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[aurorawritestoescape]

TABLE FOR THREE

Joel Miller x f!reader x Dave York || 3,2k

Summary: you’re having a great time on your date but a man from your past interrupts it and makes it…better?

Tw: 18+ mdni, smut, mfm, not specified age gap, dom/sub dynamic, infidelity (reader’s, in the past), manhandling, daddy kink, praise kink, size kink, degradation, slut shaming, m!oral, cum eating, mutual masturbation, unprotected piv (wrap it up), creampie, light spanking, voyeurism, exhibitionism (they don’t get caught),mention of violence, pet names (baby, kitten, babygirl, sweetheart). Pics are for the mood only, reader has no specific physical descriptions.

A/n: this is filthy, y’all. Big thank you to an insanely talented writer @bonezone44 for inspiring me with this post. Smooching and hugging @milla-frenchy for beta-ing and screaming about this story with me. Love you all, hope you’ll enjoy it!💖 dividers by @saradika-graphics

PT 2 WHO’S YOUR DADDY? || MASTERLIST

Your boyfriend Dave and you are having dinner in your favorite restaurant. Your regular booth is tucked in a corner, hidden from the prying eye of the other guests. You two love coming here because you can enjoy each other without being seen, thanks to the tall backrests. Now you’re laughing, kissing and Dave’s hand is resting on your upper thigh, barely covered by your short skirt. His thumb is caressing your soft skin and your mind brings you back to the night before when he was railing you while you were sucking on the thick finger and moaning like a whore.

Suddenly a man plops on the seat in front of you with a smug smile.

Joel fucking Miller.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ you repeat in your head as your heart freezes.

“Hello, sweetheart. Knew it was you. Saw you in the window passing by.”

He motions somewhere to the right of you and you inwardly curse his sharp eye.

“Want to introduce us, baby?” Dave asks with a cold tone in his voice and throws his arm around you in a possessive gesture.

You clear your throat and say as calmly as possible while panic twists your stomach.

“It’s Joel Miller, my— ehm, old friend.”

Joel chuckles, “Well, if old friends fuck like rabbits and live together for 3 years then I guess I’m that.”

He keeps laughing as you’re boring your eyes into him.

“Joel is my ex,” you admit, highlighting the last word with an expression of disgust on your face.

“Ex?” Dave repeats, narrowing his eyes and taking in the man sitting in front of him — older than him, much older than you, a broad torso under a worn out denim shirt, a big fist resting on the table and by the look of it, the man works with his hands. Joel seems to be calm and confident, but judging by the way you tensed, the break up wasn’t pleasant.

“Would never imagine you with a guy like that, sweetheart,” Joel says with a smug smile.

“And what guy am I?” Dave’s voice is coated with steel.

“Not like me, pal. I’m a simple working man, and this one always went for sweaty dirty men like me. You’re all suited up,” his piercing eyes slide to you and he asks, “Shootin’ out of your league, sweetie?”

“Fuck you,” you bite back and Joel smirks. You wanna slap his face so much but Dave takes your chin between his fingers, turns your head to him and looks into your eyes. His gaze under the furrowed brows scares and excites you.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Ok, Dave,” you mewl with a little nod and return your eyes to your troublesome ex.

“It’s her business who she dates. And mine. I guess your relationship ended badly, and I’m sorry, but shit happens, man. Move on.”

It’s so hot how calm he is and you feel your core burn with desire.

Dave pulls you closer to him with his arm still resting on your shoulder and rubs your collar bone with his thumb. Joel’s eyes follow his movements and he rasps,

“Don’t be sorry for me, pal. I’m fine now but ya gonna get burned if you don’t drop this slut.”

“You motherfucking piece—,” you sit up ready to start a fight but Dave’s hand, that a second ago was caressing your skin, flies to your throat and he pushes you back to the seat, not squeezing your neck but holding you seated by his side.

He shushes you and you can’t help but gush.

It’s a usual thing for him to be rough with you in bed, you love the way he manhandles you, breaks you every time you fuck, little by little, making you his. But he has never shown this side of him out of the bedroom. The idea that he’s so dominant with you around people sends electricity of arousal through your body.

With widened eyes you see Joel’s lips twist in a satisfied smile and anger burns your insides with a scolding ire. Only your boyfriend’s steady voice slightly calms you down.

“Joel, you seem like a reasonable man. What would you do if some asshole interrupted your date and started calling your girlfriend a slut. What I would probably do is break his jaw and then his legs.”

Not losing his smug smile, even after hearing your boyfriend’s threat, Joel raises his hands in front of his chest and explains,

“I don’t want any problems with you— it’s Dave, right? I’m doin’ you a favor. Givin’ you advice. Keep away from this minx. She’s good to look at and great to fuck but she’ll use you and then sleep with half of your crew.”

You curse and Dave puts his palm over your mouth. It’s big and warm and you feel your panties soak more.

“Crew?”

“I work in construction. I found out this bitch had slept with half of my team. Married guys, single. She was a hungry slut and I don’t think anything changed.”

He laughs and you try to take Dave’s hand off your mouth but he grabs your wrists with his strong fingers and keeps your hands on your lap.

“Sit still and let me listen, kitten. Or daddy will be angry.”

You swallow loudly, as your nostrils flare and pussy aches. Only your eyes can move now, darting between the two men.

“I like you, Dave, you have her under your thumb. I was too soft and kind with her. And women like her don’t appreciate kindness.”

Joel’s eyes shift between you and Dave as he continues, “Don't tell me you haven’t noticed. ‘s her nature. Her needy cunt always craves a fat cock. And oh boy, she always knows how to find it.”

You growl under Dave’s palm and he tightens his grip in warning.

“Shh,” he whispers in your ear and then turns to Joel with his eyes narrowed.

“I believe you.”

You hum in protest, wriggling in Dave’s steel embrace, and he takes his hand off your mouth.

“Dave, don’t listen to him, he’s just jealous.”

Joel chuckles, shaking his head.

“You can’t deny the truth, sweetheart. I caught you with a guy’s dick in your mouth, my friend’s dick. And then I beat the truths about your affairs out of the others.”

You glance at Dave with scared eyes but he isn’t looking at you. His pensive gaze is set on Joel.

Then he turns his face to you and blood freezes in your veins.

“I did notice how you looked at the waiter just now, kitten. And that bartender. I know you gave him your number.”

You shake your head, opening your mouth to protest, but he interrupts you.

“Joel isn’t lying. I can tell.”

“He is! I didn’t …”

“Enough!”

You immediately shut your mouth, as soon as Dave slightly raises his voice. He trained you well after all.

“Fuck, good job, man. Look at her. So obedient but still a little feisty.”

Dave smirks and you see pride in his eyes when he hears your ex’s words.

“And she knows how to take cock, huh?” Joel looks at you, adjusting a bulge in his jeans.

You’re glaring at him but your mind bursts with images from your past, him pounding into you, his huge cock stretching you so deliciously and then pumping you full of his thick cum. His skilful fingers could make you explode in minutes and you’d never forget the way he ate your pussy. Dave is perfect in bed but Joel was unforgettable.

“Look at ‘er, she’s probably creamin’ right now, the way she’s starin’ at me.”

Dave smirks darkly and looks you over.

“Let’s find out.”

With that he shifts in his seat, slightly turning his big body to you, and his hand on your thigh slides up and under the hem of your skirt.

“Dave”, you breathe in sharply, widened eyes looking at him.

“Shh, baby, I’m just gonna check.”

His hand pulls your skirt up and he sees your black lacy panties. Joel grunts and leans forward placing his big hairy forearms on the table so he could see what Dave is doing.

Your boyfriend’s thick fingers slip under your panties and you blurt out,

“I’m wet because of you, Dave.”

“Is that so, kitten?” Dave asks but doesn’t look at you. His dark gaze is set on your clothed cunt as he pulls your panties to the side, exposing you to his and Joel’s eyes.

“Fuck, Dave, you’re the man,” Joel praises your boyfriend and you see hunger in the older man’s eyes. You’re so turned on right now, you know you’re dripping.

Dave tsks when he spreads your folds apart and your cunt blooms for them - your clit throbbing, skin glistening with your slick. The cold air hits your pussy and you softly moan.

“Dave, people could see,” you whine and try to close your legs but Dave’s hand stops you and you feel his lips at your temple when he says, loud enough for Joel to hear,

“Let’s ask your old friend to sit next to you and cover you from the passers-by. Will you feel more comfortable, baby?”

You glance up at Joel and though you hate his guts, you can’t deny that you want the fucker.

You nod and Joel’s lips stretch into a wide carnal grin.

He gets up and you salivate at the sight of the huge bulge in his jeans. You desperately want to see his cock, touch it, lick it, su—

Dave interrupts your thoughts, shifting to the side and pulling you with him to make room for Joel. The seat is meant for two people and when Joel plops next to you, turning to you a little, your body gets sandwiched between their huge frames. You feel so small, so helpless around the two men and your clit twitches as the arousal floods your core.

With your pussy still out in the open, you glance at Joel when he wraps his arm around your waist and fans your cheek and chest with his hot breath. The familiar scent of cigarettes, whiskey and Joel's musk hits your nose and you quietly whimper.

“Missed me, babygirl?” He’s leaning to you and you move away, pressing your body closer to Dave.

Your boyfriend reads you like a book. He knows that you’re acting skittish but it’s just a facade. You want it, you want them both.

“Baby, you did wrong by Joel. I think we need to apologize. How about we let him play with your pussy? Daddy won’t be mad, I promise.”

You look into Dave’s eyes and see that he’s not lying.

“Ok, daddy,” you purr and Joel barks a laugh.

“Told you she always wants it. Our little slut.”

You bite your lip hearing ‘our’ but Dave shakes his head.

“She’s mine, Joel, don’t forget that. But I see that she hurt you, and you have a right to punish her. Use her however you want.”

Joel throws him a nod. “That’s fair.”

With that his big calloused hand cups your pussy and slightly squeezes it. You look at Dave as he watches your ex’s hand touch you and his blown out eyes send another surge of wetness into Joel’s palm.

“I missed your sweet cunt, babygirl,” Joel whispers in your ear while his middle finger slips between your folds and he prods your soaking entrance.

“Fuck, she’s so wet, Dave. I remember how she used to soak me, her slick was fuckin’ everywhere. Wonder if she tastes the same.”

You see his finger leave your pussy as he brings it to his mouth and licks it clean.

Dave groans and you moan, watching Joel taste you.

Suddenly you feel a slap on your pulsating clit and you jerk, crying out a little too loudly. You cover your mouth with your palm, scared that the people will notice what the men are doing to you but Joel and Dave only chuckle.

“I fucked her last week in a changing room and she moaned like a little slut but now she’s all embarrassed.”

“I loved it about her. She looks so innocent but when you get her going… fuck, she jus’ loses her mind at the sight of a cock.”

You feel your cheeks burn but Dave doesn’t give you a chance to wallow in your delicious shame and inserts two thick fingers into your wet hole.

You moan his name and he kisses your cheek, before he begins sliding them in and out of you in steady rhythm, whispering obscenities in your ear,

“My little slut,” “bet people can see us”, “you don’t care, right?”, “I know you’d make us fuck you right in front of everyone”, “play with our cocks, baby, c’mon.”

When you hear his command, your hand immediately darts to his bulge and you hastily unbuckle his belt with one hand, open his dress pants and pull out his stiffening cock out of his boxers.

“Don’t forget about your friend, kitten,” Dave rasps, spreading his legs wider, and you unzip Joel’s jeans and take out his already hard manhood.

Their cocks are exposed now and standing at attention, both gorgeous, long and thick. Joel’s is a bit girthier, but you salivate looking at both of them. You can’t deny it, you have a great taste in men.

You spit on your hands and grab Dave’s member with your left hand and Joel’s with your right. They both grunt, when you start sliding your hand up and down their throbbing cocks and you revel in the sense of control they’re giving you. Their slits are leaking on your skin and you glide your palm over their fat tips, gathering their precum to make the cocks wetter.

You’re a mess yourself, the seat under you is getting slippery because of the juices seeping out of your pussy, thanks to your boyfriend’s fingers.

Joel is softly growling, watching your hand pump his cock and Dave working your cunt. “Fuck, I missed you so much, babygirl,” he admits and grabs the neckline of your top. He tugs it down exposing your naked breasts, your perked up mipples and Joel takes one between his index finger and a thumb and shakes his hand up and down. You whimper at the pain that swiftly morphs into pleasure while your tit is bouncing. Joel hunches down and takes it into his hot mouth, gently sucking on it. Your hand flies to run through his hair and your eyes flutter shut, as your climax approaches.

“Come for us, kitten. Soak my fingers,” Dave orders and Joel pushes you over the edge when his fingers find your pulsating clit and he swirls it with his pads while his mouth is still latched on your puffy nipple. Both Dave and Joel are playing with your cunt and soon you’re writhing between them, as waves of euphoria are lapping at your body. You try not to scream but it’s almost impossible, so you bite your lips till you taste blood, desperately trying to hide your ecstasy from the people in the restaurant.

When your orgasm subsides and you slump in your seat, breathing heavily, Joel’s mouth leaves your breast and their fingers part from your messy pussy.

You languidly stroke their cocks, feeling them thrum in your hands.

Dave turns your face to him and kisses you, licking into your mouth, claiming you as his in front of the other man. While your lips and tongues are caressing each other, you hear Joel almost moan from the pleasure your hand is giving him and you part from your boyfriend to whisper,

“He’s gonna come soon, daddy.”

“Want his cum, kitten?”

You nod and he smiles.

“Sit on my cock so I can fill you up. And give your mouth to Joel.”

“Yes, daddy.”

You fix your top and Dave helps you to sit on his stiff member. You both moan at the sensation but Joel curses at the absence of your hand on his ready-to-explode cock.

When you lean down, bringing your mouth to his length, the older man coos, “what a good little slut. Want my load, babygirl?” You look up at him and breathe out a sultry ‘yes’.

“C’mon, milk our cocks, kitten,” Dave commands with a light slap on your ass and you clench around him, making him grunt.

You take Joel’s manhood in your mouth and it’s like those years apart didn’t happen. The taste of his skin, the shape of his cock are so familiar you moan, thinking how much you missed it.

Dave slowly rolls his hips into you, holding your hips with his strong hands and his length slides in and out of your clenching wet hole. You feel the second climax build fast, so you move your hips up and down to make him fuck you harder.

“Man, you did wonders with her. She’s such an obedient little slut now,” Joel praises your boyfriend as their cocks are filling your body from both ends.

“It’s a work in progress, but she’ll be a good girl in no time.”

The way they talk about you like you’re not here, like you’re not pierced on their hard cocks is so delicious that after one hard thrust from Dave, you explode, unravelling on your boyfriend’s manhood as your moans are muffled by your ex’s fat length.

Your trembling body sends the men over the precipice, and Joel starts spurting his warm cum in your mouth and you drink it, hungrily slurping till the last drop. As soon as you’re done swallowing your ex’s load, Dave pulls you up by your shoulder and presses you tight to his body, wrapping his arm around your waist, the other hand splayed on your chest. You feel warmth in your core as his manhood is pulsing inside your pussy and filling you up with his big load. Joel tucks his softening cock back in his jeans, watching your boyfriend’s balls draw up and pump you full while your hole is stretched around his girth.

When Dave stops coming, he carefully lifts you up and quickly pulls back your panties. You sit back down between the men as Dave softly kisses your lips in gratitude and then orders you,

“Don’t spill a drop, baby. Want you to soak your little panties through.”

“Can I see?” Joel asks the younger man, not you, and Dave gives him a short nod.

Joel brings his hand to your pussy and pulls on the band of your underwear. He peeks inside, seeing the creamy cum coat the gusset and your puffy folds.

“You're so fuckin’ hot, babygirl. Did so good for us.” Joel mumbles in your ear and you glance up at him with a little smile. You can’t deny it, you loved this fucker.

As if reading your mind, Joel shoots you a wink and looks at Dave again.

“Was nice meeting you, Dave.” Then he takes a card out of his wallet and puts it on the table.

“If you wanna share the progress, training this one,” he nods at you, “give me a call.”

Then he gets up, adjusts his bulge and leaves the restaurant.

Thank you for reading!❤️ Please comment and reblog if you enjoyed the fic, it motivates me to write more filth for you, lovelies!🩷🌸

Pt 2 Who’s your daddy? || Masterlist

Main tag list: @milla-frenchy @harriedandharassed @iamasaddie @nervousmumbling @bbyanarchist @stevie75 @puduvallee @auteurdelabre @mountainsandmayhem @senoratess @flamingochick55 @theoraekenslover @schnarfer @mermaidgirl30 @staywildflowahchild @yesjazzywazzylove-blog @evolnoomym @keylimebeag

Also tagging the ceo of the Dave York agenda @janaispunk ����💕

If you'd like to be tagged in the series or in anything else let me know!💕

[nisuna]

I got super inspired last night, so here's a short drabble about the smut adventures of cult leader!geto x non-sorcerer!f!reader let's goo

I have more planned along the lines of: First time sleeping with him; Public sex in front of his followers; Making you call him by his First Name during sex; Saying I love you during sex; things I have mentioned in my headcannon post (I might do a poll for the next chapter 🙈)

Feel free to check out the headcannons for this AU for more context! (part 2 here!!)

TW: heavy nipple play; nipple sucking, biting, pinching; manipulative geto, short non-con, unprotected sex, creampie, mutual orgasm, FIRST KISS, trust issues, crying, he calls you "pet", power imbalance; cult leader!Geto x non-sorcerer!f!reader

<3masterlist<3

-----------1.2k words; strictly 18+ MDNI--------------

"Geto-samaaa... I need a break today. Please, no more.", you huffed in his arms. Your hips and back were starting to hurt from the countless nights that you've been spending with him.

"What do you mean, pet? Have I overworked you? Oh poor you. But there has to be something I can do to satisfy myself. Tell me, what activity do you enjoy that doesn't involve my cock?"

You felt stumped, but something did come to mind. "Che..."

"Hm? What was that, pet? You need to speak up.", he demanded, looking at you expectedly.

"Chest.", your timid voice broke the silence. "I like it when you play with my chest Geto-sama."

After hearing the words leave your mouth, a toothy grin appeared on his face.

"Good job. Look at you speaking your mind. Such a good pet. Well then, get ready.", he cooed, loosening the knot on your robe. "Tonight, I'm going to town on your chest. Nothing more, nothing less. I promise."

He didn't lie when he said he would go to town, because that's exactly what's been happening for the last half hour. You were on all fours above him while his hungry mouth was sucking in your right nipple. Much to your dismay, however, he was paying attention to the right one ONLY. And at this point, you were getting impatient.

"Mmh whyy~", you mewled.

That caught his attention as he unlatched his mouth from your sensitive nub.

"What is it, pet? You don't like it? That can't be, you were the one who suggested this in the first place. I can practically feel you dripping all over me."

"It's not that...", you mumbled, turning your head, because you didn't have the guts to face him right now.

"What is it then? You have to speak your mind. How elese am I supposed to know if I'm doing something you don't like, hm?"

You sucked in a deep brath and squeaked. "The.. the other one..."

"Hm? Come again?", he cocked an eyebrow, putting his fingers on your chin, finally making you look at him.

"The other one...why do you only play with the right one. What about the left?", you mumbled trailing off.

His mind went ding as he smiled up at you. "Oooh your other one wants attention as well, hm? Why didn't you say so? I'm more than happy to oblige." He hummed caressing your cheek with his large palm.

"However, that service comes at a price."

"What do you-?"

"You have to put in a quarter to play."

"A what? I don't think im following Geto-sama..."

"Oh my dumb little pet. I'm talking about this, of course.", he smiled while sliding his exposed cock through your wet folds.

"Mh- no you said we wouldn't do that today!", you tried your best not to succumb to temptation.

"Just the tip, pet. I promise. Do that for me and I'll suck on your tits all night long.", the way his deep and smooth voice rolled off his tongue like honey made you weak.

How could you say no to such an offer. He wouldn't lie to you right? Geto-sama was a man of his word, you can trust him.

So you reluctantly nodded your head yes and began lifting your hips. He was quick to grab you by your hips and push into you. As promised, he didn't go deep and stopped immediately. You felt relief wash over your body as you tried your best to adjust to the sudden intrusion.

You let out a few huffs before finally discarding your robe, saying. "Mhh, I did my part of the deal. Now's your turn...AH-", as you were about to press your left tit against his mouth, he bottomed out, making you whine his name.

"Geto samaaa noo, you promised we wouldn't.. you.. you lied to me.", you sobbed, digging your nails into his exposed chest. The tears collecting in your eyes almost made him pity you. Almost.

"I'll continue pampering you, don't worry, this is just a quick detour."

You had no energy to defend yourself in his tight grasp, so you let him bully his fat cock into your tight little hole without protest.

After a few thrusts, he sat up, keeping you on his lap and finally fulfilled his part of the deal. His tongue darted out to your neglected left nipple while he pinched your right one between his long fingers. His hips kept rocking up into you while his hungry eyes kept looking up at you all throughout his ministrations.

Your tears of disappointment soon turned into tears of pleasure as you started losing yourself in his grasp. It was when he started to stimulate your puffy clit as well that your mind went blank. The expressions you were making were so nasty, that they soon pushed him over the edge as well.

It was the first time both of you came at the same time and it was understandable that you lost your mind at the intense feeling. It was when he kept fucking you through your high that you lost your sense of self and didn't notice that you grabbed onto his face and pushed your lips against his. Your mouth fell open as a needy moan left your mouth at the feeling of getting filled to the brim. You were so out of it that you didn't notice his eyes shoot open and hands halt all movement.

This was the first time you two ever kissed. Cult leader geto always saw sex as an act of service and obedience. Never once has he thought about kissing someone like you. He talked you through it and prohibited you from ever trying, or else...

Your eyes shot open as well at the lack of reaction and you almost had a heart attack at the realisation of what you have just done.

You were beyond terrified, immediately pulling away and shivering at the sight of his blank expression and his sharp eyes burning holes into you.

You began trembling in his tight grasp as your next words came tumbling out. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Geto-sama, please forgive me-", you sobbed.

As you were about to pull your hands away from his face, he stopped you. You were petrified, expecting the worst. But to your surprise you didn't feel a punishment come your way. Instead, you felt him press his lips against yours and holding your hand in place on his cheek. The kiss was hungry, his tongue prying your mouth open and all you could do was moan and just take it. When he finally pulled away, you didn't dare speak, blinking at him with fear evident in your eyes. Your confusion only grew when you heard him let out a chuckle.

"You surprised me for sure, pet. But let's continue, I quite liked it.", he mumbled.

You nodded, letting out the breath you were holding as you closed your eyes and puckered your lips. While you were making out, you felt him harden inside of you again. This was going to be a long night, after all.

From then on out each time he crashed his lips against yours and made you cream on his cock over and over he thought "fuck it" abandoning his principles. All because of you.

----

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[greynatomy]

you made it

leah williamson x reader

last fic of 2023 (at least from where i am)

i want to thank all who’ve read all that i’ve put out this year and all the mutuals i’ve made. i appreciate each and every one of you.

hope you all have a happy new year!

———

Leah Williamson, the captain of England who led her team to victory in the Euros, was rushing through the streets of London, to get back home, apologizing to all she runs into.

Leah was invited to a ‘party’ with many other athletes all the way in New York. She’d told her agent to decline the invitation, but she couldn’t get out of it. She usually had a plus one with her, but not tonight.

‘Who would throw an event like this on New Year’s Eve?’ She thought.

After winning the Euros, the captain was invited to even after event, hardly any breaks in between on top of her ACL recovery. Finding some time for herself is rare, but not impossible. She makes it work. But right now, her priority is to get home as soon as possible.

—

Leah is back home in Milton Keynes at some neighborhood party time ring in 2018. She’s just sign her senior contract for Arsenal a couple months back and is at an all time high.

Mingling around the house with people her age, she decided to step outside a bit for some space. Walking towards the pool, she sees someone sat on the edge of it.

“Think I could join you?” Leah asked rather timidly.

“Go ahead.” You gestured to the spot next to you. 

Leah mirrors you, taking her shoes and socks off, splashing her feet in the water a bit. When you finally turn your head towards her, her breath got caught in her throat.

‘Beautiful’ She thought.

Talking to you was like a breath of fresh air to Leah. It was as if she knew you for longer than the hour you both sat by the pool. You both weren’t aware of the time until you heard everyone else inside counting down.

10

9

8

7

6

5

Leah looks a bit nervous when you turned your head towards her, so you placed your hand on her arm. 

4

Leah however, was even more nervous now. Your touch sent sparks throughout her body, something she’s never felt before.

3

2

Leah turns her whole body to face you, where you were already looking at her. She timidly reaches over and delicately places a hand on your cheek, leaning her face closer.

“May I?” She asks in a whisper.

You hold her wrist, the one by your face and lean in, closing the gap.

1

Your lips were soft, molding perfectly with Leah’s.  She closes her eyes, relishing in the moment. After what felt like forever, you pulled away, much to Leah’s disappointment.

“Wow.” Was the first thing Leah said, seeing a blush creep up onto your cheeks, her cheeks doing the same.

You bite your bottom lip to stop the corner of your lips from rising. You get up from the side of the pool, grabbing your shoes, Leah copying.

“Thank you for the New Year’s kiss.” You say, backing away from where Leah is rooted from her spot.

“Thank you for letting me.” She replied. Just before you left, she called out to you. “I don’t even know your name!”

All you gave her was a smile and a wink, disappeared from her view.

~

New Year’s Eve 2019 was a bit similar as the year before. She was back in Milton Keynes, but stayed to celebrate back at home. Her mum invited a few friends.

It was nearing midnight, a minute before the clock struck twelve when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Leah smirked, leaning close. “It is my mum’s house.”

“Touché.”

You were each other’s New Year’s kiss for the second time in a row. But before you disappeared again, she caught your hand, pulling you incredibly close to her body.

“Would you want to go on a date?”

“You don’t even know my name.”

“Do you know mine?”

You shook your head side to side.

“Y/N.” 

“Y/N. Beautiful.”

“Yours?”

“Leah.”

“Well, Leah. It looks like you’ve got yourself a date.”

—

Right when Leah got off the plane, she rushed out the building, hoping to quickly catch a cab, which she fortunately got into one.

Sitting in the back seat, she checks her watch.

11:38

Twenty-two minutes until midnight.

“Is there a way around the traffic?” She asks the driver.

“It’s New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s trying to get home.”

She knows London like the back of her hand, and knew she was close to home, so she quickly pays the man, thanking him, and runs off, passing all the cars.

11:50

She runs a bit faster, already seeing her street from where she is. Many people staring at her, but she didn’t care, she just had to get home.

11:55

She was only a couple of streets away, making her more determined than ever. She’d be damned if she didn’t make it in time.

11:59

Arriving at the front door, she pats all her pockets, looking for her keys. She can hear everyone around the neighborhood counting down.

She rapidly knocks on the door, hoping for it to just magically open. It did right when the clock struck midnight.

You were, however, caught off guard when you feel lips pressed onto yours, about to push the person away when a familiar pair of arms wrapped around your waist.

Wrapping your own arms around her neck, you deepen the kiss, cheers and fireworks can be heard in the background, neither of you paying any mind.

Pulling away, she rests her forehead against your, the both of your catching your breath.

“You made it.” Your voice was soft, not wanting to break the bubble you two are in.

“You’ve been my New Year’s kiss since 2018, I’d be damned if I ever missed one.” Leah pulls you back in for another kiss, before kneeling down and giving your bump a soft kiss. “It’s also our last one as a family of two.” She looks up at you from her kneeling position.

“Oh, how I love you so much.”

[intheorangebedroom]

Tonight you belong to me, chapter 3

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town.  What happens if you can't make it to the motel on Friday evening?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞 see series masterlist for extensive tw.

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, Orange besties 🧡 @frannyzooey thank you for your help and beta reading, I fucking adore you so much it's downright obscene 🧡

Word count: 12.2k

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Chapter 3: The Man At The Frontier

Make us come, baby. Make us come together. 

These words are yours. 

Even if you never see him again. Even if you lose him before having had the time to map the freckles on his skin. To sleep in his arms. To hear him repeat them. They’re yours to keep. 

He mouthed them against your skin, sunk them into your bloodstream in bright mahogany before coming undone, wrapped around your body. 

They’re yours, right? 

Even if you don’t get to see him ever again. 

—

It starts with the cramps. That’s how it usually goes. A myriad of microscopic pliers nipping at your intercostal muscles. 

Your eyes shoot open at the familiar ache. The early morning hues redefine the room in blue shadows. You blink your sleep-heavy eyelids a few times, confused, before your vision adjusts and you recognize the room around you. It’s your bedroom. Your nightstand, your lamp, your books. Your pills. Your tube of scented hand cream. The chair in the corner, that ugly, Louis XV style, transparent polycarbonate monstrosity by that French designer. The large windows. Those damn floor-to-ceiling windows that let in too much light, too much heat, too much open view. Nowhere to hide, in here. 

It has to be sometime between 4 and 5 am, you assume, before another cramp seizes you. You curl up into a tight ball on the edge of the bed, pulling the comforter to your chin.

Not today. Please. Not today.

Friday. 

Inside your abdomen, nausea streams densely, like liquid lead, from your ribs to your stomach, as cold shivers run up your spine. Sweat breaks on your forehead. You know only too well what’s happening, but it can’t be, there’s been no warning signs. No headache, no stabbing sensation in your lower belly, no spinning head. 

Today is Friday. 

You reject the obvious.

Were you so engrossed in the memory of him to pay attention? His hand wrapped around your nape, his forearm molded along your spine, pressing you into his chest, making you two as one. Closer.

Nausea is already lapping at your esophagus. The pliers bite harder at your ribcage and you know you have to move now if you want to make it to the bathroom before it happens. Shuddering, you push away the comforter, then get up and run.

Kneeled on all fours on the cool bathroom tiles, you dive headfirst into the toilet’s porcelain bowl as everything inside you collapses on itself, emptying the content of your stomach, mostly liquid. You should have eaten something last night. 

You know you’re not pregnant. For an infinity of reasons. 

Because you haven’t let Adrian fuck you in weeks. Because, when he does, he always wears protection. That’s your mutual, very tacit agreement. A silent understanding that you’re never the only woman, at any given moment. An unspoken confession on his behalf, implicit permission on yours. 

Because your contraceptive pill is the only one you’ll never stop popping. 

Because you’ve suffered through more stomach bugs than you care to count.

And of course, because Frankie won’t come inside you. 

You stand up on fawn-like legs and flush the toilet. 

You splash water on your face and grab your toothbrush with a trembling hand, shaking from head to toe. You know this is only the beginning, but it’s coming in strong. This one is most likely going to be a bad one. At least for now the pain is gone.

Above the sink, the woman in the mirror stares at you with unsettling, disproportionate glassy eyes. Her skin looks waxy, she scares you, and you have to lower your eyes. You brush your teeth as quickly as you can. 

You haven’t made it back to the bedroom when the second wave of cramps squeezes your abdomen. The pain folds you in half, and you let out a low whine. 

It echoes like distant thunder along the glass walls of the empty corridor. 

—

On Fridays, you count. You break down hours and minutes and steps and heartbeats into small, bearable quantities, so that you can live through them without going crazy. Today, however, you’re counting trips to the bathroom, and the time between two attacks from the cramps, like you’re readying yourself to give birth to a terrible monster, feeding off you from the inside of your quivering body. 

You’ve managed to spend most of the day hiding in your office, with the window cracked open, and the AC cranked up to the max. The clothes you wear are the same as yesterday. Your expensive formal blouse sticks to your sweaty skin in clammy patches. You’re cold, cold and hot all at once. In fact, you’re burning up, and a chill sweat has you shivering in the non-existent breeze. 

You haven’t gotten any work done, to state the obvious. You’re just dozing in and out of consciousness between two crises, head like a rock sinking onto your arms on top of your shiny glass desk. Its surface fogs with every one of your short breaths. You’re running out of toothpaste. 

