper. your lips immediately find his neck as he kicks the door shut gently.

soon enough you’re in your bedroom in your bed with him deep inside you.

“seungmin… seungmin please.” you whine loudly. he holds you down hitting your spot each time.

“like that?” he whispers.

“yes yes oh god.” you moan. your climax comes fast and you scream his name loudly. he pulls out, cumming on your stomach.

morning rolls around and of course seungmin is gone. you sigh, getting up to get in the shower when someone knocks at the door. you hurry to it and you see your next door neighbor. the one who’s bedroom is next to yours.

“hey penny what’s up?” you say hoarsely.

“hey.. you okay?” she asks.

“i’m good. just sleeping in front of that fan. got me hoarse.” you say with a sniffle.

“mhm.. so i just had a question.” you nod waiting for her to continue. “who’s seungmin?”

in your head, you freak out. *how the fuck does she know about seungmin???* but on the outside, “who?”

“don’t ‘who?’ me. our bedrooms are on the same wall. i hear everything and all i heard was ‘seungmin. seungmin please.’ so, who’s seungmin?”

“penny you’re insane.” you giggle, “i don’t know a seungmin. i have to shower i have errands to run before i go to work. have a good day penpal.” you say, waving and closing the door.

you sigh, heading to the shower. you wash the stickiness of your cum off your thighs, thinking about how this is the last time you’ll see seungmin for about a week and a half. “stupid business trips.” you mumble, standing right under the water.

eventually you get out and get ready for the day. you hit up a few stores buying toilet paper, fruit, a new blender, some tampons, and a plan b. you went more than one round and seungmin didn’t pull out the last time. men.

you spend your days texting seungmin. sending him naughty photos and dirty messages. wanting him all riled up so when he comes over again he’ll pound into you until you can’t breathe, speak, or walk.

“hey y/n. your boyfriend comes home today doesn’t he?” a voice says. it’s your best friend, yeji. of course she knows about your boyfriend.

“yeah he does. i can’t wait. the week and a half of pictures and texts aren’t cutting it. i need his hands on my body.” you sigh.

“girl soon enough.” she looks at the clock. “oh it’s only six… welp, you have about seven hours.”

“and imma fuck him all day. from the moment he walks in to the moment before he has to leave.”

“eww.” yeji scrunches her face, “i want a nephew from you. it’s been three years, i’m ready to be an auntie.”

“girl shut up.” you roll your eyes, walking to the register to take the next customer. “i can help you!”

the day drags on slowly, and finally it reaches eleven pm. you lock the door to the bakery and sigh. “okay clean up and i can be home soon.” you say giddily.

*

“bye y/n! have fun and please, at least a niece.” yeji laughs.

you throw your keys at her. “girl fuck you.” you laugh, catching your keys when she picks them up and tosses them back.

you drive home happily, ready to see your precious boyfriend. you shower, scrubbing and shaving every inch of your body again, just in case you missed anything earlier, before moisturizing and putting on his favorite perfume of yours. you dressed in shorts and his button up that he left and wait for him. “ten minutes.” you whisper, watching the clock.

one hits and you rush to your living room and stand by the door. waiting for the knock. the knock that comes thirty minutes later than scheduled.

“fucking finally. i thought you weren’t coming.” you whine after opening the door.

“i’m sorry baby. your neighbor was walking around outside.” seungmin sighs. he picks you up and brings you right to your room. “you smell so good. you used that perfume i like didn’t you?”

“of course i did.” you whisper, clawing at his shirt. “take it off.. now.”

he obeys, not up to argue with you. quickly stripping out of his clothes and taking yours off. he lays you down on your bed before turning you onto your stomach. “did you miss me?” he asks.

“so much..” you whimper. “please.” you beg.

“please what? you know i need you to use your words.” he says, lifting you onto your knees.

“please eat me out t-then fuck me till i can’t walk.” you beg, your hands grip the sheets tightly.

he chuckles before leaning down and sucking on your clit. he moans at your taste, messily eating you out.

“oh seungmin. oh fuck yes seungmin!” your moans fill the room as he sucks on your clit harder, almost as if he’s trying to leave a hickey on your cunt.

he laps at your juices as your legs start to tremble. “c-cumming… minnie i’m cumming!” you scream before cumming on his face.

“attagirl. you always cum so fast from my tongue.” he says, lining his dick up with your hole. “are you ready?”

“always ready for you min… please fuck me..” you beg. you grab a pillow, remembering your last conversation with your neighbor penny. as soon as he enters you you bite down on the pillow, muffling the loud moan that escapes you. “oh my god.” you whine into the pillow softly.

“shit i forgot how good you feel.” he groans. he lifts his foot onto the bed, giving him leverage, before pounding into you ruthlessly.

“oh god seungmin!” you moan out. you grip the sheets as he slams into you. “seungmin!” his name falls from your lips like rain from a cloud. the pillow long forgotten now.

“that’s it baby say my name. let me know how much you m-missed me.” he stutters when you clench around him.

“fuck seungmin missed you so much- don’t stop please don’t stop. i’m s-so close. don’t stop seungmin!” you cry out. the tears start to fall and he pulls you up so your back is against his chest. his hand wraps around your throat and he squeezes gently.

“such a good slut for me… taking me s-so fucking good. fuck i’m gonna cum.” seungmin grunts, his fingers trailing down to your swollen clit.

“please fill me. oh fuck seungmin fill me up.” you cry out. your hands grip the one he has around your throat and the one rubbing your clit. “d-don’t… oh seungmin!” you squeal loudly before cumming on his dick immediately.

“fuck..” he groans before filling you just like you asked.

“can you go another round?” seungmin asks, laying you on your back.

“of course i can.” you giggle pulling him back down.

three hours, two locations, and four positions later, you’re finally finished. you both take a shower and a quick nap before it’s time for him to go. you walk him to the door a sad look on your face. “i hope you got sleep before you came here. you work soon.” you say, kissing him.

“mmm i did.” seungmin whispers against your lips. “i’ll see you tomorrow. don’t look so sad.” he says booping your nose, making you giggle.

seungmin opens the door and jumps at the sight of your neighbor penny with her hand raised getting ready to knock at the door.

“oh! so you’re seungmin!” she giggles and you sigh, mumbling under your breath.

“can’t have shit.”

taglist: (open!)

a/n: man this been in my drafts for like a month and a half lmfdo

[beardedmrbean]

Democratic Mayor Tiffany Henyard of the small Village of Dolton, Illinois, has made national headlines in recent weeks for being accused of weaponizing police in retaliatory business raids and spending taxpayer money on luxurious trips. Now she is facing investigation by the Dolton Trustees as well as the FBI.

In a special meeting Thursday night, a four-trustee majority "voted unanimously to call for an investigation into Henyard and what they say is the misuse of funds," FOX 32 reported. Dolton Trustees slammed the mayor for having "disgraced this entire village" and being a "stain on our community."

Earlier this week it was reported that the FBI is investigating the mayor, as six individuals have reportedly spoken to the agency about her alleged misconduct, including "business owners, a former village employee and one or more public officials." 

The self-proclaimed "Super Mayor," who insists "God chose me" and met with President Biden in January, has been said to engage in such wild antics it is like a "real life Parks and Rec situation." But her multitudes of alleged misdeeds could finally be catching up to her.

From first-class flights to Las Vegas to beauty vendors, Henyard is frequently called out by her colleagues for questionable spending of taxpayers' money, possibly for her own benefit. She makes $285,000 from her positions both as Dolton mayor and Thornton township supervisor.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Henyard reportedly has a $224,000 a year salary as township supervisor alone, but has put forth an ordinance to cut the salary of any non-incumbent supervisor to $25,000.

Municipal attorney Burt Odelson, said to represent Henyard's political opposition, condemned this as "so illegal in so many ways," telling FOX 32 such conduct "violates so many tenets of the law." 

Aside from her personal income, the way she allegedly uses the town’s money has been a consistent source of controversy. While Henyard has denied using village credit cards, WGN Investigates said it obtained copies of the township’s credit card statements indicating village officials spent more than $24,000 at restaurants during a 12-month span, as well as $3,741 just on Henyard taking a round trip flight to Las Vegas. 

Henyard is also well-known for using a makeup artist, hairdresser and stylist before public appearances and photoshoots. Residents complain she puts up town billboards to promote herself personally, and she has produced music videos that feature city workers, such as police dancing or boosting her image by being in the background as she lip-syncs songs. 

On Tuesday, a Dolton-based U-Haul rental and trucking business owner named Lawrence Gardner told FOX 32 he went to the FBI out of frustration that the Village of Dolton would not renew his business license. He claims he has suffered from harassment, a raid on his business and was shut down by Dolton police. Gardner believes it is retaliation after he refused to donate to a civic event sponsored by Henyard.

FOX 32 reported Wednesday that multiple bars in the town were raided by police the day after the news team visited the businesses amid allegations their licenses were being held up for political reasons. The raids reportedly occurred mere hours after FOX 32’s report about the alleged FBI investigation into Henyard’s conduct was released.  

Employees and owners of the bars reportedly claimed "it's part of an ongoing campaign of harassment by Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard" and that "Their business licenses have been stripped by Dolton, but they've continued to operate with a state license."

Tammie Brown, a Dolton Trustee, was quoted in the same report as saying the raids were a warning to other businesses, "I'm sure that they were asked to donate [to Henyard], make a donation, and most likely they didn't make a donation. So you don't get a chance to stay open if you don't pay the queen's ransom."

The Village of Dolton defended the legitimacy of the raids in a statement to FOX 32, arguing both businesses had their liquor licenses previously revoked, and had "a history of violent incidents."

In addition to the raids and music videos, Henyard's use of the police as her personal security has been a source of controversy as well. 

Henyard spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on security, which effectively takes police officers off the streets who should be protecting the town, Dolton Trustee Brittney Norwood said.

"I think that she spends the money on security because she just loves it. She likes the thought of being surrounded by police officers. I think it makes her feel more important," Norwood said. "The police are simply working under her instructions, but it's also sad. It's sad because we need the police patrolling the streets, and they're with her instead."

Former Dolton Police Chief Robert Collins, who was fired by Henyard, also slammed the mayor for maintaining a security detail of "several officers" whom he argues could be out fighting crime, but are instead "sent out to run errands, do pick-ups, do drop-offs."

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is reportedly cracking down on "The Tiffany Henyard CARES Foundation" which, per the acronym, stands for Cancer And Remission Empowering Survivors.

The Chicago Tribune on Thursday reported that Henyard’s charity "has been told by the Illinois attorney general’s office to stop soliciting or accepting contributions, and that it must register with the state." The same outlet summarized that the mayor was told her charity "is not in good standing and states the attorney general has sent multiple letters advising, among other things, that it is not registered with the state."

The letter reportedly warned that "to avoid further action by this office," the charity must file a registration statement, copies of financial reports and a list of the organization’s officers and/or directors by March 13.

Henyard is also infamous for her fiery rhetoric toward the town's trustees in public meetings.

Fox News Digital reported that Henyard slammed her fellow officials at a meeting in early February about her spending when she declared, "You all forget I’m the leader. They want to hear from the mayor. You all ain’t learned that yet. The mayor, not the trustees that don’t do nothing. They only run their mouth. You all don’t do no work, no work!"

Later during the meeting, Henyard proclaimed, "Y’all got false narratives out there, and y’all should be ashamed of y’all selves. Y’all Black. Y’all are Black! And y’all sitting up here beating and attacking on a Black woman that’s in power. Y’all should be ashamed of y’all selves."

Norwood told Fox News Digital in an interview, "I feel as if I'm in a dictatorship." 

She added, "The way she talks [to the trustees] I sometimes feel as if I'm in a mentally abusive relationship… I've learned to expect her to be disrespectful. She's like a bully." 

Norwood is party to a lawsuit that accused the mayor of actions that amounted to "fraud," according to a complaint reviewed by Fox News Digital. 

Henyard was sued for alleged financial wrongdoing by Dolton Trustees on Dec. 23.

"The Defendant’s actions as alleged constitute a fraud upon the residents and taxpayers of the Village," the lawsuit states. It added, the extent of the financial wrongdoing could be more extensive than is currently alleged as Henyard was allegedly concealing the information from the trustees. 

Henyard, the Village of Dolton, and police department did not respond to requests for comment.

[glorytv]

▌  oh, cabi cabi!

caribbean bay is generously sponsoring an exclusive all-inclusive getaway for jincheon's athletes, coaches, and selected staff! located in yongin, just an hour and a half drive from jincheon, caribbean bay is a luxurious indoor and outdoor water park and resort. the park will be closed to the public on march 26-29 as it hosts athletes, coaches and selected staff from jincheon national training center. everyone will leave for yongin together on the national team's private buses at 8 am on march 26. attendance is mandatory for athletes and coaches, while there are limited spots available for staff. treat yourself to some well-deserved rest and relaxation! (and try not to think about the first round of evaluations for the olympic qualifiers scheduled for the second week of april...)

aquatic center: the aquatic center is an indoor waterpark zone. it operates a spa & sauna, an indoor wave pool, and the 'quick rider' (indoor tube & water slide).

sea wave: the sea wave is a large outdoor wave pool, generating artificial waves up to 2.5 m. in the wave pool, everyone has to wear life jackets inside the yellow line, and the wave comes regularly every 90 seconds. sea wave includes the wave pool, a diving pool, and the sandy rest zone.

bay slide: the bay slide features six tube slides and three water bobsleighs. the 'mega storm' is the largest slide, with a height requirement of 120 cm. the mega storm can be used in a round tube and the tube spins down the slide from 37 m in the air to the ground. in the last portion of the slide, the tube plummets into a funnel-looking tornado that is 18 diameters. a trip through the mega storm lasts around a minute.

fortress: this area includes a flowing water pool, a surfing ride, and an adventure pool. the flowing water pool is the world's longest streaming pool, also called a 'lazy pool.' for more less relaxed and more exhilirating water play, the adventure pool splashes 2.4 tons of water at once.

wild river: this area is an extreme water play zone. the main facilities include tower boomerango, tower raft, wild blaster, and san juan bar and restaurant. tower boomerango has five tube slides and one boomerango. tower raft is an extreme water slide featuring a large tube slide track that four people can ride at once. the tube slides down a 90-degree slope. the wild blaster is a log ride-like tube slide. san juan bar and restaurant is the only restaurant in the water park, offering a large menu of caribbean and korean food.

the bay: a recently constructed hotel attached to the resort. each room accommodates two persons, and features its own private bath along with two double beds. attendees may select their own roommate. coaches and staff share rooms, while athletes are paired off for their stay.

this event is open to participation until april 30th. after, you'll have a two-week window to finish all interactions related to the event. by may 15th, no interactions related to this event can be posted as we prepare for our next event (first round of evaluations for the olympic qualifiers). tag related posts using #gtvcabi. your character can do anything during their stay. an optional sidestory is available, check it out below if you're interested in joining. reply with the role you want to claim. happy roleplaying!

▌  sidestory: caribbean bay ad shooting

four public figures from jincheon have been chosen to shoot an ad for caribbean bay. this ad will be aired during commercial spots on national tv and displayed on caribbean bay's website. the ad involves two main characters and two side characters, and will be shot alongside a handful of extras. the ad features a lifeguard training camp taking place in caribbean bay, focusing on MC1 and MC2 as they navigate the rough waters of a mutual crush, and eventually find love during their stay at the water park. everyone wears white tops and red shorts provided by production for the water training scenes. everyone is expected to bring their own clubbing attire for the party scene. the san juan bar and restaurant will be closed on march 28 for shooting.

main character 1 (male, hall of fame subplot): through the course of their training in different parts of the water park, MC1 and MC2 constantly steal glances at each other. they refuse to talk, which builds up frustration, and ends with an altercation in the locker room, where MC2 rolls her eyes at MC1 before leaving the room. later, at night, they have a heart-to-heart by the pool. at the end of the commercial, they're seen dancing together at the san juan bar and restaurant during a party, having finally reconciled. MC1 is required to attend shooting on march 27 and 28 2, starting at 6 am and ending at 11 pm.

main character 2 (female, hall of fame subplot): through the course of their training in different parts of the water park, MC1 and MC2 constantly steal glances at each other. they refuse to talk, which builds up frustration, and ends with an altercation in the locker room, where MC2 rolls her eyes at MC1 before leaving the room. later, at night, they have a heart-to-heart by the pool. at the end of the commercial, they're seen dancing together at the san juan bar and restaurant during a party, having finally reconciled. MC2 is required to attend shooting on march 27 and 28, starting at 6 am and ending at 11 pm.

side character 1 (male, hall of fame subplot): SC1 is MC1's friend, who is seen training alongside the other lifeguards. he's seen talking to MC1 in the locker room before MC2 leaves. he's also seen flirting with SC2, applying sunscreen on SC'2 back. SC1 is required to attend shooting on march 27 and 28, starting at 12 pm and ending at 11 pm.

side character 2 (female, hall of fame subplot): SC2 is MC2's friend, who is seen training alongside the other lifeguards. she's seen talking to MC2 in the locker room before MC2 leaves. she's also seen flirting with SC1, laying on a pool bed while SC1 applies sunscreen on her back. SC2 is required to attend shooting on march 27 and 28, starting at 12 pm and ending at 11 pm.

extras (open to everyone): lifeguards seen in the background during training, and party-goers seen in the background during MC1 and MC2's reconciliation. extras are required to attend shooting on march 27 (6 am - 12 pm), and march 28 (6 pm - 11 pm).

[zeldahime]

Highway to Pail Day 23

[Day 1] [Prev] [Next] @do-it-with-style-events

February 23: Bitter coffee.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Don't think about Lindsey.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Don't check your phone; you already know what's in those texts and you have to get through the rest of the day.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Is it four yet? Can't start closing up til four. (Maybe we'll get some of those mid-afternoon business types, then. Stay open til six, rake in a few more sales.)

"Give me death," a joker tells Rhiannon for the fifteenth time today, and you want to pour this espresso over his head. No, waste of good coffee; you want to pour the pot of decaf over his head.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Running through oat milk faster than you did last month, seems like. Gonna have to pick some up from the shops to get through to the next delivery. Is it worth a trip to the restaurant supply on Shaftesbury?

Set. Pull. Pour.

No, god, if you have to go all the way over to Saftesbury you'll be a full half-hour. Lindsey'll go mental.

Lindsey's already going mental though, if the buzzing in your pocket is anything to go by. Might as well.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Certainly isn't four yet but it must be getting on to eleven, and haven't seen hide nor hair of Stevie yet have you? If they're late again you'll have to be big mean boss lady, and it's not like that's not what you are anyway, but you really do need someone 'round in the afternoons who shows up when they're supposed to. Rhi needs to go eat while it's slow and you need a second pair of hands at the bar during the lunch rush.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Skinny latte—oh! From across the road. She always seems to be having a hard time of it lately, poor lamb. Nobody really buys records anymore, do they, not since CDs were invented anyway. Wonder how she's managed to stay in business so long....

Set. Pull. Pour.

There's Stevie, thank god, maybe Rhi can get a bite before the lunch crowd starts in earnest.

"Just set your bag behind the bar and get on the register, we'll figure out your clock later. Rhiannon, food, insulin, go." Rhi looks relieved. It must be even later than you thought.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Just check the time. All you have to look at is the time. Don't worry about the notifications. You don't have to look at those. Just the time. You can check the time without thinking about—fuck, Lindsey's pissed.

And it's 11:13. Stevie's almost an hour late. You should've called them forty minutes ago.

Set. Pull. Pour.

And you didn't have to check the time, because in comes Mr Fell, 11:15 for his tea and biscuits. You could set your watch by Mr Fell's tea and biscuits, though not by anything else about him. Weirdest opening hours you've ever seen. You grabbed the new white peony tea, just came in from that bloke in Chiswick, and set it by the register for Stevie to show Fell.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Lindsey should know better than to think you've got any interest in that Chiswick guy. Right? You don't even like tea. Chiswick isn't your type. There's no way that conversation on the phone was flirtatious. It was all business. It was about tea vending for Christ's sake. Lindsey's got to be reading into things.

Set. Pull. Pour.

....Right?

Author's note: It was so hard not using any pronouns for Lindsey! I had to keep reworking sentences to make sure it didn't read too awkwardly. This is also my first time writing in 2nd person in a very long time. I think I'm happy with that decision; it helps the stream-of-consciousness feeling.

[fuckyeah-jessicabiel]

Jessica Biel for Vogue, February 2010

The Real Biel

You can learn all sorts of interesting things about a person on a road trip together. For example: Jessica Biel is a very good driver. She is behind the wheel of a Subaru heading north from Vancouver toward Whistler, one of the ski resorts hosting the Olympics this month. Because of record-breaking snow, Biel has decided to ditch the more traditional plans she’d made for our interview and hit the slopes instead. So here we are, side by side, snacking on trail mix and listening to the sound track to Where the Wild Things Are. In the car in front of us is Biel’s assistant and best friend, Lindsay Ratowsky, who is being driven with all of our bags and equipment. Our mini caravan left Vancouver in the late afternoon in a downpour, and now we are driving in the dark in a snowstorm. Wearing jeans and hiking boots, Biel, who grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and has been snowboarding since she was a kid, is utterly in her element. “This is very much a me moment: in the snow, in the Subaru, listening to music,” she says. “I feel really at peace in this environment.”

It’s a far cry from where we were two hours ago, when Biel had 40 pounds of ammo strapped around her waist and an M4 semiautomatic assault rifle hoisted above her right shoulder. We were on the outskirts of Vancouver in an empty warehouse the size of a Walmart, part of the soundstage where she has been filming The A-Team. Paul, a dashing fellow with a British accent whom Biel describes as the “resident badass,” was teaching her the finer points of racking and reloading. After Biel squeezed off several deafening rounds, Paul calculated the number of mistakes she made and then said, “Twenty-four!” She dropped to the floor and gave him two dozen push-ups. It was only then that I noticed that she is as thin as a teenage boy and all muscle. Her usual Jessica Rabbit curves have all but disappeared, the red-carpet Sex Bomb nowhere to be found.

Who is Jessica Biel? Let’s admit it: She is a bit of a cipher. The girls who read the tabloids think of her as Justin Timberlake’s on-again, off-again girlfriend; my aunt Nancy thinks of her as little Mary Camden from the mid-nineties WB series 7th Heaven; and most men under 40 think of her as the smokin’ hottie who let Adam Sandler massage her breasts in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. I think it is fair to say that Jessica Biel has not yet experienced a unifying cultural moment. In other words: She can still ride the subway, which, in fact, she tells me she just did the other day. “I talked to a girl who liked my shoes,” she says. “ ‘Oh, those are cute. Where’d you get those?’ ‘I got them at Barneys.’ ‘Are you from New York?’ ‘No, I’m from out of town.’ ‘Oh, cool. Nice to talk to you.’ ‘Nice to talk to you!’ ”

My own expectations were equally off-base; I imagined her as a sort of modern-day Raquel Welch. I thought she would purr. But that notion was shattered the instant I met her. It does not take long to figure out that Jessica Biel is a mellow creature, a young woman who appears to be completely at ease with herself and who meets the world on her own terms. I spent nearly two full days with her, and not once did I see her tense up. This is at least partly due to how she was raised. She describes her parents as hippies. “They are major outdoor people,” she says. “They rafted the Grand Canyon when they were in their 20s. They are an incredible couple.”

Her father, Jon, worked for GE for many years and ran his own business consultancy in Boulder. “He is extremely motivated and ambitious,” she says. “I get those qualities from him.” Her mother, Kim, grew up one of six kids in a small town a few hours southwest of Denver where Jessica and her parents both own cabins on adjoining properties. Her mother’s side of the family is part Native American: Those crazy-high cheekbones are shared by her younger brother, mother, and grandmother. When she tells me that her parents dehydrate their own food, culture their own vegetables, and make their own coconut kefir, I can’t help laughing. “I actually do, too!” she says.