Being the boss’ daughter has never granted you any particular privilege over your coworkers, except on days like this. At the first signs of sickness, you go home, or call in sick. Stay in bed for a couple of days, sleep it off, sip water tentatively every time you throw up until you can finally keep it down. No one has ever thought to comment on the frequency or duration of your sick leaves. Not even your father.

Kaytee has probably noticed something’s wrong with you. Her office is right by the bathroom, and you've run there seven times since you’ve arrived this morning, an hour late, which is uncommon, to boot. You look like a walking corpse, your eyes eating up half of your face and your lips pinched in a tight line. And surely, she will find a way to use this against you in the near or distant future. She’s been dying to take your place ever since she was recruited nearly two years ago, champing at the bit, waiting for you to slip so she can bury you. 

If she only knew. How you are dying to let her have it all. That you are convinced she’d be so much better at the job than you’ll ever try to be. 

With your last shred of energy, you push down the thought, like you push down the nausea and the shivers. On Fridays, everything that’s not him is irrelevant. At 6pm sharp, you’ll count your steps down to the parking garage and hop in your car. You’ll sit in traffic until you reach the 589 and you can finally cruise towards the motel in the protective semi-darkness of the Tampa suburbia. 

You haven’t yet considered what will happen beyond this point. When he steps into the room and finds you sitting there, looking like an undead version of yourself, reeking of stale bile, rancid sweat and toothpaste. 

All you have to do is make it there. You won’t give up, simple as that. You’ll suck it down. 

Demonstrating resolve you never knew you possessed, you make it to sundown. You hold out through the pain, through the cramps, through the soreness on your knees and the abrasion in your throat and the stabbing sensation behind your eyes and the pulling of your gums. 

At 6pm, you turn off the alarm of your phone and put it away in your purse. The room swirls around you the first time you try to get up. You wince, falling heavy on the simile leather chair you sweated on all day. You wipe your damp forehead and neck with a tissue, and you stand up again. 

All the blood in your body rushes to your feet. There’s not a drop of it left in your brain. You swallow hard against the bitter taste clinging to your tongue and palate and start counting your steps toward the elevator, only to lose track somewhere after 18.

Dark, green circles flash in rapid succession across your pupils, narrowing your vision. You grip the strap of your purse harder, and register you can’t feel your fingers. Something is wrong with your balance, your whole body slants to the left. You try to correct its trajectory but you can’t feel anything below your calves either. What you can feel is your forehead and your nape, defined by pain, burning hot and somehow also freezing where beads of sweat run down your skin.

You’ve made it to the lobby when everything fades to black. 

—

In your early 20s, you had genuinely tried to shake off the melancholia. An honest, hopeful attempt. You were away at college, and even though you didn’t get to choose your major, different and various paths seemed possible, within reach. A couple of years after graduation, when you had met Adrian, you had tried again, with renewed vigor and motivation. 

You did want to get better. 

You cut back considerably on hard liquor. You smiled broadly, at everyone. You said “please,” and “sorry.” Applied lipstick daily, polished your nails weekly. You went out to dinners and parties, wore high heels and interacted with strangers, drank wine in stem glasses and in reasonable quantities. 

On your mother’s advice, you went to “see someone.” As your father prescribed, you read the news and followed sports results. 

But the sadness kept settling down inside you, like the white particles inside a snowball. The vomiting spells became more frequent. Despite your willingness and earnest efforts, you kept falling short, and each fall hit you with increased brutality. 

For your mother, you were too much. For your father, never enough. For Adrian, you would soon come to realize, you were a commodity.

Trying to please them in turn, learning your cues, anticipating their needs and wills and whims, torn up between their contradicting desires and expectations, smiling pretty and meek, you completely lost track of what you liked and who you were. 

Anxious, confused, perpetually dissatisfied and unsatisfying, you withdrew within yourself. Hid away between the folds, detached and ready to flee, wishing for nothing more than to disappear. 

As Ava grew up, her loud and unapologetic personality compelling everyone’s attention, she provided you with a reprieve and, most importantly, a purpose. But a diffuse sense of guilt soon arose, as your little sister’s struggles could hardly be instrumental to your self-fulfillment.

Inside of you, isolation and loneliness grew solid, like a second skeleton, keeping you upright.  

Apathy soon took over. You resorted to medication to control it all. 

And when it was no longer enough, you found your way to the Hole in the Wall.

—

The smell of rubbing alcohol floats around you in the chilled darkness, its rough acetone accents abrading your nostrils. There’s an undertone to it. Rotting perfume and decaying bodies. A faint beeping sound tugs at your consciousness, and as you begin to come to, pain strikes you in multiple places. 

Something sharp stings the thin skin on the back of your right hand. Each one of your intercostal muscles is sore. Your throat is parched, rougher than sandpaper; your tongue too big for your mouth, stuck to your palate. Every single joint in your body is sensitive, but the worst, by far, is the piercing ache in your forehead. It glues your eyes closed. 

Panic floods your brain with static when you stir, wincing against the shooting pain, and you don’t recognize the motel’s mattress. The one you’re lying on is too hard, the linen covering you too starchy, the darkness is closing in on you, you need to open your eyes, fence off the pain, find Frankie…

Frankie. 

You never made it to the motel. Where the hell are you? When the hell are you?

“Ah. At long last, she wakes. How are you feeling, babe?”

Adrian’s honeyed voice hauls you through the darkness. Your eyelids flutter against the light until you open your eyes to a square room with a single, large window, blazing sun darting through. 

Adrian is sitting in the corner by the foot of the bed. A hospital bed, apparently. A narrow, dark blue mattress, unusually high, encased with rails on each side and at your feet. You’ve never been hospitalized before. 

He’s looking at you with a Cheshire cat grin stretching his thin lips, like he was just let in on a juicy secret. He’s dressed in his golf apparel. 

The violent luminosity intensifies the splitting sensation in your forehead, it vibrates to the back of your skull, from within, from the sides.  

Squinting, you turn your head to the side to take in your surroundings. On top of a beige, melamine nightstand are a black phone with a long twisted cord, an oval device with a red and a white buttons and another cord, and a metal kidney dish. 

There’s a tray table over your legs, with a jug standing next to a hard glass already filled with water, and some paper napkins. There’s a needle in your hand. A drip. With a cord. You flinch a little at the sight. A white rectangle eats up the tip of your index, a red light flashing from inside it. Another cord. It’s linked to the source of the beeping sound, a square monitor to your right, displaying wobbly lines of green. Another two cords are plugged in, you follow their sinuous lines to your bed, where they disappear under the sheet, and you take in the two round patches taped to your chest.

So many cords. Too many sensors. 

“Where’s my phone?” you mumble. 

Your tongue feels like a piece of carpet. You’re not sure whether it’s even your voice anymore. 

“You scared us this time,” Adrian says. His tone is cold, practiced, policed. 

You reach for the plastic glass and bring it to your chapped lips. The liquid flows down your throat like a waterfall; you wince again.

“Can you pull down the blinds, please? The light hurts.”

He lets a moment pass before he gets up, then circles the bed, unhurried, pacing toward the window, but instead of shutting the Venetian blinds, he sits by your side. The mattress dips under his weight. You hold your breath, anticipating a new jolt of pain. Behind him, the daylight forms a halo, blurring the outline of his silhouette. Your eyes water against the brightness. 

“What day is it?” you try again. 

“One thing we don’t understand is why you didn’t go home. You got us all worried, you know?”

The beeping picks up pace, imperceptibly. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. The one with no cords linked to it. You know this dance, he won’t cooperate until you ask the right questions, the ones he wants you to listen to him answer. Better to give him what he wants, for now.

“What happened?” 

“We don’t know exactly, that’s the thing. Well, you were sick, this you know,” he punctuates his words with a knowing grin and a wink, “but instead of coming home, you stayed at work, for some reason. We think you lost consciousness on your way out, and you hit your head on the elevator’s frame in your fall. We couldn’t help you right away because most employees had already left the floor. Jerry found you. He called your dad.”

You close your eyes, blocking the image of Jerry, of all people, finding you sprawled out and unconscious on the floor. And why would he call your father? Why not 911? You resent that collective we. Who the hell is we? Right about now, you could swear it’s the entire world versus you. 

Besides, you’re fairly certain Kaytee was still in her office at the time. She never leaves before 8pm at the earliest and makes sure everyone knows about it. 

“You split your forehead open. Apparently, you were running a pretty high fever, too. Oh, and you were critically dehydrated, according to the doctor I saw this morning,” he frames the words critically dehydrated in air quotes. “He also said something about a light concussion, I think.” 

You lift a heavy hand to your forehead, the tip of your fingers gingerly testing what they find there, a gauze dressing, held in place by medical tape. 

Having the clinical explanation behind the multiple aches throbbing inside your body somehow eases some of the pain.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” you say, unable to look him in the eyes with the harsh light behind him. “I need my phone. Can you give me my phone, please?”

“What do you need your phone for?” he asks casually, seemingly absorbed by something on his pants.

It’s a dare. You know that tone all too well. Today, however, you find that you don’t feel like playing. You want your goddamn phone.

Frankie cannot possibly have tried to reach you as you never exchanged numbers, but you want to call the motel. Find out if he came. What happened then. You want to know what time it is, what day, how much of him you’ve missed. You’re craving his touch, his skin between your parted lips, your heart pumping on empty, racing madly from the need for him, and of all the sensations making your body known to you, this one by far hurts the most. 

The beeping sound accelerates, drawing Adrian’s attention to the monitor, then to you. His cold blue gaze narrows on your face. You try to slow down your breathing, hoping it translates to your heart rate. 

“I need to call Ava. She must be worried.”

“Ah yes, your sister, of course,” he exclaims, feigning a bright mood, as if you’d just reminded him you’re traveling to Hawaii together next week. 

Getting up, he walks nonchalantly to the foot of the bed, leaning against the wall underneath the TV set, hands in his pockets. The black screen dwarfs his lean proportions. His red polo enhances his pallid complexion. You avert your gaze, lest the monitor picks up your disgust like it does your nervousness.  

“Yes, it’s true, she probably got very distressed, when you didn’t show up at all last night,” he agrees with affected concern.

There’s a foul taste in your mouth. Acid, rubbing alcohol, and something else. The glass is empty, but you don’t think you can lift that jug. Each one of your muscles is vibrating, waiting for the axe to fall. If only that fucking monitor could stop beeping. 

“Remember back in October, when Kenneth went to New York over the weekend for the symposium at NYU? Well you’ll never guess. He saw your sister there, in some uptown restaurant, making out with her…” his upper lip curls, “with this older woman, her girlfriend.”

So this is it. He knows. All this time, he’s known. Since October, practically since the beginning. And he let you believe you had him fooled, that you had the upper hand on the situation, that this part of your life was yours. He lured you into a false sense of safety, a deluded feeling of freedom. And all the while, he’s known. 

It’s really your fault, for forgetting that’s how things are with him. That nothing truly is what it seems. That he likes you scared, anxious. Perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

There’s no point in trying to control the beeping, now. In fact, given its cadence, you expect a nurse to barge in any minute. 

“Polly’s not old,” is your answer. 

“Yeah, whatever, they’re degenerates, both of them.”

“Where’s my goddamn phone, Adrian?”

“What do you want your phone for?” he barks.

The words are spat in your direction, and the sheer volume of his nasal voice startles you. Red blotches erupt on his cheeks and neck, his eyes are blazing with contempt. 

“You need to call your fucking dealer? Is that it? You think I haven’t noticed that you’re high half of the time?”

You remain perfectly still, holding your breath.You can feel your skin pulling at the medical tape in your hairline. 

He doesn’t know shit. In fact, he’s scared. He’s so, so small. 

“Listen, I don’t care what the fuck you do every Friday night, ok? But can you at least be fucking discreet about it?”

The poison in his tone and his words corrodes your confidence. 

“They will announce the senior partners in January, I cannot fucking lose your father’s business until it’s done, do you understand me? So whatever you do,” he points his index finger at you and stabs it through the air to accentuate each of his following words, “you be fucking discreet. More fucking discreet than that shitshow you pulled, do you get it? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Should you nod? Is he waiting for you to manifest your understanding of the situation? 

You hate yourself for thinking, ever so briefly, that he might have been jealous, that he might have cared. Held down on this bed with all these cords, you feel like a butterfly pinned in a glass case, on display in a cabinet of curiosities, a mere object amidst a multitude of other trophies covered in dust and mold. You’ve always hated butterflies. They gross you out. 

You allow yourself to breathe again when his posture relaxes. Looking down at his feet, with his hands on his waist, he shakes his head and huffs. The stance reminds you of Frankie, the difference in their proportions almost comical, like a circus monkey aping the brawny horseman, the one who gets top billing in the show. 

Frankie had you pinned on a bed repeatedly, without ever making you feel like a study in entomology. 

“Your dad is waiting for me, I’m already late,” Adrian says, coming toward you, “I’d love to stay a little longer, but you know how he is about golfing. Don’t want to keep him waiting!” 

He pecks a kiss on the crown of your head. The pain darts through your skull in all directions, all the way down to your spine. 

“Where’s my phone, Adrian?” you call one last time as he strides toward the door.

“You don’t need your phone, babe. What you need is to rest. Get those magical hospital electrolytes. Doctor’s orders,” he adds with a wink. 

And he’s gone.

Furious tears hang from your lashes. You focus on the plastic box on the tip of your index, and you begin to inhale and exhale, as deeply and slowly as you can. It’s shaky at first, but you’re encouraged by the decreasing cadence of the beeping. 

Adrian and your father go golfing at 2pm on Saturday afternoons. Meaning you’ve been out for over fifteen hours. Without your phone, you have no means to assert the time. Your watch is nowhere in sight, neither are your clothes, shoes, jewelry, purse. 

The room has a phone, but you have no idea if it’s connected. You don’t know the number to the motel. Hell, you don’t even know its name, only its location. 

Frankie’s silhouette invades your thoughts, the size of him, the shape of him. His broad back, his strong shoulders, the line of his neck. The sensation of his hands grasping your waist. Their precision, their roughness. Their intent.

Is this how it ends?

Fresh tears swell under your eyelids. You quickly clench them close. 

You did everything wrong. What an appalling idiot. You should have acknowledged you’d never make it there, not in the state you were in. You should have called the motel to leave a message, explain your absence, and promise you’d be there again the following Friday. 

Now you have no means to reach him. You probably have lost him forever. The warm touch of his skin. His unique scent. His taste.

The beeping grows frantic. Heavy wet sobs heap up inside your chest. Your hand flies to cover your eyes. You anchor yourself to the throbbing pain in your skull and the prickling needle in your hand. To the faint clasp of the pulse oximeter on your index finger. Pursing your lips, you exhale.

Whether the phone is connected or not is just a detail. You can always signal someone with that little remote on the nightstand and have the option charged to the room. Ava’s phone number is the one you have memorized, she can come and get you, and when you manage to get out of here and get your phone back, you’ll replace Adrian’s contact info with hers as your ICE. 

The point is: you’re not trapped. You’re not a dead butterfly in a glass case. 

Your heart rate slows down. 

Between the cords and the hospital sheets, you look up at the white ceiling, and do what you do best: you check out, slip back between the cracks, disconnect.

—

The pain from your head injury is overwhelming. You’d ask for painkillers, but that collective we still haunts you. 

You expect Adrian to come back on Sunday. He doesn’t. Throughout the day, you fall in and out of sleep, a restless, feverish slumber crowded with violent dreams of flesh-eating monsters licking your bones clean.

On Monday morning, the doctor comes in to see you. A man in his early 60s with a thick mane of gray hair and a carefully trimmed beard, he calls you “sweetheart,” and when he raises his eyes from his tablet, he flashes you a perfunctory smile with blinding white veneers. He introduces himself as the head of the gastroenterology department. And a friend of Richard. He makes sure that you understand that his name on your chart is a favor to your father. His demeanor commands your respect, preferably by way of intimidation. 

Whatever he tells you, you’ve already learned from the nurses who waltzed in and out of your room in a brisk and constant ballet throughout the weekend, to check with skilled, professional movements the multiple cords and tubes pinning you to your bed. 

You suffered bacterial gastroenteritis, with severe dehydration, necessitating an antibiotic treatment, and, from your fainting spell, a minor concussion and a head injury. A thin split, on the right side of your forehead, perpendicular to your hairline.

You got sick. You fainted. You hurt your head.

After the doctor’s gone, you’re finally allowed to get up. Under the fluorescent ceiling light of the adjacent bathroom, you spend several minutes observing the seven stitches adorning your forehead. The thick black thread tied in neat little knots that look like dollhouse barbed wire. The visible indentation in your flesh underneath them. The kaleidoscopic and psychedelic coloration of your skin, spreading from your brow to your scalp.  

One of the nurses assures you the scar will quickly fade and disappear. Just like you. 

You find your belongings inside the narrow closet by the bathroom door. The slit of your pencil skirt is torn nearly up to the waist, and the blouse is bloodied. Your jewels are tucked inside your purse. You stand in front of the shelves, staring blankly at the black leather rectangle with the two gold C’s entwined on the front. One of the very first gifts you received from Adrian. You can’t remember if it was for Christmas, or your 30th birthday. Every Friday evening for the past three months, you’ve shoved it unceremoniously under your car seat. You hate that thing. It’s soulless, tacky, it begs for attention, it screams money.    

Later in the afternoon, your mother comes to visit. She brings you magazines, In Style, Elle, Southern Homes, Vogue … At first, she doesn’t look at your face, and when she does, she crumbles into tears. You comfort her. You watch her pad the corner of her fake lashes with a tissue she pulls out of her Birkin purse, and reapply lipstick.

Adrian comes back on Tuesday, with a large bouquet of roses, a box of imported Belgian chocolates you’re not allowed to eat, and your phone. He doesn’t stay long. Before he leaves, he presses an open-mouth kiss to your lips. You wait until he’s passed the door to spit into the kidney dish.

Your father calls within minutes of his departure, with an apology for not visiting. Work, he says, the magic word that justifies everything, from the clothes on your back to his shitty behavior. You tell him the doctor has advised to rest for the remainder of the week. 

In the evening, you finally text Ava. She calls you back immediately, which, beyond her audible concern, puts a lump in your throat. When she asks you how you’re feeling, it’s a minute before you can even speak. 

You’re discharged on Wednesday, with a tube of antibiotics, a short list of food to favor and a much longer one to avoid. 

Ava comes to pick you up. She brings you a change of clothes, a pair of baggy, distressed jeans and a white t-shirt that spells PRIDE in rainbow letters. You smile at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, and when you come out, she laughs like a child at her own joke. You laugh with her. It hurts a little, but the pain is worth it.

You’re still smiling when you ask her if you can keep the t-shirt, and her face drops. She hugs you, a bone-crushing hug with closed fists compressing your back, her face slotted into the crook of your neck. Her voice quivers when she answers that everything that is hers, is also yours. 

You stuff the pockets of your jeans full of your things and leave your purse in the closet. With a little bit of luck, the person who will find it can get a good price for it. 

On Friday morning, you drive back to the hospital to honor a 10:30 am appointment to remove your stitches. You’re led through a sprawling maze of corridors into a windowless room with baby blue walls, and instructed to undress to your underwear, which you don’t. Sitting on the examination couch, legs dangling in the air, palms rubbing on your jeans, you wait for the nurse to come in. 

She doesn’t remark on your defiance. In fact, she makes a point of soothing your nervousness, introducing herself as Diane, complimenting the color of your sneakers. She promises that you won’t feel a thing, and you believe her. When she smiles, her irises nearly entirely disappear, and a wide-spanning arch of wrinkles appears at the corner of her eyes, like sunbeams drawn by a happy child. 

While she prepares her utensils, she engages you in small talk, skillfully stirring the conversation toward the matter of your mental health and physical well-being. You’re well-trained too. You divert without shame or remorse. 

True to her word, she makes quick work of it, and when she’s done, she hands you a mirror framed in a blue, rubbery material. 

At first, you refuse to look, but she kindly insists. Her voice is gentle, angelical, her hands are warm when she lays them on your shoulders. She never once pronounces the word “scar.” She calls you “a beautiful and brave young woman.”

So you let her guide your hand upward until you’re faced with your image. 

“See? Barely visible. Once the ecchymosis has faded, you won’t even be able to notice it. Just something that happened.”

As she stands behind you, her warmth radiates through your cold bones, and she smiles broadly at your reflection. You blink back your tears. You want to commit her words to memory, uncorrupted by emotions. Just something that happened.

Out in the street, a strong wind blows in gusts from the east, in an overcast sky. The damp smell scrunches up your nose. Even without the sun, the air is too warm for the season. When you get into your car, the first thing you do is crank up the AC. 

That rotten hospital smell is still clinging to your skin and hair, you keep having these drops in blood sugar that leave you trembling like a willow tree and drenched in cold sweat. The whiplash from this morning’s anxiety does nothing to level your mood. 

You glance at your watch. 11:30. You let your head roll back on the headrest. You can’t remember a time in your life when you were not exhausted. 

You consider heading straight to the motel. Originally, you intended to go home first, change your clothes and apply some makeup. Cover up the giant bruise on your forehead, and do your best to look alive. It would be smart to put some food in you, too, and of course, to hydrate.

“Fuck it.”

You start the ignition, and merge into the midday traffic. 

The drive is excruciatingly long. A week from Christmas, the traffic is terrible. Getting out of Tampa takes over an hour. 

It’s the afternoon when you pull into the motel’s parking lot. Your eyesight’s unfocused, your nerves are raw, your shoulders pulled taut. 

Of the three other cars parked in the lot, none look like the one you’ve always assumed to be Raul’s, an ancient white Jeep Wagoneer with a rusty back bumper. 

As you try to ponder what to do next, the prickling of your healing tissues riles you up, convoking intrusive thoughts of your scarred reflection. The antibiotics drill a hole into your stomach, the discomfort creases your brow into a constant frown. Your right leg bounces continuously on the car floor. 

You’re running on empty. Pure, solid stress is what’s holding you up.

Once again trapped, this time inside the carbon fiber box of your car, while the outside world is defined in movements. The course of the overcast sun across the pearly gray sky, and the ever-changing shades of the clouds chased by the eastern winds. The occasional vehicle driving past the motel on the secondary road. The trembling of tree leaves, birds flying over, lonesome or in flocks. 

That decaying smell is everywhere in you, around you, but it might be your festering thoughts.

You’re too much, not enough, a disposable commodity. 

Is this how it ends?

Sometimes before 7pm, the white Wagoneer pulls into the parking lot, followed a few minutes later by a red sedan. Raul’s short, bespectacled figure is recognizable through the windshield of his Jeep. Then, it’s the familiar sight of his blue overall as he climbs the flight of stairs to the reception. You slide down on your seat, you don’t need him to see you already stationed here. 

Shortly after, a curvy young woman with a straight, blonde ponytail that goes down to her waist comes out and jogs to the red sedan. She gets in on the passenger side, and you wait until the car disappears on the horizon to exit yours. 

The short walk from your car to the office should be muscle memory. Only today, the gravel feels steady under the flat soles of your Van’s, and your jeans allow you to take actual, proper strides. Carried by the momentum, you march into the room, opening the door so wide it bangs on the door stopper with an ominous sound of shaking glass panes. 

Behind the desk, Raul lifts his head. It’s easy to tell by his puzzled expression that he doesn’t place you. And why would he? You look nothing like you usually do on every other Friday evening. Your clothes are casual, your face is bare, your features pulled taut by mental and physical exhaustion and an array of soreness and pains, your forehead shines in Technicolor, set off by a fresh, inch-long scar. 

“Good evening,” you start with a tight smile. “I—“

A whole week. Seven days, and you haven’t thought this through. The liability that is your impractical brain appalls you, exasperation heating your temples. In the silence that ensues, the droning of the AC unit seems to grow louder. You smile again. 

“I come in every week?” 

Jesus. 

“Oh yes,” he nods, his boot-button eyes boring into yours, ��Friday nights, room number 2.”

“Yes,” you answer with a strained, cringy little chuckle, “room number 2. Is it–”

You wipe your sweaty palms on the sides of your jeans.  

“I was wondering if the room was booked last week?”

“Yes, last week room 2 was booked. But you didn’t come, last week.”

“Yes, no, I was held back,” you hear yourself say. You wince before you add, “And, the— the tall man— the tall man who joins me, did he come, last week?”

“Yes. He came. He waited, two, maybe three hours. You didn’t come, so he left. No refund.  Reservations paid in advance are not refundable unless canceled at least 48h—“

“Oh no, that’s fine,” you cut in, relieved he might have thought this embarrassing interaction was about money. “And is the room booked for tonight?”

Raul’s boot-button eyes linger on you for a beat before he lowers them to the computer screen on his left. The mouse clicks a few times, loud and suspenseful, as he operates the thing. You try to catch the reflection of something, anything in his round glasses. There are seven rooms, two cars beside his and yours in that parking, what can possibly take him so long? 

If the bacteria hasn't killed you, the wait surely will. 

“No,” he eventually declares, looking up at you, “it’s not booked for tonight.”

The answer falls on you like a guillotine. It rings out in your ears and you sway on your feet from the violence of the blow. You don’t know how to breathe. 

“Do you want to book it?”

You shake your head slowly.

“No. Thank you.”

Back outside, in the muggy semi-darkness, your wobbling legs find the way to your car on autopilot. 

He made no plans to come back. This time, he didn’t leave any note. This is how it ends. Between your lungs, the wild creature is bleeding. 

You should turn around, ask if they have his full name, bribe Raul into giving you his contact info. You never thought of memorizing his plates, but you could always drive back to the Hole in the Wall, see if he’s been there, if he came looking for you. 

You don’t. You won’t. You’re not entitled to any of it. He was never yours. Never yours to want, to long for, to miss, to hold.

All that’s left now is the abyss and the fear. You’re terrified. Of what lies ahead, the choices you’ll have to make, the answers you’ll have to give. The hollowness in your chest. The gap in your existence. The fracture in your years. 

The before and the after him. 

He has changed you. You changed yourself. You’ll never know if you changed him. 

Stunned, you stand still by your car, cloaked in the velvety night, frozen in space and time. Your hand petrified on the door handle. Unable and unwilling to leave. Eyes riveted to the brass number on the door, glinting with a blurry glow in the soft yellow hues of the porch lights. Moths flutter fuzzy and silent into the light beam, oblivious to the drama of your story. 

The rectangular window stands guard over your secret life. Behind the yellow curtains, your lonely silhouette awaits to come to life, poised and silent, seated on the edge of the bed. 

That woman, young and brave . Want has made her bold and determined. In just a few moments, her trained ears will pick up the sound of an old truck engine drawing near on the empty road. Her existence will come into focus with thrilled anticipation. She will bloom out of her restraints at the sound of tires on the gravel. 

“Oh god,” you whisper, whipping your head around, your grip on the handle white-knuckled as the red truck parks behind your sedan. 

His massive silhouette comes out, and you clasp your hand to your mouth to muffle a dry sob. 

It’s a trick of your overwrought brain. He’s wearing a pair of worn-out jeans and a suede jacket over a dark t-shirt. The brim of his hat casts a long shadow over his face, but he’s moving fast, and in a couple of strides, he’s standing before you, hands on his hips. He’s smiling, a broad and bright smile. You catch a glimpse of a dimple you’ve never seen. A trick of the mind. 

Oh but he’s here, in the flesh, your body knows before your brain comprehends his presence. The instant pull, the humming purr of the creature inside you, the blood level instinct.  

“Hey!” he calls. He sounds out of breath. Like he’s been running. Running to you. 

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out through your clenched fingers. 

“What?”

His smile drops when you take a step back. 

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t make it, I thought I could, but I couldn’t make it, and then I couldn’t—“ 

Your throat closes around the memory and you swallow hard, eyelids weighed by stubborn tears that refuse to fall. 

He takes a step forward, tilting down his head. That scowl. That scowl, you know. You’re only too familiar with it.

“Then it was too late and I couldn’t reach you,” you finish.

“What happened to you?”

The low timbre of his voice reverberates inside your chest. His eyes flicker up to your forehead. Before you can think of anything to say, he cups your face with both hands and turns it to the side, towards the light. The whole sequence happens so fast that you trip on your feet and catch yourself on his forearms. 

“Who the fuck did that to you?” he grits, leaning so close his breath fans your forehead.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat in a whisper. 

“Did he do that to you?”

“What?”

“Your husband. Did he do that to you?” he asks again, louder, this time. Separating each syllable.

“Oh no! No, I fell.” You bring the tip of your fingers to the sensitive mark. “The nurse said it will fade.”

“How did you fall?” he presses. 

He doesn’t believe you. Like you could lie to him if you wanted to. 

The tension from his frame resonates through yours, where a week’s worth of suppressed emotions and tears are piled up, waiting for a detonator that will bring down the dam. You push away his hands, your frown mirroring his own. 

“I fell, ok? I’m here now, so let’s go inside.”

“I’m not– no,” he huffs, hands back on his hips, shaking his head. His boots scuff over the gravel, the grating sound loud in the empty lot, in the stifling night, and despite the dimness you can make out that scowl, ever present, splitting his gaze. 

“You can barely stand.”

However relevant, his rejection burns your cheeks. You raise your chin, leaning against the hood of the car for countenance. For balance.

“I’m fine. The room is free. Let’s go.” 

“I said no. I’m not fucking you. Look, I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re clearly not well enough–”

“You don’t fucking tell me what I’m well enough to do,” you snarl with your heartbeat in your throat, pushing away from the car, sustained by your last shred of strength. “Don’t assume you know what I’m capable of.”

He stands in front of you, seemingly unmoved, impossibly tall, infuriatingly silent. Stoic, and you’re thrumming with frustration, standing stubborn and brittle in front of him. He gives you none of the myriad of micro-expressions that usually play across his face, that you read instinctually. You feel ugly, exposed, but you withhold his gaze, jaw clenched, breathing heavy through your nose. You might faint again.

The silence drags on. It’s a minute before he moves again, crossing his arms over his chest. His voice is calm, when he speaks next, low and quiet, almost soothing. You don’t want it to be soothing. You don’t want to be soothed, you’re not done with your anger. He didn’t book the room, and now he doesn’t want to go in. You are a swappable vessel, after all. 

“I don’t. I don’t assume anything,” he says, “I don’t want to hurt you, that’s all.”

“I told you already, you cannot hurt me,” you snap, impatient.

“Wanna bet?”

You don’t need to. You know he could. Just not in the way he thinks he would. He’s already marked you permanently, deeper than any injury, any wound ever could. 

“Listen,” he begins with a sigh. 

“No, I get it, I look like shit and you don’t want to fuck me—“

“Alright, that’s enough!” he silences you with his index finger pointed at you. His voice booms in the dim parking lot, and you avert your eyes. Weariness washes over you, you fall back against the hood of your car.

His shoulders sink just a bit, the slightest drop in the tension pulling them taut. He steps closer to you, leans down, seeking your gaze, searching your face in the semi-darkness. 

“Hey, why don’t we go for a drive?” he offers. “We can talk. Or not. We can listen to the radio. Or just drive in silence, if you want. Clear our minds. What do you think?”

Our minds. 

He’s so close you can smell the clean scent of his t-shirt and the musk of him underneath it; you can feel your skin reaching out for him in feverish little tendrils you cannot control. 

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Yes, ok.”

He smiles, a cautious, appraising smile. The light catches at the mahogany depth of his eyes. He reaches for you, placing a large hand in the small of your back, and whispers, “Alright, let’s go.”

— 

The cab of the truck feels almost sacred. For months, it’s been your favorite daydream. Picturing him alone in the only private space of his you’ve ever seen, driving to you. 

What are his thoughts, then? Are they of you? Are they happy? Are they hopeful?

On any other occasion, you’d relish the opportunity to be in here with him. You’d catalog and store up every tiny detail for future use in your fantasies of him. Instead, you’re sitting tight and rigid on the wide bench seat, pressed against the door, face turned toward the window, seeing absolutely nothing. 

You hate yourself for that, too. 

After a while, you risk a glance at the dashboard. 

Judging by the analog dials, the truck has some mileage, but it’s visibly been well maintained. There’s no visible spots, no dust, no dents, only the patina of time. The vinyl bench seat is upholstered with a soft fabric whose colors have fainted after too many years under the Florida sun. There’s a cassette player and a cigarette lighter. The windows are manual. 

The one on Frankie’s side is cracked open. The night air carries his scent over to your side of the cab. Leather, laundry, musk. You can’t escape it. 

“Hey. You ok there?”

In the moonless night, you can only make out the sharp lines of his profile against the outside darkness of the country road. 

“I’m sorry,” you mumble. 

He looks at you, brow pinched, but his expression is soft. Compassionate. 

“C’mere.”

The truck slows down to a snail pace, and he unbuckles your seatbelt. You scoot over near him. Without taking his eyes off the road, he reaches to your right and rolls out the middle seat belt across your lap, fastening it between your hip and his. 

The truck accelerates to a cruising speed, and he wraps his arm over your shoulders, drawing you closer. 

You let him, allow your body to slump against his, embrace his warmth, your cheek pressed against his chest. It’s solid and strong, a match for your skeleton of loneliness. The suede fabric of his jacket is smooth, worn in. You inhale him there. You rest a hand on his thigh, and slide the other under his jacket, to rest on his chest. It rises and falls with his breathing. If you lie real still, you can feel the steady thumping of his heart. 

“I’m not married.”

“Ok.”

The word is felt through your cheek as much as you hear it. 

“The man I live with. He’s not my husband.”

“Ok.”

The nodding motion of his head nudges you a bit. 

“And I really fell.”

He remains silent, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. The leather lining creaks inside his fist. 

“I got sick, last Friday. I get these stomach bugs all the time, but this was a mean one. I tried to make it through the workday, but eventually I passed out. Like a corporate rendition of a Victorian damsel, or something.”

You chuckle, diverting the humiliating memory. Just something that happened. 

He tightens his embrace. 

“That when you hurt your head?”

“Yes. On the edge of the elevator’s frame. At work”

“Fuck. Did it hurt a lot?”

“Actually it didn’t? I was out. It hurt when I woke up later, in the hospital, though. I had this terrible headache. I didn’t know where I was, or when I was.”

You feel him shake his head as he asks, “Were you scared?”

How to put into words, that the only fear you’ve ever had, is to never see him again? 

“I survived,” you answer with a shrug and a little, empty laugh.

If you were brave enough, if you had some strength left, you’d ask. How did he feel, when he got to the motel and found the door to the room closed. Why he didn’t book the room again. Why he still came tonight. 

“Does it still hurt?” he asks. 

“No,” you lie. 

“Mmh. And for real?”

You rub your cheek against the smooth suede, imprinting your soft smile into it. And maybe some of your scent for him to keep. In case, just in case he does care.

“A little. I’ll be fine.”

The truck cruises over the black asphalt, between the straight, stretching yellow lines. 

Your next words come in quiet, but not hesitant.

“He wouldn’t hit me.”

“Ok.”

“That’s not what he does.”

He exhales slowly through his nose. 

“What does he do?”

You bite your cheeks, already regretting this moment of weakness. The treason. 

“He makes me doubt.”

“Him?”

“Myself. And him too.”

Your eyes clench shut. His chest flexes under your cheek as he hardens his grip on the wheel. 

The truck drives past a gas station, through a small town. Neatly delimited square lawns, white houses with flags hanging on their porches, Christmas lights blinking through square windows, and you tilt up your head to look at him in the streetlights. 

His outlined profile, his steady expression, everything about him feels safe and grounding. The beauty that radiates from him, from within him, sinks to your heart. It races madly, awakening the soreness in your bruised ribcage, and perhaps he can feel it, with the way you’re curled up into his side. Leaning down, he brushes a kiss to your forehead. You bunch up his T-shirt in your fist. 

Soon, the yellow lines unwinding endlessly in the truck’s headlights weigh down your eyelids. In the safety of Frankie’s hold, your mind and body slowly drift into a peaceful slumber. 

“You ok? Want me to close the window?”

His voice is a distant whisper skirting the edges of your consciousness. 

“No, ’m good,” you mumble. “Wanna stay like this forever.”

Under your palm, Frankie's heart thumps loud and heavy. 

—

When you wake up, the truck is still and silent. Engine cooled off, windows rolled up. The night is pitch dark. Frankie’s scent, heady, familiar, everywhere around you. Your cheek is resting on his lap, and his hand lies heavy on your waist. His breathing comes in even and slow. Both your seatbelts are unbuckled. Your feet are bare. 

Aside from your legs, sore from being crammed into the length of the seat bench, you feel better than you have in a week, with your headache finally gone. 

You sit up, take in your surroundings and his sleeping form, seated behind the wheel. He stirs, lifting an eyelid and glancing in your direction, the corner of his mouth tugged up into something that resembles a drowsy grin. 

At some point while you were asleep, he drove back to the motel. Parked the truck so that the cabin faces away from the only source of light. 

You stretch side by side, sleep-heavy limbs, comfortable silence. You watch him lift his hat and comb his fingers through his hair, a tender smile lifting the corner of your lips. You know the curls he hides there. 

Of course, it cannot last forever. Nothing ever does. In a couple of hours, it’ll be daybreak. He’s always gone, by then. 

You won’t make this uncomfortable or difficult for him. You slip your socks and shoes back on. You’re reaching for the handle when he stops you with a hand on your thigh. 

“Wait. I need to talk to you.”

His voice is low and husky from sleep. You realize you have never woken up next to him. Never slept with him through the night. Probably never will. 

You hum quietly, pivoting on the seat bench to face him. 

“I can’t come, next week,” he says, searching your eyes. 

Emotionless. That’s how you have to be. You know how to do this. Not when it comes to him, but you can try. You try your best, your very hardest. 

“I understand.”

“I imagine you can’t be here either.”

No, you can’t. Thanksgiving at your parents’, Christmas with Adrian’s family. Always. 

“No, I can’t.”

The following week, either. But you don’t share that.

This is when the two of you should discuss a practical means of communication. The awareness hangs between you, loud and unspoken. The consequences it would have on whatever it is that the two of you share. The shockwave, the shift in nature and intention. The names that exist to describe your situation, crass, overused, sordid. Tainted with lies and deception, secret texting, hushed phone calls, disgusting, undeniable guilt.

Frankie moves first, getting out of the truck and going round the hood to open the door for you. You slide out of the high cab into his arms, and when your feet touch the gravel, you wonder if this could be the last time he will ever hold you.

In the feeble porch lights, his face is a landscape of diffuse shadows. The dip in his collarbone draws you in, a beacon in a dark ocean. You nuzzle into it, inhaling his scent, taking in his fragrant warmth. You tuck your face in the crook of his neck, graze your cheek along his pebbled skin. What if you stayed there? Tucked away forever. Disappeared to the rest of the world. Would it matter? Would he let you? 

Your fists bunch the sides of his jacket. 

“Kiss me, Frankie, please.” 

“Yes.”

His first kiss is tentative, the plush cushion of his lips a soft press over yours, but they return immediately, hungry for a taste, for more, the tip of his tongue brushing against your parted lips. 

All that you crave, all that you need is here, in his embrace, between his arms and his hands tugging at your waist, beckoning your body closer to his. 

Your arms circle his neck, the tips of your fingers seeking his curls. His hand spans your back, finds your nape. He molds you into his chest, and with the way he’s pressing you against him, firm and commanding, you know this will be one of these moments that feed into your hopes. The delusion you’ve been nurturing since the first time you’ve faced him. The dream that he wants you to be his above anyone else. 

His third kiss opens you up, tongue swirling around yours, and you keen, rising to your tiptoes, angling your head to take more, more, more and he gives. Hands gripping, tongue licking, crushed lips and guttural moans, he gives you all that you need like he needs it too. 

You’re floating above the gravel, there’s no time, there’s no space, his body has no end and there’s no beginning to yours as he kisses away your fears, your doubts, your darkness. 

Together, you stand entwined between night and morning, linked by chance, need and hurt, bonded by will and desire. 

There’s no urgent hunger in the spanning of his splayed hands across your body, no rage in his kneading of the soft of your hips, or the swell of your breast. His grip is strong, but studious and thorough. He takes you in, your curves, your dips, the slopes and slants of your figure. Like he’s storing up the feelings and memories of you for when there will be no more, when you’re far and gone, away with your husband who is not your husband. There’s despair in his touch, but most of all, there’s foresight, and intent. 

He’s untucked your t-shirt, calloused hand skimming up to cup your breast, thumbing the hardening peak of your nipple.

Once again, you find yourself pressed against the hard, cool metal of the truck, and like the first time, you’re frantic in his hold, but he’s in control. His thick thigh parts your legs, offering friction to the coiling need between your hips, that fire pooling liquid down your core. You squirm against the firm muscles. 

“Want me to make you come, baby?”

He’s breathing into your mouth, and you whine in frustration. 

“No, I want you inside me.” 

“Shit, you sure?”

“I’m not made of glass, you’re not going to break me.” 

You push away to look at him, a demonstration of strength. All talk, but you’re that desperate. He pulls you back into him for another kiss, chuckling into your mouth. 

“You think I don’t know that?”

So many simple things you had never done with him before tonight, after months of lying bare and naked, to his gaze and his touch, inside and out. Driving, falling asleep, walking, his steadying hand nestled in the small of your back. 

Behind the reception desk, Raul seems unfazed by this new development. The drawing pad blackened in charcoal is back.

“Room number 2,” Frankie asks, “for the night.” 

It’s so wild to consider that the two men have never interacted, when Raul plays such an important part of your Friday ritual. You’d try to get Frankie’s full name, real name, perhaps, but Raul doesn’t ask. This is not that kind of place. 

“I can pay,” you whisper into Frankie’s shoulder, tucking your t-shirt back into your jeans. 

“I know you can.”

When he flips open his wallet, a small color picture pops out, next to his driver's license. The photo booth format is easily identifiable. In the snapshot, a bare-headed Frankie is holding a very young child. The picture is that of a moment, seized through movement, the kid holding the Standard Heating Oil hat in her chubby hands, likely mere seconds after having snatched it from Frankie’s head, who’s looking down at her, with a bemused grin, tousled hair. 

It’s him, his distinctive, sharp features unmistakable, only he hardly looks like the man you know. There’s no trace of the grief he carries like a cloak when he meets with you. No crease splitting his brow like when he looks at you. Instead, his eyes glint with pride, creasing with a smile that dimples his cheeks, large and genuine. And the child’s round, plump face is brightened by the same irresistible dimpled grin, the same head full of wild curls, the same mahogany eyes.   

You quickly avert your gaze, but you’ve seen enough. The guilt is physical, visceral, it squeezes your ribcage harder than the pliers. The pain has you wincing and you grip the reception desk for balance, but Frankie’s arm is already wrapped around your waist and he’s leading you outside. 

In a trance, you walk beside him to room number 2. Your room. That picture-perfect image of fatherly love dancing before your eyes. 

He’ll never be yours. The wild creature shivers between your lungs. The certitude shatters your heart. 

Stepping inside, you’re rooted to the floor. Limbs too heavy to lift. Your blood has turned into lead. The fire in your core is a pile of ashes. You can taste it on the back of your tongue. 

Frankie flicks up the toggle switch, and the room lights up in amber hues. It feels too big, the satin quilt, the brown carpet, the yellow curtains, everything is foreign and distant.

Behind you, he sets his hat on the desk, drapes his jacket on the back of the chair.

“You ok?”

His voice jolts you up. You turn around to face him, unshed tears hanging round and heavy from your lashes. After a beat, he takes a step towards you, and you feel that absolute pull tugging from behind your midriff. 

His gaze drifts up to your fresh scar, where your flesh is tender, swollen and bruised. Yours travel down along the pebbled skin of neck, to the dip between his collarbone. A firework of freckles springs from the V-shaped collar of his faded blue t-shirt.  

Carefully, he slides your t-shirt out of your jeans again. You lift your arms like a docile child, let him undress you. He places a hand, warm and calloused, beneath your sternum. His palm heats your skin, warmth seeping into you. It untangles something, there. Something you didn’t know was still bruised. You lean into it. 

He stays like that for a while. 

Then his hand skates up to the base of your throat. His cold hard stare finds your soft sad eyes. 

“Do you get wet, thinking I could hurt you?”  

“I trust you,” you answer, a nod contradicting your words. His gaze hardens.

“Why did you think I wouldn’t come tonight, then?”

You shake your head, blinking fast. You never mentioned that. How would he know your thoughts? 

“Don’t you know I would fuck you on my deathbed?” he grits.

But you don’t know. Of course you don’t know, and how could you? Nothing in your life has ever prepared you for him, for this, for the strength of that pull, inescapable, for this obsession that has uprooted your life, your body, your instincts. Nothing has prepared you for the magnetism of his skin, the things you’d do to be in his presence, to breathe the same air, what you’d risk for his touch, what you’d give up for his attention, what you’d destroy for his affection . Your comfort, your safety, your future, your health. Your family and his, nothing fucking matters compared to the insatiable hunger of this wild thing inside your chest and its incessant chant of him, him, him. 

Your chest heaves, but his grip is firm. He leans down, lowering his lips to your ear, where he whispers, “What’s your name?”

You close your eyes, the wild creature is gnawing at your chest, eating you raw from within. 

“I want you.”

His hand lingers, travelling higher, fingers splayed across the width of your throat in a loose grip. You hope he tightens it. Like he does sometimes when he’s inside you. Tune out your mind, toss you into white-hot pleasure. Into oblivion. 

He doesn’t. 

He’s never truly been gentle with you before. Tonight, his kisses are languid, his touch soft and slow along your ribs. Delicate, when he reaches the swell of your breasts and slides down the cup of your bra, replacing the fabric with the palms of his hands. When he leans down into you, wrapping his plush lips around your nipple, sucking in the peaked bud ever so lightly, flicking the flat of his hot wet tongue around it, lips pursed, suckling. 

Against your belly, you feel him harden. You shiver with arousal and anticipation, with exhaustion. With the weight of this week and the burden of your life. With pain, ache and soreness. With your empty body, and your empty cunt. With that creature in your chest that can’t be tamed or satisfied. Can’t even be named. 

You shiver in his hold, for fear that this’ll be the last time. For fear that he’ll never be yours, that he’ll never want you the way you want him, with determination, with madness, without a choice. 

“I want you inside me, Frankie please," you breathe out, and he backs you into the bed to lay you down on the quilt. 

The fabric is cold under your burning skin, you shudder at the contact. He takes off your shoes, rolls off your socks. He slides your jeans down and off your legs, then your panties. 

You sit up to watch him undress, his eyes of mahogany brown never once leaving your face. 

He stands before you, naked, erect, filling your vision with this breadth, and you want to rip your beating heart out of your aching chest. 

The bed dips and he’s crawling over you. Leaning down, he drags the crown of his head up along your belly, along the valley of your breasts, his hair a soft caress on your quivering skin. Your fingers twine in his curls, you get lost in the sensation. For weeks he has barely let you touch it, kept it out of your reach. Now the abundance feels decadent, your head sinks back into the mattress with a faint exhale. 

Cautiously, he parts your folds with two knuckles. You bite down a gasp, tensing up. You can’t shake off that chilling dread, the one that trickles inside you, cold and piercing, when you think you’re losing him. But your body knows better, that sticky wet slick pooled between your hips, the coiling heat at the center of you. 

“Stop me,” he breathes into the crook of your neck, “don’t let me hurt you.”

He inches the tip of his length inside you with a strained groan, hooking your legs around his waist. He tries to work you open with a few shallow thrusts, panting against your temple.

“Fuck you’re tight.”

“Please, Frankie–”

His frame tenses up under your palms.

“I’m trying, you’re too— fuck, you’re too tight. Let me eat you open.”

“No!”

That’s not what you want, not tonight when you have no strength to spare, no time to lose, no patience left out. 

“I can—“ You trip over your words. 

“What?”

“I can sit on it.”

Heat creeps up your neck, setting your cheeks ablaze. He gives you a quiet chuckles. 

“Yea. Yea you can.”

He grabs your wrists and lifts you with easy strength. A few swift movements and he’s lying on the bed underneath you, your folded knees a straddle across his lap. You feel dizzy, like your blood can’t course along your veins fast enough, like it’s no match for his strength, for your arousal. 

“Spit on it,” he says. 

You circle his cock, smooth, heavy. It throbs into your hand. You take it all in, with a trance-like gaze, the coarse curls at his base brushing your skin, the round head, an angry shade of red, the ridges and pumped up veins along the length, the tip of your fingers that don’t meet around it.  

“Come on, don’t be shy, spit on it.”

Bending down, you lick a broad stripe along the thick ridge of his underside, from his balls to the fat round tip, where the skin is smooth and his taste heady, and he hisses something you can’t make out. It shoots through you, his sound, his burning skin, his taste. The curled tip of your tongue slides inside the small leaking slit, collecting the pearly drops he gives you. Your eyes flutter shut. His hands grip your thighs above the knees as you take him into your mouth, his fingers digging, a bruising furrow, something desperate. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Your lips slide along him, up and down, tongue wrapped around his girth. With hollowed cheeks, you take him deeper with each stroke until your head is spinning and you slip him out, rueful, glassy-eyed. 

His breathing comes in almost as heavy as yours. 

“Sit on it, now.”

His voice sounds wrecked, like you must look. 

“Yes,” you pant. 

Hands braced on Frankie’s chest, you’re not that flimsy, empty shell. You’re that fierce creature inside your chest, the one that claws and purrs and spits and demands. You tap into the bottomless pit of its life force, tap into the rumbling of Frankie’s ragged breathing under your palms, and you take.  

Eyes strained on the solid breadth of his chest, on the expanse of his amber skin and the darker circles of his nipples, on the constellation of soft brown freckles that turn your insides into a sticky leaking mess, you slide up his lap, part your folds with his hard cock, rub your clit over it.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he murmurs, not for you, not really. To himself. Like the memory comes back crushing. 

The bobbing of his throat, the low rasp of his voice, the wet sound of your slick smearing over his cock, it all builds up hot and prickly right under your navel. 

Sweat breaks on your forehead, along your spine, down in the bow shape of your arched back. 

You push away from the cradle of his hips, knees sinking into the creaking mattress. Raise yourself from his heat just enough to line him up, with his hands curled around your thighs, a steadying help. 

You’re tight, but wanton-wet. He’s a gliding stretch along your walls as you sink down on him with all your weight, your cunt ready to collapse, fluttering frantically. 

His thrashes back into the mattress, corded neck, strained muscles. Thick fingers bruising the tender flesh of your legs. 

“Fuck wait, don’t move, don’t move. Stop moving, shit!”

You still, not like you can move anyway, the pleasure-pain has you numbed out, limp, blinded. Your head lolls back, your eyes roll shut. Your lower lip twitches with the tension and the stretch. He’s so big you forget how to breathe but this is what you wanted, for him to annihilate all the other pains.

A sound comes out of your parted lips. A grating against your vocal cords, a primitive vibration of the air that’s punched out of your lungs. It’s not you, it’s the creature mewling.  

You can feel his cock pulsating hard and angry inside your belly. It’s a tidal ripple that travels up your chest. Your heart skips several beats. 

His hands cup roughly around your breasts. You lean forward into his hold, hips swaying, slack mouthed. You keep him inside you, a deep roll, hipbones to hipbones. The coarse black hair at his base a harsh scrape against your swollen clit. 

And suddenly, he fucks up into you. A hard shove, filling, merciless, into your cervix. You cry, nearly toppling backward and he sits up with a cinch, arms wrapping around your waist, catching you before you can fall. 

“Too much?”

“Oh god yes.”

You’re crying, at last. Big, hot beady tears of salt rolling down your cheeks. Full, fucked out, filled to the brim. Everything that’s not him obliterated. Thoughts, emotions, sensations.

“That’s what you wanted, right? You want too much, baby?”

His voice is quiet and soft like silk, teeth raking along your throat. It’s almost a bite but not quite, tongue tasting your sweat, lips wrapping around your pulse point, barely sucking in. You can’t speak, your nails dig into his arms, forming little pink crescents you’re not allowed to leave behind. 

You nod, you breathe out, “Yes, I want too much.” 

He straightens up, your breasts are pressed to his chest, sweats mingling. His scent is overwhelming. That musk he exudes, a leathery spice, whenever you’re fucking. The scent of his desire. 

His hand tangles in your hair. He makes sure you’re looking at him.

“Take it. Take what you want. Fuck, you’re beautiful, so fucking beautiful, you believe it, right?” 

You try to tilt your face down, hide your tears, hide your scar. He doesn’t let you. So you give in. Because, what if you are? 

“Say it again, please.” 

“Look what you do to me, baby. Can you feel what you do to me?”

His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your ass, and he grinds you onto his cock, a slow, thorough grind, splitting you deeper onto him. It’s coiling fast, hot and heavy, right at the center of you. 

“I’m gonna come, Frankie.”

“Do it. Come. Use me, make yourself come on my cock. Make yourself feel good. Take everything you need.” 

He talks you through your orgasm as you tremble and crumble in his hold. It’s a high that feels like a free-fall, like you’re unraveling, like you’re never landing. Like your skin’s burning and your mind is the horizon. 

You’re sobbing quietly when he carefully eases out of you, still hard. He carries you in his arms and you think you’re floating. You’re drained, boneless, falling asleep already. 

He lies you down under the covers, tucks you in. Places a glass of water on the nightstand. Folds your clothes on the desk. 

You don’t hear him dress up. You don’t hear him leave. 

And in a few hours, when room service wakes you up, barging into the room, you won’t remember his forehead kiss. 

****

[bluenerdtastemaker]

TIRAMISU ?

Hidden Hearts in Milan Sequel

--

I may or may not have been found on Twitter, so I have been demanded by a mutual, so here I am posting this, ehek, I make this one Christmas vibe because I can :p <3

--

This fic timeline happened after the incident (read the prequel, trust me) <3

--

Yuki adjusted the camera angle for the fourth time, muttering under his breath. The ring light was too bright, the counter wasn’t centred, and he was beginning to regret agreeing to this at all. It wasn’t the first time he’d streamed for his growing audience, but it was the first since the incident.

The infamous moment when Pierre, his boyfriend, had kissed him on a live stream—fully aware that Liam Lawson was sitting right next to them, mid-bite into a bowl of noodles. Liam had frozen, noodles half dangling from his chopsticks, staring into the void like his soul had left his body. The internet had exploded. Memes, edits, reaction videos—weeks later, people were still talking about it.

Now, Yuki found himself doing a cooking stream—a tiramisu stream, no less—because Pierre had casually mentioned it was his favorite dessert. Naturally, Pierre was also in the room, lounging on the couch, ready to turn the whole event into chaos. And Liam, because Yuki apparently couldn’t escape him, had somehow wormed his way into being an in-person audience member, happily eating snacks while everything unfolded.

After fiddling with the camera one last time, Yuki sighed and forced a calm expression onto his face. His lips twitched upward slightly, fighting off a smile. No big deal. Just make tiramisu and ignore the chaos. He hit the button.

“We’re live,” he muttered.

The chat exploded immediately.

User 1: OMG, HE’S HERE. CHEF TSUNODA IN THE HOUSE!

User 2: Yuki blink twice if this is Pierre’s fault.

User 3: Let’s gooo. Boyfriend stream round two?!

Yuki’s lips twitched again, this time in exasperation. “No, this isn’t Pierre’s fault,” he said, carefully glaring off-camera at Pierre, who had already propped his chin on his hand, grinning. “This is a totally voluntary cooking stream. I wanted to do this.”

“Sure you did,” Pierre teased, his tone as sweet as honey.

“Pierre, stop,” Yuki said, fighting hard to keep his face neutral, though his smile broke through just a little.

“I haven’t even done anything!” Pierre protested, spreading his arms dramatically.

Yuki rolled his eyes and turned back to the camera. “Anyway, today we’re making tiramisu, which—surprise, surprise—is Pierre’s favorite dessert. He’s been pestering me about it for weeks.”

Behind him, Liam, who was perched at the dining table with a bag of chips, snorted. “Pestering is putting it lightly,” he said between bites.

“Liam, no one asked you,” Yuki muttered, though he couldn’t quite hide the small laugh that escaped him.

User 4: NOT LIAM THIRD-WHEELING AGAIN.

User 5: Boy’s just here for the snacks and drama. Respect.

User 6: Wait, tank top Yuki?? Sir, what is going ON.

Yuki frowned slightly, glancing at the screen. Right. He was wearing a black tank top today—a decision he was definitely regretting now that the chat had noticed. He groaned inwardly but tried to play it off.

“Can we not focus on my clothes?” he said, carefully whisking the eggs. “I’m wearing this because I didn’t want to set my sleeves on fire. Again.”

Pierre, lounging on the couch like he owned the place, chuckled softly. “Ah, the great Hoodie Fire of last month. Truly iconic.”

“Do you want me to ban you from the kitchen?” Yuki shot back, his smile twitching as he fought to keep a straight face.

Liam, mid-chew, raised a hand. “Can I get banned too? That’d be less stressful than whatever this is about to turn into.”

The chat was having none of it.

User 7: HOLD UP. MUSCLES?! SINCE WHEN?

User 8: Betrayal. I thought he was a chaotic gremlin, not a fitness influencer.

User 9: Not Pierre looking like he won the lottery in the background.

Yuki groaned, his cheeks heating up. He turned, catching Pierre’s not-so-subtle gaze. “Stop staring,” Yuki said, his voice tinged with both embarrassment and amusement.

“I can’t help it,” Pierre replied with a teasing grin. “You’re very distracting today.”

“Do you want me to throw this whisk at you?” Yuki asked, holding the whisk up threateningly.

Liam paused mid-bite, eyes darting between the two of them. “Please don’t. I don’t want to get hit as collateral damage.”

Ignoring the growing chaos, Yuki focused on cracking the eggs. One by one, the yolks fell perfectly into the bowl. He whisked with precision, lips twitching as the chat began spiraling again.

User 10: THE WAY HE WHISKS. THIS IS A WHOLE VIBE.

Max_Verstappen33: Pierre’s been working him too hard at the gym, huh?

Charles_Leclerc: Why wasn’t I invited to this?

Yuki froze. “Max?! Charles?! Why are you here?!”

Pierre leaned back, looking utterly unrepentant. “I might have sent them the link. And Lando, too.”

“You WHAT?!” Yuki’s voice cracked slightly as he shot Pierre a disbelieving look.

Pierre shrugged, his grin widening. “They wanted to see the famous Chef Tsunoda in action.”

Yuki closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Chat, focus. We’re making tiramisu, not turning this into a group roast session.”

“Too late,” Liam muttered, popping another chip into his mouth.

As Yuki began whisking the mascarpone, his biceps flexed, and the chat descended further into chaos.

User 11: THOSE ARMS. WHO EVEN IS THIS YUKI?!

User 12: I can’t handle this. Someone send help.

Liam_Lawson: I’m actually living for this.

Yuki glanced over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes at Liam, who is holding his phone, and seems to be typing the viewer stream comment. “Aren’t you supposed to be neutral?”

Liam grinned. “I’m here for free entertainment. And snacks.”

Pierre stood, walking over to rest his chin on Yuki���s shoulder. “Ignore him. You’re doing great, mon amour.”

“Pierre, move. You’re in my space.”

“Am I?” Pierre pressed a quick kiss to Yuki’s cheek before stepping back.

The chat lost it.

User 13: DID HE JUST KISS HIM LIVE AGAIN?

User 14: Boyfriend rights are so unfair.

Liam_Lawson: I’m officially done. Where’s the tiramisu?

With a sigh, and blush, Yuki finished layering the dessert. “There. Done. And if anyone touches it before it sets, I’m kicking them out of my apartment.”

Pierre immediately grabbed a spoonful. “Perfect, just like you.”

Yuki flushed, his lips twitching into an involuntary smile. “You’re the worst.”

In the chat, Max and Charles had been eerily silent—until now.

Max_Verstappen33: Okay, I’ve had enough of this. I’m leaving.

Charles_Leclerc: Agreed. Goodbye forever.

User 15: LMAOOO MAX AND CHARLES ARE DONE.

User 16: They came for the food but left because of the PDA.

“See?” Yuki said, crossing his arms and glaring at Pierre. “Even they’re over you.”

Pierre just smirked, dipping another spoonful of tiramisu. “That just means I get you all to myself, no?”

Off-camera, Liam groaned loudly. “I’m leaving too. This is too much. Call me when the tiramisu cooled down.”

And with that, the stream ended, leaving the viewers to meme the chaos for days.

[fayes-fics]

Target Practice [Drabble]

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader

Summary: Benedict teaches his wife how to handle a rifle...

Warnings: Mostly fluff, a couple of suggestive moments, and one explicit line of dialogue. Married couple teasing each other.

Word Count: 0.7k

Author's Note: This is a request fill from DM chat with a lovely mutual who wishes to remain anonymous. They wanted to see a similar teaching scene to the infamous Kanthony gun moment... but with Benedict and his wife. Sorry it's taken so long to write this and that it's so short, but I hope you still enjoy <3 This is set in the Innocence universe.

“Concentrate,” he murmurs, each syllable elongated, the tone teasing and resonant.

You purse your lips and shoot him a sideways glance, feeling his heated breath dusting your cheekbone.

“Maybe it would be easier if you weren’t crowding me out, husband,” you point out with more than a hint of snark.

Benedict lets out a quiet chuckle.

“I’m merely trying to provide ample instruction, my love,” his voice tinged with amusement as a gust of wind makes the trees surrounding you rustle slightly, whipping the points of his cravat up to tickle your neck.

You hum, sceptical of that assessment. He seems to be doing his darndest to distract you as much as assist you.

“Here, hold it… like this,” his arm snakes around your back and his long, warm, agile fingers curl around yours on the barrel of the rifle. 

“You are just doing this in sport now, aren’t you?” you pout.

“Not in the slightest,” he lilts, “you just have to be the very best at everything, don’t you? So here we are.”

You almost hate how accurately he can sum you up with such an economy of words.

“Now look down the barrel of the gun along the aim line; line up your target with that v-shaped notch and fire at will,” he tutors softly, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

You take a calming breath and line up your aim with the empty wine bottle he has placed on the old stone ruin in the forest, some distance away.

He is silent as you cock the trigger, but just as your trigger finger moves to fire, he leans right in and rumbles right in your ear.

“I love seeing you handle my weapon.”

The gun fires loudly and ricochets you backwards. 

And… you miss—by a country mile.

Your whole body instinctively reacting to that bedroom voice he can affect whenever he wants to rile you.

“Not fair!” you huff loud and indignant. “I call shenanigans! I demand a redo!”

“All is fair in love and war, my darling,” he chuckles, already turned away to load and prepare his gun for the same shot.

“That was not done out of love,” you counter, brushing a stray hair from your face, “but it was a declaration of war, Mr Bridgerton.”

He guffaws louder. “Do your worst, my darling. I was a crack shot at Eton, and I'm still not bad now,” he simpers, the confidence oozing from him both attractive and galling. 

He really needs to be taken down a peg or two.

To be fair, he looks an innate natural with his rifle as he checks the barrel and lines up for his shot, his hold one of practised ease and years of tutelage. You’re almost annoyed at how good he looks, just how damn attractive he looks—his tan britches and blue overcoat straining in all the right places over his muscular outline. Damn him.

“Now darling, once I’m done tutoring you, maybe you will be this good,” he states airily, shooting you a crooked, sideways grin without taking his eyes off the target.

So you deploy the one weapon you have in your arsenal that obliterates him—every time.

Just as you see his trigger finger squeeze, you lean in and slide a hand heavily over the front of his trousers.

“I am so wet for you right now….” you exhale, biting his earlobe, breathing hot and heavy into his ear.