One of the benefits of having hippie parents is that they tend to indulge whimsy. Handbell choir! Jazz and tap class! By the time Biel was in her early teens, she was training as a level-six gymnast and starring in local musicals. One summer she took a commercial-acting class. It led to a talent convention in Los Angeles, which landed her an agent and a scholarship to a kids’ acting school. “I was hooked,” she says. It was around this time that her parents started making sacrifices so she could be in L.A. for pilot season. “It was stressful, for sure: my mom leaving my brother when he was so little for months at a time; my dad having to deal on his own. Sometimes I look back and think, God, you guys were crazy for letting some twelve-year-old do what she wanted. I mean, they did everything for me.”

It paid off. In 1996, when she was fourteen, Biel was cast as the levelheaded eldest daughter, Mary Camden, on the weirdly successful Aaron Spelling series 7th Heaven, a treacly morality lesson dressed up as a weekly family drama about a progressive reverend and his family. It ran for eleven seasons and is—get this—the longest-running family drama in television history. But as the show became a staple in Middle America’s living rooms, Biel blossomed into a knockout and began to chafe at the limitations of playing the same Goody Two-shoes year after year. She wanted out. It is now part of showbiz legend—and one of Biel’s enduring regrets—that just a few weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday, she posed nearly naked for the cover of Gear, a magazine owned by Bob Guccione, Jr., and got her wish. If in the end it turned out to be a savvy move, freeing her from a stultifying character, at the time it infuriated her colleagues. Stephen Collins, her TV dad, called it “child pornography,” and Spelling released her from her contract after the fourth season.

Now, as she is focused, laser-like, on getting us through the storm, she seems thoughtful about the whole episode. “I really wanted to go to college, and it all kind of happened at the same time. I did this photo shoot; the photo shoot came out; it was terribly embarrassing. I had to apologize to everybody, including my parents. It was a big learning experience: learning how to have boundaries and how to say no.”

Not surprisingly, Biel has a lot of empathy for young girls dealing with adolescence in front of an audience. “I have this overwhelming motherly feeling toward them. Just do what you gotta do, girls! Hold it together! I wish everyone would just leave them alone.” Biel has clearly figured out the importance of maintaining some semblance of autonomy in a highly scrutinized life. She likes to drive by herself the eighteen hours from L.A. to Boulder with her dogs—even though everyone tells her it’s dangerous. When I mention that Gwen Stefani wrote the song “Just a Girl” about this very phenomenon—pretty girls being cautioned not to go anywhere alone—Biel says, “Rock on, girl. I feel her pain.”

Suddenly we hit a backup on the highway. There has been an accident. If we have a minor accident, it will add drama to the story, I say. “I was thinking that, too!” she says. “Actually, I was just thinking, Where are my gloves? Because if we crash we’ll have to get out, and we’ll have to be warm.” She laughs. “And then I took it to another level: What if I kill him? My other thought was, At least they would test me for drugs and alcohol and I would be clean. I would not go to jail. But you would be dead, and it would be horrible! There’s no good outcome!” We are laughing when we finally pass the scene of the crime. “What is she doing in a skirt?” says Biel, looking at the woman who has obviously caused this mess. “And high-heeled boots?” She looks over at me and smiles. “We are going to get there alive. I just know it. I have good karma.”

If Jessica Biel seems to live a charmed personal life (rumors of breakups notwithstanding), she hasn’t had such great luck in her career. Not long after we arrive at our hotel, we meet for dinner at the restaurant downstairs. Biel shows up wearing black Frye motorcycle boots, dark-blue jeans that look like leggings, a loose black scoop-neck T-shirt, a droopy red Steven Alan cardigan, and a chunky white Chanel watch. Once again, she winds up in the driver’s seat, engaging our waitress on the wine list and then talking me into ordering a Gewürztraminer. At one point she asks the waitress about the halibut. “Is it still in season? Is it nice?” It’s really nice, says the waitress perfunctorily. “I don’t know if I believe you,” Biel says to her in the most startling, matter-of-fact way. “Talk to me more about it.” The waitress admirably rises to the challenge. Finally convinced, Biel orders the dish (and cleans her plate).

The conversation quickly settles on her vexed post-TV career, which goes like this: ill-conceived remake of famous horror film; tragic Bret Easton Ellis adaptation; even more tragic Kim Basinger vehicle; meaningless third installment of Blade franchise; terrible movie; terrible movie . . . The Illusionist! Starring Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, it is easily the best film Biel has been in. Though it was not a commercial hit, it is a pleasure to watch, and Biel is believable as a Viennese woman from the turn of the last century. “A lot of times people I work with have said, ‘Oh, this movie is going to be the one,’ and then nothing happens. But with The Illusionist I felt it more than ever, that people really started to see me differently.”

And then there is Biel’s run of bad luck with great directors. Cameron Crowe cast her in Elizabethtown, a film that flopped on a grand scale, and David O. Russell gave her the lead in Nailed, based on Kristin Gore’s novel Sammy’s Hill, about a woman with no health insurance who gets a nail lodged in her head and goes to Washington to fight for justice. “Jess was tired of being cast as merely sultry and was more than ready to throw down for all the weird behavior a nail in the head gives her character,” says Russell. “She auditioned and went for it—she is fearless.” Gore (Al’s daughter), who co-wrote the screenplay with Russell, spent three months with Biel on the set in South Carolina. “I think her range is something that has yet to be discovered by the larger world,” she says. “She also has this preternatural self-assurance.” The production shut down because of money problems with just one thing left to shoot: the scene where Biel gets the nail shot into her head. That was in 2008, and with each passing month it grows ever less likely that her most challenging film work to date will make it to the screen.

Meanwhile, the film industry has gone through a major upheaval since the recession. “The last year in this business has been harsh,” says Biel. “There’s no material. Nobody wants to make dramas. And that’s what we all want to do.” What is getting produced, she says, are “commercial movies—horror movies, big romantic comedies, and action movies. Those can be great, but you don’t want to do only those kinds of films. You can’t live on éclairs alone. You have to have a spinach salad every now and again.”

For now, however, she gorges on éclairs. This month she stars in Valentine’s Day, an ensemble romantic comedy, directed by Garry Marshall, that features a galaxy of A-list stars: Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Patrick Dempsey, and so on. Biel plays a neurotic sports publicist and toxic bachelorette. “I really get to play crazy,” she says gleefully. “A girl who has hit the wall with wanting to find a man. And I get to do some broad comedy; it’s a little Lucille Ball-esque.” And who better than Garry Marshall to direct her? “She was so eager to do physical comedy, in particular, because she knew I worked with Lucy and with my sister on Laverne & Shirley,” Marshall says. “She sings a wild song in the movie; it’s kind of down-and-dirty singing, and it’s really great.”

Biel and Garner became friends on the shoot. “She’s incredibly girly and warm and open—all of the things she seems to buck against when she’s looking at roles,” says Garner. “The first scene that I did with her, she was drunk in the scene. It’s hard to play drunk, not to overdo it. But she did it in such a subtle, real, kind of pathetic but very, very deeply funny way. I was, take one, totally impressed.”

The dearth of good material has pushed Biel to diversify her portfolio, so to speak. Last August, she was cast alongside Brian Stokes Mitchell when the Los Angeles Philharmonic did a three-night concert version of Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl. Biel took everyone by surprise with what director Richard Jay-Alexander described as her beautiful, “silvery” singing voice. On the last night, she received a rousing standing ovation from 17,000 people. More recently, she landed a part in Lincoln Center Theater’s two-week-long workshop of the musical version of the Pedro Almodóvar classic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, along with Salma Hayek, who plays the lead. “I think they are going to put it up in the fall,” she says hopefully. “And I think they will approach me again.” A girl can dream, can’t she? As far as Garner is concerned, Biel should: “There’s nothing between her and bigger things except for one job.”

The next morning we wake up to discover that the snow has turned to rain. By the time we arrive at the base of the mountain, there is only one gondola running, and the line stretches all the way through the village. Deflated, we decide to eat breakfast in a honky-tonk saloon that reeks of last night’s beer. Amid the German techno music, the Madonna/Justin Timberlake song “4 Minutes” suddenly blasts over the sound system, and we stare down at our plates awkwardly. Biel looks up at me with a big smile on her face and punctures the silence: “Dance break!” (We had another awkward moment in the car during our drive when Biel was talking about her style. “I like really überfeminine, classic-looking things mixed with something rougher around the edges. I’ve been looking at Rihanna a lot, checking her out. She’s got something going on that I am sort of craving a little bit.” I nearly choked on my trail mix. I could not tell whether this was a Freudian slip, some worrisome Single White Female voodoo, or a calculated little piece of spin designed to show me that she is unthreatened by the rumors that her man has eyes for the diva from Barbados.)

Biel and Timberlake have been an item since 2007 and for a long time looked like a happy couple. Recently, however, they have had to endure all manner of tabloid speculation about their private lives. Biel recently laughed off the rumors to a reporter, saying, “It’s definitely been weird and sort of bizarre to deal with. But you have to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Honestly, I look at a magazine and they know more than I do.” Last night at dinner I brought it up and was met with steely resolve. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I don’t feel the need to clear anything up. It’s the most precious thing that I have in my life, and I care about it so much that I don’t care about what anyone says or thinks. I have just not addressed it in any real way, and I’m not going to. It’s mine. And I really like that about it.”

There is something refreshing about a girl with boundaries, someone who has her priorities in order despite the relentlessness of the tabloids and the strangeness of doing drills in some warehouse far away from her own life. And if there is a sense that potentially great things await Jessica Biel—that she has not yet shown us who she is and what she is capable of—it’s hard not to wonder what exactly is holding her back.

One possible answer came up during our dinner, when we were talking about her va-va-voom image—so at odds with how she really is. “When I see myself in pictures with makeup on, even to this day, I think it looks weird. My eyes get squintier and smaller. On the red carpet, I’m playing a character. As soon as I get off that thing I think, Oof, wipe that gloss off. I’m wiping and wiping and pulling my hair out and trying to change my outfit. I’m immediately trying to get comfortable. It’s really a part I play.”

One wonders why she can’t just play herself. In person she projects such a winning and natural beauty. As Jennifer Garner puts it, “She’s not just beautiful, she’s kind of on another level, but there’s an earthiness and a strength to it.” Too much makeup and the wrong dress seem to smother all that, and it’s a disconnect that clearly extends to the roles she chooses.

We eventually make our way up the mountain, and above 1,200 feet, it is snowing: The skiing is sublime. Not surprisingly, Biel is both goofy and confident on her snowboard. Afterward, we head back to the hotel lounge; her assistant, Lindsay, joins us, and Biel orders an old-fashioned. At one point someone took a picture of her on the slopes and she said to me, “Smile for Biel.” Now she explains: “My grandmother, whom we call Biel, thinks it’s very unbecoming of me not to smile for the paparazzi. So every time I see them I think, Smile for Biel!”

This is a reminder of why Jessica Biel is so grounded: Her family keeps her that way. When I point this out, she says, “I might just be way too boring to ever be a really great actress.” Great actresses can live boring lives, I say. It’s great stars who kick dust up everywhere they go.

“I don’t do that,” says Biel. “Maybe I should do a little bit more of that.” She laughs at the thought. “A dust kicker-upper might be kind of fun. . . .”

Lindsay pipes up: “Think of your life if you were like that, though. I would probably hate you. Your boyfriend probably wouldn’t be that into you. You’d be a big bitch.” But it’s clear that Lindsay thinks the world of her boss. “If you met her at a barbecue, you would never know that she was a movie star,” she says. “To her friends, Jess is the most compassionate, caring, kind, loving, wonderful human being that they know.”