The gun fires…. And he has missed by a mile too.

He swings his head to look at you, mouth hanging open in disbelief as you simply tilt your head and raise your eyebrow.

“What? You did it to me,” you shrug.

“You brazen little minx,” he growls, and its equal parts impressed and annoyed.

“Husband, you told me, on our wedding night, if I recall, if I were ever in such a circumstance that I should tell you right away,” you continue in that smug tone. “I am merely abiding by your ‘ample instruction’,” you volley, echoing his own words right back at him as it's his turn to quirk an eyebrow.

You squeal as he tackles you to the ground. And there is no more shooting for a while… at least not with rifles.

Benedict taglist: @makaylan @foreverlonginguniverse @iboopedyournose @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @margofiore @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @bridgertontess @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @angels17324 @broooookiecrisp @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84

[pauking5]

my heart calls your name

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x reader

Genre: modern life mutual pining, friends to lovers, there's spice, smut, fluff, Zoro is a normal being with feelings and reader has personality

Word count: 20.1k+ (new recount)

Part 1

A/N: This is the sequel to New Year, New Me :) Firstly, I would suggest reading Part 1 before this one. Secondly, I started working on this as soon as I finished the first part and it has been a wip for 3 months. It was supposed to be a Valentine's gift but my writing went into a slump. But, I pushed through and wrote it. It went through so much editing, simply because I wanted to get Zoro as right as possible. He's everything to me so I wanted to give you an almost perfect piece of him.

Lastly, prepare for a long rollercoaster of everything. Literally everything.

Now playing: Did It Again - Shakira, we can't be friends - ariana grande, Sometimes - MUNA, Eres Mia - Romeo Santos, Only Love Can Hurt Like This - Paloma Faith, All Night - Beyonce, La La Lost You - NIKI, pretty boy - M2M

(because I couldn't pick just one song :') )

Early morning of January 1st

Heels and green-haired man on your arm, you walked around looking for a place to eat in.

The sand between your toes felt warm, welcoming to the first glimmering rays of sun. The sea just as excitedly splashing on the shore to wash away the old and bring new tides afloat.

Though early, the air buzzed with the atmosphere of the previous night as faint music was still playing from houses nearby.

You passed by multiple cafes and diners but they all closed early in the morning rushing to go on holiday. Every knock on the door was met with an apologetic smile, sending you out to venture further down the beach in hopes of finding at least a vendor that was still selling food.

Just when you thought all hope was lost, you spotted a restaurant that was still open. Today's menu was plastered out on a board outside with the schedule that said they're still serving for a bit. Just enough to grab a bite.

Picking out a table overlooking the shimmering azure sea, you went to pull out a chair when Zoro stopped you to do it for you. Shaking your head with a smile at his gentlemanly mannerisms, you sat down as he pushed it closer to the table before sitting down on the opposite side.

You scoured the menu, stomach twisting in hunger at all the food combinations. Salmon on a bed of baked wedges, mussels boiled in white wine, even your usual chicken tenders - this place had everything. It was hard to pick just one thing, but you had to make up your mind before your insides started digesting themselves.

Zoro didn't have it any easier than you. He perched the menu in one hand while the other sat on his chin as he contemplated what looked awfully like the drinks page. From the way he bit his lip in thinking and the way his sleeves were messily made up to his elbow, he himself looked appetizing enough for you.

"Something tells me you're not that hungry," he flashed you a knowing smirk under the pretense that he was looking at beverages.

"I am," you stated, sheepishly diverting your eyes back to your own menu.

"Then why are you browsing me instead of today's special?"

At that you closed your menu flat and sat back, folding your arms over your chest.

So, audacity is indeed a manly thing.

"You are scrumptious, I'll give you that," you admitted, narrowing your eyes at him.

"Only that?" he wiggled his eyebrows from behind his menu and you couldn't help but break into a giggle at his playful behaviour.

Is this the same man I drank a whole bottle of champagne with last night? I'm pretty sure he slept less than I did but he seems more energetic than anyone could ever be this early.

Interesting man.

"We'll see," you said, pulling your lips into a thin line to prevent a grin that would give away most of your thoughts about him that were, let's say, more than scrumptious could entail.

The waiter came over and took your order with a little flirting around you. Though sweet in his remarks, you had to admit he had nothing on the man sitting in front of you. But, you engaged in it simply because you wanted to gauge an innocent reaction out of him. And you did.

Seeing Zoro's hand tighten on the tissue box like it was one of his mortal enemies, you smiled internally. So, he's territorial too. Poor paper crunched under the strength of his fist, knuckles white from making sure no corner escaped its crumpling demise.

Once the waiter was gone with your orders, he let go and leaned back in his seat looking out at the sea.

Your eyes landed on him accidentally, being met with a different side of him. One so different from the man you were used to seeing so rough and isolated in his corner at the club. Because right now, he looked so at peace, like this was his natural habitat - close to the sea, spirit dancing in the glimmer of the sun with the golden sands in the background.

The soft morning breeze caressed through his green locks, moving them in calm waves mirroring the ones out on the shore. His golden earrings jingled around each other like they were singing their own tune cradled in the arms of the wind.

His shirt was now fully dry from your late night shenanigans in the sea, with a few more buttons let loose giving you a peek of his tanned chest. Palm curled around his chin, looking out into the all blue, there was not a thought harbored behind those deep brown eyes.

A heavenly dream walking planet Earth.

The small twinkle reflecting in the corner of his eye made you look out to the water too, curious as to what was so fascinating out there. Though this time, it was his turn to sneak a peek at you while you weren't looking.

His jacket was still snugly wrapped around you, long sleeves neatly rolled up to the cusp of your forearms. Your hair was thrown in a messy bun with a few loose curls falling over your collar bones. Though tired circles rimmed your eyes from staying up with him the night before, talking about everything and nothing at all, your lips were pulled into a soft smile. As if you had the most restful sleep. In his arms of all places.

And that made something bloom in his chest. Something so unknown yet so familiar, almost like the anticipation of what could be if he let his walls down. Only god knew that he was ready to let them all fall down if this was the beginning of something good. Something that he's been waiting for a long time.

But he had to give it time. Rushing into anything ruined everything. Deep down in his gut, in the place he trusted his instincts the most, he had a feeling this was worth waiting for.

It wasn't long until your food arrived. After a long debate, you settled on a creamy shrimp pasta because who doesn't like pasta? You could eat pasta at any time of the day and your stomach would thank you. Although, Zoro's fried chicken wings looked so much more inviting for some reason.

Maybe it was the way his eyes closed in delight at the taste on barely his first bite or how he gobbled on them with all the sauce streaming down his lips like they were the very essence of immortality. But those wings looked divine.

He saw you ogling his plate as you mindlessly poked a shrimp around and was about to ask if you wanted one when you just reached out and stole one. You dipped it quickly in the sauce before his plate and stuffed the whole thing in your mouth, sighing in the same delightful manner he did.

Those were some amazing chicken wings.

"I was just about to offer you one."

"Food tastes so much better when you steal it away," you said, licking your fingers off the leftover sauce.

They were just your regular chicken wings. Deep-fried and golden, meat coming off the bones so tender. But something about them being placed so neatly on his plate made them taste so much better than they would have if you ordered them yourself. Or maybe it was just the fact that he munched on them so hungrily.

Whatever it was, you were glad you grabbed one and left him starring back at you dumbfounded.

You turned back to your pasta and forked a shrimp. Before it could reach your mouth, a firm hand wrapped around your wrist and your fork was redirected to Zoro's lips instead. He bit the shrimp off of it, imitating the sound of delight you previously let out after stealing his chicken wing.

"Hey! That was the shrimp I kept for last."

"That's too bad," he said with his mouth full. "It looked too good to be left for last."

"Then I will have this one," you stole another chicken wing. "And this one and that one and-"

"Then these little shrimps are mine!" he took your whole plate of pasta away leaving you with the stolen wings hanging in the air.

That's how you ended up sitting next to each other sharing your dishes together. You kept poking at his as he did with yours, thing that became a custom for you in the coming month.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between, they were all consumed and enjoyed together in each other's presence.

Among a few other things.

Grocery runs whenever your fridge was empty, since he liked crashing at your place more often than you could count.

Movie nights spent debating all the romcoms you could find where he would give you a piece of his mind on how much of a douchebag the main lead was and yelling at the tv 'stop being an idiot and go get the girl' on the usual like he lived for it. The neighbors ended up at your door sometimes, asking you to have mercy on their ears and keep it down.

Whenever romantic scenes came on screen, your fingers would always find each other on top of your plush couch, tangling together just lightly, barely above a soft brush. But he would never admit that he was a romantic at heart. Not even when he smiled to himself when the main characters kissed. Not even when his hazy eyes, soft hands and raising heartbeat gave all that away. Not even when your own beat wildly, inviting him in.

You even went to the gym together a few times, though that endeavor ended as quickly as it started.

"Come on, push it. Bend your knee more. One more time!"

"I'm really trying to, but this is heavy as fuck!" you pushed the leg press feeling the weight thrash your ham strings apart.

"Your body will thank you tomorrow."

"Not if I die today," you gritted out.

"Tell you what. You do three more and you can flip me off all you want."

"I can do that without breaking my knees. What's in it for you?"

"You grant me a wish when I ask for it."

"What kind of wish?" you perked an eyebrow up in suspicion.

"You'll find out when the time comes."

Determined to get your rights of the bet fair and square, you pushed with all your might and completed one. With some struggle and curses, you managed one more push before you felt your knees give in, accepting defeat.

That was probably your last leg press forever since you deemed it the demon's machine.

Your legs dropped like dead weight on the floor, heaving breaths as if you ran a full marathon. Disappointment hit you that you lost and had to honour a bet, while the man beside you broke into the biggest grin you've ever seen on his face since you've met. It felt magnetic to see him like that, a small nudge pulling at your own lips. One that you tried to hide. What loser is happy when his opponent wins?

"You owe me now."

If he was a girl he just might have squealed. He was literally beaming with joy.

"Spare me the pride bullshit and give me water."

He handed you his own bottle as he crouched down next to you. Patting the sweat on the side of your face with a towel, he made sure to swipe dry even at your baby hairs that were sticking up on all sides.

When you told him you wanted to try working out with him, though you weren't big on physical exercise, he was over the moon. Studying you with gleaming eyes as you laid on the bench, drenched in sweat beyond the human normal, with your cheeks filled with water to the brim, you were a sight to behold.

He knew you wouldn't believe him if he told you, thinking it was just another one of his flirty lines, but you were glowing brighter than the bright sun outside. That golden glow that gave plants and flowers light and warmth to glow had absolutely nothing on you.

"I'm proud of you," he uttered out of nowhere catching you off guard.

You turned and just looked at him. He wore his gear but did not make a move from beside you the whole time you were at the gym. He trained you on his usual routine, toned down to your own pace, but it turned out to be way harder than he made it look in all the times you were there to just spot him.

He made working out look like an art. Effortless. But he refused to lift a finger for his own gain, set to just be your own spotter for the day.

He was there coaching you through it all the way. When you felt like you couldn't do more, he helped you put a little bit more into it with little encouragements like these. An I'm proud of you or Keep going or You've got this, muttered as he corrected your form or changed your weights.

"You're gonna have to carry me home," you breathed out, stretching your aching limbs. "You know that, right?"

"I know," he accepted his demise. "That will be my exercise."

"Are you saying I'm as heavy as the dumbbells you're lifting?"

"You said it not me."

"You little shit."

You were the biggest homebody that's ever homebodied but somehow he managed to do the impossible and get you out of the house.

As romantic as the outings seemed sometimes, he acted like it was just two good friends hanging out.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And that bugged you. Because this wasn't friendly behaviour.

Friends don't take you out on a walk at 2 in the morning when you can't find sleep, twirling you around to let loose in the dead of night, with a lone streetlight lighting your way.

Friends don't hold your hand as jazz music plays in some edgy café you wanted to try, playing with your fingers that always end up caged between longer, muscular ones as you talk over a steaming cup of coffee.

Friends don't look at you like that.

Like you could be more, mean more, feel more.

Maybe you were being selfish, but the more time you spent with him the harder it became to part ways. Even if you saw each other the next day, it just wasn't enough for you. You started wishing he would stay a little more. Hold your hand a little more. Look at you a little more.

Then, ass slow January turned into warm February, your feelings evolved and you craved to have him around in more than just one way. You wanted him in every way.

Slowly but surely, and a little against your will, you found yourself falling for the green-haired guy you kissed on new year's.

And boy, you fell hard.

Present Day

Valentine's Day.

Oh, how you dreaded this one too. Maybe even more than New Year's.

Maybe it was the over-exaggerated displays of affection from strangers on the street, plastering kisses on each other's swollen lips like they would die without getting into a heated make-out session every five minutes.

Or the way the florists had heart-shaped balloons tied to bouquets mixed in pinks, whites and reds in every single window.

Or the fact that most chocolate was on the best sale price you could get it just because it was a special occasion.

All of it was just a ploy to say love exists and that the world will stop at nothing to capitalize the living hell out of it.

But that was just part of the reason you carried an anti-romantic persona around today. This time you had a reason. There was a love interest on your horizon and you were annoyed that he was too lost drifting in his own world to notice how enamored you were becoming with him day by day.

It was crazy how fast you fell for him. For Zoro.

You promised yourself that fast love wouldn't be the norm anymore after what happened the last time. That you would take your time to keep it steady, consistent and cautious. That you would protect your heart well this time.

Until he crash landed into your life, ripping the safety net that you've threaded for so long at the seams so skillfully, little by little, until you were free-falling into his own. A safety-net that didn't want to let you go once it caught you in its hold.

You needed him. As simple as that. The flirting, the sweet-talking, the teasing. Every time you saw him it was all just Cupid's hidden stash of poison arrows aimed and shot deeply into your heart. To make you fall in deeper into an unfamiliar ocean where you couldn't see the top of the water, sinking in the endless stream without a way out.

You needed him. Before you would go and make a fool of yourself and ruin the great bond you already had for some feelings. Before he would sew his existence onto your soul, your conscience, your very being completely and it would become too much to bear. Too much to live without.

You needed him. To stop yearning. To stop wanting. To see how loving him could feel like.

The digital clock on your bedside table read 2:30 pm. You sat in bed most of the day, whizzing through tv channels faster and faster with every romance movie playing, every news channel talking about this wretched day and how lovers planned to spend it, every love song playing on the radio.

Romance was everywhere and you couldn't do anything to escape it. Just hearts and chocolate and red everywhere.

Sick of the world and the pure existence of love, you shut off the tv, throwing the remote to the other end of the bed and watched the seconds on the clock trickle away, wishing for this day to finally come to an end.

You flipped on your back, letting out a long sigh as the empty ceiling gave way to thoughts of him again. Sighing, you closed your eyes trying to think of something else. Anything else. The wide beachfront, the azure sea, the warm sand. But all roads led back to him. All those things were connected to him now.

You kind of expected him to make some plans with you. Even if it was something as small as going to get coffee and walk around. Or watch another romcom and dissect it. Though you knew he wasn't one to do things like that on the go. Not on a day like this.

It wasn't even a minute that he crossed your mind and your phone screen lit up with his name. Cursing telepathy thinking and the universe for loving to bask in your misery, you picked it up finding a surprisingly nervous Zoro on the other line.

"What's up-"

"You, me, tonight. Pick you up at 5?" he rambled quickly and out of breath.

"What?" you asked, trying to make sense of his words.

"I want to take you out tonight," he repeated, a bit more composed than the first time.

"That sounded a little better," you smiled, turning around in bed to flip on your belly.

"Can I take you out tonight?" he asked again, voice way softer and determined than the usual playfulness you grew accustomed to.

What happened to overly cocky Zoro?

"I don't know," you drew out, playing with the hem of the duvet to smoothen the material out, pointer finger spelling the outline of his name absentmindedly on top of it. "Can you?"

You heard him sigh exasperatedly on the other side as you took your sweet time replying. A little payback for waiting so long would hurt no one.

"Jesus, woman. I really want to take you out someplace nice tonight so get dressed as comfortable as you'd like and answer the door at 5. That sound better?"

"It sounded great. I'll be waiting."

"Okay." You could literally hear him smile through the phone. "See you at 5."

"See you at 5."

The call ended and you stared blankly at the ceiling again, hugging the phone to your chest. His words started seeping into your brain and the realization that he finally asked you out on what was possibly an official date made you reach for the pillow closest by to scream into.

"OH MY GOD I'M GOING ON A DATE," you yelled. "Okay, play it cool. Play it cool," you took deep breaths to calm down before something else threw you into panic. "What the fuck am I gonna wear?"

You ran to your closet, throwing it open. Racking through it in a haste since you didn't have the luxury of time, you threw whatever you could find that looked somewhat put together on the bed. Clothes came flying on and off your body as you did a whole catwalk show in front of the mirror only to end up disappointed with every single one of them. Huffing out in desperation at the mess around your room, you came to the conclusion that none of the outfits looked fit for the occasion.

You needed something to make his eyes pop out of his sockets. Something that would make him see what he's missing and to take that extra step to you. Something...

Tapping your cheek in thinking, you spun around to your closet with a gasp. You ran back to it and sorted out through more hangers, digging all the way into the back until you finally found it.

A dress you bought specifically in case you ever got a date that was worth putting in the effort for.

The heart stealer, you called it.

A flowy deep-red satin dress, falling just below your knees. It had a sweetheart neckline and straps to hold your jewels better than a bra ever could, the bodice hugging your middle perfectly too. Elegant, sexy and comfy, all in one. Plus, the ends of it twirled so nicely every time you spun around, imitating a petticoat effect, and the length even complimented your height.

She's the one, you smiled.

The time on your phone read 4:57 pm, three minutes before your agreed pick-up time. You've been struggling to put your earrings on for a while now and were growing slightly nervous, thing that wasn't really helping as your hands shook with a burst of impatience. Putting the earrings down before you accidentally pierced your ear, you let out a breath and looked in the mirror. Which made it all worse.

Your eyes jumped around to analyze the way your hair was down and curled unevenly, if you squinted, to how your eyeliner on the right looked slightly more winged than the one on the left. Even the dress straps sat on your shoulders a little too uncomfortably. Suddenly, your confidence faltered and you questioned everything about your outfit.

Is the dress too comfortable?

I'm underdressed, aren't I?

Where is he even taking me?

I look like a walking cherry. Why do I have so much red on me-

A soft knock echoed through your apartment. Your date was here. Taking a deep breath for reassurance and fixing yourself in the wall mirror one more time, you let it be and moved to open the door.

At the door, you were met with the man that plagued your every waking thought. He wore a loose shirt that looked vintage with a few buttons left open and casual dark navy blue tailored pants, falling loosely from his waist. They gave the impression he was taller than he actually was. The way he dressed without as much as batting an eye, you would raid his wardrobe any day.

He leaned forwards to place a courting kiss on your cheek, the closeness engulfing you in his musky vanilla scent you grew so fond of. You could scent him in a crowd of people like a wolf looking for his lost mate. His lips lingered enough to have blood rush to your cheek, feeling it singe as soon as he pulled away the slightest. It surprisingly made you feel calm, forgetting what you were even stressing about in the first place.

Shaking yourself out of the daze, you stepped aside and invited him inside. Something in his hands completely stole your eyes away from him before he even got the chance to offer it to you.

"ARE THOSE MILKA HEARTS?!" you shrieked as he meekly handed you the chocolates. Your heart raced at the gesture, cradling the box closer.

"I have never seen anyone be so loyal to just one brand of chocolate. It's literally all you eat."

"Because they are amazing and they're not too sweet or too expensive. They have so many flavors, even biscuits, ice cream, hot chocolate. Anything you could ever dream of that could be made out of chocolate, they have it. They're just right and perfect," you smiled as you spun around with the box held closely to your chest like it was your most prized possession, the ends of your dress slightly swirling around you.

"Oh, I know," he chuckled at your obsession with the chocolates. "You literally lick the hot chocolate mug clean after you drink it."

"Can't blame me for having a sweet tooth. Thank you for these." You placed them on the counter, deciding against opening the box just yet.

"Do I get something in return for delivering them to you?"

You saw his plan from a mile away - he was chasing a kiss, this time coming from your own initiative. Before you thought it through, your lips were on their way to connect with his cheek in a short but sweet peck.

"How does this do?"

Before you let go, he tensed and you felt it, grinning mischievously on the inside. If he thought you would shy away, especially tonight, he had another thing coming. Two can play this tango.

"Your sweetness is rubbing off on me."

He's saying that as if you didn't catch the slight twitch of his lips and the faintest tint of pink on the tip of his ears before he turned back to being his serious self.

"Is that such a bad thing now?" you countered.

"To be assessed," he piped up, leaning against the counter as he watched you pace around the apartment to finish getting ready.

"Tease."

"You love it."

"I actually hate it."

"You're such a bad liar."

"Maybe, maybe not" you giggled to yourself.

Truth be told, you enjoyed his teasing a lot even if it was overwhelming sometimes. On most days, it made you forget your worries and he managed to pull a smile so genuine out of you that you didn't even know you had.

"You, uh... look nice by the way," he rubbed the back of his neck, taking in your attire from top to bottom properly this time.

Nice wasn't even the word he wanted to use. Beautiful, gorgeous, sexy, those sounded more like what he had in mind. The more he looked at you in that red dress, the more he had the urge to close the distance between you, press you against the mirror you paced in front of and smudge that cherry tint off your lips with his own, all the while his hands tangled in your curls.

That... that felt like more than what nice could ever encompass.

"Thank you," you said, the surprise present in your voice cracking him out of his thoughts. "So, what's the itinerary for tonight?"

"It's a secret."

"Is it now?"

"I want you to have a nice time and not overthink it too much. So, you'll just have to wait and see."

"Okay, mister Kinder Surprise. I'll just follow your lead on this one."

Normally, he would come up with an idea and you would plan out the itinerary down to the smallest detail. You weren't sure what he had in mind for today, but at least your outfits matched in comfy and classy levels.

Going back to the mirror, you took another look at yourself and realized he was right. You did look nice. You were just overthinking it. Funny how he already knows what sets you off from enjoying yourself.

Grabbing the earrings again, you tried putting one hoop in only to have it slide to the other side. The closing was just too narrow for your small ears and it annoyed you greatly. You were ready to just leave without them when Zoro stepped in the mirror frame next to you. He held his palm out to you looking at the earrings and you obliged with a sigh.

Placing your hair behind your ear, he wiggled the golden hoop around your ear lobe as you watched through the mirror. The proximity sent your heart thundering. You willed it to stop and take to a regular rhythm before he took note and teased you even more.

Looking for something else to focus on, you found his reflection in the mirror, holding the earring with utmost care and attention. Your eyes flew to his and the tug at his lower lip, the concentration on his face making you blush. He was determined to get those earrings on your ears no matter what.

"My ears are just too small for girly shit," you said, looking down to avoid his intense gaze.

"They're not. You're just a really impatient being when it comes to doing things properly for yourself," he said, successfully clipping the earring in. "There. See?" he tilted his head to look at you with that twinkling glint in his eye. "Pretty."

I could kiss your lips right now. And your eyes and your nose and your lips again. I don't think I could stop.

"Dork," you pushed him away, conscious that you were running behind on time. "Come on, I can't go out with only one earring in."

"Give me a second, Speedy Gonzales."

He put the other one in for you as well and rolled them around so they were both facing the same way.

"Look at you," he checked you out from head to your unheeled toes. "You look like you came out of a shop window."

"Oh, yeah? Which shop window?"

"The supermarket."

"I can change into my pajamas sooooo fast and you can just go out by yourself," you patted his chest grinning wickedly. "How does that sound?"

"Okay, okay. I'm just messing with you," he handed you your bag and held out his arm to you as a peace offering. You rolled your eyes at him and put your heels on using the sturdiness of his arm for balance and fixed yourself up one more time. "Ready to go?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

He walked you out front to his car, opening the door for you as he held his arm to his chest like a butler while you did a little curtsy before you got in. A little running joke between you since you always ended up being the passenger princess. His passenger princess.

Everything about his car was so Zoro. He drove a dark green jeep, convertible when needed but currently patched up since the rainy weather of early spring was more frequent now. A raspberry Charmander air freshener dangled from the rearview mirror, where you put it on your last grocery run. He constantly argued with you over the fact that its too cute for his car.

"My car is a military tank. Not the Kids' Express," he would say.

"If anything, it's giving the Fun Express now."

But you knew he silently loved it. He had a habit of poking it with his finger each time he got in the car so it would spin around, spreading the fresh smell of berries around.

He got in the car placing the key in ignition and poked it. You smiled turning to look out the window. Kid.

As he drove, the scenery changed from the chaotic city jungle of cars evading rush hour to the more peaceful part of the coastline. The sun was just starting to set, bright orange and yellow painting the sky in lively hues. Some pop song played on the radio making the whole scene look even more tropical.

Zoro rolled the windows down, letting the air flow through and put the song a little louder. You caught up on this habit of his pretty early on - if he heard a song he liked he would make sure you knew it too. Even when you were sitting in heavy traffic and everybody looked at you weirdly. If he knew the song, he might even mumble a few lines with a grin. That made your little crush on him even stronger.

Hope that you will wait for me You'll see that you're the only one for me ~

The lyrics blared over the speakers, emotional yet comforting about falling in love. He leaned back in his seat and snuck a few glances at you. Your hair was blowing in the wind, falling on the back of your seat. Arm laid flat on top of the window frame tapping along to the beat, you looked at the view of the seaside with a smile on your lips. Your other hand sat on your knee, a little too lonely for his liking.

All I really want is to hold you tight Treat you right, be with you day and night Baby all I need is time ~

Adjusting a hand on the wheel, his other one stretched to get a hold of yours, intertwining them together to the beat of the song. Your heart skipped a beat at the sudden contact turning warm atop your thigh. Looking down at your entwined hands, you noticed how his thumb covered yours in guarding, a routine you grew familiar with every time they met in the same space. His eyes were trained on the road but the small smile tugging at the corners of his lips was solely directed at you.

You will be the death of me, Roronoa Zoro.

Parking the car turned difficult considering everyone was out and about tonight. You barely found a spot somewhere next to the beach. Once parked, Zoro got off and came to your side extending a hand to help you down, heels landing safely on the sidewalk.

You were getting a little impatient and you hoped your nerves wouldn't get the best out of you when the air was still so clear between you. But the questions itched on the back of your tongue until you couldn't hold them back anymore.

"So, what's the plan? How much longer are you gonna keep me in the dark?"

He turned to you with a mysterious grin, debating on whether he should tell you or not.

Someone seems to be enjoying themselves at the expense of my sanity.

"The plan for tonight is just fun."

Well that explains everything I needed to know.

"The amusement park up ahead kind of gave that part away," you pointed out to the Ferris wheel bathed in strobe lights, standing tall ahead in the middle of dozens of games and food stands.

Walking side by side, you followed the crowds of couples into the mayhem still suspicious of what the plan actually entailed. Your gaze wandered down to the ground where you found another thing that calmed you. Unknowingly, your steps matched each other's in a balanced rhythm as you followed his lead. Your lips pursed to hide another small smile.

"That's not the only thing I have planned out for tonight," he informed you, checking his watch. "First, let's go loosen up a little."

Your first stop on tonight's itinerary was the club where you first met. It's been a few months since you both laid eyes on the other, circling the dance floor for nights on end to make your mutual interest known.

Months since your little crush born out of seeking real love took off and made space for feelings. Feelings that nowadays chased you to the brink of madness. You could only hope a trip down memory lane would settle them and give you confirmation that your heart isn't tangled in yet another unrequited love story.

It was Latino beats night. The extended terrace was cleared for an outdoor dance floor, stretching all the way to the end of the beach touching the overlapping waves. Fairy lights hung above from tree to tree, warming up the atmosphere in a golden glow. The drinks at the bar had mini red umbrellas to match the theme.

A bartender came to serve you as soon as you sat down at the bar, pointing you to all the Valentine's recommendations. The cheesy names on the cocktails made a shiver run down your spine in repulse so you turned to the normal range instead since you already knew that one inside out.

"What would you like to order?"

Some sweet liquid courage would do me well tonight.

"A piña colada for me," you ordered.

"A mocktail of that for me," asked Zoro, almost as quickly as your own order rolled off your lips.

Mocktail? That sounds unlike Zoro.

Lifting a curious eyebrow at his request, your eyes narrowed on him for a quick mood scan. You barely saw it but it was definitely there. Tension. He was on edge, rapping his fingers on the wooden bar restlessly, foot tapping to the tempo of the current song playing. Impatient sounds more like it.

"Not drinking today?"

"I will. Just not yet," he smirked, as if he had more opportunities to drink lined up later. Well, frankly, you didn't know what followed later, so you asked for more glasses of alcohol.

The song changed to a slow, sensual bachata as the crowd took to the dance floor. Some pairs looked experienced, busting moves in perfect sync with the strings like this was their regular night out to serve some class. They must be fun at parties.

Others could barely get their feet coordinated, unable to decide who would be the one to lead. The changing rhythm, slow at first then rising faster, had them spinning out of control, gripping onto each other for dear life as they laughed it off and tried again together.

Your relationship with Zoro was kind of like that - uncoordinated in your dance to reach each other's heart with normal steps. Every time one got way too close to the other you took detours, going back to square one. But you kept trying. Together.

Zoro saw you looking at the couples with a longing he's seen before, during your first nights at the club. He wasn't an idiot. He knew that longing himself though he didn't know how to express it. But a tight-lipped curl of your lips at the ground had him pulling on your hand in an instant, eyes motioning to the dance floor. Confused at first, you slowly got a rough idea of what he was suggesting and shook your head.

"I'm not drunk enough to dance yet," you lied, trying to get him off your case. You were too sober to trust your heart that close around him just yet.

"Isn't that the beauty of it?"

The tension washing off of him just moments ago wore off into mischief and playfulness. There he was. Your Zoro.

"Are you sure that was a mocktail?" you quipped, suspicious at his sudden change in mood.

"Yes, it was a mocktail." The look he gave you, full of intensity and certainty was enough to tell you he was dead serious. "I just really want to dance with you."

"Okay, fine."

His hand grasped yours as you hopped off the bar stool, pulling you deeper into the moving crowd. Once he found a spot, he tugged you to him in a twirl. Your back landed against his chest, his deep, steady breaths falling right at the tip of your ear. Swaying from side to side, his palms wandered down to your own, lacing your fingers together, squeezing lightly. His touch turned your insides sticky with something akin to desire. His familiar scent overpowered your senses, musky vanilla turning tropic from that mocktail he had, lingering to the depths of your soul. His presence behind you, assertive, dominating and reassuring at the same time, lit up your whole body with fiery tingles.

He lifted your arms up, getting impossibly closer to you as the pads of his fingers reached up to yours, dancing down to your shoulders in a flow of their own where they fell with the rise of the chorus, briskly spinning you to face him. He placed your hands on his shoulders as you stepped back and forth, bouncing up and down to the music, eyes solely trained on you and no one else, nothing else.

In the synergy of the moment, he finally saw you.

It took him a while to understand but you were his rhythm. He couldn't lose you after he finally found it - the frequency of your heart beating to guide his own. If he lost track of you now, he would lose himself again. Among all the other hearts beating in hundreds of other tempos next to yours, he only wanted to move with yours.

You swayed right a little too hard, leg flying next to his hip. His arm shot out to catch it as the on on the small of your back pulled you close, breaths mingling in a flutter harmonious to the one in your stomach, multiplying it tenfold.

Upon releasing your leg, his hand trailed over the thin material of your dress, from your thigh all the way to your waist, where it got a better grip. One that wouldn't let you sway that hard again. Goosebumps burned on the path he carved into your skin and you found yourself closing your eyes on a shaky exhale.

You were shuddering in his hold and he barely did anything but hold you. When you opened them, he was still eye to eye with you, unmoving, patient, waiting for you.

He drowned out everyone else. The chatter, the music, the alcohol pumping through your veins. You couldn't take your eyes off him even if you tried and frankly, you didn't want to.

No words needed to be said as you let your bodies do the talking. The smaller the space grew between you, the simpler things seemed. It was clear as day your heart kept calling for him in a million ways and you denied it enough.

You wanted to have his eyes on you at all times. To have his lips all to yourself. To get the confirmation that he felt exactly what you felt. That he wanted all these things you wanted too.

He spun you out, reeling you back in against his chest. He looked down at you. You looked up at him.

They were close - those damned lips of his. Pink and soft laying on pink and even softer. Just a breath away. Until he broke your gaze.

Whatever bubble you were in popped and all too suddenly, the reality hit you again. They weren't yours to kiss. They were no ones. Forbidden.

The music filtered in your ears way too loud. People bumped into you from all sides. It was too much in too little of a moment to drown in your insecurities again, when his warm touch asked for your attention and his eyes met yours again.

"Wanna get out of here?" he rasped in your ear.

"You read my mind."

The sky announced the coming of night, faint purple clouds flying above the blue. You headed to your next destination, the amusement park. Looking at all the attractions, you had your first pick on the bumpy cars. They were childish, but they were fun enough to pull you out of your misery. At least for a while.

Hopping into the rink, you were barely strapped into your bumper when he rammed into your back at full speed, rattling your seat hard. He really is a child. But you were a bigger child. You didn't hold back either, chasing and cornering him, only to crash straight into the front of his bumpy car, cackling like a maniac.

At one point he disappeared into the crowd of cars as the lights grew dimmer. Keeping your guard up for a sneak attack, you rounded the sidelines cautiously, trying to avoid being caught in the middle of other people's warfare. Just when you stopped to turn and search the rink again, he marched up to hit you from the side only for you to dodge it like a pro. His car rammed into the edge of the rink, jaw dropped in shock as you bellowed with laughter at him.

His driving pride got shaken a little from your bumpy car skills, but you were smiling again. That's all that mattered to him.

Once your time was up, you were pulled to another ride, this time of Zoro's pick. Knowing him, it would be something too adventurous and risky to ride. You realized where he was taking you way too late - the highest roller coaster in the area. Instantly, you shook his hand off, backtracking behind him. That thing looked like what nightmares are made of.

"Hell nah, I am not getting on that."

Thinking you had a choice was a mistake since he pulled a wildcard on you. A wildcard you wished you never agreed to in the first place if you knew it would come back to bite you in the ass.

"Remember that bet we had at the gym that you lost?" Motherfucker. "I think it's time you make that wish come true."

And to think he gave you the impression it would be an innocent wish back then. All men do is lie.

"That's not fair," you argued, trying to think of a way to convince him to use his wish on something else. Something that didn't involve your stomach switching places with your other organs. Coming empty handed, you slumped your shoulders like a child being denied their favourite toy and got in the line with him.

Your leg bounced up anxiously with each pair admitted for a ride in front of you. The screams of the people on the rollercoaster screeched in your ears. You took a gulp of air to calm your nerves just as Zoro's lips brushed to your ear out of nowhere, almost giving you a heart attack.

"Nothing's going to happen to you. I'll be there to hold your hand."

Is he taking the piss? Hold my hand? How about you hold your balls secure before I kick them to the fucking sky-

Your thoughts were interrupted when something clicked fixed around you. The straps to the ride seat. You squirmed around uncomfortably to find a better position that felt safer, but being in that seat itself was not safe in any way. The straps were safe and secure but not safe enough.

"Zoro, I'm getting off."

To your disappointment, the megaphone called out that the next cart was going up and the ride started moving. Despite having multiple piña coladas at the club to calm your nerves, you still felt the panic grip you a little and grabbed a tight hold of the security holds keeping you in place, shutting your eyes and praying that this torture would end sooner.

"Hey, hey, hey." His voice called out to you softer than you've ever heard it before, willing you to focus on him. "Look at me."

"No, thank you," you chuckled uneasily. "If I open my eyes I will see my impending doom," you continued, feeling your heart thrumming in your chest as the ascent began quicker than you expected it to.

"Then give me your hand."

"I want to smack you over the head with it." Tremors took over your hands slightly, aware of how high you were going. "Why did I agree to this?"

"Because you like keeping to your word and it's something I admire about you."

He does? Oh, that's sweet- Wait I'm still mad at him.

"Please don't give me the compliment bullshit right now," you groaned through deep breaths.

"It's true though," he said, keeping his calm composure.

You cracked one eye open at him to see him looking only at you, anchored to your eyes like you were his view of the safe harbor in the tempest, the eye of the storm far away from reaching you.

Suddenly, everything was fine. All was good. It was just you and him on the same boat going in the same direction. Nothing could rock your boat.

Until you felt the ride stop and the urge to look around grew and despite all efforts, you gave into it. You were standing on the highest point, overlooking the whole park. You stopped breathing just looking around at the point ahead on the horizon where the sky met the sea, surprised to see the moon and the twinkling stars peak through the cover of clouds. The view would've been spectacular if it wasn't a few seconds till the train would drop.

"No no no, don't look-" he tried to warn you before you did the opposite.

"WE'RE GONNA FUCKING DIE!" you screeched.

"-down."

"If we don't die now, I will kill you myself when we're back on the ground for choosing to make such a stupid wish. I swear to GOD-" you were cut off as the train fell down into the drop.

Against your wishes, you grabbed onto his hand and held on for dear life, screaming as loud as your lungs could let you. You let out everything you've been holding inside for the past month in one strong yell. Zoro let out a few surprising yelps too, holding tighter onto your hand. The whole thing was over and done with before you knew it and you found yourself actually enjoying it. Not one hundred percent but a good amount of you did.

All that work to curl your hair only to get a blow out when you got back to the ground. It stuck up all sides, curls dismantled from the sheer force of the drop but still standing. Your hands patted it down with a pout, making Zoro take the matter into his own hands, brushing through your hair to fix it. His hands felt so soothing on your scalp, taming your earlier rage at being dragged to that death trap.

"You acted all cool only to yelp like a school girl during the drop," you giggled, his yelps still fresh in your mind.

"No, I didn't," he argued.

"I think the people that sat behind us would beg to disagree. At least own up to the fact that you were a teeny tiny bit scared."

"I don't fear anything."

"Oh yeah? Look behind you."

"What could possibly be so scary behind me- WHAT THE FUCK!" he yelled as he came face to face with a person dressed as a clown, carrying around balloons. He almost punched them on impulse.

"I don't fear anything my ass," you looked at him as he put down his fist and apologized. Once he was certain they left, he straightened his posture and cleared his throat.

"I was just startled," he said, trying to assure you that the statement he made was true. But you got used to seeing through his bullshit.

"Sure you were. Wanna try the haunted house over there then?" you pointed to the shack where a few people just ran out from, some full on sobbing. A scream came from inside, his eyes going wide and that was all you needed to know. Roronoa Zoro did have fears.

"Absolutely not."

"You sure? Nothing's gonna happen to you. I can hold your hand," you teased him like he teased you before the rollercoaster ride.

"Did you say you want popcorn? I'm gonna go get us some popcorn," he laughed, looking for an excuse.

"Okay. Meet you by the benches?"

"Sure."

Walking around, you stumbled upon a long queue of couples lined up to go on the Ferris wheel clogging most of the circulation around the park. If you were being honest, the rollercoaster was much more fun than waiting for hours to see an overpriced five minutes coast view could ever be. Besides, you could drive up the road and see that for free too.

You walked around some more when one of the stands stopped you in your tracks - throwing darts. It wasn't the darts game itself that piqued your interest, but the fluffy beige bear smiling brightly, hanging above the targets. His brown eyes matched those of your green-haired man, warm chocolate infused with honey, too sweet not to stop and stare.

For some reason you found it really lonely sitting by itself up there. All the smaller prizes were won and replaced on the daily, but by the looks of it he's been there for a while, waiting for someone. No one seemed sharp enough to play the game to the end and take him home.

You wanted to take him home with you.

If only you had the darts talent running in your veins. The price for just a set of three darts was way too much and it took seven perfect shots in the bullseye of the targets to win the bear. Perks of having an amusement park next to one of the most popular beaches on the coast meant complicated games that no normal human could aspire to win.

Sparing it one last look that made your heart ache, you turned and went to sit on a bench, waiting for your date that just so happened to see you stop by the darts booth. More precisely, he saw that pout on your face as you looked at the bear hung up high above the targets when it clicked. You wanted that bear.

Zoro knew you wouldn't ask him to get it for you. You didn't like asking for things and he knew that you might not even accept it if he offered it. But the way your shoulders slumped as you walked away told him how much you wanted it.

Darts wasn't his best sport, but he was good with his aim and had a patience that could kneel most at his feet. So, he marched to the booth, placing the popcorn tubs to the side and started tracing his targets to see just what he was dealing with.

"Feeling lucky tonight?" asked the manager of the booth, a sly smile on his face at finding another victim.

Little shit. If only he knew Zoro had the power to send his little business into bankruptcy right at his fingertips. A grin of his own graced his features making the man's smile quiver at the seams.

"Oh, I'm feeling more than lucky."

He rolled up his sleeves showing he meant business and placed a wad of cash on the dirty table, picking up his first set of darts. He was dead set on getting you that bear no matter how much money he had to blow on throwing tiny arrows around.

Anything to not see that pout on your face ever again.

Shuffling your heels over the dust and rocks on the ground, you drew random patterns to busy yourself. A lot of things were weighing on your mind. You were questioning why you went out in the first place. To give this a chance, your brain told you.

To feel something, said your heart. Well, with Zoro, you felt the whole damn universe in one sitting.

There was no telling how this night would end anyways. But you were slowly starting to think Zoro ditched you there since it's been a while he left to look for popcorn. You sighed again, feeling your world tilt, when a pair of shoes stopped in front of you. You knew those shoes.

"I thought you left to get popcorn not to shake hands with the mayor-," you lifted your head up only to stop mid-sentence. Staring at him like he grew a third eye, you took in the way he balanced two tubs of popcorn under his arm and a big plushie in the other.

The fluffy bear.

"I did. They were out so I went to find another stand. And this is for you," he offered you the bear with a smile that made his dimple pop out.

That small indentation in his cheek that showed up when he puffed them on the inside, usually at times when he did something he was proud of. A pit you could hide in whenever you wanted to without him knowing.

"Buddy looked a little lonely up there," he added, tilting his head back to the booth behind him.

Looking into those plastic brown eyes, you took the bear and hugged it close to you. It was even fluffier than you thought a plushie could be. You snuggled into it noticing that it lightly caught his scent, besides the sugary theme park smell.

You teared up a little. Not out of sadness or anything, but because you were touched by the gesture. Because he noticed, which was a rare thing to come by nowadays. Zoro cared and he showed you time and time again, never once falling short to notice. To make you feel seen.

Sensing a change, he placed the popcorn down on the bench you were sitting on just moments ago, grabbing a gentle hold of your arms.

"Hey," he spoke softly, trying to reassure whatever storm pried onto you out of nowhere. His palms stroked your forearms up and down, earlier glee in his voice morphing into worry. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," you shook your head looking away. It was stupid to have a crying session right now of all times.

"You look like you're about to cry. Did I do something wrong?"

"No, no! Gods, no. You didn't. You're amazing," you smiled. In an instant, your arms reached out to wrap around his waist hugging him as tight as you hugged the fluffy bear.

"Thank you, Zoro," you nuzzled your head into his chest in deep appreciation for more than the bear, hands holding tight onto the back of his shirt.

Your sudden display of affection made his ears grow pink. He silently hoped you couldn't hear the way his heart was beating from how your head was pressed to it. He wasn't sure how to respond at first but hesitantly, his arms wrapped around you too, squeezing you closer for a moment. His chin sat on top of your head as he let out a deep sigh at the comfort it brought him. If only he could hold you like this all the time.

There weren't enough words in the world to express your gratitude to him. For how well he treated you. For everything he did to make you feel happy. You just wanted to do the same for him. At least even for a little bit if this wasn't going to last.

"You're welcome," he smiled softly at you as you pulled apart from the hug. "Now, what are we naming this little guy?"

"Well, he definitely isn't little," you barked a laugh holding the bear up next to your hip. Now that you were seeing him closer, he was half your size. "I'll name him Lovey and I will be his Dovey."

"Does that mean I have competition?" his arms crossed on his chest, playing jealous. "He does seem like a worthy opponent."

"I didn't realise you were a runner-up, tough guy," you patted his chest to calm his coyness down a notch.

"Did I not make it clear enough?"

I think you and me have very different definitions of clear.

"I don't know," you teased. "Did you?"

"Guess I have to go for Plan B," he said, checking his watch again.

He checked that watch of his hundreds of times tonight. Was he in a rush? Is his prince charming cover going to dissipate like Cinderella at midnight or something?

"What's Plan B?" you asked confused, hoping he would let some information slip.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he smirked tauntingly.

This man is an ore of surprises.

You've been waiting for Zoro in front of the park for a little over half an hour. He left to look for his car a while ago and there was no sign of him yet.

Huh, funny how I keep waiting for him. Both physically and emotionally. When does it end?

The sky turned darker and grey clouds rolled over. You felt uneasiness creep up on you, especially since he mentioned a Plan B. If the club and the amusement park were Plan A, what did Plan B look like in his book?

Five more minutes passed and Zoro returned, surprisingly by walking instead of driving, car keys swinging around in his hand.

"Zoro, where's the car?"

"So, uh, bad news. I lost the car," he smiled apologetically, pressing his hands together.

"What do you mean you lost the car? It's a huge jeep. How hard can it be to find a huge... jeep," you motioned around only to stop as you realized most of the cars around looked exactly like his. "Oh."

"Yeah, charm of living on the coast. But good news is that we are in walking distance from my place which was final destination. Though that surprise is kinda ruined now."

"I don't know what exactly you have planned at your place though," you stated, fishing for details.

"You have a point. Well, I can just come and look for it tomorrow."

He says that as if it's a daily occurrence for him to lose a jeep to the hands of sense. Though that made you think. Just how many times did he lose his car around here? But you'd rather not ask. So you asked something else.

"Won't you get a ticket?"

"Most parking around here is free."

"That's fine then," you shrugged, getting up with Lovey under your arm. "What about Plan B?"

Come on, dude. Give me a clue. Just one hint.

"It's on the way," was all he said as he extended his arm to you.

Okay, then no clue.

"Shall we?"

"We shall."

Of all the places you expected to make a pit stop at, Home Depot was the last thing on your list. Zoro had to pick up a bulb for his kitchen light that has been in his shopping notes for the past two months. Two. months. This is exactly why you make the lists on your grocery runs. He always forgets something.

In one hand you held your new fluffy companion close, while Zoro held onto your free one while you padded through the departments to reach the light section. Like any self-respecting humans, you stopped by the furniture section to look at a few sofas and test their softness together. They were so comfortable to sit on but you already had one in your apartment and from what Zoro let on he had one too many. Now, you wanted to reach final destination sooner.

A bit more waddling around floorings and hardware and you finally reached it - the beauty that was the light section. Bulbs of all kinds for all purposes, orientally decorated lamps and simple to more lavish strings of lights hung around each rack, one calling out more than the other.

The section extended into an extra part that seemed to have been arranged more recently. It called to you so you left Zoro looking for his bulb as you went to explore it more.

Following the multicolor trail bouncing off the racks, you came to a makeshift panel widening into the middle of the department. It was built to look like an arch of some sort. Like the kind you would see in extravagant wedding settings.

Fairy lights and crystal chandeliers of all shapes dripped down to paint the grey floors in a myriad of colours. You ventured under it, looking at all the ambient and decorative designs on display. A few lamps were so beautiful you seriously considered redecorating. Although, the warm golden light of a chandelier in the middle of the ensemble drew you in, its intricate framework sending rays of light reflecting from all lamps everywhere.

Zoro found the bulb he needed and turned around to find you gone from his side. He had to put a tracker on you at this point.

Following his instinct, he took just a few steps down the lights wing and found you right away. His breath hitched. There you were, revelling in the warmth of the light of a crystal chandelier. Its main frame made out of goldenrod supported dozens of glass flowers cascading from each side to create a bigger rozette above. The other lights reflected into the glass, shining a warm gold tone all over you, romanticising your features.

You looked like you stepped out of heaven. A fallen angel. His fallen angel.

You were curiously tracing the details of a crystal flower when he stepped closer to you, musky vanilla invading your senses. Turning to him you ended up nose to nose once again tonight, foreheads almost touching in that confined space. He was so close yet so far again. What was he waiting for?

Kiss me, you wanted to scream.

Kiss my lips dry.

Kiss me like I'm yours Zoro.

You were ready to beg. To have him close the distance faster and end this yearning.

He leaned in, breath ghosting your lips almost painfully.

In your daze, too focused on him finally showing a response, you backed up into a lamp that nearly knocked out everything else behind you. You turned around just in time to catch it, steadying it back to its place, saving dozens of installations from being crushed to bits and pieces. When you turned back around, his eyes closed in denial, letting out an exasperated breath.

And he pulled away. Just like that. He initiated the moment and he ended it too.

Now what the fuck.

"Did you get the bulb?" you exhaled, still in shock that the moment was gone as quick as it came.

"I have," he inhaled, straightening his posture, cocky smirk flying back to his lips.

Like he didn't just have me begging for a fucking kiss in the Home Depot lights section.

"Do you need anything else?"

"Nope," he got a hold of your hand pulling it between you, thumb softly guarding yours. "I have everything I need right here."

You're such an anomaly, Roronoa Zoro.

All you could think about was his place. Which was unexplored land to you. Your visit there wasn't too early of a feat in your relationship considering how much he loved your place. You just pondered on what was waiting for you there.

An open invitation to become more? A private tour of his home? A one night only limited edition Zoro? The possibilities with this man were endless.

A small stinging sensation brought your attention to your leg. Your ankles. Not having worn heels in a while, you didn't think it would be this bad if you left them uncovered and just slid into the heels for the night. Until it was that bad and trying to walk in a way that didn't give your discomfort away was hard. Every step down the concrete sidewalk had your the shoe brush like a bristle comb against your ankle.

You stopped to lean your weight on a fence, lifting your leg to be met with the new blood crescents forming on the ridges of your heels. Ouch. Rubbing your ankles to soothe the ache proved to be only temporary relief. You tried putting it back in the shoe only to scrunch your nose at the new wave of pain.

You've been walking for quite a while already. Who knew how much longer you had until you reached his place?

Before you could even register what was happening, Zoro dropped to his knees in front of you with a grunt. You blinked, bewildered at his behaviour. His wide back stretched, laid out for you. You didn't notice until now that his shirt was slightly see-through, the glory of his lean, strong shoulders fully in your view. No view of the coastline could compare to the one you had in front of you. Kneeling at your feet of all things.

You just stared for a while still confused but digging it, until his voice echoed like a wake up call in your ears.

"Get on."

"I can walk."

He turned his head around, pining you with an are you serious right now look. He was trying to be a gentleman but your hugely independent persona wasn't having any of that. Well, that and you were still mad about the home depot thing.

The kiss that never happened. The pulling away after railing you up all night, with a desperate sigh on his part, as if he felt the same. If he felt the same he would've said or done something to cement it. To make you stop feeling like a damn fool.

"I know you can," he added, voice turning so mellifluous to sweeten the mood that your knees almost turned to jelly. "I just don't want those red demons to scar you more than they already have."

He was sweet-talking you again.

He turned back around and made grabby hands over his shoulder for you to hurry up. You bit your lip annoyed that he was right. The heels would only scar your ankles more.

"Fine," you sighed and got on, closing an arm around his neck as the other wrapped the bear's arms around your own.

Certain that you got comfortable, Zoro got a hold of the back of your thighs to lift you up. The spot he touched behind your thigh tickled and you tried your hardest to keep stable and not move around too much. You did kick forwards in instinct once, earning a disgruntled huff from your humble transport.

"Is there a place you aren't ticklish in?"

"I'm sorry, I just can't help it."

You took a strand of your hair and tickled his cheek on purpose as he tried to blow it away.

"I will drop both of you if you don't stop that," he warned.

You leaned closer to the side of his head, the rim of your lips brushing just the tip of his ear, voice playing sweet whispering in the same way he did to you all night.

"Stop what?"

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, jaw clenched, tensing under your hold before slowly reconfiguring his pace. You hit a chord. You grinned in victory that it affected him when your smile fell as you caught sight of the corner of his lip twisting upwards. He welcomed your teasing only to reply with a remark of his own.

"Are you testing me, angel?"

Angel. That was new. So new that your heart fluttered.

You kept your composure unsure of how to respond. This was one of those times his teasing got too deep inside of you and tickled a chord you didn't even know was there. So you just deflected from it, securing your hold on him better.

"Drop me and I will end your entire bloodline."

A deep rumble of a chuckle that he tried to keep inside but failed, boomed under you. The heaviness between you dissipated little by little, unserious, and you giggled along with him.

"You're precious cargo. But I just might," he teased again, readjusting his hold on you.

Yet, the truth was he wouldn't. In fact, he would do anything in his power for you to be comfortable. Even if that meant carrying you and a midsized bear all the way to his place sprawled on his back like a sack of potatoes, with your red feet killers swinging in his hand as your warm giggles filled the night.

Though it was a far reach, the possibility of nights like these becoming a regular thing made his heart soar. Maybe there was a chance for more.

Entering the lush part of the coastline, palm-hidden domains morphed into villas upon villas of the rich and the elite in all kinds of styles running along the lap of a hill. Halfway up the steep hill, your humble transport climbed a set of stairs and stopped in front of a villa.

Your mouth hung open. There's no way this was his.

Your eyebrows reached the heavens when he fished around his pocket for the keys and jingled them in the hole, pushing the door open. This was his.

Once inside, he bent down for you to get off, placing your heels down, putting his own shoes next to yours. You hopped off taking in the place. Each way your head turned you were instantly hit with his scent.

"You're telling me your house was this close to the club and we spent new year's sleeping on the beach?" you asked, twirling around the place.

Walking in further, you came to a dip in the ground going into a spacious living room. Two medium couches and an armchair in a deep forest green laid around facing each other. He does have a couch too many.

"Well, I didn't want to hit third base that early," he said, walking into the kitchen area. "You did take me for a psychopath just for taking you to the beach."

Taken aback at his words, you turned around trying to recall when that happened.

"Pffft, I did not."

Stopping his ascent on a small ladder to change the broken bulb, he placed his hands on his hips and looked back at you then proceeded to utter the exact words you said to him on your first night together.

"Is this the part where you kill me or something?"

He even had the tone right. You laughed remembering his first impression. Oh, how wrong you were. He turned out to be way more than that.

"Fair enough."

Fixing fluffy Lovey on a couch, you walked around some more. The huge space was used so well, beige and green motives spreading all around, combining in neutrals with the dark grey oak wooden floors. Beyond the modern aesthetic and messily discarded trinkets it was so cozy. Compared to your apartment, this place was an oasis.

"You have a really nice house."

"Thank you. It's not much really."

Not much? He's not being real.

He fiddled some more with the lightbulb, lean forearms working to click it into place. Extending his hand to you, he motioned you to the flip switch to test if it works. You obliged and turned it on. The bulb glowed, turning the beige kitchen golden, just like the chandelier you saw.

Moving into the cooking area you realised even his kitchen was something out of the paradise of architectural design.

You leaned your elbows on the marble top, head resting on top of your knuckles, waiting for him to finish. Once he was satisfied with his work, he stored the ladder away and came to sit next to you, mirroring your position. Feeling his prying eyes on you, you turned to find him a few inches away, hip brushing yours, looking at you with a smile.

"Hi," you said softly, smiling back at him.

"Hi," he replied, the crescents around his eyes deepening.

You could sit there looking at each other until time would end. If it wasn't for your stomachs singing in unison demanding some attention.

"I thought that instead of going to spend loads of money on a restaurant, we could cook something ourselves," he suggested.

"You went grocery shopping without me?"

"Yep," he popped the p at the end looking really proud of himself.

You had to give him credit for planning the whole day out ahead of time. It's the most anyone has ever done for you.

"So, what are we cooking?"

"Well," he threw a towel over his shoulder, "your wish is my command tonight."

You loved his determination. Zoro could cook. Just enough to save his life if need be but nothing too grandiose - if that included omelets and fried rice with some creativity to reinvent the dish for every day of the week. Thing that required talent.

So, you thought of one simple thing no one could screw up. Something that would be easy, fun and quick to make that would fill you both. You settled on the pinnacle of good food.

"Then pizza it is."

"Had a feeling you'd say that."

He walked to the fridge and pulled out some of your favorite toppings and a jar of the tomato sauce you swore by. You gasped, holding a hand over your heart in fake excitement.

"You know me so well."

"I try my best," he said, making a bow.

You got to making the dough, mixing the ingredients while he connected his phone to a speaker. Jazzy, romantic music played and you craned your neck at him to see that playful smirk. He wasn't acting like the Zoro you knew.

"Dean Martin? Seriously?"

"What's wrong with it? It's-"

"Romantic."

You never saw anyone cut the music so fast. It gave you whiplash.

"Then what about this?"

The track changed to ABBA's Dancing Queen. You threw your head back with a laugh, shaking it at his questioning music choices.

"Friday night and the lights are low ~," he sang off key, sending you into another fit of giggles. He continued singing as laughter rolled out of you to the point you were holding your stomach in pain.

Cruising around some more, he finally let a pop playlist run in the background as you worked on the dough and he got busy with chopping stuff up. You snuck a few glances at him and stilled - that golden light bounced on his tan complexion, making his focused posture appear so snug and cozy, almost husband material. The amused twinkle was back in his brown orbs, resembling irresistible pralines.

He looked like home.

Feeling your cheeks heat up, you turned back to the dough, sprinkling flour on the table top and rolling it out to spread it as wide as you could eat it. Too focused on it, you didn't notice a floured finger coming to paint your face until the white powder was already smeared across your cheeks.

"You're such a child," you let out before you painted his nose with flour too.

"I think that makes two of us."

He cupped the side of your face, brushing his thumb over the flour covered bits. Though that only smudged the flour more, your heart beat accelerated to an uneven rate. He was too close again. Too close to let go again.

"You made me beg for this date so much," he spoke lowly, brushing your cheek in circles. "I don't do begging."

"Can't blame a girl for wanting to torment the guy she's interested in."

Before he could reply, your stomach grumbled again, annoyed that there was still no food present in it. His hand fell from your cheek, though his touch still lingered. Warm, singed, stamped on your cheek.

You finished decorating the pizza with everything you both liked and once it was in the oven, you crouched down to see it cook. Zoro followed on your side, knee touching yours.

"You know, it's not gonna cook faster if you stare at it," he mused.

"I know," you turned to look at him. The gleam from the oven light coupled with the kitchen light above played tricks on you because you could've sworn that hard, playful gaze of his turned softer. "I'm just surprised you can cook something other than basic military canned food."

"Oh, shut up," he laughed, playfully shoving his shoulder into yours.

You made small talk until the oven dinged that your pizza was ready. Letting Zoro deal with it, you ventured more into his living room like a cat looking for her next napping spot.

You walked all the way to the glass windows acting like an outer wall. Finding a handle, you pulled on it expecting it to be just for décor only to see that the glass slid open to give you access to a private beach front. Your jaw would crack if this man shocked you more tonight.

He has a private beach. Who the hell just has a private beach? And he said it's not much. Dude, I can move here if you don't like it.

Pushing the door open all the way, you took a seat on an extended wooden ledge overlooking the stretch of water you started liking so much. The sky was still cloudy, covering up the moon, yet some stars still sparkled through the white glare. A few birds played around in the trees, chirping as brightly as they would in the early morning. Waves lapped calmly at the shore, smaller than the naked eye could see, crashing into each other before they could make a sound on the sand.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath of the salty air, letting it sink deep into your lungs. Calm enveloped you like a warm blanket comfortingly there for you. It was more than an oasis. It was how Zoro made you feel. Though most times it was accompanied by chaos, you would always find yourself waiting for this serene peace.

"I see you've found your favorite spot already."

Zoro was quickly at your side with the pizza sliced, a bottle of wine under his arm and some glasses. He sat down next to you working on the bottle before anything else.

"Favorite doesn't even begin to describe it."

Hungry from all the dancing and walking, you dove into the pizza first. The dough melted on your tongue, nodding to yourself as the good tomato sauce hit your taste buds, among with all the other toppings.

"Is it edible enough?"

"It turned out way better than I expected."

"Hand me one," he opened his mouth, waiting for you to feed him a slice.

You picked up a smaller one. Careful not to smudge any of the toppings on his shirt, you held it out for him to take a bite. He stopped fiddling with the cork to take in the taste.

"You're right, this is heavenly. I didn't know my oven could cook like this."

You choked, slapping his arm.

"That's what ovens are for, dummy."

Red wine, darker than your dress, danced in the glasses as you clinked them together. Taking a sip, the sweetness hit you before it lulled into bitter cherries, spilling on your lips like the promise of love on this chilly February night.

"Look out," he pointed out towards the sea.

You looked everywhere. All you could see was a few boats out on the water, the sky clearing some more and the sea. You even squinted, thinking you weren't looking properly.

"I don't see anything."

He checked his watch to see he was too early. For someone who was always late in making decisions, he still had time. Huh, how the tables have turned.

He counted the leftover seconds in his head, leaning back to look at you the way he did on new year's on the beach. Your back was in his full view, covered by your dress and your hair that grew a bit longer. He still has that impulse to trace your spine with the pads of his fingers.

"Look now."

Right as your eyes fixed on the boats, fireworks lit up the night sky from far out on the water. Pink and red spun around in different shaped hearts.

Seems like the surprises keep on coming.

Too engrossed in the light show decorating the sky in cute and heartwarming messages, you didn't notice Zoro slipped from beside you until you heard slow music playing from the speakers. He sat behind you, hand extended your way.

"Can I have this dance?"

"Another one?"

"You can't blame me for wanting another dance with you when you look this beautiful tonight."

"Only tonight?" you questioned, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.

"All the time," he corrected himself as he pulled you closer.

You stepped left and right under the warmth of the lights and the fireworks, holding the man you've always wanted in your life. Suddenly, you were taken back to that night where you let it all go to have fun with a stranger. A stranger that became something more so fast.

Who knew you'd end up mending each other's solitude and fill up the cracking pieces in your hearts. You were both aware that you meant more to each other than you let on, but the words just didn't seem to find their way out to communicate that. That was your only fatal flaw.

The need to know where you stand was more powerful than anything right now.

Somehow, everything was perfect.

Maybe too perfect.

"This is so fucking cheesy," you quipped.

"What's cheesy?"

"Everything. This night, the food, the wine, the fireworks... you."

You've kept the uneasiness at bay all night but something made it explode everywhere in your body and it definitely wasn't the wine. Or the way he was looking at you with those deep brown eyes like he could tell what you were feeling. If that were true he wouldn't waste any more time than you already did.

"What is this really about?" he asked, hands falling from your waist to rub comforting circles on the inside of your wrists.

If it wasn't crystal clear until now, he knew what made you tick. And something pushed a nerve by the looks of it and the way you were avoiding his eyes.

You wanted the ground to swallow you up for letting your mouth run wild without any basis besides that nervousness. But you might as well just bite the bullet and tell him everything and be honest with each other at least for once. You avoided talking about it way too long.

"It all feels a little too perfect to be real."

Thinking that voicing your thoughts out would give you some semblance of balance was a wrong assumption. As soon as those words left your mouth, he let go of your arms, taking a step back. Once again, you let your inhibitions take over and reel you away from a great thing.

You got lucky by meeting him. But you still couldn't help but think his heart wasn't yours for the taking. Because he wouldn't let you take it. That you couldn't be more than friends with him because more would destroy the already amazing thing you had going on.

By the way his face fell, brown orbs more preoccupied with the wooden floors, you realized you probably fucked up even more.