“See?” says Biel. “Nothing that interesting!”

[girderednerve]

apologies dear friends i continue to be: a grouchy old man, obsessed with libraries

my new job is fine objectively like there is nothing wrong with it but my boss is very "do storytime, do more storytime, we must schedule storytime," and does not really listen to anything i say, such as 'i would like to do less early literacy programming so that i have some time to do programs for elementary & early middle schoolers,' or 'please schedule me on the youth desk instead of giving me nothing but unstructured office time, leaving me isolated & uninvolved in the day-to-day operations of the library, with which i need to rapidly develop familiarity,' or 'our desk schedule actually should not be rigidly set a month in advance, because we need to be flexible & can work out desk coverage on a department level,' or 'you actually do need to have a clear & specific plan for emergencies, including severe patron issues, & this plan should be communicated to all staff instead of vaguely stashed four folders deep in the shared drive'. (actually when i repeatedly pressed for clarity on who is in charge at any given time she posted an updated chain-of-command document which listed, for some reason, me? as third in line in case of emergency? which is just bugfuck)

it feels very frustrating & i know that many of these problems will resolve themselves as i begin to actually do programs—i haven't been able to because all programming at this library must have at least 2 weeks' advance notice, and i came onboard right after thanksgiving/needed time to get my bearings at least a little—so we can get some cute kid pictures to placate the board & build more of a sense of what is needed. but i still don't really know how to pull reports so i can't weed, i only just got ordering credentials this week & have had to find $2k of books to add to a library collection with which i am largely unfamiliar & for which i have absolutely zero circulation numbers, & nobody has actually given me an up-to-date budget (i am meant to guess, i suppose?). it feels kind of like a slow ongoing disaster; i know this feeling is partially because i have 2 hours' round-trip commute to worry & stew & so on, but i also am just like. girl you are a bad manager. you have persistent staff issues because you are not good at managing people. every meeting you are in is worse because you are in it. you cannot handle interpersonal tensions by having your assistant make friendly 'reminders' to all staff which are obviously about a single person, that never works. i have really strong feelings about management for a person who does not want to be in management! should probably try to walk that one off!

i cornered the adult services/sysadmin librarian today to talk to him about some stub ideas i have for kid programs about 'learning to code,' because we have (apparently) gotten lots of requests for this kind of thing, & basically everything on offer is just buzzwordy bullshit like 'make a bracelet that spells your kid's name in binary using different color beads!' or 'buy this expensive piece of edtech which will be unsupported in six months & anyway only introduces kids to our very closed environment!' or 'just let them spend some time on the computer, so their elastic little brains can pick up digital literacy skills by exposure :)'. so i had some ideas which seemed less like, um, nonsense, but i don't actually know how to code (am stupid) so i wanted to run them past him to get a sense of whether there was any real content there. i want to build a little model transistor & talk about why computers use binary. i want to use a makey makey to have the kids construct a sort of human circuit by holding hands, so we can model a logic gate. i want to write an if-then chart together & roll dice to determine which dance moves we do (cf. a ucla comp sci prof's exercises with her four-year-old). i want to use a makey makey to make a simple morse code transmitter so we can talk about encryption & transmission. i want to make an escape room so we can practice some very basic math & simple decryption (& also persistence!). i want to have tweens play scaled-down capture the flag to think about security. my boss just wants me to do three storytimes a week into infinity

anyway i am still marinating on my computer skills for kids concepts (it's mostly buzzwordy bullshit! even the stuff i want to do is kind of bullshit, lol) & plotting my wind tunnel/paper airplane prototyping program & figuring out when i can schedule my middle grade graphic novel book club. i am trying to figure out how this job might be doable. maybe someday i will want to go to work. america autem delenda est

[eddyxftz]

ꕀ ᐝ 𖠳 theo james, cis man, he&him 𖠳 ᐝ ꕀ ‷ heads up ; if you hear MY LIFE by BILLY JOEL blaring, it’s most likely EDWARD FITZGERALD making their way down the shore ! they’re 36 years old and celebrate their birthday on 01/01 - i knew they were a CAPRICORN ! especially since they’re very CHARMING and IMPULSIVE. they are from PORT ST. LUCIE, FL, staying in DOWNTOWN and are currently working as a TOUR GUIDE, here at the cape. they always did remind me of long boozy boat rides, late night beach trips, and buying a round for the entire bar |||| tw: death

Stats

Full Name: Edward Alexander Thomas Fitzgerald

Nickname(s): Eddy, Fitz.

Age/Date Of Birth: Thirty Six/1st January

Gender/Pronouns: Cis Man, He/him

Height: 6''

Sexuality: Bisexul

Occupation: Tour Guide

Parents: Alexander & Maria Fitzgerald

Siblings: Alex(39), Margot(26), Phillip(21)

Personality:

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Positive Traits: Confident, Modest, Generous.

Negative Traits: Impulsive, Impatient, Argumentative.

Hobbies: Sailing, Drinking & Jogging.

Likes: Boats, Classic Movies, Breakfast Food, 70s Music.

Dislikes: Flying, Rude Customers, Show Offs, Loud People.

Biography:

Edward was born into a wealthy family. His father was the owner of one of the biggest publishing empires in America, a role that had been handed down in the Fitzgerald family for generations.

His family was rich but Edward had always had a very different relationship with money than them. He never made any insanely large purchases, and never told people about his wealth.

Edward always had a very strained relationship with the other members of his immediate family, especially his father. His dad was extremely boastful about his wealth and careless with money. Something that never sat right with Eddy.

Edward always had a much closer bond with his Grandfather, who seemed to have a similar mindset to Eddy, and often told him about how much he regretted spoiling Edward's father as a child.

He spent many summers with his grandparents, choosing to visit them rather than go on lavish holidays with his family.

Edward and his grandfather bonded over their shared love of sailing, and the two would spend hours on his grandad's yacht.

In high school he was popular, well liked by everybody around him, but he was constantly at war with himself about whether people liked him for him, or for how much money his family had.

Eddy went to college to study History, mostly to keep his parents off his back since he still had no clue what he wanted to do in life.

As soon as he graduated he moved to Florida to try and distance himself from his family name and his father's watchful eyes.

When he was around twenty four his grandfather gifted him with his old yacht as an early birthday present and to spite Edward's father who had always wanted it to sell.

Edward loved it and spent months fixing it up and repairing it until it was truly sea worthy again. After he had had some fun sailing around the coast and partying with a few close friends on it, he decided he'd put it to some use and began giving boat tours to local tourists.

A few months into his tour guide gid he met Chayce. Eddy had never been much of a relationship guy since he always struggle to trust people so easily, but Chayce was different. It started off as hook ups and developed into a relationship quite quickly. They dated for a few a year or two and everything was going great, until Eddy had to leave.

His grandfather had gotten sick so Eddy decided to go and take care of him, considering all that man had done for him. Him and Chayce tried to make it work long distance, but eventually Edward decided it was best to break things off.

It wasn't an easy decision for Edward and it did take it's toll, but he knew deep down it was the right choice to make.

After almost four years of caring for his grandfather he unfortunately passed away. Leaving almost his entire fortune exclusively to Edward.

Edward's family was not happy about this at all, especially his father but it was what Eddy's grandfather wanted and there was no way he'd disrespect his grandfather's wishes.

Eddy was practically shunned by his father not long after all of this, and though he had never had much of a relationship or a liking for the man, it did hurt a little how quickly his siblings and even his mother followed suit.

He decided to not dwell on it for too long though and sailed his grandfathers boat around the east coast until he ended up in Cape May.

He now gives guided boat tours to tourists based on a few quick facts he got from google, but it's really Eddy's charm and charisma that keep customers coming back for more.

Other Stuff/Random Shit:

Edward lives in an apartment in Downtown that he shares with Leon Amos. He could easily afford one of the pricier houses in Cape May but likes to keep his living arrangements more simple and modest, and he loves having a room mate.

He hasn't spoken to any of his family members since his grandfathers funeral, but often debates reaching out to his siblings though he's unsure he'd even get a response.

He's extremely generous and giving, especially when he's drunk and has been known to pay an entire bar's tab when he's in a good enough mood.

His music tastes is very 60's & 70's orientated. He loves anything Billy Joel, Presley or Fleetwood Mac related and is known for blasting music off of his boat late at night.

He doesn't just use his boat for tours, he sometimes rents it out to locals who just want a trip around the Cape and anybody who wants to party and doesn't mind paying the damage.

He isn't the greatest driver and has crashed the boat several times in the last couple of months, but will never let anybody else drive it, ever, no matter what.

tbc

Wanted Connections

Regular Customers

Ex(Hook Ups, Dates, FWB)

Best Friend

ANYTHING.

[jrpneblog]

Long trip for North End in punishing schedule

North End make the longest trip of the season on Saturday when we take on Plymouth Argyle at Home Park, a round trip of over 600 miles for the Deepdale faithful. The game in Devon comes on the back of a decent week with North End taking four points from the two home games against Coventry and Norwich at the start of an intense seven game run in twenty two days. After the trip to Plymouth on Saturday we welcome Arsenal to Deepdale next Wednesday evening in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup as we look to cause a major upset in the competition and get to the quarter final stage for the first time in our illustrious history.

Last Saturday North End claimed all three points from Mark Robins Coventry City, with a 1-0 win, courtesy of an Emil Riis header twenty minutes from the end in what turned out to be a quite tight affair. North End shaded the chances in the game and shaded the play but if it had not been for Freddie Woodman diving to his left in the dying seconds of the match it could have have easily finished with the spoils shared. North End seem to have the jynx over the Sky Blues at Deepdale and I think this was the twenty second league game that Coventry have come to Deepdale without going away with a win. A truly incredible record.

On Tuesday evening Norwich City were the visitors to Deepdale and I thought the Canaries were the best side we have seen at Preston in the league this season. North End started the game like a house on fire and were two goals up inside twelve minutes from a Sam Greenwood penalty and a well constucted goal from Duane Holmes. North End put a massive amount of energy into the first quarter of the game and could not quite hold out until half time before the visitors pulled one back. When Duffy equalised after an hour it was very nip and tuck but North End finished the better and were well deserving of a point from an entertaining game under the Deepdale lights.

On Saturday we travel to Plymouth to take on Wayne Rooneys team who lie two points and five places below North End in 21st position in the Championship. Having said that the Pilgims have won three and drawn one of their five home games this season scoring nine goals and only conceding six. North Ends last waay win in the Championship came at Home Park way back in March when a Liam Millar shot from the right hand side was the difference between the two teams. It wont be an easy game for North End, none in the Championship are, but I think we are playing well enough to win this game and make it a very good week with seven points out of nine for Hecky`s charges.

On Wednesday evening we welcome Arsenal to Deepdale for our 4th Round Carabao Cup tie in what promises to be a grand occasion for those inside Deepdale. I, personally, am very disappointed with ticket sales to date leading up to the game but there are many reasons why this should be the case. It is, of course, a free hit for North End and although there will be speculation on how strong a team Arsenal will put out but you can bet your life that there will still be plenty of stars on show and the least we can do is give Hecky and the boys a full house to run out to. So if you havent made up your mind whether to go or not to go, get yourself down to Deepdale as you may well see a bit of history being made.

And finally this week:- I had a long discussion the other day on whether VAR would be an improvement if introduced into the Championship. I am definitely in the No camp on this one as Ive seen too many decisions go in favour of the so called big teams in the Premier League. On that basis alone ...it`s a NO from me!

.

MATCH PREDICTION -

PLYMOUTH ARGYLE (A) League - Away win

ARSENAL (H) - Carabao Cup 4th Round - Away win

.

JR`s HIGH FIVES

Arsenal to beat Liverpool 6/4

A £5 Stake returns £12.50 on bet365

SEASONS STATS

Returns £37.63 Stake £55.00

Percentage profit+/-loss - 31.58%

Predictions 11 won 3 lost 8

[dknuth]

Aegean Sailing and More Ancient Sites

We continue our sailing along the Turkish coast. Last night was a full moon, and I figured I didn't have enough zoom on my phone to get a good photo, but I tried anyway. The moon went behind some clouds, and I was pleasantly surprised at the surrealistic image that I got.

Sunrise this morning was outstanding. This is such a great place to be up for sunrise!

I get up around 6:30 for sunrise, they make coffee before 7:30, breakfast at 8, and we are usually off exploring before 9. That's a challenging schedule for Cathie, but I love it.

This portion of the trip is working well for us. I go off to see ancient sites for 4 or 5 hours a day, which is a pretty relaxed schedule for me, and Cathie has been staying on board, relaxing, swimming, napping, and reading. We may have to do more of these trips.

This morning's trip was to ancient Miletus, a major city. We anchored off Didim and took a van from there.

The Miletus Theater is massive.

The lower portion of the theater is Greek and built into the hill in the Greek fashion. However, the Romans increased its size by building higher than the hill.

Like most of these cities, Miletus was built around a port. Actually, four ports surrounded the peninsula it was on. But like most of these cities, the port silted up centuries ago, and now it is surrounded by fields. The surrounding hills are topped with modern windmills, just barely visible in the photo.

The main temple in town was to Apollo, but it was not a substantial structure—just a Tholos (round open temple of columns). Today, all that's left is the foundation, visible in the center of the enclosure.

The front of the local bath is more impressive today.

While it was a major city at one time, it is scattered ruins, olive groves, and cattle today.

Our second visit of the day was to Didyma, the site of a huge temple to Apollo. Most temples were hexastyle, six columns wide, this one is a decastyle, ten columns wide.

Besides having a lot of columns, they are huge.

The temple was about 20km from Miletus and there was a sacred way, used for funeral processions, from the town to the temple.

There was a sacred spring, and it was a sacred site from the 8th century B.C. It was also the site of an oracle. A priest sat above the sacred spring and issued utterances that were interpreted to the person who had submitted the question.

It was destroyed by the Persians in 494 B.C. and remained a ruin until Alexander freed it from the Persians in 334 B.C. The Milesians then began construction of the temple that was one of the largest in the Greek world.

The temple continued in use through the Greek and Roman periods until the coming of Christianity to the area.

Note that while it was a major temple for hundreds of years, it was never entirely finished; this can be seen in that one of the standing columns was never fluted.

The individual elements on the ground make the immense size of the columns more apparent.

The amount of work that it took to build such a temple is astonishing, especially considering that it was all manual. Drums for the columns had to be lifted by a primitive crane taller than the columns. These were usually operated by a large wheel similar to a hamster wheel.

[akbran-tours]

Taj Mahal Tour From Hyderabad By Flight By Akbran Tours

Taj Mahal Tour By Air From Hyderabad With Akbran Tours

Akbran Tours has designed the ideal schedule for you if you're in Hyderabad and long to see the Taj Mahal's breathtaking splendor. This travel package gives you the opportunity to see the famous Taj Mahal and other Agra sights in a single day, all with the convenience of a direct flight.

H1: Summary of the Flying Taj Mahal Tour From Hyderabad Travelers who wish to see the Taj Mahal's magnificence without committing to a multi-day trip might take this tour. Round-trip airfares from Hyderabad to Delhi, private transportation to Agra, and a guided tour of the Taj Mahal and other important Agra attractions are all included in the package.

H2: Leaving Hyderabad Early in the Morning H3: Handsome Flight Itinerary The tour starts with a flight from Hyderabad to Delhi, usually leaving at five or six in the morning. Akbran Tours makes sure all of your travel plans go smoothly so you can unwind and enjoy the ride. Arriving early gives you plenty of time to discover Agra's attractions.

H3: Departure from Delhi and Travel to Agra When you arrive in Delhi, you will be met at the airport by an Akbran Tours representative. You will then be driven to Agra in a cozy, air-conditioned car for a three to four-hour ride. Experiencing a peek of rural life is enhanced by the picturesque drive across the Indian countryside.

H2: The Taj Mahal's discovery H3: Tour with a Guide of the Taj Mahal Without a doubt, your trip to the Taj Mahal will be the highlight of the day. Explore the architecture, history, and romance narrative of this breathtaking site with the assistance of a knowledgeable guide from Akbran Tours. Constructed by the Indian emperor Shah Jahan as a tribute to his spouse Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj Mahal is a testament to eternal love and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

H3: The Magnificence of Mughal Buildings The majesty of the Taj Mahal will enthrall you as you stand in front of it. A masterwork of Mughal architecture, the white marble edifice features elaborate carvings and inlay work. To help you fully appreciate this architectural wonder, the book will give in-depth descriptions of key design features like the central dome, the minarets, and the symmetrical layout.

H2: Extra Touring Around Agra H3: A trip to the Agra Fort The journey proceeds to Agra Fort, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, after your visit of the Taj Mahal. Before relocating their capital to Delhi, the Mughal kings lived primarily in this enormous red sandstone fort. During your tour of the fort's corridors, gardens, and chambers, the guide will narrate tales about the fort's past and its importance in the Mughal civilization.

H3: Souvenir Purchasing Beautiful handicrafts from Agra are well-known, especially the leather goods and marble inlay work. A visit to a nearby artisan workshop is included in the tour, where you can get up close and personalize mementos of your trip and see the artistry in action.

H2: Agra luncheon H3: Authentic Cuisine of the Mughals An exploration-filled day is guaranteed to satisfy any appetite, and the tour includes lunch at one of Agra's well-known eateries. You can taste real Mughlai food here, with flavorful and historically significant dishes. Your cultural experience is perfectly complemented by the great dinner.

H2: The Journey Back H3: Evening Takeoff Reentry into Hyderabad Following a day of exploration and learning, you will be taken back to Delhi in time for your departure to Hyderabad in the evening. Making the most of your time and avoiding travel tiredness, this direct trip guarantees your return home the same day.

H3: Stress-Free Vacation Your comfort and convenience are top priorities for Akbran Tours during the trip. All aspects of the journey, from the time you leave Hyderabad until you return, are planned to be seamless and stress-free, so all you have to do is enjoy the experience.

H2: Why Select Tours Akbran? H3: Tour Planning Proficiency Akbran Tours is well known for its well prepared itineraries, which are intended to provide a thorough but easygoing travel experience. They take great care to make sure you see the most of Agra in a single day without feeling hurried or overburdened.

H3: Tailored Support Akbran Tours goes above and above to meet your demands, from personalized preferences to specially designed itineraries. Every tour is distinctive and catered to your interests because of their dedication to offering individualized service.

H2: Synopsis The ideal method to see one of the most famous sites in the world in a single day is to take Akbran Tours' Taj Mahal Tour from Hyderabad by Air. This tour offers a seamless blend of history, culture, and convenience with professional guides, excellent travel arrangements, and an emphasis on offering an unforgettable experience. Engage Akbran Tours to help you realize your desire to see the Taj Mahal.

Q&As

First question: How long is the flight from Delhi to Hyderabad? The flight from Hyderabad to Delhi takes about two hours.

Q2: What is covered by the travel package? The package includes lunch, trips to local artisan workshops, private transportation, round-trip airfare, and guided tours of the Agra Fort and Taj Mahal.

Q3: Can families take this tour? Yes, this is an age-appropriate and family-friendly tour.

Q4: When visiting the Taj Mahal, what should I wear? When visiting the Taj Mahal, it is advisable to wear modest dress and comfortable footwear.

Q5: Can I modify the tour? Yes, you may add extra sights in Delhi or Agra to your tour itinerary by customizing it with Akbran Tours.

[seitmai]

Bradley's stomach dropped. That was so far from the truth. "No, Ace. I wanted to spend a little time with you." You were silent now, but you weren't looking away as he added, "Sleeping with you is incredible, sure. But that's not why I'm here. I don't have to drive four hours round trip to get laid. I have six pack abs. But in order to see you tonight, it required driving up from San Diego. And when I tell you that I don't care if you invite me back to your hotel room tonight or not, I mean it."

He laughed, too. "You want me to be your personal food fetcher?" "Now that is something I could actually use." Bradley was on his feet immediately, filling a plate from the catering stations and grabbing a bottle of water. 

Ahh I love how he is so head over heels for her, but she is the same!! 🥰🥹 like their energy and banter together is just immaculate

How You Play the Game Part 3 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: After two days apart, the continuous phone calls and texts have Bradley running up to meet you near Los Angeles for game three. He likes all of it, every minute with you. And then you tell him that his favorite part is your favorite part, too.

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, angst, masturbation, oral, and smut (18+)

Length: 7100 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x female reader

Check out my masterlist for more! How You Play the Game masterlist. Banner by @thedroneranger

You woke up with Bradley's big arm wrapped around you. His alarm was going off, but he was still asleep. You rolled over so you were facing him, but he just pulled you closer.

"Where you goin'?" he mumbled, eyes still closed. "Stay here, Ace."

Your smile was enormous as you bit your lip. "Bradley," you whispered, kissing his nose. "You have to go to work."

"No." He pulled you impossibly closer as you laughed.

"Your alarm is going off." He muffled your words with his lips on yours, and he rolled you onto your back as he kissed you.

"Don't care," he murmured, pressing kiss after glorious kiss to your lips. But then you laughed, and so did he, because his alarm kept getting louder and louder. "Do not move an inch," he whispered, pinning your hands above your head on the pillow and easing himself away from you. "I'm serious, Ace. I want to pick up right where I'm leaving off."

You giggled as you watched him climb out of bed and walk naked across your hotel room. The early morning light filtering in through the curtains lit up his tan skin. He was beautiful. His skin still looked summer sunkissed, and you tracked him with your eyes as he located his phone on the floor. 

"I told you not to move," he growled, climbing back into bed and crawling toward you, his big hands immediately holding both of yours. 

"I didn't," you whispered with a smile, turning your head to the side as his mustache brushed your ear. Then he eased his body back where it belonged, right on top of yours. What a thought. He was already familiar. You shouldn't feel this comfortable with someone you literally just met. You shouldn't be thinking about the next time you were going to see him. 

"Now where was I?" he muttered, frowning at you like he couldn't remember. "I think I was right about here." His kisses were probably the only thing you needed right now. Each one was more exciting than the last, and you wound your fingers in his pretty hair. He was hard against your thigh now, never shy about his reaction to you. 

You wanted him. There were eighteen condoms left to use. But when he broke the kiss and ran his thumb along your bottom lip, you pouted a little bit. "You need to leave."

He shook his head just slightly. "I need to stay."

"No, no, no, Bradley. You told me to tell you that you had to go to work today. You told me last night to tell you that the planes won't fly themselves, and that you aren't allowed to spend the day with me."

"Never said that," he whispered, and your eyes fluttered closed as his thumb grazed your cheek softly. "I'd never tell someone as pretty as you that I wasn't going to spend the whole day with them."

"Bradley," you whimpered, and he sighed. 

Then he buried his face against your shoulder and kissed you there. "It's just that I want to spend as much time with you as I can. While I can."

He said he would get a ticket to game three just to see you. Just to be with you up near Los Angeles. Your voice was soft as you asked, "You'll really come to game three tomorrow night?" You felt vulnerable. You never felt this way. You had to have the biggest bark and the biggest bite in your line of work, and you were always ready to be on offense or defense. But you didn't feel like you had to try so hard with him. You felt like you could breathe and enjoy yourself.

Bradley's lips were on yours again, and then he said, "I'll buy a ticket on my lunch break today. And when I text you, are you going to respond?"

"Yes," you whispered with a grin. "As long as you go to work like you're supposed to."

"Yes, ma'am," he rasped. "I can't wait to see you tomorrow night. And I can't wait to read your article later today."

You were basking in the warmth of his words, but when his lips started a trail down your chest, you knew you needed to be the responsible one here. "Go. To. Work."

He groaned as he rolled off of you again and stood with his hands on his hips. You propped yourself up and looked up at him as he gestured toward the floor. "Eighteen more condoms. Am I taking them for safe keeping, or should I leave them with you?"