Frankly, he did all this tonight for you. He was never the type to go out of his way for people, even the ones he had an interest in because he wasn't one to play the feelings game. To chase and court and shower in affection.

But he knew where you were coming from and why.

He didn't make it clear that you've been the sole object of his attention ever since he saw you that first night you came to the club. For him, that was just another night lost to endless glasses of alcohol to numb himself even more from the world.

Until you showed up.

Hair thrown into the same messy bun you always sported, uncomfortably shifting in your clothes as you nursed a different array of alcohol yourself, trying to do exactly the same thing he was doing. Numbing the feelings away. Keeping them at bay. Fighting them with everything you had in opposite corners of the club when you could've embraced them together from that first look that connected you.

The more time he spent with you the more he let those suppressed feelings in and realised that they didn't bring him any pain this time, but solace, comfort, hope.

The hope that he might just have a great thing in front of him worth changing his ways for.

While Zoro was having a revelation, you were having a war with yourself.

There was this monstrous fire harbored inside of you for so long. Zoro woke that fire and there was no telling of the destruction it could cause this time, especially with so many unsaid things lingering in the air. So many unshared feelings. Because he stood still like the sea washing on the beach instead of doing something. Anything.

Please, Zoro, your eyes begged but he wouldn't look at you.

He was danger, screamed your mind. The danger that you got too comfortable. That this was wrong and you put up the 'no vacancy' sign on the doors to your heart way too soon.

Let me in, your heart screamed, blood in your veins trembling in anger.

One rapid thump of your heartbeat drowned in the silence.

Two more passed and he stood still, gaze set on the ground.

On the third one, you made your mind up.

Before tears could well up in your eyes, you turned around with the intention of bolting out through the same door he carried you through not that long ago.

Sensing movement, he caught sight of you shaking your head, that pout he hated back on your lips. He hurt you. Because he was a fucking idiot who couldn't do words.

But he could do actions. He was willing to do even more to prove to you that this was right and it wasn't all just in your head. That he felt it too.

It only took you taking two fast strides in the direction of the door for him to make up his mind too.

"Then let me make it real," he caught your hand and pulled you to him, crashing his lips onto yours for the first time since that night at the club, kissing you like his life depended on your very own lips moulding to his own.

You felt the desperation, the anguish, the need. All of it to have you close and to feel you in more ways than one. Everything you've been feeling for the past month, hope, passion, the beginning of love, spilling from his lips onto yours. He was telling you everything he kept to himself with each desperate tug at your lip and you received every word.

The last time he kissed you was over a month ago, pressured by the new year's kiss tradition. Back then, he tasted like alcohol and his cologne. But now, he tasted like everything you've been waiting for. And you had a hunch he waited just as long for it.

Once you were past the shock of it, you kissed him back even harder, lips finally moving in sync with his. He got a rough hold of your waist and pulled you even closer to deepen the kiss. One of his hands tangled in your curls exactly the way he wanted to since he saw you at your apartment.

He wanted to be selfish. Let that monstrosity of his heart pour out all of those feelings to you. But he reminded himself he had to take it slow with you. So he let go with a small tug at your lower lip, spurring the eagerness inside of your tummy for more.

You pulled apart but remained close, foreheads touching in bliss. Though short, this kiss was sweeter and more meaningful than any chocolate box you could ever get. It was everything you needed to know what his heart held inside and how much more of him you still had to see.

He let you in.

"I wanted to do this for so long," he breathed haggardly, like you stole away all the air in his lungs with just one kiss. A kiss that was so long overdue.

"Why didn't you?" you voiced the question that's been hanging by a thread all night.

"I didn't know how you felt about me."

"You're such an idiot. But you're my idiot."

Shaking your head against his, you pulled him closer by the collar of his shirt and kissed him again, this time with more fervour. You wanted to make sure he understood where your feelings stood, where you wanted this to go and that you let him be in total control of it. Because losing control with Zoro was surrendering to a higher power. One that your heart loved being handled by.

You carved your own feelings into the way you held onto his cheeks and nibbled on his lips in unsated hunger, trying to put the torment, want and devotion you felt for him over the past month and a half into a language that he could understand.

And he understood.

Tapping your thigh, you got the message and jumped up into his strong arms that wrapped around you like a curtain of safety.

Your safety net.

He ripped yours apart to become it.

He held you to him so easily as he navigated through the furniture maze in his living room, taking off into a long corridor, all the while his lips discovered new grounds with yours. He didn't want to waste any more time if it involved you.

Zoro didn't care if this would end up being a fucked up disaster on his part, but he held back enough from showing you how he really feels. It was time he made things right with you.

You.

It was only you.

There didn't need to be anyone else for him.

Just you.

His hold tightened around you as he rounded a corner, not for security but to brand the feel of your being in his hands, to realize that he was finally holding you, feeling you where you were supposed to be all along.

Heavens, how much he longed for this. Your presence wouldn't dare to leave his thoughts just like he never left yours. Oh, he knew of the ardor your eyes held inside and was well aware of what ran around in your head because he let those same movies play in his own around the clock, early day into late night. Maybe he didn't let it be known, not like you did in wistful glances or pink tinted cheeks, but there were signs.

In the way his jaw ticked in disgust at every man who set their eyes on you every time you went out shopping, to the point he was ready to have an MME match if they stared too long. Or how his hand twitched to grab yours whenever you sat too close, the need to lace them together and press you flat against the couch in your apartment overriding his senses. And his mouth. Oh, his mouth. It wanted nothing but to taste every inch of you, everywhere you touched him and riled him up, every time your eyes drifted down to his lips, until there was nothing left to taste.

Hell would freeze over before that happened.

Kicking the door to his room open, he shut it just as swiftly, maneuvering your back to the nearest wall, moonlight the only thing illuminating the room. The cold wall cooled your burning skin, a breathy gasp leaving your throat right into his mouth with a kiss. He let go of your back, hands searching for your palms, pushing them against the wall beside your head. His mouth never left yours, exploring every depth, rise and sigh escaping you.

He hooked you higher up the wall with every kiss, atoning for every missed opportunity over the past month. Your legs tangled harsher around his torso, tugging him even closer as he pressed against you with all his might, feeling all of him and none of him at the same time.

Close just wasn't enough for any of you.

You needed closer. Attached. Intimate.

Soul on soul.

Patience wasn't your virtue at all tonight. You clawed at his hands, needy unlike anyone has ever made you. Except Zoro. Your head was filled with him. You were breathing him in and it still wasn't enough.

In one breath you were unglued from the cold wall and put down on the comfy edge of his bed, separated from his lips and from him. You whined at the loss of feeling him against you, ready to argue that having him kiss you mattered more than whatever had him lose the tempo. Although that need turned into anticipation just as fast once your eyes focused on his kneeling form before you.

Roronoa Zoro, on his knees, for you, eyes darker than the blackness of the night. That vulnerability looked lethal.

Those eyes. You could drown in them for a lifetime if they asked you to.

"Zoro," you sighed, chest rising up and down, expectant of his next move.

Oh, how he loved the sound of his name rolling off your lips. Usually so contained in the form of a sarcastic remark or to warn him to watch it.

Now, it was tuned to demand for his attention. And he wanted to make sure you got all of it.

One of his hands extended to your leg, calloused fingers trailing up the arch, circling mindfully around your wounded heel to hold it up to his lips. He pressed them to the inside of your ankle, slow and steady, eyes fixed on yours as you took in a sharp breath. The intensity of his unwavering gaze alone made heat pool between your legs.

Flutters rose in crescendos inside your belly at each kiss and there was no stopping them from roaming free. Not when he was watching your every response like your body was the eighth wonder of the world.

Your hands fell beside you, feeling the softness of his duvet to ground you as you closed your eyes to relish in the moment. Focusing on how plush his mouth felt on your skin on two different extremities. Wondering how they would feel on the rest of your body.

Unspoken but present in the air, that wish was his command.

His fingers trailed higher, past your calf, under your knee, roughly tugging you closer to the edge. Your dress bunched up your thighs as his fingers continued their perusal to reach the small of your back. Slowing his pace, he traced the dip in your spine all the way between your shoulder blades, your back arching involuntarily. Still on his knees, he moved closer between your legs as those fingers circled on your nape, pulling you down to meet his mouth halfway in another kiss, more fiery than the last.

This one sputtered with flames of passion. So much that you couldn't contain yourself anymore.

Your hands shot out to undo the buttons of his shirt. Frustrated with the top ones you just dug your fingers in the holes and pulled it open, poor buttons flying to the floor with a pang, interrupting your fast breaths. He broke apart from your lips to assess the damage only to find his chest half-exposed to your itching hands.

"That was vintage."

"I'll get you another one but I want it off, now," you muttered in a breath, grabbing his face to devour him. You couldn't get enough of how he tasted and every breath for air asked for another taste.

Hooking one hand around your back, he lifted you up and hauled you to the middle of the bed. His lips connected with the side of your mouth, dragging the bottom lip you liked biting so much between his teeth. He was just as annoyed at your dress, desperately looking for ways to feel more of you as he fisted the ends until they creased.

"I want this off too," he groaned, pulling on the skirt impatiently.

Said and done.

You sat up, letting the straps fall off your shoulders, pulling the material over your head to leave you in your undergarments. He licked his lips taking you in. The ferocity of his stare alone drinking you in like his normal glass of whiskey made tremors dance on your skin.

And he didn't even properly touch you yet. You weren't even sure you would survive his touch. The good thing was, you were about to find out.

"What now, loverboy?"

The nickname came out way more playful than you intended it to. It was enough to provoke him in ways that will damage you for anyone else. Ways that will tie his existence to your very own, unable to ever untie it.

"I'm gonna have you like no one has ever dared to before and no one will," he spoke, so deep that your buds prickled against the air at the gravel in his voice. "By the time I'm done with you, you're gonna wish you didn't test my patience for so long."

That turned you on even more. At the need present in him matching the same level of want flowing in your body.

He kicked the rest of his clothes off. Your eyes stopped at the huge package that laid under his clothes, a Greek god in the flesh and balls. They then lingered from the sculpted thighs you were so envious of, to his defined middle where you lost count of his packs and chest, going up to the arched bow of his collar bones, stopping at the plump lips that rushed to capture your own again. This time, he bit your lower lip for access to explore the rest of your mouth, tongues tangling in a dance of their own on the same rapid rhythm your hearts were beating in.

A hand sneaked under your back to lift you higher, pressing your chest flush to his, feeling all the shapes of his muscles against your own. His lungs breathed with yours. Your hearts came alive.

His lips left your mouth, moving down your jaw, prodding under it, heading to your collar bones in hungry fire. They left a burning trail in their wake, stretching tingles even to the edge of your shoulders where he pressed softer ones.

Kiss, lick and bite was his mantra that he repeated against your skin. He wanted to claim you tonight, more viciously than a wolf in heat would claim his mate.

Trailing down, he laid small and large kisses on your sternum, between your mounds. His palms sat on either side of your waist, rubbing circles to tease you more. Damn his teasing.

Feeling his lips, his hands and his torso pressed to you all at once turned your breathing erratic, saprking electric shocks inside of you. He was everywhere, taking your control away. Your eyes darted closed to find some kind of anchor besides fisting his sheets.

"Eyes on me, angel," he commanded and in a second your eyes snapped back to his.

He stopped just above your navel, waiting for you to catch your breath. That was a luxury. Once he was sure you were following, he continued all the way down to your lower stomach where the band of your panties stuck to you uncomfortably. Your breath hitched when he stopped there, blowing above where you needed him most, only to move down to your inner thighs, nipping on the softer skin with that amused smirk of his gracing the outline of his mouth.

He was trying to push you over the edge on purpose.

Fuck that.

One swift push and he fell backwards on the bed. You climbed on top to take the reigns and gain some control back. Little did you know that having you straddling him like that bid the beast inside of him alive.

You moved butterfly kisses from the crook of his neck, down his toned pecs. His hand latched in your hair, grabbing a tight hold around your curls, destroying them like he wanted to do all night. The pressure on your scalp pulled a moan from you just as you bit into his abdomen heaving a groan from him, his other hand digging into your waist as he raised up to meet your neck. He bit and pulled on it too, turning your insides to mush.

Sitting up with you on your kness, he hooked a finger on each side of your panties and ripped them apart down the middle with that shit-eating grin. You choked on every remnant of sanity as he threw the shreds to the side leaving you naked, fully naked, exactly like he wanted you.

Grabbing onto his shoulders, you moved to his lap, legs parted to cage him into your space. One look of confirmation that this was still what you both wanted had you sink down on him at once.

He was big. Collosal almost. He felt bigger than you thought you could take. Eyes closed, it took you a moment to get your bearings back but once you did, you felt him everywhere. His upper thighs supported the rest of your weight. His hands circled around you, both grabbing and holding you upright. His cherry wine-infused breath fanned the side of your neck.

And his eyes? Waiting for you as you opened yours. One look at them and your hips started rolling on autopilot. Every swing buried him deeper, further, closer to where your being called for him. And he let you have it. Letting you ravish his gear the way you liked it, feeling him stretch you sore.

His mouth went back to his mantra. Kissing the crook of your neck, licking it right in the middle and biting it hard enough to leave a bruise. To mark you as his. His and his only.

You gripped his shoulders, shifting to get a better position as your hips started getting tired. Silently, you cursed yourself for ditching gym with him because you didn't know how much stamina riding him would take out of you.

You were close and from how he gripped your waist to help your rhythm, pulling them faster front and back, he was too. He stopped nibbling on your neck, moving to your lips to swallow your quiet moans. He had to make them louder.

You rolled your hips until you couldn't find the energy to push into him anymore. He took that as his chance to take over again.

He pulled out, turning you around as he spread you on all fours. Your hands landed on the bedpost to support you as he climbed behind you. He laid kisses from your lower back all the way to your left shoulder where his lips brushed your ear just as his tip lightly caressed your opening. His warm breaths foreshadowed sin on your skin, making you wetter by the second.

And he entered you. One, two, three pumps and he got accustomed to your tightness just as you did with his size stretching you out. He bit the side of your neck with every thrust, sending your conscious into oblivion, chasing that high together.

Every moan you withheld from him earned you a deeper thrust. He wanted to hear you in all your glory. Wanted to know how badly you wanted him, not just like this but in every way.

In your lost haze, you ended up on your back closer to release. Entering you roughly, he pounded in you so fast you were seeing stars, head rolling to the side in complete ecstasy. His hand grabbed your jaw, tilting your field of vision back to him.

His free hand grabbed your hand for the millionth time tonight, placing it on the messy sheet beside your head, fingers smoothly sliding through yours as he kissed away all of your sighs. Your other hand climbed from deep down his waist to his upper back, hard rock muscles rippling under your touch like a stone thrown on the surface of a still river, disturbing its peace, turning it turbulent and wild. Waking up every primal urge in him as he groaned in your neck.

He accelerated, twitching inside of you and you came, letting your insides explode into a mess as he continued chasing his own high. He wasn't done with you yet, thumb rushing to rub another climax out of you as he was close to his own. His mouth bit into your breasts, grazing your buds one at a time, pulling on them in a way that added to your pleasure way more than the last one.

You gripped him again, tighter, and in no time you both came furiously, spilling everything you held back out onto that mattress. He pulled out, letting his seed fly onto your stomach.

You tried to catch your breath. It was gone somewhere between ecstasy and what laid beyond euphoria. He left to clean himself up, returning with a token of aftercare for you. He wiped his mess off of you, gentle and attentive to get everything off. Once he was done, he got in next to you, pulling you close.

You both just sat there for a while, reflecting on everything that happened. You still felt him inside of you, on you, above you, behind you. He managed to ruin you.

His voice cleared the quiet, making you focus back on the real world for a bit.

"You okay?"

"I just got fucked to oblivion. I would say fantastic but I can't feel my legs."

He chuckled. He would never fail to love your sarcasm. Even in moments like these.

"Did I go too hard?" he asked, not sarcastically but wanting to know if it was too much. If he went harder than he should have.

Looking at the vines of love bites he left on the entirety of your neck, the smudged makeup that looked almost natural, and your tousled messy hair, hard couldn't encapsulate it better. You would've said "you could've gone harder" but that meant urging him on another round and you were spent for tonight. So, you laid your head in the crook of his neck and closed your eyes, releasing a content breath, a silent confirmation that you were okay.

A single thought passed through your head - this was all kinds of right. Your once in a lifetime right time right place, as cheesy as it sounded. Maybe cheesy was good.

He was in his head thinking everything through in his own way, breaking down the once intense feelings into little flurries of emotion buzzing inside of him. That passion masked itself as denial for way too long. But tonight, you held his face and took that mask off, giving him clarity and he was able to feel something else.

Something close to love, he thought, chuckling to himself.

You cracked one eye open, taken aback at his sudden cheerfulness. One look at his face bathed in the glow of the moon and you saw him beaming.

"What are you so smiley about?"

He just shook his head, smile widening like a Cheshire cat that's been caught up to no good.

"Nothing."

Taking it upon yourself, you got up from his side with slow moves and straddled his waist, getting his attention back on you.

"Tell meeeee," you stretched, poking your fingers through every dent in his abs until he told you.

"What are you gonna do for it?"

Not this again.

Actually, this time, you knew what he wanted. A kiss. So, you just leaned over and caught his lips sweetly, smiling into it. His hand came to cup your face, smiling back. He pulled away, soft praline orbs gazing at you warmly.

"What if I still don't want to tell you?"

"Zoro, stop playing with me," you complained, slapping his chest.

"Okay. Okay," he held his hands up in surrender.

He sat up to lean on the headboard and get a better look at you - his ruined shirt hugged your smaller form, running all the way to your thighs. The marks of his feelings that he still couldn't utter decorated you everywhere. You sat back on his lap, arms crossed on your chest, waiting for him to speak.

"I'm not one to do feelings," he started, eyes darting down in thinking. "But you changed that."

Your eyes stayed focused on him, softening at his words.

You knew that he was a reserved person, keeping to his corner rather than reaching out into other people's. Until he found something worth thrusting his hand out at full speed to get it. Something worth hanging onto with his teeth.

As he connected his eyes with yours, brown blazing fire burning as bright and consuming as yours, it dawned upon you that something was you.

He was trying. For you.

"You were right. I am an idiot," he paused, fiddling with the ends of his shirt beside your calf. "It took me so long to figure it out but now I know."

Your heart started running when his hand held yours and brought it to sit on top of his own, running just as fast in his chest. Though the rate of yours spiraled out of control at the honesty of his incoming confession.

"I think I'm in love with you."

Your head spun, blinking in confusion at him.

"Am I hallucinating or did you just say the L word?"

"Yes. I did just say the L word," he nodded, confirming that he felt the same for you.

Before you could breathe it through, you leaned in for another kiss. He deepened the kiss trying to reach every corner of you. Wanting to both take his time and rushing to taste every part of you.

Breathless. Serene. And everything in between.

"I take it you love me back?" he asked, needing you to say those words back to him.

Your heart did flips at the way the word sounded coming from him. It dripped with honey and warmth.

"A little more than love," you grinned. "You do realise that I won't be able to stop it, right?"

"I don't want you to."

"Great," you clapped your hands together. "Because I will become so annoying."

He howled a laugh, throwing his head back, the sound you loved so much making you laugh too.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

You leaned down connecting your lips for the millionth time tonight. But you still couldn't get used to them or to the fact that your heart called out his name and his answered back calling out just as loud.

Falling forward into his arms, you sank like a ship happily waiting to meet its end in the depths of the ocean that was him. Because no ocean was deeper and so familiar to swim through than your Zoro.

He kissed the crown of your head, pulling you closer. Happy felt like an impossible destination until he held you to him like this, safe and warm in his embrace. He felt a tinge of it and he wanted more.

"Are you tired-"

Before the question even left his mouth properly, his eyes drifted to the steady rise and fall of your chest, drained body curled into him tightly, head tucked into the crook of his neck, chest pressed to his.

She's drooling again, he chuckled to himself, moving some hair away from your face so you wouldn't inhale it. You sat like a baby coddled in its mother's arms, but your position looked a little uncomfortable.

He pulled your feet from under you to get you in a better posture. Moving his arms around you, he got more cozy, drawing the covers over the both of you and let the night come to an end.

Birds chirped announcing a new day, with the sea singing the same tune as its waves crashed in a swirl outside. The morning sun peaked through the curtains, its soft rays caressing the top of your head, willing you to wake up.

The first thing you felt was your cheek pressed against something plush. A pillow. The pillows I fell asleep on last night were way better.

You rolled around the bed trying to find some more sleep when the thought of last night sparked your brain like the tip of a vinyl record player, making memories play faster than your sleepy mind could catch up to.

Lips kissing on every part of your skin available to sight, carving themselves on the hidden ones. Hands caressing your body like a holy prayer, thought but never uttered. Eyes making secret promises with yours in the darkened moonlight.

You turned on your back and opened your eyes, letting them adjust to the light in the room. The fluffy duvet fell to your lap as you sat up, stretching your sore limbs with a groan. Everything ached but in a good way.

Pulling the covers away, you folded them neatly on the bed and took in the space in the light of day. The beige and green from downstairs broke off into a two-tone sandy beige and a cotton white on the floor and the walls. It truly felt like home. And smelt like it too. That musky vanilla you liked so much enveloping you, mostly from his shirt.

After a steamy shower that your skin welcomed fully, you stopped in front of the mirror to see just what he drew on you last night. You traced the red marks down your body, feeling the ghost of his lips like he was kissing and biting those places again and again. He didn't need any words after all.

Rummaging through his wardrobe, you stole a t-shirt, fitting like a dress on you, and a pair of pants that barely wanted to stay on your waist. You had to roll them up and double tie the strings for them to sit still.

Taking to the long corridor, you followed the sunlit path and looked for your partner in crime. You found him in the kitchen, handling an egg carton, preparing for what looked like the Zoro Special - omelete with a bunch of side dishes and orange juice - or Champions' Breakfast as he called it.

He had his back turned to you, busy chopping up some tomatoes. You sneaked behind him, trying to be quick and silent on your feet, planning to jump him. You rounded the marble top of the island, grinning that stealth was on your side, only to get caught between his arms. He already sensed you from when you entered the kitchen so your surprise attack was doomed from the start.

Unpredictable like a breeze of the wind, he picked you up, placing you on the island as strong arms planted on each side, caging you in his space. He took one look at you, recognizing his clothes draped loosely on you, messy bun on top of your head and his heart did flips again.

"Fancy seeing you here," you said, shying away from his gaze. It looked hungry and not for any damn food.

"I could say the same," he spoke, raspy voice sending tingles down your spine. He studied you some more, lips perking up in amusement. "Trying to sneak up on me?"

"Maybeeeee," you played with the hem of his shirt. "What are you making?"

"My special-"

His words got caught in his throat as you laid your chin on the crown of his chest and looked up at him with the softest eyes he's ever seen, all his resolve crumbling to the depths of the fucking universe.

It was truly a wonder to him - how you could go from one extreme to the other, being both adorable and sexy at the same time.

"Can I be your special?" you asked, voice sweeter than candy.

"I wouldn't mind that," he smirked, leaning down to capture your lips in a slow morning peck quicker than you would've liked it to be.

As if on cue, your stomach made a noise of complaint that the pizza you made together last night got digested.

"Let's get some food in you," he said, patting it tenderly.

"Do I get to assist on the special?"

"You get to watch the special," he rubbed his hands together and got started.

Pre-heating a pan on the hob, he held a knife in one hand and an egg in the other. Your eyebrow lifted up in curiosity as he held the knife horizontally to put the egg on top of it, balancing it side to side. With a confident grin your way, he flicked the handle and launched the egg in the air swiftly turning the knife sharp-edge upwards, just in time to catch the egg right in the middle, separating its contents from the cracked shell successfully. The egg sizzled in the pan while your mouth sat agape, shook at the skills he was pulling.

"You really are the gift that keeps on giving."

"So I've been told," he said cockily, flicking imaginary dust off his shoulder. You hopped off the island and elbowed him playfully, settling beside him to watch the magic omelet take shape.

Once enough eggs were cooked, he arranged the plates. He cleaned up his working space and leaned in for a kiss you dodged on purpose. That brought an ambush of kisses on your face, from your forehead to your cheeks, your eyes, your nose, your jaw and your lips. Everywhere he wanted to leave his affection on you.

You managed to shimmy out of his grip and bolted out in the living room, through the open glass door on the beach. The wind blew cold, waking you up like coffee, making your heart thunder. He followed right behind you just like the night you met, leaving your footprints in the sand. Though this time he caught up to you way quicker, whisking you up in the air and spinning you until your stomach hurt from laughing.

The sound of your laugh filled his ears in the most beautiful way possible. And something else clicked in his head. He wanted that to be the first thing he heard every morning, every day, until you got sick of him.

He placed your feet back on the sand and brought you closer, waves crashing next to you like the beat of his heart. He had to give it a shot no matter what. So, without letting any other thoughts cloud his decision, he just asked.

"Do you want to move in with me?"

OH, boy.

Thank you for reading :)

[formulapookie]

!!!

under the cut on tumblr, here on Ao3 <3 chapter 2

Moonlight kisses ch.1 bezzetti 2.1k words

He wakes up to the most beautiful sight everyday, he’s been doing that for quite a while now.

Curly hair sprawled over the pillow, an arm around his chest, protective, and his head on his chest.

Cele feels like he’s the luckiest person on earth, having Marco by his side, being able to live his love so freely.

Their friends had all cheered when they had come out as a couple one year ago, Pecco just saying he was glad the two of them had finally understood they had been mutually pining for years now.

He smiles thinking about it, and feels a hand stroking his hair slightly, tilting up his head and meeting eyes with his boyfriend.

“Buongiorno amore” he smiles and to Cele everything seems perfect when Bez smiles.

So perfect he never fears something could go wrong.

“Buongiorno” he smiles back, sitting up on the bed to press a soft kiss on his lips, the quiet of Bez’s home interrupted only by Rubik barking in the kitchen for food.

“Ugh gotta feed him, you coming for breakfast?” “Yeah yeah let me just get dressed” “I don’t mind if you want to walk around the house naked eh” “Marco!” “What? You weren’t this shy last night you know? Especially when you-“ “shut up shut up go feed the dog and i’ll be there in a minute”

Bez gets up smiling, putting on a pair of boxers and a shirt scattered on the floor.

Cele does the same, taking a clean pair of underwear and one of Bez’s shirts from the closet.

“What’s for breakfast?” Cele says in a sleepy voice that makes Bez’s heart melt. “I could have you and be satisfied” “Marco, can you not think about sex for one minute or are you 16?” “It’s not my fault amore, you are just too beautiful, especially with my shirt on”

They share a kiss, deep but loving, Bez’s hands on his hips.

“I seriously am hungry Marco, can we eat?” “Yeah yeah I bought brioches yesterday, yes I took the nutella one for you, yes the cream one for me, yes you can have a bite”

Cele thinks Bez is perfect right now. It’s corny, stupidly teenage-love like, but it’s true, when he’s with Bez everything seems so smooth and true, real, it seems right.

And for Bez it’s the same. Or well, it was perfect.

Not that he doesn’t love Cele god no, he would run to the ends of the earth for him, bring him the moon and the stars, write poems and songs for him.

It’s not Cele, it’s him.

Since the beginning of the season, and the horrible outcome of the races after Jerez he’s been spiraling more and more in a situation where he feels helpless and unworthy.

Unworthy of the team, of Vale, the Academy but most of all unworthy of Cele.

The boy looks like a ball of sunshine, always so glad to have him near, and he feels like a black hole swallowing whatever light Cele has in him.

He fears he’s draining his lover, dragging him with him when he’s down.

He’s scared this will affect Cele too, that this -thing- dragging him down will take Cele too.

And he can’t allow that, he can’t have Cele’s mind filled with the same ugliness rotting in his brain, he loves him too much.

So he’s begun to stop talking about his issues to Cele, to everyone to be fair, hiding it like the plague.

And stupidly enough everyone believed he was still sunny and happy Bez.

Bez was everything but that at this moment.

Looking at Cele playing with Rubik in his kitchen, dressed in his clothes, still smelling like him from the night before, has his heart clenching and his throat closing, suffocating.

He wants to cry, hold onto Cele until every tear has fallen and feel the boy’s arms tight around him, telling him everything is ok, believing everything is ok.

But he can’t place this burden on Cele’s shoulders, he can’t actually have Cele know all his problems and worries, because he knows Cele would internalize some of them, and it would hurt him.

He snaps from his trance when Cele places a bit of cream from the brioche on his lips and licks it away, smiling at him.

“Want some?”

Bez nods, reaching for the pastry, when Cele takes it and holds it above his head.

“Nuh uh you gotta tell me something before having this”

“I love you baby, now, can I have my brioche or do you want to stay there all day?” “Once more and it’s yours” “I love you I love you I love you” “For this many times you can have a reward after breakfast”

Cele is smirking, biting his lip. He looks divine, Bez thinks.

“Couldn’t ask for anything better, no? Brioche and sex with you in the morning? I’ve hit jackpot”

Cele laughs, passing him his breakfast, which they both consume really fast, they’re barely finished and Bez is already dragging him back to their room, almost tripping on a pair of shoes left there yesterday in the rush of getting to bed after coming back home from the party.

“Woah calm down cowboy I am not going anywhere”

Bez laughs at the joke, having him sit in his lap, lips crushing against his.

“You may be more of a cowboy now than me, no? After all you were the one ridi-“ “Marco! Come on stop you know I get embarrassed” “And that’s why I do it, you look so cute all blushing like this”

It only makes Cele blush more, Bez bites his lip before kissing his boyfriend again, pulling him more on his lap, both can feel the other is hard, and need to get out their briefs immediately.

“I love you too” and Bez wants to cry, he’s so perfect he wants to cry, but instead he stays blissed as Cele climbs down his lap and removes his briefs, going to remove the shirt too, but Bez is quicker.

“No its hot, leave it on, I need to fuck you in it” “You are stupid when you’re horny you know that?” “I’m stupid always, with you it just doubles because i’m always horny”

Cele laughs and it feels simple, to love him as Bez does, he’s sure anyone would love Cele, because he deserves love more than anyone else in the world.

“You think you can fuck me with your clothes on or?”

Bez slaps his thigh lightly, taking off his shirt and boxers, laying Cele on the bed, opening his legs so he can fit in between them, blindly reaching for the lube as he leaves kisses all over Cele’s neck, stopping once or twice to leave purple bruises on it.

One of the boy’s hands finds its place tugging at Bez’s curls, the other around his neck, he’s already breathing deeply, he wants more.

“Bez fucks sake how long does it take for you to - fuckk” “you were saying?” he speaks against his throat, kissing his neck once more before moving to his lips.

He’s already stretched from the night before, but Bez always makes sure to work him open every time, even if they went not more than seven or eight hours ago, two fingers slipping in easily, the third as well, brushing on his prostate making Cele whimper.

“You sound so good amore”

Cele whines as Bez removes his fingers, begging for him to fuck him.

“And I was the needy one? You have a strange concept of eager” “I swear Marco if you don’t fuck me right this second I’m not sucking your dick for a month”

And Bez is pretty sure he could die if Cele actually did that, because he was simply amazing at it.

He pushes his dick inside his hole, welcoming, hot, wet, and has to bite back a moan not to sound pathetic. “Move please”

and he complies, he can’t say no to Cele, not when he’s like this, all blushy and hot under his fingertips.

He sets a rushed pace from the start, knows what Cele wants without even having to ask, after a year and a half being together he knows his body by heart, he mapped every single mole out and knows the most sensitive spots to tease.

“Fuck I love you Cele”

“I love you too”

Bez keeps his pace, hands on Cele’s hips as the boy wraps his arms around Bez’s neck to pull him closer, trying to fuse their bodies together.

“Don’t stop don’t stop please”

And Bez isn’t even dreaming of doing that, not with the way he can feel Cele around him and his little whimpers every time he pushes a bit deeper, hitting that sweet spot that gets Cele melting.