You tapped your lips with your index finger and asked, "Are you going to need them between now and the next time I see you?"

Bradley scoffed and said, "I already told you, Baby, I like you the best. I was only joking about the blue feathers. I'm absolutely not going to try to hook up with the other Ace."

"Go to work!" you said, howling with laughter as you launched the pillows at him one at a time as he tried to get dressed. 

Then he had a big smile on his face as he picked up his Padres jersey and leaned down to give you one more kiss. "Keep this until I see you again. You looked so cute in it, thought you might want to wear it around."

You took it in one hand and wrapped the other around his neck to pull him close. Just one last kiss to hold you until tomorrow night. "Bye, Bradley."

"See ya, Ace." 

He left in his jeans and undershirt, closing the door softly behind him. And then you were alone with his jersey, eighteen condoms, and the aching need to see him again. So you pushed your apprehension aside and decided to keep fooling yourself into thinking this was all a good decision. 

-------------------------------

"You are distracted," Nat said as Bradley slid into the seat next to hers at lunchtime, his phone in his hand. You'd sent him a photo of you sitting at the desk in your hotel room wearing his jersey. 

"Am I?" he asked, examining every inch of the photo before he started typing a response. 

Nat gasped, and he looked up at her. "It's the sports writer! You went to the game!"

"I did," he said slowly, still typing a message. "And I'm planning on going to game three in Anaheim tomorrow night if I can find a ticket. And I'll probably go to each game after that too, because this is the kind of girl I've been dreaming of my entire life. She's cute, funny, smart, loves sports, and she's great in bed. And I just want to spend my whole day with her." He looked up and smirked.

"Doesn't she live in New York?" Nat asked, and Bradley could already feel his face falling. 

"Yeah," he grunted, hitting send on the text message that said, "Let me take you home where you can wear all my clothes, and then I can take them all off of you."

"Be careful," Nat warned before biting into her sandwich. 

"Weren't you the one who told me you could see me with six kids? Like a soccer player and a ballerina?"

Bradley hated the pitiful look she gave him. "I don't want you to get hurt."

That was the whole fucking thing. Bradley knew you could hurt him. It hurt the night after game one when he went home alone and then didn't hear from you in spite of the fact that he had given you his phone number. And it hurt him to think about you in New York where you lived, or in some other random city covering a sporting event. Because his home was in San Diego. And it would be next spring at the earliest before you'd be back to cover more baseball here. 

"I'm not gonna get hurt, Nat. It's just a fling." As soon as he said the words out loud, he wanted to take them back. They were all wrong, and they made him feel dirty. He'd had flings before, and they didn't feel anything like this. He'd been having occasional casual sex with Shannon for probably a year, and she never lingered in his mind after he threw away the condom and watched her leave. 

"Okay, well maybe you should reconsider going up to Anaheim tomorrow night?" Nat pressed. "I know I encouraged you to see her again, but maybe that's actually not the best idea."

"Nat, I know what I'm-" Bradley looked at his phone as another photo came through. In this one, you were lounging on the hotel bed where he'd spent the night with you wrapped up in his arms, still wearing his jersey. But it was open in the front, and your left hand was on your right breast. 

Ace: I kind of miss you. I keep putting off leaving for my exclusive interview with the Angels' bullpen, because my hotel room smells like you.

"Fuck me," Bradley muttered, rubbing his free hand along his face. 

Nat snatched his phone, and he let her have it. "Wow. Wow. Bradley."

"I know," he groaned. 

"She's hot. And that message is beyond flirtatious."

"Yeah," he said, his voice precariously close to a whine. "Nat, I like her. I like how she writes her articles, and how I know her favorite team now. I liked how she felt in my arms all night."

"You slept over?!" 

Bradley didn't reply. He just took his phone back and saved the photos. Then he sent you another text. 

I'd rather you do an exclusive interview with me instead. I think you'd really appreciate what I have to say.

Ace: By all means, tell me what you would say if I interviewed you, Bradley.

I would say you look sexy as fuck in my jersey right now. And that thing never had it so good.

Ace: You're right. An exclusive with you would be much better.

"Now you're just ignoring me," Nat said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. "I'm going to sit with Bob."

Truly, Bradley hadn't heard a word she said. He also hadn't eaten any of his lunch. He had to inhale his sandwich while he walked back to the classroom for the afternoon, because yes, he was distracted. 

-------------------------------

Your boss was really riding you today. Apparently your submissions at 11:58pm after the first two games really had Greg Pfeffer rattled, because that was the first thing he said when you talked to him. The second thing he said was that he needed you in Boston as soon as you wrapped up in California. Apparently there was nobody else on staff he trusted to handle the Bruins head coach as well as you could. 

You knew what your strengths were. You were smart, crafty and organized. But you were also a woman. And sometimes the men you interviewed responded to you differently than they would another man. In a good way. You always seemed to be able to get more information out of players or coaches than anyone else. Just yesterday afternoon you managed to get two of the relief pitchers from the Angels' bullpen to admit they weren't quite sure how to throw to the Padres shortstop.

And then one of them asked you out to dinner. 

Never in a million years would you agree to that. You loved your job too much. And that was immediate grounds for getting fired right there. Honestly, there was no way he really thought you'd agree, right? Also, there was the fact that you'd decided it was better to eat some mediocre takeout back in your hotel room while you texted Bradley. 

But now it was Tuesday morning. Game three was happening tonight. And those texts while you ate dinner had turned into a phone call with Bradley. The two of you ended up talking for two hours before you could hear him trying not to yawn. He had been so sweet, you had to threaten to hang up on him. 

But you could still hear the last thing he said to you. "I should have driven up to see you tonight after work. Even just for an hour. Can't wait for tomorrow, Ace."

And what were you supposed to do now? You had hours to kill before you had to be at Angels Stadium. You were still wearing nothing but Bradley's jersey while you laid in your bed in the hotel across the street from the stadium just outside Los Angeles. You buried your nose in the fabric; it still smelled like him. He smelled so good. There was no way you could wait a few hours for him when just the feel of his Padres jersey brushing your nipples was making you squirm with need. 

You let one hand slide down the curve of your belly, and when you closed your eyes, it was easy to pretend like he was the one touching you. Because his body had been as sure as your own, like he already knew what to do with you. Inch by inch, your fingers moved closer to their goal, and when you started rubbing your clit in slow circles, you thought about Bradley's voice. About the deep, raspy register and the way he called you Ace.

When you touched your breasts with your other hand, you realized your hips were already up off the bed, thrusting slowly as your fingers worked your clit. Images of Bradley's handsome face and flushed cheeks flashed through your mind. The eager look in his eyes when he touched you. The feel of his arms wrapped around you while he slept. The way his breath felt on your neck all night long. The morning rasp of his voice as he seemed to instinctively know he was with you in the still dark hotel room before he had opened his eyes. 

"Oh, god!" you whined as you ran your nose along the collar of his jersey, inhaling his scent in short gasps as you clenched, imagining his heavy cock inside you. The swirl of your fingers became erratic as your hips thrust two more times, and you were coming hard for Bradley. 

When your body collapsed back onto the bed, you were almost startled to open your eyes and realize you were alone. Your loud breathing and soft whimpers were filling the room, but you were too deliciously sated to feel embarrassed about what you'd done. You should probably be getting a shower so you had time to pre-write some of your article about game three. You had emails from Greg about your successful interview article with the Angels' bullpen to respond to. But instead you reached for your phone and texted Bradley.

---------------------------

Ace: How early can you get up here today?

It sounded to Bradley like you still missed him even though he hadn't seen you since very early yesterday morning. He read your exclusive interview five times today already, and he was wondering if you'd indulge him and read parts of it out loud later tonight. And then he groaned as he turned on a shower in the locker room. He'd probably barely make it to the game for the seven o'clock start time, and tomorrow was a work day. 

Tomorrow was also game four. Bradley was the world's worst Padres fan at the moment, praying that the Angels would tie up the series and take this whole thing to seven games. Because he didn't even want to think about what his life was going to look like when the World Series was over and he was no longer running himself between two cities to see you. 

He made the shower a short one, dressing in some snug jeans and a clean Padres shirt before running out to his Bronco. 

I'm leaving work now, Baby. See you at the stadium?

You'd given him the address of the hotel you always stayed at along with your room number just in case he finished work early. You had also managed to procure a ticket in the nosebleeds for him to get inside the ballpark; he just had to give his name at Gate E. But he was going to have to turn around and drive the nearly two hours back to San Diego either late tonight or well before dawn tomorrow. He just hoped you'd want to see him again tomorrow night, because he would do it all again. 

There was traffic. "Fuck," he groaned, actually pulling up onto a curb to go around someone. He ended up fighting through gridlock the whole way up Angels Stadium, cutting back and forth between the highway and backroads. He paid forty dollars to park in the preferred lot next to Gate E, and then he sprinted up to the entrance along with other fans who were hoping to make it to their seats before the first pitch. 

Bradley gave your name and then his own at the window, and he was immediately admitted inside. "Can you tell me where the entrance to the press box is located?" he asked. The security guard gave him a long stare.

"Do you have credentials?"

"Nevermind," Bradley muttered, taking the ticket that was being handed to him and pulling out his phone. His heart was pounding as he listened to someone singing the national anthem while he fumbled trying to make a call. He placed his right hand over his heart, not wanting to be a complete prick as he picked a direction to rush off in as he called your phone. 

"Hi," you said very softly when you answered. He loved your voice. Memories of the late night phone call filled with your soft giggles washed over him. 

"Baby, how do I get to the press box?"

"Unmarked green door near section 133. I'll meet you there."

Bradley hung up and ran around the first base side of the concourse, narrowly dodging some teenage girls and a beer vendor as the singer wrapped up their rendition of the song. And then he saw the green door as it opened, and your eyes met his. 

"Shit," he gasped, feeling his feet slow before speeding up again. You looked perfect, and your beautiful smile was just for him as you let the door close behind you and came running. 

And then you were in his arms with your hands at the back of his neck and your lips pressed to his ear. "Hi," you whispered as you kissed along the side of his face just as the fireworks signalling the start of the game were launched, and the entire stadium was cheering. 

Bradley carried you to the door as you laughed softly. "I liked your exclusive article," he told you. "Read it five times today." That earned him a kiss on the lips, and then he watched you pull your lanyard out of your back pocket to unlock the green door. 

"I think you're my biggest fan," you replied as he carried you inside and set you down. 

"I absolutely am, Ace." Then you were pushing his back against the wall, your lips ghosting over his in the relative private of the vestibule that opened up into the press area buzzing with people. 

"I need you to be very well behaved tonight," you scolded with a little grin that made Bradley lean down and kiss you hard. 

"I will," he promised, loving the needy little sound you made.

You ran your fingers along his neck as you said, "I have an assigned seat in here. And my boss has been on my ass all day. No spilling any beers on me, I don't care how badly you want to lick it off later."

"One time and I have a reputation..."  

You bit your lip and looked up at him over your shoulder as you turned toward the other reporters. The game was about to begin as you pointed to some folding chairs, and he grabbed one on his way past. Then he wedged it in front of the countertop where your computer was sitting, between your chair and the wall. He sat down and then you settled in next to him, right there in his personal space. 

Bradley was smiling at you, and you were smiling right back. "Stop distracting me," you told him, barely turning in time to watch the Angels' pitcher throw the first strike of the game. "You're very distracting."

He draped his arm around your back as you started filling out the pitches on your stat sheet and typing away at the same time. "Thanks for securing that ticket for me. Wouldn't want to miss the chance to see you."

"It was god awful expensive. Even for the worst section in the stadium," you replied without looking at him.

Bradley's jaw dropped. "You paid for it? I thought maybe you got it comped or something. I could have found one online myself."

You just shrugged as the Angels left the field only to be replaced by the Padres for the bottom of the inning. "I got it for half the price you would have been able to."