One of Bez’s hands moves from his boyfriend’s hip to his dick, stroking it in time with his thrusts, getting Cele a moaning mess, face red with heat and legs shaking already.

“Marco Marco I’m close Marco please” “I know amore, I’m not gonna last long either you feel so perfect right now”

Cele tries to smile at the praise but only manages to do so for two seconds before feeling Bez’s lips against his, draining the last inch of self control he still has.

He comes with a long whine, pulling Bez even closer than before, the older still stroking his dick to get out every last drop of his release, and is quick to follow, a grunt in Cele’s ear before emptying his load inside him, feeling him clench around him again at the stimulation.

They both stay still for a few moments, breathing in each other's mouth, a lazy kiss here and there, while Bez finally slips out with a groan.

“I want to stay here all day” Cele,a s always, has the will to do things of a 90 year old.

“We promised the others to go out in the afternoon for Gelato and it’s already two times we stand them up, if we do it thrice Pecco is coming for our heads”

Cele laughs, pouting a bit as he curls himself around Bez’s frame.

“And we can stay in bed until lunch, the hangout is at 5 anyway” “Ok ok, just hold me then”

Bez smiles back, stroking Cele’s hair softly. “I won’t let go even when you have to get dressed” “See? it’s you that wants to keep me in bed all day, what would you do all day in bed with me eh?” “Oh so many things tesoro, so many you wouldn’t walk out here with your own legs”

Cele laughs, Bez does too, they stay like that for a bit longer before Bez finally convinces Cele to take a bath with him and then sleep until they have to go out.

They’re in the water, warm but not too much, just the right temperature to be comfortable in, Cele’s back against Bez’s chest, the older hands around his torso and his chin resting on his shoulder. 

“We should get a new toy for Rubik, no? He broke the little rubber ball I bought him two months ago, he can’t play with a frisbee forever” “I saw a chicken shaped toy at the pet store yesterday” “I can buy it for him” “Cele you spend more for my dog than for yourself” “Yeah because I love you”

Bez wants to cry, he really does, as the water cools down and he can feel Cele relax more and more until he eventually falls asleep on him, and Bez makes sure to get him out of the tub and dress him in a comfy pair of clean underwear and a shirt and put him to bed, while putting on a pair of boxers as well and taking out rubik for a walk.

While he’s out he can’t help but get reached by those thoughts, dark and mean that have been clouding his mind lately.

He’s so scared that his problems are gonna cause Cele to feel sad and bad for him, and he can’t think of any solution, because he would eventually break down in front of him and wouldn’t know how to solve the mess if it happened.

He doesn’t know what to do, he wants to be with Cele for the rest of his life, that’s his only certainty, but how he can do that he doesn’t know.

He lets Rubik free in a dog park and sits on a bench, lighting upa cigarette and hoping the smell doesn’t stick, he knows cele doesn’t like it and he tried to stop for him, but sometimes it’s just a need.

He takes a drag and waits for the burning sensation, releasing it with a puff.

[captainjamster]

hi i have a request Price gives stress relief to reader

if youre too busy thats fine

i absolutely read your username instead of price and started writing for graves until i realised, so uhhh... this idea but with phil coming at some point! also wasn't sure if you meant stress relief or stress relief, so this gets nsfw!!

thank u for the ask my little sunshine i hope you enjoy, i am never too busy for a request, especially not from a fellow graves lover <3

Pairing(s): Price x AFAB!reader (no gendered nicknames or pronouns) Warnings: NSFW, fingering, light dirty talk Wordcount: 2.2k Summary: Price gives you a hand winding down after a frustrating day at work, though mutual satisfaction is on his mind. AO3 Link: Right here <3

Full fic is under the cut <3

The pages rustle as John flickers through them, smoothing out with the tapping of your phone to create a peaceful, white noise. Yet despite the atmosphere, a heavy weight presses on your chest, brow furrowed and shoulders tight as you scroll through your apps. You can feel John's eyes on you, taking in your sullen form as you glare a hole into your screen.

"You're quiet, love."

John breaks the silence, looking down at his book again. You take a moment to compile a response, debating whether to delve into the frustrations of your week.

"Just a day, I guess."

He takes in the short, avoidant answer, thumbing the pages of his book. "Don't want to talk about it?"

"I don’t know. Not really."

John looks at you again, and this time, you turn to him too.

"Can I hold you?"

You nod, not trusting your voice. The moment your head inches forward, the book thuds onto his bedside table with a careless toss, immediately spreading his arms open. "C'mere, sweetheart."

You crawl into his lap, curling up and sinking into him. His arms wrap around you reflexively, bringing your head to rest against the bristle of his chest, the other arm rubbing up and down your back. He doesn't press the subject, just sets a steady pace to inhale and exhale with, rocking you softly with each breath.

After a few minutes, you initiate conversation yourself, mumbling against the skin of his sternum.

"So... Shit. Everything is so shit."

"Shit, love?"

You rub your cheek against his chest hair as you nod. "I hate people."

"Yeah?"

Drawing in a sharp breath, the feeling of burning frustration reignites in your lower stomach as you spill out an angry tirade. "God, I just want to tear their fucking heads off sometimes! I want one day, just one day, where I can speak my mind. I could ask them "oh, I'm sorry, is your fucking price wrong? Okay, now is it MY fault or YOUR fault that you didn't check the coupon was in date before you used it?" Maybe their fucking brains would start working if I didn’t have to just smile and say “yes customer, no customer! Whatever you want customer!” like the stupidest shit didn’t just come out their mouth!”

You turn, back pressed to his stomach as you gesture agitatedly. "I can't stand it! "Oh, oh! I dropped this jar and now it's cracked! Can I get it for free? Oh, my kid ate half of this apple, but he doesn't want it, so I'll just put it back on display! Let's berate this minimum-wage worker because the line was slightly long at midday, like they have any control over that!" Like, why do people become such monsters whenever they step foot into a store? My friend from that clothing shop down the street? She said someone tried to return a whole bag of dirty underwear, like what the fuck?"

Huffing, your jaw clenches tight as you cross your legs, flopping your head back against his shoulder dramatically.

"I'm sorry, baby." He murmurs lowly, running his hands up your arms, digging his thumbs into the tense flesh of your shoulder. "S'not fair, you deserve to be treated better than that, your friend too."

You soften into his arms, biting at the inside of your cheek. “I just wanna quit. Management sucks, everyone else working there is just as miserable. No wonder their turnover rate is so high.”

John’s hand drops down from your shoulder, running past your chest to rest against your midriff. "Always can, doll. Put in your two weeks, live off what I've got in the bank 'til y'find a better position. Y'know I'd let you never work a day in your life, if you'd let me."

His tone is gentle and passive, content in his reminder with your desire to keep financial independence and stay busy when he leaves for deployment. The room falls into silence again as you nestle into an arm, manoeuvring it to rest over your chest like a seatbelt and clip between your legs. His other arm rests along the length of your leg, and you feel him lean his weight back against the bed’s head as you continue thinking, playing with his arm hair absent-mindedly. John is content to let you fiddle away, his hand caught in the grip of your thighs comfortably, thumb traces little circles against the skin it rests between.

His body shifts underneath you after a few minutes of quiet, readjusting to move closer. You’re suddenly flush against him as he sits up, pulling you tighter against his soft, sturdy chest and pressing a kiss to the back of your head. The movement surprises a squeak out of you, squirming before a pressure against the crotch of your underwear stills you. Warm air brushes against your hair as John huffs in amusement, readjusting the hand cupped against your sex in an effort to tug you closer, intentionally positioning his hand to spread and fully cover your mound.

"John..."

He hums in response against your neck, lips pressed into the skin.

"Your hand."

"My hand, dove?" He pulls away, leaving one last kiss behind your ear.

"It's, ahhh...”

He flexes his fingers tighter for a second, the increase in pressure barely stimulating the sensitive nerves beneath. “What? Just movin’ you closer, ‘n my hand’s nice and warm down there.”

The playfully avoidant answer earns him an exasperated groan, though the desire seeping into you leaves it breathier than you’d like.

“Want me to stop?”

You shake your head before he can finish the sentence, grip tightening on his forearm. The vibration of his chuckles jostles you against his torso, warming your cheeks. Before you can exclaim your embarrassment, he shifts under the blankets and nudges your legs open, his feet hooking round your ankles to pin them apart. “How about some stress relief, hm? Get all those yucky feelings out for the night.”

His fingers trail teasingly against the hemline of your elastic, running his nails over the soft fat that meets the cotton barrier. All it takes is a “yes, please” for his fingers to breach the elastic, honing to your entrance only to glide back up the damp skin of your lips. At your whining insistence, his fingers deftly pull your lips apart, using his middle finger to collect the slick gathering between your folds and lather it against your clit. Your hips jerk at the contact, and John tuts, chasing your hips to flick his thumb over the sensitive button. “Askin’ for it, but y’won’t sit still, huh? Jus’ wanna help my baby feel better.”

Moving his arm to cup your chest, his hand crawls under your shirt to pinch your nipple, sending shivers down your spine as he rolls it between his fingers. Your whimpers only egg him on, emboldening him to trace little circles around your clit as he works to build the delicious tension growing between your legs.

Warmth flushes through your body, combining with the body heat radiating from John’s chest against your back, leaving you burning up in your own desire. It only takes minutes of John’s ministrations to draw wet squelches from between your legs, filling your ears as your eyes flutter closed, focusing on the way John’s fingers curl and tease around your most sensitive spot.  

“John, please…”

He takes your unspoken request without argument, leaving the begging for another night as his fingers leave your swollen nub to graze against your needy entrance. Your hole twitches at the slight contact, clenching as if to draw him in, eliciting a chuckle from John that goes unchallenged in your distracted state. Catching a line of slick dribbling down your perineum, he guides it back up, coating his fingers before he dips a digit into your hole.

You hiss wantonly at the sensations, hips bucking up to urge his finger in deeper, and John tuts. “Keep still, needy thing. Tryna play with this pretty cunt properly.”

He teases you with a sole finger, crooking it to stroke against the spongey muscle that has you leaking with each pass. Despite the stimulation, the single digit leaves your needy cunt feeling empty, fluttering against the intrusion with a desperation until you’re mewling for more.

“I know, y’need more, pet,” he murmurs into the skin behind your ear, dropping kisses down to your jaw. “Let me take care of you.”

The thick finger retreats from within you, leaving you whining in complaint as your hips chase his touch. Your eager hips are met with a firm spank to your folds, leaving John’s fingers trailing with slick as you gasp and retreat to the mattress, back against the protruding bulge in his lap. The compliance is rewarded with a soothing swipe of his fingers along your stinging lips, collecting arousal against his calloused skin. His fingertips circle teasingly at your entrance again, tracing the quivering muscle as he chuckles at your reactivity. Sensing the protest rising in you, he silences it with a swift thrust of his fingers, filling you up again.

His fingers work like they were designed to coax the stress from you with each drag, replacing the tension with a buzzing need for release that has you flexing and relaxing in waves against him. The pressure builds in the pit of your stomach as his fingers pump in and out of you, his other hand abandoning your breast and travelling down to reclaim its spot nestled against your clit, rolling tight circles around the nerve ending in harmony with the drive of his digits. He masterfully orchestrates your undoing, timing each thrust with each involuntary grind of your hips, kissing the salt from your neck as your head lulls against his shoulder, panting.

“Fuck, right there, m’so close John,” you moan, hands fumbling to find something to grip, finding purchase in his hairy thighs. The way your nails sink into the meat of his muscle has him groaning in your ear, breaking his smooth rhythm with a particularly deep thrust as he struggles to contain his enthusiasm. “Fuck, sweetheart, my god.”

Your cunt tightens so fiercely around his fingers that you’re sure they’re being crushed together as your orgasm hits you, squeezing the digits like you could milk the life out of them if you tried hard enough. John hums praise against your neck as he waits for your walls to relax to resume lazily thrusting in and out through the last sparks your climax, his own breath laboured as you tremble in his embrace.

His hand remains between your legs, fingers snug within you as your breathing evens out, the other travelling to trace small circles on the inside of your thigh. You float on the high of your orgasm, sweaty and satisfied as the strain dissipate from your legs, relaxing against John’s.

“Any improvement?”

You give him a breathless giggle, pulling your eyes open to tilt back and look at him. “Yeah, don’t feel like decapitating someone anymore.”

“Good.” He gives you a pleased smile, dotting a kiss on the corners of your lips. His face is warm and flushed, eyes still hazy with lust as he looks down at you, which brings a thought to your mind.

“Do you want me to take care of you…?”

His expression flickers to something guarded behind the smile, gently disentangling himself from your body. “I’m fine, don’t worry,” he announces gruffly, clearing his throat as he ducks into the bathroom. You frown, gazing at his retreating figure as you shuck off your soiled underwear, waiting for his return. He re-emerges with a damp cloth, crawling across the bed to kneel between your still spread legs, wiping delicately at the mess of arousal sticking to the sensitive surface of your skin.

The cloth is slightly warm as he pats at any excess water, collecting your dirty underwear as he pulls away. Walking to the closet, he discards the used fabrics in the laundry basket, grabbing another pair of underwear for you. Readjusting the sheets and blankets, you watch him quickly tug off his boxers, grabbing another pair that he manages to pull around his knees before you gasp in realisation.

“John, you didn’t?”

He turns around with a bashful expression, tucking himself into the crotch as he grins. “What? Pretty thing like you grinding up against me like that, can’t help myself.” Giving up with discretion, he chucks his own soiled boxers into the basket, returning to the bed with your underwear in an outstretched hand.

You pull them on as he climbs in next to you, tucking himself under the covers as you turn off the lamp and join him. He raises his arm, holding the blankets up like a cave as you grin sleepily, shuffling across the sheets to scoot into his embrace. The covers descend on you as John takes care to tuck them underneath you, entangling your legs between his as his hand finds home in your hair.

“Thank you, John. Was feeling really shitty about that.” You whisper into his chest, blinking your eyes closed as a sleepy warmth grows heavy in your limbs.

John grunts, patting at your hair. “S’what I’m made for, lookin’ after you. Get some sleep 'n we’ll work everythin’ out in the morning.”

A smile tugs at your lips as the last whisps of consciousness fade from your mind, and a gruff I love you is the last thing you remember before falling asleep.

[photographerstanheight]

FIRST DEAD BODY I'VE EVER SEEN...

THEY LOOK DIFFERENT IN REAL LIFE. THEY DON'T MOVE.

Hi. I'm Adam. Adam Stanheight. 26 years old. He/Him, what else do I say... I got no goddamn clue what I am. Bi? Gay? Pan? Don't give a shit. Women are cool. Men are fucking great. Like all those kinds of people. I'm that one guy, you probably know me, from that fucking bathroom shithole or whatever. It fucking sucked. ...And now I'm here. Posting on some random website I thought was interesting, plus it's full of freaks to make fun of. What will I post exactly? No fucking idea. Cats, photos I've taken, maybe some death threats to Jigsaw... By the way Jigsaw go kill yourself. Old Prick. Anyway. Do whatever. I really don't give a shit, you wanna talk? Talk. You wanna send memes? Send memes. Make sure they're fucking funny. You wanna whine to me about how sad your sorry life is? Go right ahead. I'm not a therapist so I'll probably laugh in your face.

Everyone shut the fuck up we have a fucking art fridge now this is a new addition yes I’m serious

Art 1. (Mr Millipede ily /p)

Art 2. (Aka me kissing billy its canon)

Art 3. (Smiling friends… smiling friends save me…)

Art 4. (Me and the HOMIE!!! A COUPLE OF BFFSSS!!! Unless… WHO SAID THAT!!!!)

By the way look at my cool ass cat. Her name is Mabel.

OOC UNDER THE CUT

Frowns... Hi chat... It's me... Dew... Sighs....... I have been uncovered from the depths of hell.... sad face emoji... but hi :,]

I'm sure all my mutuals will come swarming so i'm not gonna go thru the whole junk ab pronouns or whatnot ugh... he/him just in case. also don't be weird. I am an adult and yeaes ... so yeah if i see age below 18 i will nawt be doing weird 18+ stuff BITES OWN ARM OFF

But heeeeeyyyy, I'm a chainshipping, rustynailshipping and yapping FREAK so i made this to hopefully hang out w chatters... but also i wanna bother the fuck outta apprentices and other people sorry not sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Erm.. what else... my writing of Adam will be that he's trans!!!!! Omg ur transgener... That is so cool... He has top surgery but not bottom surgery,, guh... girl queen pussy boss....

AAAAnd I think I'm gonna let a bit of my chaos out so expect poootentially sooome sexual schtuffs?? Yours truly has some sillies in mind as a hypersexual loser like myself... I won't make it his whole personality tho idk :P

How did Adam get out of the trap? I don't fucking know and I am too goddamn lazy to think of it rn. I'll post tho when I actually can think , puts splinters in my eyes

Tags... lame. Whatever yapyap i'm a loser and i like 2 b fan see

|📸| ~ 𝑴𝑶𝑫 𝑻𝑨𝑳𝑲𝑺. - ya boy is yapping

|📸| ~ 𝑨𝑫𝑨𝑴 𝑨𝑵𝑺𝑾𝑬𝑹𝑺. - ask replies ofc

|📸| ~ 𝑨𝑫𝑨𝑴𝑺 𝑰𝑵𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵𝑺. - hes talking to people waoah,...

|📸| ~ 𝑨𝑫𝑨𝑴𝑺 𝑹𝑨𝑴𝑩𝑳𝑰𝑵𝑮𝑺. - he's talking!!!!! just for fun

|📸| ~ 𝑷𝑯𝑶𝑻𝑶𝑮𝑹𝑨𝑷𝑯𝑺. - beginning to roleplays perhaps idk i just like to have them

anyway erm... face reveal!!!!

[aebi12]

"Resentment" - Chapter 11 [AemondxRhaena]

Summary

He is the cause of her sufferings. He took her dragon, her betrothed, and her father. Now, he will also take away her future by having to marry him.

With so much history and bad blood between Rhaena and Aemond, their forced union has everything to fail, except that the proximity will make them discover that perhaps they have more in common than it seems.

AU - the Greens win the war.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10

Masterlist of my other works.

Tags: enemies to lovers, romance, angst, drama, eventual smut, hurt/comfort

Please remember that english is not my first language, so I'm sorry for the mistakes...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rhaena finds Lady Blackwood in one of the largest ballrooms of the Keep, surrounded by servants as she points with her hands and examines something one of them shows her.

Breathing in and out slowly, she encourages herself to accomplish the task before her. Despite having assured her cousin that she could easily get him the invitation to the party, she is not entirely sure that she will.

But she has to try.

Her feet, however, don't seem willing to move.

You can do this, you can do this, she repeats to herself as she bites her lip nervously before shaking her head, as if clearing her mind and beginning to walk into the room.

“Lady Blackwood!”

Her voice sounds exaggeratedly squeaky, so she clears her throat when she reaches the old woman, who smiles kindly at her.

“Lady Rhaena, I did not expect to see you here.”

“I hope I am not bothering you, but I could not contain my curiosity to get a glimpse of what awaits us at the banquet tomorrow.”

The old woman giggles and orders the servants to leave them alone.

“Your presence does not bother me, dear girl, since I’ve nearly finished the preparations here,” the woman takes her arm and they walk slowly through the room, “But it is always good to make sure one last time that everything is settled as I like, the servants are not always reliable.”

“Well, everything certainly looks splendid,” Rhaena gives her one of her biggest smiles after admiring the curtains, chandeliers, and the layout of every ornament in the place. A stone image of the Mother is placed on an altar right in the center of the room. Rhaena looks at it for a few seconds before speaking again, “Surely you know by now that I will participate in the ceremony tomorrow.”

“The High Septon mentioned it to me, yes.”

"And surely you already know that you have placed me at a crossroads, Lady Blackwood," Rhaena pouts and stops walking, although she does not let go of the old woman's arm.

“How could I?”

“I am supposed to dress the Mother with the help of my betrothed,” she calmly replies, “But you did not grace him with an invitation. Do you understand my predicament now?”

The woman smiles sideways and pats Rhaena's hand, "The prince never showed interest in my parties, I did not imagine he would have a desire to attend this one in particular."

“Well, now he has a very important reason to do so. And I think we both know that he would not dare show up here without the hostess's approval."

“Are you sure about that?” The old woman raises her eyebrows, clearly not believing her words.

“Well… the prince can be impulsive.”

“We know his character well in the Riverlands,” Lady Blackwood grimaces.

“But he thinks highly of you, and doesn't…”

“Oh, my dear, we both know that is not true,” the old woman cuts her off, “I have never hidden my disdain for Aemond Targaryen and I know the feeling is mutual.”

“I can assure you, my lady, that I have not heard a discourteous word from the prince towards you,” it is not entirely true, but Rhaena tries to keep her face cool as the elder stares at her for a few moments before sighing. Rhaena takes advantage of that moment of hesitation, “I know your house is loyal to the Crown. And I know that all the other members of the royal family are invited, ignoring the prince, the Hand of the King, seems more personal."

There is another moment of silence before the woman responds, “You know well that House Blackwood supported Rhaenyra's claim during the war. We fought alongside her and when all was lost, we accepted the new king,” she tilts her face, “Despite the terrible havoc caused by Prince Aemond throughout our lands, we helped the capital recover and unite the kingdom.”

“And the Crown appreciates your support,” she is quick to say.

“Even so, when I requested that my grandson be trained as a knight here in the Red Keep, the prince forgot about that alleged appreciation, and favored a Bracken over my blood.”

The old woman does not hide the displeasure in her voice. Rhaena sighs, finally understanding the woman's motives a little better. The ancestral enmity between both houses was well known, so Aemond preferring a son of the Brackens was not going to be to Lady Blackwood's liking.

“The prince surely had his reasons for making such a decision.”

“Only if these were to continue punishing my house for not having supported the greens since the beginning of the war,” the woman seems to want to say something else, but she restrains herself and adds, “It was a terrible rudeness for him to reject my request. I am an old woman, Lady Rhaena, I was counting on having my grandson near me. Besides, the little guy was so eager to start with his training.”

Rhaena bites her lip again. She cannot think of but one way to fix this, although she doesn't know if she's in a position to actually offer the woman anything. But she doesn't have too many options, so she decides to talk.

“Allow me then to reverse such an affront,” she says in a soft voice, “Call your grandson to Court, Prince Aemond will be pleased to offer him a position in the City Guard.”

“Lady Rhaena…”

“Come now, Lady Blackwood, surely your grandson still holds the desire to become a knight. Nothing better than starting his path here, in the capital”

The woman seems to be about to smile.

“Also… I know that Lord Benjicot has a younger sister.”

“My granddaughter Agnes, yes.”

 “I will need new ladies in waiting after I get married. “I would be honored if a young woman from house Blackwood were to become one of them,” Rhaena smiles candidly at her, “And surely you would be much more comfortable here with another member of your family at your side.”

“I admit that Agnes was my comfort after Aly decided to leave for the North.”

"See? It is a very convenient solution for both of us”

“I do not know, Lady Rhaena, if the prince were to attend tomorrow, I would have to find another lady to have the necessary number of partners during the ball.”

“I am certain that there are several ladies still waiting with hope to receive an invitation to the banquet, I am sure it will not be difficult for you to choose one.”

The old woman nods and Rhaena says no more, leaving Lady Blackwood to decide.

“Very well then, the prince will be welcomed and treated accordingly during the banquet,” the old woman finally says.

Rhaena holds back a squeal of excitement, and simply lets out the breath she was holding and smiles at her with genuine joy, “I greatly appreciate your willingness to help me, my lady.”

“Let it be clear that I do this for you, dear child,” the woman smiles, and her hand caresses Rhaena's cheek, “You have your father's charisma. Prince Daemon was as charming as you, and he also knew how to get what he wanted."

Her comment gives Rhaena a bittersweet feeling, but she simply thanks her.

“The crown is lucky to have you, my girl,” the woman continues, “You are not married yet and you are already helping them”

Once again, the words leave an unpleasant taste inside her.

“Thank you, my lady. You have been very kind,” she smiles and bows her head slightly, “Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go share the good news with the prince.”

The old woman smiles, and Rhaena hurries out of the room.

Her thoughts haunt her as she makes her way to the Tower of the Hand.

Yes, she was helping Aemond, but that was not a bad thing, right? After all, she had to make him believe that he could trust her, that she was his ally. She was to be his wife in a few days, she could not afford to have the prince's anger directed at her.

Besides, what exactly had she done? Just get an invitation to a banquet. Nothing too…she doesn't even know what word she's looking for. Disloyal? Who would Rhaena have to be loyal to now, with all her family dead? She only had Baela left. And it was because of her that she had come in search of Lady Blackwood.

The guards at the door announce her presence and open the door for her. Rhaena walks into the room, and finds Aemond sitting at his desk near the window, writing on some scrolls.

“I do not remember having sent for you.”

“Hello to you too, cousin.”

Rhaena sits in the chair across from him and Aemond looks up from his scroll, noticing her for the first time.

“It seemed appropriate to come here to let you know that you are officially invited to tomorrow's banquet. "I managed to get Lady Blackwood to relent on her decision not to invite you to the party."

Aemond looks at her disdainfully before returning to focus on his scroll, “Congratulations on your feat.”

Rhaena rolls her eyes, “Do you have the letter? For Alyn, I mean”

“I sent the letter a few hours ago.”

The girl receives his words with surprise that must be evident in her lack of response, because Aemond sighs and speaks, “I am true to my word.”

“I am glad to know that,” Rhaena admits, sighing, half relieved and half bewildered by Aemond's attitude. And, furthermore, she is a little suspicious thinking that perhaps he is lying, "Although I would have liked to have been able to read the letter before you sealed it"

“Do you doubt that I sent for Baela? You fear that I am lying so I am the only one who gets what I want?”

“No, I never said that,” she denies quickly. Too quickly.

"Hmm"

There is a moment of awkward silence before Rhaena speaks again, trying to lighten the mood.

“Anyway, it was not easy to get Lady Blackwood's help.”

Aemond ignores her and doesn't respond, the sound of his quill tearing through the paper the only thing filling the stillness of the room.

“I had to offer certain concessions to get her to agree to receive you tomorrow.”  

“What concessions?” he asks, furrowing his eyebrows and finally looking at her again.

“Repair the rudeness you made, basically”

Aemond tilts his face, his sky blue eye glaring at her.

“I assured Lady Blackwood that her grandson would be welcomed here and that he would take a place in the city guard.”

“Hmm,” a clear sound of annoyance leaves Aemond’s mouth, “You weren’t in a position to offer something like that.”

“Maybe not, but it was important to get you the invitation, so I did it.”

“So you did,” he retorts sarcastically, “Do you think the appointment of a new knight is something to take lightly?”

“Surely welcoming the boy here is not something extremely complicated either, after all he is a young man from a noble house,” Rhaena shifts in her seat, uncomfortable under his gaze, “He will be just another knight, it is not the end of the world. It's not like I have guaranteed him a seat on the king's council."

Aemond continues to glare at her, “What else?”

"What?"

“You said concessions, what else did you offer?”

“Oh, yes, of course, one of her granddaughters will be my new lady-in-waiting.”

“Ah! So the Fortress will welcome more Blackwoods, fantastic.”

Rhaena rolls her eyes, “Again, cousin, it seems to me that you are exaggerating with your disdain for one of the oldest houses in the kingdom.”

“This is all your fault,” Aemond crosses his arms in his lap, “If you hadn't volunteered for that damn ceremony, I wouldn't have to waste my time at a banquet tomorrow.”

“I do not see it that way,” Rhaena crosses her arms as well, “From my perspective, cousin, all of this would have been avoided if you were more courteous to your subjects, as I have previously suggested you be.”

“That is beside the point.”

“Lady Blackwood, whether you like it or not, has social influence in this Court. And that is a kind of power that you do not have because you ignore everyone all the time."

“Again, none of this would happen if it weren't for you.”

“It was you who insisted that I participate in the Festival, I was simply doing my duty rigorously, just as you would do, I am sure.”

There is a moment of silence in which they simply stare at each other. Aemond, with disdain, annoyance, and a note of impatience. Rhaena, internally enjoying being able to have a certain advantage over her cousin.

“Anyway, there is more,” she says, “Lady Blackwood wishes you to dance at least once with her and three other ladies of the Court.”

“That is out of the question,” he says in a harsh voice.

Rhaena tries to keep her face impassive, but her cousin's suddenly pale and almost fearful expression in contrast to his words does not make it easy for her, "It is usual for the guests of honor, us in this case, to dance with the attendees."

“You dance, then, I don't…”

Finally, she can't control herself anymore and a giggle escapes her mouth. Aemond's expression returns to an angry mask, “If you are done teasing, I have many other things to occupy myself with, cousin.”

“Sorry, cousin, I just could not help it. I admit that was not one of Lady Blackwood's conditions."

Aemond doesn't respond, just goes back to writing on his papers, so Rhaena stands up ready to leave his chambers.

“Rhaena.”

His voice makes her stop and turn to him.

"My prince?"

“About tomorrow's ritual,” he says, his voice calmer than a few moments ago, “What exactly will we have to do?”

Rhaena raises her eyebrows at him, “You don't know?” He looks at her listlessly at her obvious question, “Maybe I should give you back the books you lent me. I think you need them more than I do."

“Rhaena,” there is a warning in his voice.

She sighs, “It is nothing too complicated. We will simply do what the name says, clothe the Mother with robes of gold.”

There are a few seconds of silence in which he just looks at her, “And what is so special about that?”

“Tradition demands that the Mother to be dressed by a maiden, and then we can say prayers and receive her blessing. Some believers think that the Mother responds directly to the request of the person who dresses her.”

“And you plan to ask for fertility?” he asks, remembering what Rhaena had told his mother.

“Perhaps,” she nods.

“You lie,” Aemond replies.

Rhaena smirks, “Whatever I ask, cousin, it will be between the Mother and me.”

"Hmm"

“Maybe I'll ask her to be a young widow.”

For a moment, Rhaena has the impression that a smile appears on Aemond's face, but he lowers his gaze and she is not sure if it was just her imagination.

“Do you need anything else, cousin?”

“No, you can leave.”

“I will make sure to return the texts of the Faith to you as soon as possible. Clearly you must catch up with your studies in this matter”

Rhaena turns around hastily, but he stops her again.

“How do you know all this?”

When she looks at him blankly, he adds, “I know well that you did not read the books, how did you learn about those matters of the Faith? I highly doubt that your father or mother has told you about the Seven”.

In that, he was right.

“Maybe one day I will tell you how I know so much about them.”

Aemond seems to consider her response, and in the end just nods. Rhaena is about to leave when she decides to push her luck a little more.

“Cousin… now that I no longer need religious books,” she says, taking a few steps towards the table full of books, “Maybe I could exchange them for some books of… diverse topics.”

Rhaena had tried to take some from the castle library, but the maesters only allowed her to read boring essays on religion or the customs of the houses of Westeros. And she didn't want to reread the ones that had come from the Vale.

The girl looks at the cover of one book that seems particularly worn, “Tales of the Long Winter Night.” It certainly promises more entertainment than what she had on hand.

“What about this one?” She asks, taking the heavy volume and showing it to him.

He seems to hesitate for a moment and purses his lips, “Perhaps it is not suitable for a lady's sensibilities.”

Rhaena raises one of her eyebrows, intrigued, “I think I will be fine. Can I borrow it?”

Her voice can't help but sound hopeful. Aemond takes just a few seconds to respond.

“I guess my future wife must be an educated woman.”

His response frustrates her, and she prefers to smile rather than say something out of place, “Thank you, my prince. I will see you tomorrow"

"Tomorrow"

For some reason, his voice makes that word sound like a promise rather than a warning.

And when their eyes meet one last time, Rhaena feels her heart skip a beat.

So she clutches the heavy book to her chest and hurries out of the room.