Bradley knew that was still at least five hundred dollars. "I'll pay you back."

"No," you said softly as you looked down at your keyboard almost like you were embarrassed. Then you shrugged again, a little more aggressively this time. "It's okay."

But Bradley cupped your chin and gently guided your face so you were looking at him, your eyes unsure and hesitant. "I'd have had no problem paying full price. I just wanted to see you."

He ran his thumb along your bottom lip as you asked, "Is that really why you're here though?"

Bradley's brow scrunched in confusion as he examined your face. He knew the game was going on, but you weren't fighting him about missing a pitch or two. "Why else would I battle through traffic for two hours?"

You swallowed hard and whispered, "Because you wanted to fuck me again."

Bradley's stomach dropped. That was so far from the truth. "No, Ace. I wanted to spend a little time with you." You were silent now, but you weren't looking away as he added, "Sleeping with you is incredible, sure. But that's not why I'm here. I don't have to drive four hours round trip to get laid. I have six pack abs. But in order to see you tonight, it required driving up from San Diego. And when I tell you that I don't care if you invite me back to your hotel room tonight or not, I mean it."

Then you were kissing him and tugging him closer to you by the front of his shirt. And the Angels must have scored, because the rest of the stadium erupted in near deafening cheers. But you still didn't care to look away and find out exactly what was going on. You just kept kissing him, and your hand skimmed up his thigh, and Bradley had to pull away. 

"Ace, if you keep doing that, you'll make me look like a liar," he gasped as the cheering finally started to lessen. 

You chased his lips with yours and asked, "What do you mean?"

Bradley kissed you one more time and then leaned back in his seat, glancing down at the fly of his jeans where he was plainly a little hard for you. His voice was a little tight as he adjusted himself. "Truly, sleeping with you is not my priority tonight, but you turn me on."

Your hand was still resting on his thigh as you turned toward your computer and typed one handed. "How embarrassing... logging in to SportsCenter to watch a replay while I'm sitting right here in Anaheim." But you were smiling, and Bradley let his hand come to rest on top of yours while he caught his breath. It took you a minute to get your score sheet updated correctly, and then you were focusing on the players once more. But your hand still brushed his leg, and your fingers occasionally laced with his as you watched the game. 

Occasionally you murmured something about a stolen base or an earned run average, but Bradley was barely watching anything except you. All he knew was he hoped the Angels won. All he wanted was to stay with you as long as possible. 

When you kissed him sweetly during the seventh inning stretch, one of the other writers turned and said, "You brought your boyfriend again, New York?"

"No, Jack. He's actually my intern," you replied smoothly. The older man just looked between you and Bradley and then turned around.

"Intern?" Bradley mumbled. "Damn. I got demoted. Someone called me your boyfriend the other night." You started laughing as Bradley said, "What's next? Your dog walker?"

"I don't have a dog," you told him, smiling at him brightly and squeezing his thigh.

He laughed, too. "You want me to be your personal food fetcher?"

"Now that is something I could actually use."

Bradley was on his feet immediately, filling a plate from the catering stations and grabbing a bottle of water. 

-----------------------------

Nothing felt as rushed tonight. Sure, you kept pulling Bradley in for kisses in the parking lot on the way to his retro Ford Bronco, but you didn't feel the need to immediately drag him back to your room. Not when he looked so gorgeous in the moonlight. Not when you felt golden inside since the Angels had managed to pull out a win. There would be at least five games. You were hoping you had at least two more chances to see him.

You shivered as he opened the door for you. "Bradley," you said with a laugh. "I told you my hotel is just on the other side of the parking lot. It's the hotel I always stay in."

"I'll drive you over," he whispered, kissing your cheek as he helped you in. Then you gave him an appraising look as he closed the door and jogged around to the other side. Was he really not planning on joining you in your room? The idea sent a jolt of sadness through you. But tomorrow was Wednesday, a work day for him.

"Bradley?" you asked softly as he pulled out of the spot. You could already see your hotel from the end of the aisle, and he turned to smile at you. 

"Yeah, Baby?"

You closed your eyes and whispered, "Do you have to leave right away? I want you to come up."

He didn't answer immediately. He pulled up to the entrance and put the Bronco in park and ran his fingers through his hair. "I wish I could say no to you. Just to prove my point."

When you leaned across the console and said, "I don't want you to say no to me right now," he shifted back into drive. You giggled as he pulled forward a little quickly and whipped into an empty parking space. 

And then you were walking backwards through the lobby, coaxing Bradley along as he said, "I shouldn't be coming up with you. I have work in the morning. And I told you I'm just here for your company." But he was smiling, and he was the one to push the button to call the elevator. 

Then it arrived, and the two of you were the only ones inside when the door closed. You tucked yourself against his chest when he opened his arms to you. "Just come up for a little bit?"

"A little bit," he confirmed, kissing the top of your head. "While you write your piece?"

"Mmhmm," you hummed, kissing his neck. "Or you could stay for a while."

His arms were warm and so solid around you, and you heard him murmur, "I could stay for a while."

You pulled him down the hallway, laughing at the dopey grin on his face. "You could stay longer. We're only going to get a handful of these nights together. And I like it when my hotel room smells like you the next day."

He snatched the key card from your hand and unlocked the door, ushering you inside with his lips on yours. He tossed the key somewhere on the floor as the door closed behind him, and you dropped your computer bag with a soft thud. 

"This is a nice room," he whispered against your lips as he untucked your blouse and got one big hand on your lower back. 

"You didn't even see it yet," you gasped as he started sucking on your neck.

"I'll look at it later."

And then you were under him on your bed, both of you fully clothed except for your shoes. Bradley was running his lips and his mustache along your neck at such a leisurely pace, you were afraid you might actually melt. 

"Is that my jersey?" he asked, his gaze moving to the pillow next to your head. 

"Yeah," you whined as his tongue met the sensitive spot behind your ear. "I wore it last night and this morning."

Bradley groaned, and then you felt his hands at your waist and your hips. "I'm a weak man. A very weak man when it comes to you, Ace." And then his groan just got louder as you reached down for his hands and guided them slowly to the button of your jeans. He made quick work of it and the zipper, easing his fingers inside the waistband of your underwear. "Baby, you have an article to finish." 

He kissed along below your belly button, and you whimpered as you said, "I'll finish it in time. I promise." And then he was yanking your pants down and pressing his lips to your bare thighs as he worked your jeans and underwear all the way down your legs and off. He settled in with his face buried in your pussy, just like last time. Just like the first time. You'd never been with a man so willing and eager to do this.

"You're fucking soaked," he moaned, lapping up along your slit before separating you with his nose and kissing around your opening. 

"Bradley!" you whined, because he was already so invested. So you let him go for a few minutes, and it felt good. So good, you were almost convinced he could get you off this way if he took enough time to do it. But after a few more minutes, you tugged gently on his hair. When he met your eyes with his lips on your clit, he looked annoyed. 

He released you, much to your immediate displeasure, and asked, "Why won't you let me get you off like this? You stopped me the other night, too."

You pressed your lips together and looked at the ceiling before you answered. "It'll take forever."

Bradley sighed, and a second later, a jolt of pleasure rushed through you. When you looked down your body at him, he was swirling one long finger around your clit. "I'm in no rush. Other than you needing to submit your article in an hour and a half, we've got time."

"You must like a challenge."

Bradley raised one eyebrow at you, but his finger never stopped that slow, delicious swirl that had you bending one leg and running your foot along his side. He kissed the inside of your knee before he looked at you and said, "This is not a challenge. This is a privilege, Baby. You just tell me what feels good, and I'll get you there."

You couldn't be sure if it was his words or the way he was touching you, but when your pussy clenched gently around nothing, you were whimpering his name and agreeing. And then his mouth was trailing the softest kisses along your folds. You could tell you were dripping wet by the way his tongue glided so smoothly along. And then Bradley reached around your hips and tilted your body up at a slightly different angle that had his nose bumping your clit while he ate you.

He kept changing things up. A soft roll of his tongue would turn into a nibble. And then the nibbles would turn into suction with just the most beautiful amount of pressure. But his mustache was just fucking special, the way it felt rough and yet so fucking necessary. 

"Fuck," you whined softly. He was so good. But you'd felt this slow build before, and inevitably your partners ended up getting tired or annoyed by how long it took you. Bradley's movements were sure and steady, however. And now he was plucking at your clit with his lips, and your thighs tightened around his head.

"Good?" he asked, breathing a little heavy. 

"Yes! Don't stop!" you praised, your hips rocking with each little grab and release of his lips. He squeezed your hips as if he was letting you know he would get you off like he promised, and then he swirled his tongue slowly around your clit before licking a long stripe down with the tip of his tongue. 

"Do that again," you demanded, your voice barely a gasp. And once again he treated you to that swirl of his tongue. "Fuck." And the long stripe downward. "Oh."

"Again?" he asked, his voice raspy and amused.

You tangled your fingers in his hair and tugged as you said, "Don't you dare stop, Bradley." But he was already back at it with that perfect tempo and his prickly mustache. This time, when he licked down, he kissed his way back up, and you made the most desperate sound. "Again."

"I got you, Ace."

His tongue. His voice. His hands. His hair. His ridiculous nickname for you. "Oh god damn!" you whined, your voice breaking as you keened. The words and sounds were burning at the back of your throat before they could be released in a way that made any sense at all. And you rolled your hips slowly against his mouth as he cupped your body. You were close. So close. So-

"Yes!" you nearly screamed as tears stung at your eyes. Bradley grunted as you pulled his hair but he didn't stop. You were practically riding his face with one leg thrown over his shoulder when you felt yourself gush. His face was still buried in your pussy, but when he finally looked up at you, he was panting. 

"Ace," he groaned, his face all wet from you. He was licking his lips like you were the most incredible thing he'd ever tasted in his life, and even though you were still enjoying some little aftershocks, you needed more.

"I want you to fuck me," you said softly, and then his wet lips and chin were on yours. And you did taste pretty incredible as he bucked his fully clothed body against your core. 

"I won't last," he grunted. "Not after that. God, you're perfect."

Your body felt flushed all over from his compliment. "I don't care. I just want to feel you."

"You need to finish your article," he said, but he was already sitting back on his knees between your legs and unzipping his pants. He winced as he pulled himself free, his tip an angry, swollen red.

"Oh," you gasped, already clenching again at the sight of him. You scampered out of bed and nearly tripped on your way to your suitcase. "Eighteen condoms," you muttered, digging around until you found one of the double packs. 

A few seconds later, you were rolling one of them down his length. He'd barely gotten his pants pulled down to his thighs by the time you were bending over the bed for him. And then he was filling you up, and his arms kind of caged you in. And his mustache was rubbing your neck. And your actual first name was on his lips. And you were thinking about things you knew you shouldn't. You were thinking about how much it was going to hurt when you left for the east coast.

------------------------------

Bradley would have been embarrassed that he only lasted two minutes, but you didn't seem to mind. "I'll be better for round two. You just really wound me up."

You bit your lip and smiled at him as he removed the condom. "Going down on me made you hot?"

He looked up at you like you had two heads. "Yeah. Hell yeah. I'd spend the whole night doing that if you'd let me."

You looked ridiculously pleased with yourself as you grabbed his Padres jersey off the bed and slipped it on. "Maybe tomorrow night," you said playfully as you walked toward the desk and grabbed your bag on the way. "You coming?"

Once again, Bradley had you perched on his lap while you finished your article. You were cutting it very close tonight, and he was helping you proofread as you wrote. "You misspelled umpire," he whispered, pointing to your computer screen.

"Thanks," you replied softly, correcting your error. 

He didn't want to distract you at all, but he wasn't sure how long you wanted him to stay. It was three minutes until midnight. He was at least an hour and a half away from home. He needed to be at work in eight hours. But the way you were acting like he belonged with you was keeping his mouth shut.

You submitted your article at exactly midnight and then you turned to face him. "Are you ready for round two?" you whispered, grinning. "Round one with you was already way better than when I got off earlier today."

Bradley froze with you in his arms. "What the hell happened earlier today?" he asked, hating that he immediately felt a little jealous. 

But you leaned in and kissed him softly, your lips brushing his as you said, "I thought about you while I got myself off."

"Fuuuck," he groaned, wrapping you tighter in his arms. "That's hot, Ace."

Bradley was still hanging out of his jeans, and his cock was rubbing your thigh as he got hard for you. You were running your fingers through his hair as you rubbed your pussy along his length. Then you reached behind you on the counter and held up another condom, and when Bradley nodded, you opened it. And then he was inside you again. 

You went slow, with breathless fluttering kisses along his face. He tucked his hands inside the jersey, wanting to feel as much of your smooth skin as he could. "At least two more games," you whispered. "I have the Angels to thank for winning tonight."

Bradley laughed softly, bringing his hands up to your breasts but keeping his eyes on yours. "Let's keep this thing going."

"Mmhmm," you moaned. And then you kissed him like you and he had been doing this for years already. As if you knew what he needed. And maybe you did, because he was starting to think he needed you. 

"Ace, Baby." You were coming for him, absolutely coming undone in his arms as you moved your body. He wanted to tell you to make it last all night, but it was too good. And he was right there, too.

As you pushed his hair back from his forehead and let your cheek find his shoulder, your phone rang. Bradley jumped a bit, but you didn't seem concerned. 

"It's probably just Greg. My boss," you said with a kiss to his cheek. 

"Okay," Bradley grunted as you stood and left him to dispose of the condom. 

"Greg," you said calmly when you answered the phone. And then Bradley heard someone yelling at you. He was on his feet, brow scrunched in concern. This guy was loud, and you didn't even have him on speaker phone. And he wasn't letting you get a word in. You just hummed in agreement as you paced around the room, but when Bradley caught your eye, you headed back over. 

"It's okay," you told him with your hand over the speaker of your phone. "He doesn't like my nearly late submissions," you said with an eye roll and then a smile. Then you gently pushed Bradley down into the chair again before pacing away. And he was suddenly inadvertently privy to your email inbox.

At the top was your article submission receipt which you were currently telling your boss was time stamped for midnight, and that you didn't actually need him to call you from home in New York where it was three in the morning. Then Bradley's eyes fell to no fewer than six emails that had all been sent from different media outlets this evening. 

g.rutherford@msnsports.com   Opportunities With MSN Sports

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"Damn, Ace," Bradley muttered, eyes scanning everything he could see without scrolling down further. But something told him there would be more of the same if he did. Everyone wanted you. 

"Sorry," you muttered, having ended your call without Bradley even noticing. And now you looked a little apprehensive.

"Your boss was yelling at you," he remarked as he stood.

"Oh," you said with a little shrug. "He's always like that. Ranting and raving is how he operates."

Bradley glanced back at your computer screen briefly. "Well I wish he wasn't shouting at you. Your articles are always the best."

You clearly wanted to say something, but you planted your hands on your hips and tapped your foot on the floor. "Bradley... I know it's late, and you have to get back home for work and everything... Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"

He didn't have to think about it. "Yes."

And then your expression melted into a smile as you climbed into bed, still wearing his jersey. Bradley watched you pat the spot next to you, and he zipped up his jeans and climbed in as well. 

As you yanked the covers up over both of you, Bradley pulled you close so your back was pressed to his front. "Will you come back tomorrow night? If I can get you a ticket?" you asked him so softly, he held his breath to make sure that was all you had to say.

As long as you were in southern California, he would come to you. "I'll be back up no matter what, Ace." And after you kissed his hands and laced your fingers with his, he added, "I can't believe you thought this right here wasn't my favorite part about being with you."

Your breathing was evening out, and Bradley thought perhaps you were already asleep. But then you said, "This is my favorite part, too."

-------------------------

She asked him to stay until she fell asleep. Oh, Ace. He's a mess already. Thanks to @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

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[gfablogs]

Wells in Africa: Giving Life Through Clean Water

Turning on the tap is easy for many who live in the West. We’re thirsty or we need to cook―out comes clean water. And very few of us need to be worried about the quality of what comes out of the faucet. We know it will not make us sick. In Africa, clean water is not a given. This is why it’s incredibly important to provide more clean water solutions, like installing wells in Africa, for the safety and health of everyone.

Every hour in Africa, 115 people die from diseases connected with contaminated water. At least 1 in every 3 people in Sub-Saharan Africa live in a water-scarce environment. And a quarter of that population spends 30 minutes or more traveling round trip to get their daily water needs.[1]

“Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent on the planet, and the demand for water and sanitation is outstripping supply in cities” says Joan Clos, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT.[2]

The lack of water in an arid environment, increased demand for water and limited access are some of the driving factors for the water crisis that many in Africa face. More clean water solutions, like more water wells in Africa, can address many of these concerns. The water is there, it’s just not on the surface.

According to the World Health Organization, “When water comes from improved and more accessible sources, people spend less time and effort in physically collecting it, meaning they can be productive in other ways. It can also result in greater personal safety by reducing the need to make long or risky journeys to collect water. Better water sources also mean less expenditure on health, as people are less likely to fall ill and incur medical costs, and are better able to remain economically productive. With children particularly at risk from water-related diseases, access to improved sources of water can result in better health and therefore better school attendance, with longer-term consequences for their lives.”[3]

The lack of water in an arid environment, increased demand for water and limited access are some of the driving factors for the water crisis that many in Africa face. More clean water solutions, like more water wells in Africa, can address many of these concerns. The water is there, it’s just not on the surface.

Clean water wells in Africa can help people like Ragnar. He and his family lived in an area where access to clean water was difficult like in Africa. His family of six struggled to keep up with their water needs, and it was a half a mile to the nearest water source. Even after they trekked there, it was often the site of conflict, with people jostling in line or shoving people out of the way. But the water they were fighting for? It wasn’t even clean.[4]

Ragnar’s four children suffered the most and were often sick. Because of this, they struggled at school. He wanted to take them to the doctor, but they could not afford that luxury. The treks to the contaminated water continued.

One day, Ragnar met GFA World missionary Dabid on the road through the village. It was obvious to Dabid that Ragnar was distressed. They stopped and talked, and Ragnar poured his heart out about his family’s trouble. Dabid was sympathetic to their plight and said he would try to do something to help with the water situation. Ragnar was filled with hope.

Dabid went back to his congregation, and they began to pray together that a Jesus Well from GFA would be installed in Ragnar’s village. Their prayers were answered. GFA was able to install a Jesus Well in the village, serving about 300 people a day. Ragnar’s family regained their health through drinking the clean water and never again had to walk so far for this lifesaving necessity.

Click here, to read more about this article.

Click here, to read more blogs in Gospel for Asia.Net

[jordanprice]

June 12 - Kiyomizudera and Gion

Today we went to see the Kiyomizu Temple in Kiyomizudera and to see the Gion area entertainment district. It was like an hour or so to get there by train, which as far as things for this trip is manageable. I didn’t realize the two would be so close to each other though.

When we got to Kiyomizudera, we walked through a street that had a bunch of shops that looked interesting. Lauren saw a few things she wanted to go back for, but we weren’t sure that we would be able to, at least not until after the stuff for the day. When we got to the temple, there were these metal sandals and two metal poles. I wish I got a picture of them, but unfortunately I did not (so I stole a video I took of Lauren doing it to take a pic from). You were supposed to try and lift them for some reason, so everyone did it. The sandals were easy, and the one pole was not too difficult at all. But the one I’m pretty sure was meant to be either impossible or nearly so. I think I put more effort into it than anyone and I really gave it my all, but it still wouldn’t budge. The person who put the next most effort in was probably Nico. I ended up staining my nice shirt with rust, which kinda sucked though, but it came out fairly easily luckily.

We then went to the fountains that the temple is famous for, and why it is called the Pure Water Temple. I explained how it works in the academic reflection. Bianca, Lauren, and I each picked a different one of the fountains. Bianca chose the first one, Lauren chose the middle one, and I chose the last one. So, between the three of us, we got all the things.

Okay then I don’t have any pictures of this, but get ready for this next part. Let me paint you a picture. So, next we go to this one thing that is called Canon’s womb. Yeah, I know… (also, this version of Canon is a dude, so why he got a womb?) So, you walk up to the entrance and they “strongly encourage” a ¥100 “donation” before entering. You have to take off your shoes before descending down a cold, dark staircase. When you get to the bottom and round the corner, it is pitch black. I’m talking you cannot see the person in front of you or your hand in front of your face type of dark. You have to follow the walls with your hands to be able to navigate this cavern which was void of light. Every step feels unsure and the walls are inconsistent. Eventually you arrive in this room with extremely dim lighting, just enough so you can make out this large stone disk. Which you are supposed to spin and make a wish. However, there is just one issue… they were absolutely pumping strongly scented smoke into the room. Not only do I think that that is in general an awful idea and extremely dangerous, but on top of that I have asthma. I felt awful for rushing people out so I could leave, but I think they understood. That place caused me a literal asthma attack and I’m glad I had my inhaler on me. I could barely breathe, but in a way I found that funny. That experience was supposed to be like being reborn, and when I was born the first time around I initially couldn’t breathe, so it’s on brand for me not to be able to breathe the second time around either. The irony was so delectable.

We were supposed to meet up again at six for some performance. I had gotten permission from professor Smith for Lauren and I to leave to go to the Pokémon cafe, since we already had reservations and could not change them, but also since I had asked him the day before when we would be done and he said by four and I would’ve needed to make the cancellation then. It worked out though and Lauren and I headed there. It was like 45 mins away from Gion, and our reservation was at 5:30. Lauren still wanted to look around for a while and to go back and get the things she saw on the way up as aforementioned. She seemed kinda confused at me rushing her to leave, as she thought we still had plenty of time. However, she was immediately understanding once I said that our reservation was at 5:30. This whole time she had been thinking it was at 6:15, which is our reservation time for this one vegan ramen place, so I understand the mix up. We then rush to get to the Pokémon cafe in Osaka and we make it there at like 5:28, so just in time.

The cafe itself was very cute, but I felt so bad for Lauren, as the only thing she thought she could maybe eat out of the food items on the menu ended up having shrimp in it and she couldn’t get it. There are two issues with this, one is she is vegetarian, and the second is that she is literally allergic to shrimp. She said that it was okay though and that she was just looking forward to the desserts. I got the pikachu ramen bowl and it was like literally just decorated instant ramen. It was cute, but not very tasty.

The desserts on the other hand were pretty good. Lauren and I got all three desserts and split them so we could try them all. (Unfortunately I do not have photos, my apologies)

Also, there was this whole performance with pikachu dancing, which was cute as well. One thing that pissed me off what I had reserved special merch items that you can only get if you reserve them, but they claimed I did not reserve any, even when I showed them the reservation number. Actually so annoying.

We then went to our third Pokémon center for the trip, then explored a bit more of the mall and headed back to the hotel. This was the point at which I found a basket of crème puffs in a 7-eleven, and they were genuinely incredible. Mashle has made me crave crème puffs, and I see me eating more of them in the future.

Academic reflection

Today I learned about the Kiyomizu Temple, which is also known as the Pure Water Temple. I learned about how the three fountains of pure water are said to each help with an aspect of your life. One is for help with business and academic stuff, one is for relationships and love, and one is for longevity. However, the twist is that nobody knows which fountain is which. It is said that if you drink the water from a fountain, it will help you with its corresponding aspect of life. The catch with this is that you may only drink from one, as the gods will deem you greedy if you drink from multiple. So, you only get to drink from one, and you have no idea which aspect you are supposedly getting help from the gods in.

I also learned about the Geisha entertainers in the Gion area, which used to be well known for being an entertainment district. They were not just courtesans, the Geisha were skilled, literate entertainers that would dance, play music, present poems, and more. Rich men would pay for them to perform at parties and such. There are still Geisha in the Gion area to this day, but they are less common.