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

@ammo23 @qyburnsghost @niocel @ithoughtulikedme @avidreader73 @jenmakeusin10 @morninglia @missing-loki (let me know if you want to be tagged)

Read on AO3

[cherryrainn]

hi mootie kinda like pookie but mutual shush it'll catch on, uh may I request either greedler smut (afab reader, but gn pronouns) or billy hargrove fluff (amab reader + pronouns) ??? whichever u wanna do :3

ICE CREAM .

; pairing ; billy hargrove x amab! reader

; note ; i'm gonna do billy because i've literally never written for him before anyway THANK YOU MOOTIE MWAH

; warnings ; none

"hey. you comfy?" billy asked, a soft smirk playing on his lips as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

"yeah, always comfy with you around," you replied, giving him a warm smile. the two of you were nestled in the cocoon of blankets, the room bathed in a soft, warm glow from the bedside lamp.

billy crawled onto the bed, his eyes meeting yours. "y'know," he started, "i was thinking about something today."

"oh? what's that?" you inquired, genuinely curious.

he leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to your neck. "just how lucky i am to have you, y'know? like, what’d i do to deserve someone as perfect as you?"

you chuckled, brushing your fingers through his hair. "well, you must've done something right because here we are."

billy grinned, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your arm. "yeah, here we are. and i wouldn't have it any other way."

you nestled closer to him, the warmth of his body comforting. "me neither. it's crazy how life works out sometimes."

he hummed in agreement, his hand finding yours. "you make everything better, you know that? you make me better"

you knew that, he was so soft and so sweet with you. you clearly brought out the best in him. but your heart still swelled with affection. "you're not so bad yourself, hargrove."

he chuckled, leaning down to capture your lips in a sweet kiss. "i love you,"

"i love you too, billy. more than words can say."

billy pulled away from the kiss, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "you know what would make this night even better?"

"what?" you asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

he grinned like he had just come up with the most brilliant idea. "ice cream. right now. are you in?"

you laughed at his sudden enthusiasm. "ice cream? right now? why not?"

without waiting for your response, billy hopped out of bed with surprising agility. before you could process what was happening, he opened the window and, without a second thought, leaped out.

"billy!" you exclaimed, rushing to the window to see him standing on the lawn below, looking up at you with a smirk.

"come on, it's not that high. i promise i won't let you fall," he called up.

you sighed, shaking your head at his impulsiveness. but the infectious energy in his eyes was too hard to resist. with a deep breath, you climbed out the window, carefully lowering yourself down until you were standing next to billy.

"there you go, easy," he said, flashing you a grin.

"...can't believe you just jumped out of a window," you chuckled, shaking your head.

he shrugged, offering you his hand.

you took it, and together you strolled down the quiet street, the night air cool against your skin. the two of you headed to the nearest ice cream shop, sharing laughs and enjoying the simple pleasure of each other's company.

as you sat at a small table outside, savoring your ice cream cones, billy looked at you with a playful glint in his eyes. "see? best idea ever, right?" he asked with a smirk, ice cream on the corner of his lip.

you rolled your eyes, but couldn't suppress a smile. "you're ridiculous, you know that?"

"yeah, but you love it," he teased, stealing a bite of your ice cream.

you swatted his hand away, laughing. "maybe i do."

[lambkiin]

Late Nights at the Diner

Roach (Trailer Park of Terror) x AFAB!Reader

Tags; Roach 😳, quickie, two uses of degrading name calling, mutual masturbation, p in v sex, in the back of a car, a few minor timeskips because I’m insane

I will fix the “read more” formatting when I have access to a PC.

AN: First attempt at writing a fic for Roach, I think it turned out fairly well. If some sentences look weird I powered through writing this with a awful crick in my neck, have mercy. Enjoy and have fun!

I’ll also mention that the character and I are both from the deep south, so the dialogue won’t always make a whole lotta sense sound wise unless you’re aware of all the different ways we pronounce “you” down here.

Dawn was drawing close, it was nearly 3:30am. You parked your Mustang near the front door of the joint, climbing out and shutting the door with a metallic click. Sighing softly, you checked the pockets of your stained work apron. You looked around at your surroundings after locating your cash, checking out all the vehicles in the lot.

One car in particular caught your eye, it…was certainly something along the lines of junker. There was a skull and crossbones spray-painted to the side, as well as some words you couldn’t exactly make out in the dark. “Promisin’ crowd…” You muttered, sluggishly making your way to the entrance.

You were somewhat of a regular here, being thrown an excited wave by the waitress, Fiona. Knowing by now you could sit where you pleased, you returned her wave and went to sit at your usual spot- well, this isn’t going as planned. Speechless, you were completely frozen, your shocked eyes locked onto the man before you.

He sat with an arm thrown over the booth, and a cig hanging from his lips. He was also aware of his surroundings, you wanted to pass out as he turned his head towards you.

“Need somethin’ darlin’?” He quirked a brow, subtle smirk pulling onto his face. Geez, for a man who looks like he’d just changed the oil in a car…he was- very attractive. You opened your mouth, but he beat you to it. “M’ I in yer spot? Sorry ‘bout that. Why don’cha join me? I don’t bite.” He gave you a toothy grin, gesturing to the booth across from himself.

It was something about the way he spoke to you that just went straight down- oh shut up. You don’t even know his name! Fuck it, you’ve got nothing to lose. You gave him a small smile, sliding into the booth he’d offered.

“Thank you, er…?” You tilted your head up to the man, taking in his features proper.

“Names Roach, no it’s not a nickname either.” He put out his cigarette in the tables ashtray, having noticed your nostril twitching.

“Roach, I like it…rolls off the tongue.” You grinned, genuinely finding charm in the mans off the wall name.

“Ya gonna tell me yer name? Or am I jus’ gonna have’ta call ya beautiful all night?” He was far too good at these lines, it was doing its job in making you blush. You let out an embarrassed cough, composing yourself.

“Y/n, do ya do this with everyone at the diner?” You snorted, leaning towards him with your chin resting against your palm.

“Don’ think any of them truckers are as pretty as you, hm? I’ll blame it on luck I ran into ya tonight.” His eyes drifted to the side, then back to you. “Ready to order?”

~

Somehow it hadn’t been long between your arrival and his, you ordered together. You were now finishing up your coke, picking up one of the remaining fries to eat.

Fiona walked over once again. “One ticket or two?” She asked, unsure if you had been meeting him here or if it was chance. Roach spoke up right before you could, that award-winnin’ grin spread across his face.

“Just one, thank ya.” Fiona nodded in response, walking away to get the ticket squared away. Roach pulled out his wallet, ready to pay for the meal.

“You don’t have to do that, let me pay my part.” Your brows turned upwards, reaching for your folded stack of tips.

“My mama taught me better’n that, darlin’. Hell, ya could get any man to pay yer way with looks like that.” He sent you a wink. Lord almighty, you weren’t usually one for a quick fuck- but maybe you’ll indulge. Fiona brought your one ticket, accepting the cash from Roach. She turned to you, offering another wave of goodbye.

~

You and Roach stepped out into the cool nights air together, stopping for a moment while he lit up another cigarette. “Which one is yours? Vehicles- I mean.” You asked, watching as he took a deep drag off the cig.

“Mine? Oh- that one there…towards the side.” Of course the one from earlier was his, it matched him far too well.

“I suppose everything about ya is eye-catching, huh? Doin’ anything after this?” You boldly asked, one and obvious intention in mind, it was 4am. Roach nearly choked on smoke, eyes darting towards you and as wide as dinner plates. He regained his cool just as fast as he’d lost it, ready to throw down more of his smooth-talker lines.

“What for? Wanna see the interior?” He smirked, letting his cigarette hang from his mouth like it had been a half hour ago.

“Somethin’ like that. God, you look so good like that.” You muttered without even thinking, drawing closer to him for warmth in the wind.

“Well come on over then, darlin’.” He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and walked you towards his car. You’d just realized how tall he was, at least a foot taller than yourself, you fit so wonderfully into his side. It didn’t take too long to reach the edge of the parking lot, taking in the somewhat endearing sight of his beater. “The grand tour…” His arm left your shoulders, pulling the back door open. He gestured for you to get in, taking the cigarette from his lips and stomping it out on the gravel.

You slid into the back seat, kicking a few bottles as you did so. The interior was in shockingly good condition for what the outside looked like. Roach followed in after you, shutting the door behind himself. “This what ya wanted, baby? Takin’ ol’ Roach in the back of ‘is Buick like a whore?” The car was perfect for you, but he looked just a bit too tall for it.

“Doesn’t sound too bad.” You turned towards him, crawling forward. Grabbing a fistful of his shirt, you pushed him against the same door he’d just closed. “Bet you’ll be the whore beggin’ fer more when I’m done with ya.” You muttered, pressing your lips to his very much exposed neck.

“Bold claim, darlin’, but I like yer enthusiasm.” He complied as you pulled his unbuttoned shirt down his shoulders, grabbing and prodding at his arms along the way.

“Oh you’ll see, sweetheart.” You whispered quietly to him, taking his jaw into your hand. You tilted his head back, your glossed lips pressing into his rougher ones. Roach hummed into the kiss feeling your other hand tugging at his tank top. He removed his arms from the holes, breaking the kiss so you could pull it completely off of him.

“Angels above…” You muttered to yourself, taking in just how beautiful his body was. You moved your head down, leaving faint kisses from his jaw to his chest. “You are just…somethin’ else.” The compliments came so easily when it came down to it, you were absolutely letting yourself fall in love with this smooth-talking stranger. Your hands brushed over his ribs, sides, his softer torso…committing every bit of it to memory.

Roach was becoming putty in your hands, he’d expected you to get straight to business. He didn’t know what to say to all this seemingly genuine affection he was receiving. “You’re jus’ sayin’ that ta butter me up.” He chuckled, pushing a stray hair from your eyes. He was bricked into oblivion with the gentleness, and the situation all together.

You brought your head back up to eye level with him, cupping his cheeks and staring for but a moment. “I’m not ‘jus’ sayin’’ it, I mean it. Ya may as well be the mos’ gorgeous man I ever did lay eyes on.” You raked your hands through his sandy brown mullet, going in to steal another one of his gentle kisses. “Do you still want this?”

“More than ever, darlin’. How could I deny ya anythin’ with how sweet yer bein’ to me.” He showed off that toothy grin again, making your heart flutter.

You reached down, undoing the silver buckle at his hips. Surprised at this point he hadn’t asked you to remove your own clothing, he seemed to be entirely distracted by your face. The expression on his face was damn near lovesick, suppose he was letting himself get invested just like you were.

After successfully getting his jeans unbuttoned and unzipped, you tugged them down a bit bringing his undergarments with. Your face reddened upon catching a glimpse of his hardened cock, not having expected it look that…fulfilling.

“Damn, pretty boy. Like I said before, everythin’ about ya is eyecatchin’ as can be.” You untied your apron, grabbing it and the hem of your dress to pull it all off. Thankfully it was a day you’d chosen not to wear one of those horrifically uncomfortable things called a bra. You watched with a small giggle as Roach’s eyes dropped to your now exposed chest.

“Ain’t tha’ somethin’….shiyt.” That was probably the most emphasis you’d ever heard anyone use on the word shit, he was awestruck- thats for sure. You lifted up one leg at a time, figuring out the least awkward way to remove your own undergarments. “You are right beautiful yerself, darlin’. I ain’t seen nothin’ like ya before, and I’m hopin’ ta see ya again…” He admitted, reaching out to touch on your hips and thighs.

“See me again? Of course, sweetheart.” You settled between his legs, your own draped over his thighs. “Give me….jus’ a second.” The angle would be somewhat awkward if you didn’t do this part yourself, may as well give the man a show out of this. As much as he’s already getting.

He watched your lowers with wide eyes as your own hand trailed to it. “Oh, mama.” He whined, his cock twitching with anticipation.

You ran a few quick strokes over your clit, reaching back further to push two of your own fingers into your entrance. Your face contorted with desperation as you stretched yourself open, fingers slipping in and out.

Roach huffed a breath, reaching for his strained hardness and grabbing at the tip. “Ya just know exactly what yer doin’, don’cha?” He chuckled, that noise turning into a soft moan as he dragged his hand down his length.

You continued for a moment longer, removing your hand and looking up. Roach met your gaze, he’d stroked himself at the same pace you’d been working. “You…ready?” You asked breathlessly, receiving a quick and violent nod in response. “Alright…”

One hand met his shoulder for stability, the other was grabbed by him. “Not gonna let this go ta waste, right?” He brought your fingers towards his face, the same ones you’d just used on yourself. Your face darkened by shades as he took those two fingers into his mouth, pressing his tongue against the underside of them. You could feel the furnace inside yourself well up again, the hand on his shoulder moving to line him up with your entrance.

The moan Roach let out was guttural, the depth vibrating the fingers he still had in his mouth. You removed them, planting the hand over his chest. You sank down onto him slowly, really just making sure the preparation was good enough. Low and behold, that- along with the ocean down there was plenty enough. “You have been far too good to me tonight, darlin’.” He whined, resting his grip comfortably on your hips.

“It’s the sweet talk, and those devilish- good looks.” You stumbled over your words, his cock finally bottoming out inside you. “Oh, Roach. Fuck-“ You moaned out, raising yourself up again and sliding back down.

“Shit, baby- you feel s’good.” His large hands clung to your hips, not quite bruising but not gentle either. “D’ya need help?” He asked, feeling your legs shake against him.

“Maybe, christ.” You tried to continue the pace yourself, the sensation of Roach joining in the efforts reaching your core. “Oh god.” You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him into a messy kiss.

Your bodies moved in succession, all you could hear was his loud moans, your own, and the cars suspension squeaking away. “Y- Yer fuckin’ me so good, doll- ain’t never felt nothin’ like this.” He held you comfortingly close as the pace got sloppier and sloppier.

You buried your hand into his hair, tugging at it ever-so-slightly. “Roach…sweetheart- m’gonna…oh fuck.” A curse cut off your words, you ground down on him as well as you could. “M’gonna cum…” You muttered into the crook of his neck.

“M’too doll, feels so fuckin’ good.” His head leaned back into the window, heavy breaths and whimpers escaping his throat. “Jus’ a little longer-“ He near pleaded, still thrusting his hips in tandem with yours.

Your moans got more frantic as he reached deeper and deeper within you, that feeling in your stomach coiling up.

“Faster! Faster-“ You breathed out, feeling him speed up beneath you. “Fuck!” He could feel the building coil himself.

“S’it okay if I- cum-“ He was having trouble with his words, you knew what he was talking about.

“Yes, yes- cum inside me, sweetheart.” You were on the pill, you wanted that intimacy with him. As soon as you’d said it, his pace picked up furiously. “OH baby-“

You both moaned out loudly as he thrusted one last time, your orgasm hit you like a bag of rocks. You could feel the warmth of his own orgasm seeping inside of you. There was a moment of silence as you both rode out your endings, heavy breaths being the only noise.

You rested your forehead against his, making eye contact as your bodies shuddered in ecstasy.

“Think’m in love with ya, doll.” He muttered, squeezing your hips. His face was flushed, and he looked as beautiful as always.

“Me too, sweetheart. Y’got a landline number? An address?” You asked, leaning your body fully against his.

”I got an address, got somethin’ to write it down?”

“Oh I’ll remember.”

“Good memory, huh. I like that in’a person.”

[clericofshadows]

7 snippets, 7 mutuals

got tagged by @rotschopf-thedrow :D ty!

tagging anyone who sees this and wants to participate!

I have a few misc WIPs I'm working on :)

icy nights, icy lights - Nyx/Kaidan, Noveria

Kaidan traced the lines of black ink on Nyx's arms, wondering what inspired the art. Wispy lines reminiscent of magic–or biotics even–were painted on the muscled arms, weaving together with the long since faded scars of war that also made their home on his skin.  Perhaps they were a sign of his biotics, a way of showing them off without being able to do it himself.  What would they feel like, alongside his, joining as one, combining mnemonics and dark energy to control the battlefield?  Or will he ever know them beyond secret moments of pleasure, flashes of blue held back by years of control and a custom amp and implant designed to keep him safe? Kaidan hated that he didn't know the answer.  A dark part of him, the jealous part that came about after learning about Nyx's history with Hackett couldn't help but fill his veins with cold ice. Hackett may not be a biotic, but he was probably more acquainted with Nyx's biotics than Kaidan will ever be. 

2. face your own enemy - Regis/Kaidan/Zaeed, continuation of my Citadel DLC write-up

Regis wasn’t impressed. “I don’t give a fuck who you claim to be. I’m Admiral goddamn Shepard, not you. You can be your own person!” He sneered, an ugly look that marred his face, twisting his features. “You’re the prize I want. It’s time I had my turn.” Kaidan stepped forward. “And you want to kill us so no one remembers Admiral Shepard.” “Ah, so you aren’t just a pretty-faced idiot,” he taunted. Zaeed stepped forward behind him, getting closer to Kaidan. The clone pointed at his husband. “And it looks like someone needs to put down your guard dog. I don’t like it when they bite. In any case, a personality change caused by the traumatic death of his little cult? Easily explained.” “It will never work,” Ashley said, raising her voice. “Too many people know Regis. You’re just setting yourself up for failure.” “Really? How unlikely it is that he’s surrounded by people he could have so easily killed. All three of you were so close to dying by fire and brimstone, and yet you continue to follow him.” His gaze landed on Ashley. “And you continue to fuck him.” He leered at his husbands. “He made such a terrible mistake in keeping all of you alive. Should’ve left you two to burn on Virmire. And let him burn in the flames of his own mistakes.”

3. LOTSB - Regis/Kaidan/Zaeed, my LOTSB write up.

“You… died in that armor,” Vasir stated, echoing his earlier words.  “How the hell did she get it?” “You tell me, Vasir,” Regis spat, dropping the remnants of his scarf on the ground.  “Take whatever you need, Wren, for your dossier.  I need some fucking air.” There wasn’t exactly a private place to go, so he walked over to the balcony next to the bullet holes.  Zaeed joined him, leaning against the barrier.   Regis moved closer, the shoulders of their armor touching.  “Zaeed, I am going to be the worst goddamn hypocrite right now.” He shrugged.  “Don’t feel like you have to apologize for goddamn Zorya again.  None of us expected to see that.  What a fucking–” he shook his head.  “Don’t even have the goddamn words to say how angry I am on your behalf.” “She has to have my dog tags.  My ring.  God, she tore that off of my corpse!  Cerberus didn’t have the full armor…” Regis swallowed down bile.  “I felt violated before, but this?” He let out a shuddering breath.  “This is unforgivable.”

4. wanna get caught? - Kaidan/Zaeed, PWP exhibitionism and sick!Regis who is tired of their mothering and wants them out of the house.

Zaeed pulled him into a familiar alleyway not far from their apartment, quiet, dark, free of foot traffic. “You goddamn tease,” he growled, pushing him up against the wall, dimly lit by the neon lights of the strip just outside the entryway. “Is this why you wanted me out of the damn house?” Kaidan only laughed, tangling a hand in his hair as he started kissing at his neck, leaving biting, stinging little marks. He got Zaeed exactly where he wanted him. Riled up, horny, and desperate. His favorite Zaeed. A little teasing sitting side by side in a booth was just enough. A hand on a thigh. Leaning on his shoulder and teasing him with a kiss that turns into a nibble. A trip to the bathroom to prep himself with a plug, knowing Zaeed recognized the slight change in his gait. Another reason why Kaidan enjoyed going on dates with only Zaeed. He indulged him and his kinks oh so well, both loving the thrill of being in public. Almost out of sight. Almost out of mind. One stray look is all it takes for them to be caught.

5. nothing will shine as bright - Kaidan/Zaeed, post ME2 prologue, Zaeed meets the Alenkos (i've been working on this for ages rip)

He found himself halfway over to the barn where he and Regis kept their motorcycles. He thought back to the damn helmets Zaeed had made for them, not even knowing about their hobby but wanting them to share in his. Yet another thing that had in common. Yet another thing that would’ve made their relationship great. Footsteps crunched the leaves behind him, and he whirled around to see Zaeed, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. “Wasn’t about to leave you alone.” “Leaving me alone probably would’ve made them judge you even more,” he sighed, leaning against the wall of the barn. “I’m sorry.” “I wouldn’t make them the damn bad guys yet,” he said softly. “Just worried about their son who lost the love of his life and is shacking up with a guy damn near twice his age.” “Well, I’ll give them more to talk about.” Kaidan unlatched the door of the barn and headed inside. “Let���s go for a fucking ride.”

6. the SR-1 - Part of my Subject Zero!Kaidan series, primarily Regis/Zaeed.

It had been two fucking months.  Two months without hearing anything.  Sure, they’ve gone long stretches of time without talking to each other.  Normal in their line of work.  Not always able to send a quick message, especially with Regis’s N missions that typically required radio silence. But Kaidan’s mission was recon.  Typical UNC bullshit.  And a bit of a training venture for some new biotic recruits, as Kaidan had cemented himself into being an instructor like Regis if a need arose for it. It shouldn’t have been anything to worry about.   It never should have ended like it did. A whole squad, gone.  No sign of struggle.  No sign of battle.  As if they were never there. Nothing to give any sort of hope.   Two months since their last communication, well-wishes and ribbing about trainees and so much love.  And nothing after.   No investigation turned up anything useful.  Everyone lost hope day by day.  But Regis never did.  Zaeed never did, vowing to use what he could to look into it himself.   The Normandy was his only chance.

7. a beginning - Nyx/Kaidan, the aftermath of their one-night stand that turned into more.

Kaidan wasn’t quite sure what to think about the man lying in the bed a couple of feet away from the bathroom, watching him with those deep purple eyes that said a lot about him.  Gene modded, clearly, with a deep hue that contrasted his rough exterior.  He had to have been at least in his fifties, if not more, the skin marked by both war and natural aging. But one thing’s for sure, Nyx knew how to charm a man, even one that wasn’t normally for one night stands. “Doing okay in there?” he asked, making no move to cover himself up, turning towards him with a grin. “Just thinking,” Kaidan replied, dampening a washcloth with warm water, testing it with his hand before wringing it out.  “Dangerous,” he teased, running his hand down his chest, toying with those pierced nipples–and what a fucking surprise that was.  “Penny for your thoughts?” He was thinking about a lot, actually.  About how he thought he saw a flash of light blue rimmed around his eyes while he fucked deep into Nyx, pressing his weight into him, keeping a steady gaze on him, watching for any reaction that wasn't complete pleasure.  Biotics from a man far too old to be part of the first gen, much less any other stable gen.  Far too pure to be a trick of the light.  But maybe it was.

[solarflicker-ao3]

What I Need (Right Here And Now) snippet

Fic rating: E

Tags: Mutual Pining, Dubcon (not in snippet)

“So why are you doing this anyway? Judas asks. "You’re super freaked out about getting caught, but you go out of your way to be a public figure. Rome is watching you, I saw your name on a watchlist they posted last week.”

He shrugs. “I am just doing what anyone would do if they understood how the world could be.”

Judas, ever the dissatisfied, does not accept this answer. “You’re not special though. You’re just a man, everyone else just lets things be. So why are you putting yourself at risk?”

Jesus stops walking and falls eerily silent. “Don’t you ever ask that question again. You’ll ruin everything,” he snaps. 

Judas freezes in his tracks. He has never used that tone on him before. He's only used it on one occasion

smut under break :3

...

“I was thinking we could do things differently tonight.”

Jesus bit his lip and tried to pretend his breath was not already quickened and shallow. “What did you have in mind?”

Judas rests his hand on Jesus’s neck and pulls him for an almost chaste kiss. He teases him with more tender but brief kisses, only seeing fit to reward his restraint by properly locking lips when he looks at him with desire and desperation. He takes his time, leaves him gasping for his tongue when he pulls away only to groan as he leaves kisses trailing across every inch of his cheeks and throat, making him ache when he trails over his clavicle. Jesus’s arms are clasped tight around him when he decided it was time to stop. “What do you think about something more like that?”

Jesus clears his throat and pretends his pupils are not blown out with arousal. “Seems less casual.” 

Judas brushes one more feather light kiss right by his ear. “Is that okay?” 

In response Jesus turns his head and captures his lips again, trying to go slow as Judas had done, though his hands tremble as they slip beneath his shirt...

...

...“Oh,” Judas gasps as he bites lightly at his collarbone. The sound gives Jesus a moment of pause as he processes the reaction it sparked within him. It was a soft, yielding sound colored with delight. He wants to commit it to memory, along with the look of utter amazement in his eyes. He needs to hear it again to be sure he will never forget it. So he takes his time as he explores his body as if it is the very first time, giving it the reverence due to a deity and paying close attention for signs of divine approval. Every inch of his body is a rosary, every little sigh and “oh” a bead to meditate on...

[b1ueoff1ine]

Partygoers Part 3

Loki x Avenger!Reader

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Prompt: Your part of the Avengers, and, when it's up to you to capture the villain at an event, you find they aren't what they seem.

Summary: Loki doesn't want to see you anymore, and both hearts break at his words. You lie to the crew about Loki's whereabouts. But then you see him again at a different party.

Warnings: Light cursing. Mutual pining. (Let me know if I missed any!)

A/N: Apologies for the late update.

WC: 1.6k

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Loki was speechless.

He couldnt believe that the woman he wanted had betrayed him. He could understand now why she had said what she said.

He didn't want her to leave, but she could easily betray him.

"I dont want to hear another word come from your traitorous fucking mouth. Get out." Loki spoke, his words breaking his own heart.

He could only imagine what she must have been thinking, and to hear his words must have broken her heart as well.

Her tears started up again before she spoke. "Kiss me goodbye, then."

The words weren't an order, but a request. Loki obliged, kissing the maiden, soft and passionate.

He kissed her until she ran out of breath; until they knew it was time for her to go.

Then she stood, collected her things and left, never looking back. Loki watched from his balcony as she hopped on her motorcycle and drove off.

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You couldn't hold back the tears as they came. You threw on your helmet and drove off the parking lot, swerving as a drunk driver almost hit you.

You didn't even care at this point. You liked Loki. You would even go as far as saying you enjoyed kissing him.

But he had broken your heart.

His words were harsh and unforgiving. You sobbed even harder at the thought, so you pulled into a covered parking spot to try to relax.

But just then it started raining. The rain reminded you of the first kiss you shared with Loki earlier that night.

You knew he would hate you after you told him. You had walked right into it.

You wanted to go back and feel his arms around you. But you couldn't, not after what had just occurred.

You remembered his kind words that he had spoken before you told him.

"Hey, it's okay. You can trust me."

You shuddered as rain poured down your back. Your dress was soaked, and your hair was dripping wet.

You started your bike again, driving towards the Avengers tower.

You arrived well after 2 AM. You slammed the door, frustrated.

The crew was all sitting in the main chamber, looking worried, when they turned to you.

Nat looked better than earlier when she rushed over to you.

"You okay? We were worried about you."

"I'm fine." You snapped. "Loki got away. I chased him, but, in the end, he got away."

Nat looked hurt. "You're not fine. Why dont you get some rest so you can have a clear head in the morning?"

"Fine." You sighed angrily.

You could hear conversation resume when you went down the hall to your room. You opened the door, closing it behind you, and got changed.

You took off the dress and put on your pajamas, then went to put it in the drier.

You remembered leaving a note on Loki's door, and wondered if he found it.

Just then you got a text from an unknown number.

That better be him. It was.

The text read: Hey- its Loki. I'm not sorry for what I said, but I hope you'll learn to forgive me.

He wants me to forgive him for breaking my heart? Oh, hell no.

You texted him back: Loki, I wont forgive you as long as you hate me. It's your damn fault- you asked for it.

Furious, you tossed your phone on your nightstand and climbed under the covers, feeling colder than you had ever been before.

The next morning, Nat brought you breakfast in bed.

"Is this you wanting me to apologize?"

"Maybe."

"Because I'm sorry. I really am. I wasn't myself last night."

"Its alright, we've all had our bad days."

You took a bite of pancake. "If you say so."

You hated lying to Nat. You otherwise would have told her everything.

You knew where Loki was, but you lied. You lied to your best friend and hated yourself for it. It left a nasty taste in your mouth, making your guts feel queasy.

And what was even worse, was that you liked him. He was playing for the other team, and you still liked him.

Just then you got a text from your friends in the city.

"Looks like I'm invited to another party." You said out loud.

"Good for you!" Nat said.

"I think I'll go alone this time, if that's alright."

She nodded. "Yeah, that's fine. I had plans this weekend anyways."

You smiled. "Thanks, Nat."

__

It was the evening of the party, and you were getting ready. You decided to just go in a crop top and ripped jeans. No dresses that night.

You put on a mask so no one would recognize you- you didnt want to tell your friends you were an Avenger just yet.

You arrived early, and were surprised to see him there. He was waiting outside the door patiently.

You just went to the other side of the door, acting shy.

Loki seemed to sense this. "Shy?" He asked.

"Mhm." You lied, nodding and keeping up your act.

"Dont worry. I know almost everyone who's coming. You'll be fine." He said, being the gentleman you knew from a few days ago.

"If you say so." You groaned.

Finally, people started to arrive. You and Loki had been standing there for what felt like an hour.

Your friend was late, the owner of the house. So you used the spare key she had given you to unlock the door. Thank goodness she had it already set up, because people rushed past you to get inside.

Loki followed you inside, and you texted your friend to make sure it was alright if you unlocked the door. She said it was fine, and that she would be there soon with pizza.

When she arrived, the pizza was halfway demolished in the first thirty minutes.

But the last thing you were expecting happened. When the music was turned on, Loki came and sat with you, the shy girl.

"Hey." He smiled.

You waved.

He laughed, putting his arm around your shoulder.

A normal girl would have tensed up or asked him to remove his arm from where it lay. But you weren't a 'normal' girl.

"You remind me of someone, you know that?"

You shrugged. "I get that a lot."

"I bet you do." He replied. "Care to share a slice of pizza?"

"Why not." You shrugged again.

"Pff. Not so shy anymore, are you?" He noticed, smirking.

"I don't know what you're talking about." You teased.

Loki grinned, then left to grab two slices of pepperoni pizza. When he returned, he handed you a slice and bit into his.

You devoured the pizza, savoring the flavor, for you hadn't eaten any in days.

Yawning, you leaned into him, succumbing to the arms you had missed greatly.

"Where did the shy girl I sat next to go?"

"Nowhere. I guess she was never there in the first place." You yawned again, feeling extra tired.

"That has got to be the fourth time you've yawned. How much sleep did you get, shy girl?"

"I have a name, you know." You held in a fifth yawn. "And I didn't get enough. Actually, I haven't gotten a wink of sleep in weeks."

"Me too."

How ironic. Is he thinking about that night, just like I am?

You hadn't been able to get any sleep since he kicked you out of his apartment.

Your sorrow and longing for him had bloomed so much you couldn't stand to sleep. For everytime you closed your eyes you could see the pain on his face as he told you to leave.

"Hey, your Loki right?" You asked, playing dumb.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Loki seemed surprised.

"A friend of mine was telling me about you. You might know her. Well, when I say friend, I mean she's my sister."

"I knew it! I knew you seemed familiar. Y/N is her name, isn't it?"

You were thankful of the mask right then. Loki had no clue he was actually talking to you.

"Yeah. She's really pretty."

"Indeed she is."

"But she was upset the other night. She said that you kicked her out and didn't want to talk to her again. Is that true? Did you hurt my sister?" You inquired, keeping up the act of your sister.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Why do you say that?" You wondered aloud.

"Because I liked her. I really, honestly did. But she could have betrayed me, so I had to betray her first. I broke my own heart in doing so, and haven't gotten a wink of sleep since.

"She truly understood me, and I dont know if she'll ever forgive me." Loki rambled on and on for a few minutes of how he loved you and missed you and wished he hadn't said what he had said.

He sighed, then looked up at you. "Sorry, I got a bit carried away. I apologize for my rambling."

"Oh, no worries, Mischief." You used the nickname you had given him from the other night and stood, walking away like nothing had happened.

Loki's features were shrouded in confusion when you looked back and winked at him.

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